Demo · Cost of distrust
Price the fording
what you pay to cross a river you cannot trust the depth of
Bad data is priced. The cost of distrust, paid on data that was right, is not.
A correct number sits on the near bank. Acting on it is the far bank. With no trust signal, the consumer fords, re-checking the depth at every step. Enter your own numbers and watch the annual cost of that fording assemble, then drag the coverage slider and watch the bridge take it away.
Sample scenarios · click one to play it through
Each scenario is illustrative. Clicking one prefills the fields and sweeps the coverage slider so you can watch the cost collapse.
Your numbers · all defaults illustrative
Re-derivation
Teams rebuilding the same number every week because they cannot trust the one they were handed.
Verification meetings
Reconciliation meetings that exist only to agree on whose number is the real one.
Decision latency
Material decisions held while someone verifies. Held at $0 until you supply a value at risk.
No universal default. This stays $0, and the page asserts nothing, until you supply your own.
Shadow spreadsheets
Private copies kept because the governed number is not trusted, each one a place an error can hide.
Default 88% — Panko field-audit range, 86 to 91%. Lower it if you have your own audit.
Coverage is the bridge. Drag it up and the fording falls away.
Time to trusted action
the north-star metric, shrinking as the bridge replaces the ford
2.0days
Annualized cost of distrust
$105,660
At zero coverage the whole cost stands. Every dollar is paid on data that was right.
Re-derivation
8 teams × 2 h/wk × 46 wks × $75/h
$55,200
Verification meetings
46 mtgs × 6 people × 1 h × $90/h
$24,840
Decision latency
12 decisions × 2 day delay × $0/day at risk
$0
Shadow spreadsheets
12 copies × 88% error × $2,000 + 60 h × $75/h
$25,620
What you can count is the floor. The hallway "are you sure" never hits an instrument, so the real cost runs higher.
Labeled assumptions
- Every default is illustrative, not a researched figure for any one organization.
- Re-derivation is paid across 46 working weeks a year.
- The material-error rate defaults to the Panko spreadsheet field-audit range, 86 to 91%, and is yours to lower.
- Decision latency stays at $0 until you supply a value at risk, so no number is asserted that cannot be grounded.
- Coverage scales only the re-verification share. The decision-latency floor is the irreducible time a trusted decision still takes.
The lesson
Distrust is not a one-time loss. It is a recurring line item, paid every week on numbers that were correct all along.
The four components assemble into a number you can put in a budget. A trust contract is the single lever that removes it: drag coverage up and the re-verification falls away, leaving only the irreducible floor. The bridge is cheaper than the ford, every year you keep crossing.
Read the full article
The Cost of Distrust