Almost every business problem today has a ready-made solution you pay for monthly. That's a real advantage: you start in a day, not a month, and the upfront cost is small. For a large share of cases the ready-made tool is the right answer, too.
This post is about the other part: the cases where a subscription turns, over time, into a cost nobody planned, and how to tell which of the two you're in.
When off-the-shelf SaaS is the right choice
Said straight away, because it's the more common case:
- The problem is standard. Email, accounting, invoicing, sharing documents. Your way of working isn't special there and building makes no sense.
- You need to start now. A custom tool takes weeks. If the job is for next week, a subscription is the answer.
- The team is small and will stay small. Per-user pricing only hurts once there are users.
- You don't yet know what the process will look like. A ready-made tool is a cheap way to find out.
If you recognise yourself here, take the subscription and don't think about it any further.
When the subscription breaks even
Per-user pricing
This is the most common reason. A subscription of €12 per user per month is €144 a year per person. For eight people that's €1,152 a year. For fifteen people, €2,160.
A custom tool covering the same work is in the range of €800 to €3,000, once. For a team of around ten, the break-even point usually falls in the second year.
The awkward part is that the cost grows exactly when the company grows, which is when the money is needed elsewhere.
Paying for a plan because of one feature
A common pattern: the basic plan covers 80% of what you need, but the one thing that matters to you is in a plan three times the price. You pay for twenty features you'll never open.
Your process doesn't match the product
An off-the-shelf system has its own way of working. While it matches yours, everything is fine. When it differs, the fix is usually a spreadsheet on the side holding whatever the system doesn't know, and you're back where you started, except now you're also paying the subscription.
This is a quieter problem than the price, and a more expensive one. When the side spreadsheet becomes a burden is covered in when an Excel sheet becomes a burden.
The data is with them
While everything works, nobody cares about this. It becomes important at three moments: when the price goes up, when the service shuts down, and when you want to move elsewhere.
The question worth asking before you sign: can we export all our data, in a format someone else can read? If the answer is vague, that's the answer.
The sum of small subscriptions
It's rarely one. Usually there are seven or eight, each €15 to €40 a month, each justified on its own. The total over a year comes as a surprise.
It's worth sitting down once and listing them. Some often overlap, some are no longer used.
The maths
For a comparison you need five numbers:
- Monthly subscription × number of users × 12 = the yearly cost.
- How many users will there be in three years?
- The cost of building a custom tool: the range is in what goes into the price of automation.
- The cost of running your own tool: hosting and a database, usually €0 to €40 a month.
- The time spent working around what the ready-made tool doesn't do.
An example, ten users and a €15 subscription:
- SaaS over three years: €5,400, and after that you own nothing.
- A custom tool: say €2,500 to build plus €25 a month hosting, around €3,400 in total over three years, and the tool stays yours.
For three users the same maths comes out the other way: €1,620 against €3,400. That's why the number of users decides, not a feeling.
Owning the code
With a custom tool the code is yours. That means:
- No per-user fees. A new employee doesn't make the software more expensive.
- No subscription for the tool itself.
- The data is in your database.
- If you want a different developer, they get the repository and carry on.
It's a difference you don't see in the first month, and do see in the third year.
A middle way that often makes sense
It doesn't have to be all or nothing. A common, sensible setup:
- The standard stuff stays on subscription. Email, accounting, invoicing.
- What's specific to your business gets a custom tool, because that's exactly what off-the-shelf tools do worst.
- The two are connected where it makes sense, so data isn't retyped by hand.
There's no reason to build your own email. There is a reason to build what sets your business apart.
Frequently asked questions
What if we need a change to the custom tool?
It's done by agreement. The code is yours, so you're not tied to one developer.
Who maintains the custom tool?
Me, if you want, or someone else. The first 30 days are free, and after that monthly maintenance depends on the size of the tool. A modern stack doesn't need constant maintenance to keep working.
Is an off-the-shelf tool more secure?
Not in itself. Serious vendors invest in security, but they're also a bigger target. A custom tool with properly set access rights and regular backups is in the same category.
Can we start with a small tool and expand?
That's the most common path. First you solve one painful process, then you build further if it turns out to pay off.
How to assess your case
List your subscriptions and add up the yearly total. If the total is more than a few thousand euros and part of it goes on something specific to your business, it's worth doing the maths.
Tell me what you use or see my work.