The right answer is 'buy the commodity, build the differentiator.'
Most applications are composed of commodity functionality (authentication, billing, email, file storage) and differentiated functionality (the workflows, logic, and UX that make the product valuable). Buy the commodity from the right SaaS vendors. Build the differentiator as custom software. We help you draw the line correctly.
You're evaluating whether to use an existing SaaS platform for your use case or build custom software. You want a clear framework for making this decision.
The build-vs-buy decision is frequently made at the wrong level of granularity. "Should we build a CRM or buy Salesforce?" is the wrong question — Salesforce is a mature product that would cost tens of millions of dollars to replicate, and replicating it wouldn't produce a competitive advantage. The right question is: "What are the specific parts of our workflow that Salesforce doesn't support, and is it worth building a custom integration or workflow tool to address them?" That's a $25k–$45k project, not a $10M replatforming.
The inverse mistake is paying for SaaS products that aren't adding value relative to their cost. A $500/month SaaS product that partially solves a problem and requires 5 hours per week of manual workarounds is more expensive than a $35k custom solution with zero ongoing cost and zero manual work. The SaaS cost over 3 years is $18k + 750 hours of manual work; the custom solution is $35k one-time.
The decision framework has three questions: (1) Is this functionality differentiating for our business or commodity? (2) Does the SaaS product support our specific requirements without significant workaround? (3) What is the total cost of the SaaS option (subscription + manual workaround time) versus the custom option (build cost amortised over 3 years)?
A clear decision framework for when SaaS is the right answer versus custom development — applied to the specific dimensions of your product.
Buy SaaS when
the functionality is commodity (email delivery, authentication, payment processing, file storage, analytics); a mature product exists that covers your requirements without significant workaround; the cost is justified by the avoided build cost; and the business logic isn't specific enough to provide competitive advantage.
Build custom when
the functionality is a core differentiator for your business; no SaaS product exists that covers your specific requirements without significant workaround; the total cost of SaaS (subscription + workaround time) exceeds the custom build cost amortised over 3 years; or you need specific integrations, data ownership, or compliance requirements that the SaaS product doesn't support.
The hybrid (most common)
Use SaaS for commodity infrastructure (Clerk for auth, Stripe for billing, SendGrid for email, Vercel for deployment) and build custom for the differentiated workflow and UX layer. This is the standard approach for modern applications.
One honest number to start.
Fixed-scope, fixed-price. The number below is the starting point — final scope is built from your brief.
A clear decision framework for when SaaS is the right answer versus custom development — applied to the specific dimensions of your product.
Three steps, every time.
The same repeatable engagement on every project. No surprises, no mystery, no billable ambiguity.
Brief & discovery.
We send you questions, then get on a call. Output: a written scope with every step, feature, and integration listed.
Build & ship.
Fixed schedule, weekly reviews. No scope creep unless you change the scope — and if you do, we reprice it transparently.
Warranty & retainer.
30-day warranty on every launch. Most clients stay on a monthly retainer for ongoing features and maintenance.
Why Fixed-Price Matters Here
Once the build-vs-buy analysis identifies the custom build scope, fixed-price development for that scope is the right model. You know what you're building, you know why, and you know the price.
Related engagements.
Questions, answered.
Map the current workaround process for the SaaS tool. Count the hours per week spent on manual steps that the SaaS tool doesn't automate. If it's more than 3–4 hours per week for a $20–$30k team member, the annual workaround cost exceeds the amortised cost of a custom solution. That's the basic ROI calculation.
Always buy: authentication (Clerk or Auth0 — the security complexity is too high to justify building), email delivery (SendGrid or Resend — deliverability management is a specialised skill), payment processing (Stripe — PCI compliance and fraud management are not product differentiators), and CDN/deployment infrastructure (Vercel, Cloudflare). These are commodity infrastructure; the complexity of building them is unjustified.
Outgrowing a SaaS product is a signal that the product has found product-market fit in the dimension the SaaS product serves — which means the cost of switching to custom is justified by the scale. The migration path from SaaS to custom is a defined project: data export, custom build, data import.
Custom development is not justified when the build cost exceeds the present value of the benefit over the product's expected lifetime. For small businesses with limited scale ambitions, most custom build decisions are not justified. For growing businesses with a clear scaling path, the opposite is often true.
A structured build-vs-buy analysis for a specific part of a business is often included in the scoping work before a custom development project. As a standalone engagement, a workflow analysis and cost comparison typically runs $3k–$7k.
Tell Ryel about your project.
Describe what you’re building and what outcome you need. You’ll have a written, fixed-price scope within the week.