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Choosing between custom software and SaaS

Mini18 June 20261 min read

"Should we build or buy?" is the wrong first question. The right one is: is this process a source of differentiation, or is it table stakes?

Buy the table stakes

Attendance, payroll, CRM, and ERP are solved problems. A well-built product gets you running in days and improves without your engineering time. Customising these to death is where budgets go to die.

Build the differentiation

The workflow that makes your business unusual — the thing customers notice — is worth owning. That is where a bespoke build pays back, because off-the-shelf tools force you to look like everyone else.

The pragmatic middle

Often the answer is both: deploy SaaS for the commodity operations, and build a thin, custom automation layer on top for the parts that are genuinely yours.

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