Technical Debt & ArchitectureOctober 20, 20253 min read
Vendor Lock-In: Quantifying the Risk Before a Buyer Does
Every dependency is lock-in of some degree. The question a buyer asks is what it would cost and how long it would take to leave.
Lock-in is not inherently a problem. Unmeasured lock-in is, because the buyer must assume the worst case in the absence of an estimate.
How to quantify it
- For each critical vendor, estimate the migration effort in engineering weeks
- Note contract term, renewal date, and change-of-control clauses
- Identify whether a viable alternative exists at comparable cost
- Record what the vendor holds that you could not reconstruct
A one-page vendor risk table answers a question that would otherwise consume two days of the engagement and end in a conservative assumption.
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