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Support costs

As explained in Think Like a CTO

Expenditures for maintaining a system and assisting clients when issues or requests arise.

Support costs are expenditures for maintaining a system and assisting clients when issues or requests arise. Organizations commonly track them as one expenditure bucket alongside development and production. section 2.2.1

Make support spending easier to explain and plan by:

  • Recording recurring support expenses in a simple spreadsheet. section 2.2.1
  • Separating support from development and production so the department’s burn rate is understandable. section 2.2.1
  • Adapting the categories to product lines or organizational groups when that matches business terminology. section 2.2.1

Monthly support allocation

A sample monthly breakdown assigns $20K to support for two people at $10K each.

How Think Like a CTO covers it

How deep it goes
Defines support as an expenditure bucket and gives one staffing example, stopping short of detailed support-service costing.
Examples
Uses a monthly breakdown assigning $20K to two support staff.
What it assumes
Assumes basic departmental cost awareness but requires no accounting major; a simple spreadsheet is sufficient.
What you can do after
Evaluate support spending by categorizing recurring costs and presenting its monthly contribution to departmental burn rate.
How it connects
Connects support costs with development, production, expenditures, burn rate, and budget planning.
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Related concepts

This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of Think Like a CTO. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.