Price AI Coding Tools by Rollback Hours, Not Just Licensing Costs

A framework proposed by a platform lead argues that teams are mispricing AI coding tools by focusing on invoice costs while ignoring hidden expenses like rollback hours, context setup, and governance drag. The author observed 14 code reverts in 11 working days on a project declared cost-free, exposing the gap between invoice price and true operational cost. The proposed model defines three lanes — free, paid, and self-hosted — each evaluated using a formula that adds invoice cost, rollback time cost, setup amortization, and governance overhead. A boolean kill switch overrides all cost calculations when workstreams involve secrets, unaudited training data, or unowned production writes. The scorecard is presented as a team discussion tool, with YAML and Python templates provided to run the numbers before committing to any vendor or lane.