"Should we subscribe to off-the-shelf SaaS, or get custom software built?" We hear this a few times a month, and the right answer is almost never "either works equally well" — there's usually a clear winner depending on the shape of your business.
When off-the-shelf SaaS is the right call
If what you're doing is a standard job everyone in your industry does (accounting, project tracking, email marketing), subscribing to an existing SaaS is almost always cheaper and faster. There's no case for rewriting a product that thousands of customers have already battle-tested. The one risk: bending your process to fit the product instead of the other way around — the moment you start twisting your workflow around a SaaS's missing feature, cost starts creeping up quietly.
When custom software is the right call
There are three situations where custom software actually ends up cheaper than off-the-shelf, counterintuitive as that sounds:
- Your process is your competitive edge. If the process itself is what differentiates you, squeezing it into a generic tool erases that edge.
- Off-the-shelf licensing scales badly with headcount. $50/month for 5 users is fine; the same tool can hit $10,000/month at 200 users — at that point custom software typically pays for itself in 12–18 months.
- Stitching multiple SaaS tools together has become a full-time job. If you're chaining 5–6 systems with Zapier/Make and every system update breaks something, that's the signal it's time to own your own infrastructure.
The hybrid approach — usually the right answer
For most businesses, the honest answer is both: off-the-shelf SaaS for standard functions (accounting, email, CRM), a custom layer for the process that sets you apart from competitors. We typically build that second layer as a lightweight system that talks to your existing SaaS tools over API — rather than rewriting everything from scratch.
Three questions to ask before deciding
- Does this process differentiate us from competitors, or is it something everyone does the same way?
- Where is our current tooling's licensing cost headed over the next 2 years?
- Is integration complexity a problem today, or only once we hit 50 users?
If you're on the fence, tell us where you're at — usually 20 minutes into the first call it's clear which side you're on.
