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Build vs buy.
We sell custom builds, and our first advice here is to buy.
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If a SaaS product does 90% of what you need, buy it. Otter for transcription and Rossum for invoices are good examples. When a tool fits, a funded product team maintaining it beats a contractor's one-off.
The case for building starts where the fit ends. These are the signals, weakest first.
Several tools and a person in the middle
You pay for a stack of tools and someone's hours to move data between them.
Those hours are usually the real cost.
Your best case is the exception
The tool almost fits, but your most valuable case is the one it does not handle.
The workflow is your edge
Renting it from the same vendor as your competitors gives the advantage away.
The arithmetic
a $99/mo tool$1,200 a year
scoped builds$15k–$40k
single automationFrom $5,000
usual crossover12–18 months
managed from$400/mo
Buy a $99-a-month tool without a meeting. The real comparison starts when stacked subscriptions plus the hours spent gluing them together pass about $500 a month.
A single automation from us starts at $5,000 one-time, and a build across several systems lands between $15,000 and $40,000. The crossover usually comes in 12 to 18 months, and sooner if the glue work is a manager's time.
Custom systems need tending, because model APIs, scraped sites and your business all change. Budget from $400 a month managed, or a few engineering hours a quarter in-house. A build quoted with no maintenance is a system that will quietly die.
The test we use
Describe the workflow in one sentence. If the sentence names a category, like "we need transcription," buy.
If it names your business, build it and own it. "When a quote request mentions a property over half an acre, pull the parcel data and send it to Mike with a draft" is a sentence no product will ever ship.
Say that sentence to the architect and it will draw the system it would build, with the buy-or-build call written out.
Common questions
When an existing SaaS product covers roughly 90% of the need. Funded product teams maintain their tools continuously, which beats a one-off custom build whenever the tool genuinely fits.
When multiple tools plus human glue-work cost more than ~$500/month, when the critical use case is the exception tools do not handle, or when the workflow is itself a competitive advantage.
Expect from $400/month for managed upkeep, more when a build touches several systems, or a few in-house engineering hours per quarter. Model APIs, data sources, and the business itself change; a build quoted with zero maintenance will decay.
studio@anchor163.com
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