What placement rate should I use?

For 2026: top-tier bootcamps (Hack Reactor, App Academy, Flatiron) — 60-70% real 180-day placement. Mid-tier — 45-60%. Lower-tier or non-CIRR-filing — assume 30-50%. Don't use the self-reported marketing number without verification.

Does the calculator include loan interest?

No — it assumes you pay tuition from savings or cash. If you're taking a loan, add the expected interest cost. Private bootcamp loans run 7-14% APR currently; federal loans aren't available for most bootcamps. For a $19,500 loan at 11% over 5 years, add ~$5,500 to tuition input.

How do I account for career-switch uncertainty?

That's what the placement rate input captures. If you enter 70% placement, the tool multiplies the salary lift by 0.7 to risk-adjust. For maximum conservatism, run the tool at 40-50% placement once to see the downside. If that scenario still pencils, the bet is strong.

What about cost-of-living differences if I'd relocate?

Not modeled directly. Use the Relocation Salary Adjustment Calculator separately. If you're bootcamp'ing in a low-cost city and aiming for a remote role at national rates, the relocation math adds to the upside. If you'd need to move to a high-cost city for placement, the real purchasing power is less than the nominal salary suggests.

Is 5 years the right horizon?

Usually yes — it's long enough for the salary lift to compound but short enough to reflect actual career projection. Extending to 10 years typically improves ROI because salary growth compounds; shortening to 3 years often makes the bet look bad. Don't let a bootcamp's '3-year payback' marketing push you into a 3-year horizon; their number assumes flat raises and optimistic placement.

Should I consider a CS degree instead?

If you're under 28 and don't have a bachelor's, yes — a CS bachelor's still opens more doors and has a higher ceiling. If you're 30+ with a bachelor's in something else, a bootcamp or self-study makes more sense than a second undergrad. Master's in CS (part-time online, like Georgia Tech OMSCS) is a strong alternative: $8k total tuition, 3-year part-time while working.

Yes. The calculator runs entirely in your browser. Salary and tuition numbers never touch a server. Export the PDF if you want a record for household discussion or to bring to a meeting with the bootcamp admissions team.

Coding Bootcamp ROI Calculator

The bootcamp math changed — and most marketing is out of date

In 2015-2019, a coding bootcamp was close to a guaranteed ROI. Tuition was $12-18k, placement rates were 80-90% within 90 days, starting salaries were $75-95k, and a junior with a bootcamp cert could land an entry developer role almost anywhere. The economics worked.

In 2026, those numbers are softer. Tuition at the premium programs is $18-22k. Placement rates (honestly measured — not the marketing claims) have dropped to 55-75% within 180 days. Starting salaries for bootcamp grads have flattened around $70-90k for full stack, lower for front-end-only programs. The AI-coding shift has compressed the junior dev market — companies that used to hire 4 juniors now hire 2 and use tooling for the rest.

Bootcamps still work for the right person in the right market with the right pre-work. They don't work as a random "I want to change careers" gamble. This calculator prices the bet honestly — tuition, lost income during training and job search, and risk-adjusted upside over 5 years. If your risk-adjusted ROI is negative, the bootcamp is not a good financial move regardless of how the admissions team sells it.

How to set each input honestly

Tuition. Full program tuition. Include books, software licenses, and any mandatory laptop upgrade. Many bootcamps offer ISAs (Income Share Agreements) that defer payment until you're placed — those shift the timing but cost similar or more over a typical payback period. For an ISA, use total expected repayment (not sticker tuition) as the input.

Bootcamp length. 12-20 weeks is typical for full-time intensive; 6-9 months for part-time. Convert to months. A 16-week full-time is 4 months; a 9-month part-time is typically treated as 3-4 months of equivalent full-time effort if you're still working through it.

Current salary. What you're making now (or would be making if not in the bootcamp). This is your opportunity cost — the bootcamp months cost you this much in forgone income on top of the tuition.

Expected job-search months. Don't trust the bootcamp's "90 days" number. In 2026 the realistic search for bootcamp grads is 4-7 months for strong grads with portfolios; 7-12 months for average grads; longer for weaker grads. Use 5 as a central estimate, 8 as conservative.

Placement rate. Again, don't trust marketing. The real 180-day placement rate at top-tier bootcamps is 60-75% in 2026; mid-tier is 40-60%; low-tier is 20-40%. Check Council on Integrity in Results Reporting (CIRR) filings if the bootcamp has them — those are audited.

Post-bootcamp salary. Conservative: $70-80k for junior full-stack roles in 2026. Optimistic: $85-95k. Only use above $95k if you have a specific geography or niche (ML, security) where you know the bands are higher.

A real case — and where it broke

Danielle, 29, career-switched from account management ($58k) to software engineering via a 16-week bootcamp in 2024. Tuition: $19,500. Bootcamp time: 4 months. Job search: 9 months (a hard year for bootcamp grads). Placement salary: $72k at a small e-commerce company.

