Shipping Velocity
Calculator

What is shipping velocity?

Shipping velocity measures how consistently and quickly a solo developer moves from idea to shipped feature. It's not about hours logged — it's about the ratio of active work days to tangible output, adjusted for streak consistency.

High velocity doesn't mean burning out. It means steady, regular forward progress. The top solo developers ship small, ship often, and ship continuously — not in giant sporadic bursts.

How the score is calculated

Your score combines three signals:

• Output rate — features shipped divided by active days.
• Active density — what percentage of elapsed project days you were actually working.
• Streak bonus — a multiplier for current streak length, rewarding consistency.

The result is normalized to a 0–100 scale and compared against self-reported data from solo developers who publish build logs publicly.

Industry benchmarks for solo developers

Based on public build-in-public data across projects tracked by solo developers:

• Bottom 25%: Under 0.2 features/active day — working but shipping infrequently.
• Median (50th percentile): ~0.48 features/active day — one solid feature per 2 working days.
• Top 25%: 0.65–0.89 features/active day — consistent daily progress.
• Top 10%: 0.9+ features/active day — prolific shippers with tight scoping.

The biggest lever? Active day density. Developers who work on projects 60%+ of elapsed days ship 3× more than those who only work in occasional bursts.

Track your velocity automatically

ForgeOS connects to your GitHub repos and logs activity automatically. Your streak grows every time you push — no manual tracking, no forgetting to log. See how other solo developers are shipping →