Change failure rate FAQ
The questions that come up most. Answers, not vendor sales talk.
›What change failure rate is good?
Below 2% puts a team in the top ~16.7% of the 2024 DORA distribution (the legacy ‘Elite’ band). Below 10% is roughly above median. 10-22% is the broad middle. Above 22% is the long tail.
›Does CFR include rollbacks and hotfixes?
Yes. A deploy that requires a rollback or a hotfix is counted as a failed deploy in the numerator. The rollback or hotfix itself is typically excluded from the denominator as a fix-only deploy if the exclusion is enabled.
›How is CFR different from defect-escape rate?
CFR is failures per deploy. Defect-escape rate is bugs reaching production per release, regardless of whether they caused a failure. Two teams can have identical defect-escape rates and very different CFR if their deploy cadences differ.
›Should AI-generated code be tagged separately for CFR?
Yes, if you want to attribute CFR changes to AI adoption. Tag via commit-message footer or Git note. The 2024 DORA AI capabilities research finds throughput-up, stability-modestly-down is the dominant pattern.
›Why did DORA drop Elite / High / Medium / Low?
Because by 2024 the cluster structure of the survey data no longer matched the original tier boundaries. Continuing to publish the named tiers would have mis-described the distribution. DORA shifted to percentile bands.
›Is this calculator's data sent anywhere?
No. All math is client-side. Nothing is logged or transmitted. CSV export runs entirely in the browser.
›Why no GA4 / no demo / no signup?
Independent reference, not a vendor funnel. The site exists to give a VP Eng a defensible number in 90 seconds. Signup forms are the opposite of that.
More questions?
See the full Methodology and Glossary pages, or run the calculator and tune the inputs.