Cost side: $19,500 tuition + (58k/12 × 13 months out of work) = $19,500 + $62,800 = $82,300.

Lift side: ($72k - $58k) × 5 years = $70k over 5 years if everything held flat, which it won't (salary compounds). With 4% annual raises: ($14k in year 1) + 4 more years at compound = ~$76k lift over 5 years.

Net 5-year ROI: $76,000 - $82,300 = -$6,300. The bootcamp didn't pay back in 5 years. It would pay back in year 6 assuming continued raises and no layoffs. Not a disaster, but not the $200k career-change windfall the bootcamp marketing promised.

Six years later she'd be ahead by roughly $25-40k. That's a real return but on an 8-year horizon, not the "career change that pays for itself in 18 months" narrative. Run your numbers conservatively.

When bootcamps still pencil clearly

The bootcamp bet works in three specific situations:

Low current salary, strong pre-work ability. If you're making $35-45k in a stuck-ceiling job and have natural coding aptitude (you finished freeCodeCamp fundamentals before applying), a bootcamp has a high ROI because the opportunity cost is low and the salary lift is large. Someone moving from $38k to $75k sees a $37k/yr lift against a ~$45k total cost — payback in 14 months.
Specific post-bootcamp target with placement relationship. Some bootcamps have hiring pipelines with specific employers. If you're applying to a bootcamp that places 70%+ of grads into a named company with a known starting salary, the risk is much lower. Ask for the specific named partner employers and what % of placements go to them.
Geographic arbitrage. Bootcamp in a low-cost city, then remote role with a national salary band. This is harder now than it was in 2022 but still works in some niches (backend, DevOps, ML).

If your situation doesn't match one of these, the math is probably thinner than the marketing suggests.

When bootcamps don't pencil

Three scenarios where the numbers usually don't work.

Already making $70k+. The salary lift is small or zero. Your opportunity cost of 6-12 months out of work is large. Unless you're deeply unhappy in your current field, you're probably better off with a part-time bootcamp or self-study while staying employed.
Weak coding aptitude. 4 months is not enough to become a hireable engineer if you struggled with Codecademy. Try to complete a self-paced curriculum like The Odin Project or CS50 first. If you finish that and want more, bootcamp might help; if you couldn't finish, don't pay for the accelerated version.
Front-end-only programs in 2026. The junior front-end market is the hardest-hit niche. A front-end-only bootcamp in 2026 has sub-50% real placement rates and starting salaries in the $60-75k range. Pick a full-stack or specialized (ML, security, infra) program, not front-end.

Part-time bootcamp while employed — the safer play

For someone making $70k+ now, the calculator's lost-income cost is large enough to wreck any bootcamp ROI. The alternative: part-time bootcamp (6-9 months, evenings and weekends) while continuing to work. Tuition stays similar ($12-18k). Lost income is near zero. You graduate with a portfolio and can job-hunt from a position of strength.

Downside: part-time is harder. You're coding at night after a full workday. Completion rates are lower. If you're a parent or have evening obligations, it's brutal. Full-time bootcamps succeed partly because the 60-hour immersion blocks out distractions. Part-time doesn't replicate that.

If you're going to try part-time, block time religiously: 12-15 hours a week minimum, non-negotiable. Treat it like a second job. If you can't commit to that, you probably won't finish — and an unfinished bootcamp is all cost, no benefit.

ISAs (Income Share Agreements) — read the fine print

ISAs defer tuition: you pay nothing upfront, then 10-20% of your post-bootcamp salary for 2-4 years after placement, capped at some multiple of original tuition (usually 1.5-2x). On paper that aligns incentives — the bootcamp gets paid more if you get a higher-paying job.

In practice the cap often binds. 15% of $85k salary × 3 years = $38,250 on a $20k nominal tuition. Capped at 1.8x = $36,000. For a successful grad, ISA usually costs 60-100% more than tuition would have.

ISAs also have triggers: income thresholds (you only pay when earning above $50-60k), deferred payments during unemployment, etc. Read the actual ISA document, not the marketing summary. Talk to a lawyer if the document runs over 15 pages.

Bottom line: if you have the cash, pay tuition upfront. If you don't, student loans or savings-backed tuition beat ISAs for most successful grads. ISAs only help if the alternative is not doing the bootcamp at all.

Running the tool during a real decision

Three runs. First run: optimistic — high placement rate (70%+), high post-bootcamp salary ($85k+), 4-month search. That's the marketing-adjacent case. If the 5-year ROI is marginal in this scenario, walk away; it almost certainly won't be better in reality.

Second run: realistic — 55-65% placement rate, $72-78k post salary, 6-7 month search. This is the central expectation in 2026. If it's positive, the decision is probably good.

Third run: downside — 40% placement rate (you land in the 40% who don't place cleanly), $65k post salary, 10-month search. If this is survivable (won't force you back into current field), you have a real margin of safety. If it would sink you financially, the downside risk is too high.