Field notes

What a design system costs after the launch

Three clients opened their maintenance ledgers. The second year is where the money actually goes.

9 min · Bengaluru

Every proposal quotes the build. Almost none quote the second year, when the system meets the parts of the company that were not in the room.

Across three clients the pattern held: build cost was roughly a third of the four-year total. Component drift, one-off exceptions granted under launch pressure, and the slow accretion of a second unofficial palette accounted for most of the rest.

The clients who spent least in year two were the ones who hired an owner before the handover, not after. In every case that hire cost less than the exceptions it prevented.

Reported by the CliqueTrees newsroom. Corrections run at the top of the following edition, set in the same size as the mistake.