Release Cadence Plan Calculator

Work out release cadence plan instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.

About Release Cadence Plan Calculator

Batch size is changes divided by releases, and the probability that a release contains at least one failure is 1 - (1 - failure rate)^batch size. With a 10 percent per-change failure rate, a 45-change release fails with 99 percent probability. Releasing more often keeps that probability manageable and makes attribution trivial, at the cost of more verification cycles unless verification is automated.

Formula

Release risk

batch size = changes per week / releases per week; P(release fails) = 1 - (1 - change failure rate)^batch size

Worked example

With the default values below, Release Cadence Plan Calculator returns Changes per release of 45.0. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Merged changes per weekminimum 0.1: 45
Releases per weekminimum 0.05: 1
Release verification effortminimum 0 h: 6 h
Change failure rateaccepts 0–100 %: 10 %

Results

Changes per release: 45.0
Chance a release contains a failure: 99.13%
Verification effort per week: 6.0 h
Cadence assessment: Batch is large - a failure will be hard to attribute, increase release frequency

Step by step

1Values used
2Release risk
3Changes per release= 45.0
4Chance a release contains a failure= 99.13
5Verification effort per week= 6.0 h
6Cadence assessment= Batch is large - a failure will be hard to attribute, increase release frequency

Assumptions and limits

The result is derived only from the 4 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does releasing more often increase total failures?

No. The same changes carry the same risk. Frequent releases spread that risk into smaller, individually diagnosable events instead of one large one.

What makes frequent releases affordable?

Automated verification. If each release costs six hours of manual regression testing, cadence is capped by people rather than by risk.