How We Calculate Specialist Work Equivalent
Full transparency. Every dollar-equivalent figure on the Velocity page is computed from a deterministic formula based on publicly available market rates. Here is exactly how it works.
The Core Principle
We measure output, not wall-clock time. A 23-minute Brainverse session routinely produces work that would take a traditional specialist team days to weeks because the session eliminates: context loading time, coordination meetings, iteration cycles, QA handoffs, code review rounds, and specialist scheduling delays.
Measuring session duration against an hourly rate drastically understates reality. The corrected formula estimates the human-equivalent hours required to produce each shipped output, then applies the appropriate specialist rate.
The Formula
Concrete Example: One Real Commit
Here is the math applied to a typical Full-Stack Dev session.
Full Rate Card
All rates are based on 2025 US senior-specialist market rates sourced from Glassdoor, LinkedIn, and Upwork medians. Rates are intentionally conservative.
| Specialty | Rate | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Engineering builders (Full-Stack, Backend, Platform, Frontend) | $175/hr | US senior full-stack contract rate, Glassdoor/Upwork median |
| Security specialists (AppSec, Penetration Testing, Threat Modeling) | $225/hr | CISO consultant and senior appsec market rate |
| Sales and Strategy (Sales Lead, CEO Planner, Sales Coach) | $200/hr | Fractional sales leadership market rate |
| Marketing and Content (Content Creator, Growth, Social, LinkedIn) | $125/hr | Senior marketer contract rate |
| Research and Intel (Trend Researcher, Competitive Analyst) | $140/hr | Analyst consulting rate |
| QA and Review (Code Reviewer, Reality Checker, Evidence Collector) | $110/hr | Senior QA contractor rate |
| Operations and Coordination (Chief of Staff, Client Success) | $150/hr | Ops director fractional rate |
| Advisory (ICP reviewers, domain SMEs) | $175/hr | Domain expert advisory rate |
| Blended default (any unmapped agent type) | $150/hr | Simple fallback for new agents |
Why These Numbers Are Conservative
Every parameter in this formula is set conservatively. A senior engineer at a typical US firm costs $175/hr fully loaded, but many roles in the rate card are specialist positions that command $200-$300/hr on the open market.
The 40 LOC/hr benchmark is the industry standard for senior engineers working with context. The base overhead of 2.0 hours per commit is below the real average (most engineers spend 3-4 hours on context loading, PR preparation, and review cycles per commit).
The 4-hour flat rate for non-commit sessions is conservatively a half-day of analyst work. Many sessions produce research, competitive analysis, or strategic recommendations that would take a consultant 2-3 days.
The numbers on the Velocity page represent a floor, not a ceiling.
Important Notes
- These are estimates based on approximate US senior-specialist market rates (2025). Actual value depends on work quality, scope, and location.
- The formula is applied deterministically and identically to every session and commit. No manual adjustments are made to improve the numbers.
- All figures are recomputed nightly from the live database. The numbers you see on the Velocity page reflect the previous 7 calendar days.
- Non-commit sessions include: research, analysis, content drafts, QA reviews, strategy sessions, and advisory sessions that produce written deliverables.