Build vs. Buy in 2026

Building vs. Buying in 2026

For two decades, the advice was simple: buy off-the-shelf software. Custom development meant expensive ongoing maintenance, security headaches, and developer dependency.

That calculation just changed.

What Changed? The Maintenance Burden Disappeared

Modern cloud platforms handle what used to consume thousands of hours of IT labor: automatic scaling, managed security, zero-downtime deployments, automated backups, and infrastructure that maintains itself.

The New Economics Are Startling

Let's look at a common scenario: you're using spreadsheets to capture important data from employees and customers. It's messy, denormalized, and difficult to maintain. You need a proper UI, relational database, reporting, and dashboards for up to 1,000 users.

No-Code Platform:

• $50/user/month × 1,000 users = $50,000/month
• 3-year total: $1,800,000

Custom-Built Solution (Managed Service):

• Development: $25,000-$40,000 (one-time)
• Monthly retainer: $5,000 (includes hosting, maintenance, support, updates)
• 3-year total: $220,000-$235,000

Savings: Over $1.5 million.

And unlike per-user pricing, your costs stay fixed whether you have 100 users or 1,000.

When Building Makes Sense Now

Consider custom development when:

You're paying per-user pricing at scale. Once you hit 50+ users, the math often favors custom solutions dramatically.

You need data capture and reporting. These are now the easiest and cheapest applications to build. If your tool fundamentally just collects data, stores it, and generates reports, you're likely overpaying.

Your process doesn't match the software. When you're forcing your workflow into rigid off-the-shelf tools, you create friction at every step.

You're wrestling with integrations. If you're manually moving data between systems or paying for integration platforms, a custom solution that talks directly to your tools may be simpler.

When Buying Still Makes Sense

Don't misunderstand—buying remains the right choice for:

• Complex domain expertise (accounting software, CAD, medical imaging)
• Rapidly evolving regulatory requirements
• Communication tools where network effects matter
• Situations where you need it operational this week
• Small user bases (under 50 users) with simple needs

The Hidden Cost No One Calculates

How many hours each month does your team spend:

• Working around software limitations?
• Manually entering the same data in multiple systems?
• Generating reports that almost show what you need?
• Training new employees on counterintuitive workflows?

Multiply those hours by your team's loaded cost, then by 12 months. That six-figure productivity drain often justifies custom development on its own.

What About Maintenance?

"But what happens when something breaks?"

With modern platforms, infrastructure issues are handled by cloud providers with 99.99% uptime SLAs. Security patches are automatic. Scaling happens automatically. For straightforward data applications, clients often go months without needing any intervention.

Compare this to your off-the-shelf software: When was the last time a vendor update broke your workflow? How often do you deal with integration failures? How much time goes into managing licenses and permissions?

A Decision Framework

Ask these questions:

1. What's our 3-year total cost? Include software costs, integration time, workaround time, and productivity losses.
2. How many users will we have? Per-user pricing becomes expensive fast. Custom solutions cost the same for 50 or 500 users.
3. Is this core to how we compete? If the tool impacts your unique value proposition, owning it gives you competitive advantage.
4. How stable are our requirements? If your needs evolve constantly, controlling your codebase means you control your timeline for changes.

The Real Question

The question isn't "Should we build or buy?"

It's "What's the actual cost—in dollars, time, and strategic flexibility—of each option?"

For common business needs around data collection and reporting, the math now strongly favors building custom. The maintenance burden that once justified expensive per-user licensing has largely disappeared, but most businesses are still making decisions based on outdated assumptions from 2015.

Cloud platforms have fundamentally changed what's possible for businesses of all sizes. The economics have shifted. It's time to update your decision framework.

Want to explore whether custom development makes sense for your specific needs? I help businesses evaluate their tools and identify where custom solutions deliver better ROI than off-the-shelf software. Schedule a free consultation to discuss your situation.