Build vs buy: a 10-question checklist.
Answer these honestly and the decision usually makes itself. I am a builder, and on plenty of calls the right answer is still "buy the SaaS".
The checklist
Count your yes answers.
- 1. Does your team keep a spreadsheet alongside the tool to cover its gaps?
- 2. Are per-user fees making you hesitate to add people?
- 3. Do you use less than a quarter of the platform you pay for?
- 4. Is one process in your business genuinely different from competitors, on purpose?
- 5. Have you asked the vendor for a feature and waited more than a year?
- 6. Does data get re-typed between two systems weekly?
- 7. Would owning your customer data outright matter in a sale or dispute?
- 8. Is a manual process capping how much work you can take?
- 9. Has a tool price increase ever forced a migration scramble?
- 10. Could you describe exactly what you need in one page?
Scoring, honestly
0 to 2 yes: buy. Your needs are standard, and mature SaaS will serve you well. 3 to 5: hybrid. Keep your platforms, add custom glue and the missing tools. 6 or more: your business has outgrown rented software, and custom is not a luxury, it is the cheaper path over three years.
What to do with your score
Bring the checklist to our first call. I will tell you which yes answers are worth money and which are livable. If the answer is "stay on the SaaS", you will hear it plainly, and you will have saved yourself a project.
I can build this for your business.
Tell me how your team works today. You get a clear scope and price before any work starts, and you own everything I build.
Is hybrid a cop-out answer?
It is the most common right answer. Keep QuickBooks and your industry platform; add custom automation, dashboards, and the one tool nobody sells. Most of my builds are hybrid work.
How fast would a build start after deciding?
A short call, then a plain-English scope and price, and the build starts when you say yes. You usually see working software within days.
What does building cost?
It depends on what we build. You get a clear scope and price after the first conversation, before any work starts. No pricing games.
Keep reading
- Custom software vs off-the-shelf: an honest guide I sell custom software, and I still tell some owners to buy the SaaS. Here is the actual decision, without the sales pitch.
- How much does custom software cost in 2026? Almost nobody in this industry publishes a price. Here is the real market, with numbers, and how I price my own work.
- Lovable and Replit vs hiring a builder: after the wall AI app builders are genuinely good now. I use AI to build every day. Here is where they shine, where they wall, and what to do after the wall.
- Custom CRM development for small business Generic CRMs make your business fit their pipeline. A custom CRM fits yours: your stages, your follow-up rules, your reports, no per-user rent.
- See the work Client systems, agency work and my own products, named for what they do.