Build, buy or integrate: how we call it
Consulting · 6 min read
Build, buy or integrate: how we call it
Yes, a custom software company is about to tell you when not to buy custom software. Our accountant is writing it, so you know the math is real. Custom isn’t always the answer — and the businesses that thrive are the ones that pick the right tool for each job, not the fanciest one.
Buy, when the problem isn’t yours alone
Payroll, accounting, email, CRM basics — thousands of companies share these problems, so excellent off-the-shelf products exist, priced across thousands of customers. If a $60-a-month tool covers 90% of your need and the missing 10% is an inconvenience rather than a cost, buy it. Custom-building a solved problem is how budgets die. The honest test: does your way of doing this create value your competitors can’t copy? If not, it’s not worth custom money.
Integrate, when the pieces are right but disconnected
The most common situation we find isn’t missing software — it’s disconnected software. Orders in one system, inventory in another, accounting in a third, and a person re-typing between them. That person is the integration, and they’re expensive, slow, and occasionally on vacation. Connecting the systems you already pay for is usually the highest-return project on the menu: a fraction of the cost of replacing anything, and the errors simply stop.
Build, when the workflow is the business
Some processes are the reason customers choose you: how you receive, pick, and deliver; how you quote; how you serve. Forcing those through generic software means sanding off your edge to fit someone else’s template. Our warehouse client is the canonical case — no off-the-shelf WMS matched how their floor actually ran, and the custom system that did is now a competitive asset that keeps compounding, release after release.
The framework in three questions: Is the problem common? Buy. Are the tools fine but disconnected? Integrate. Is the process your advantage? Build.
Run the numbers over five years, not one
Whichever way you lean, compare total cost honestly: subscriptions scale with seats forever; custom carries maintenance; integrations need care when vendors change their APIs. And when we’re the vendor evaluating the options, our recommendation comes with the trade-offs and prices attached — even when the right answer is “don’t hire us.” That costs us a project now and then. It’s also why clients keep asking.