- Subscription software looks cheap, but over 3 years licences, user tiers and add-on modules often add up to a five-figure sum.
- The most expensive items appear on no invoice: manual work, workarounds and tools that do not fit your process.
- Custom software costs more upfront, runs cheaply afterwards and fits exactly, but only pays off beyond a certain process depth.
Affects you if your business runs on several subscription tools and Excel fills the gaps between them.
01The visible costs: the subscription
SaaS means software as a service: you rent instead of buying. Entry is cheap and fast, and that is exactly how the model is built. You pay per user per month, important features sit one price tier higher, and costs grow automatically with your team. Price increases come on top, and negotiating is rarely an option.
On top of that: no single subscription is the problem, the sum is. Five tools at 50 euros each feel different from one invoice over 250 euros a month, but they are the same thing. And the total quietly keeps growing, with every new colleague and every add-on module.
02The invisible costs
- Manual work between tools: moving data from system A to system B, every single week.
- Workarounds: the process gets bent to fit the tool instead of the other way round, and Excel fills the gaps.
- Errors from double data entry that only surface when a customer notices them.
- Features you pay for and never use, because that is how the bundle is cut.
- Switching costs: the longer your data sits in a tool, the more expensive leaving becomes.
03A sample calculation over 3 years
A business with five users and four typical tools, say CRM, project planning, stock list and forms, deliberately calculated on the conservative side:
- Four subscriptions at an average of 40 euros per user per month: 800 euros monthly, 28,800 euros over 3 years.
- Four hours of manual work per week for transferring and reconciling, at 45 euros per hour: around 28,000 euros over 3 years.
- Together a good 56,000 euros, without a single special requirement fulfilled.
- A custom solution for the same core often sits between 15,000 and 40,000 euros one-off, depending on scope, plus hosting and maintenance in the low three-figure range per month.
- After 3 years both paths land surprisingly close together, after that the gap opens in favour of the custom build.
04When SaaS is still the right call
To be clear: custom software is not always the answer, and anyone telling you otherwise is trying to sell you something. The question is not whether SaaS is good or bad, but where it carries you and where it slows you down.
- Standard processes like accounting, email or video calls: ready-made tools are better and cheaper here.
- Small teams with few users: the subscription total stays small, the leverage is missing.
- Fast starts and experiments: a subscription is cancelled within a month, a custom build is not rolled back that easily.
- If your process matches the standard, the standard is not a compromise.
05How to compare honestly
The fair comparison is never subscription price against a quote. Compare total cost against total cost over 3 years, including your working time, and be honest about how well each model fits your workflow. Custom software pays off where your process is specific and runs daily. Everywhere else, the subscription often wins.
My own interest here is obvious, I build custom software for a living. Which is exactly why I ask you to run the numbers yourself, with your figures.
- List all subscriptions with their real monthly cost, including annual invoices divided by twelve.
- Measure for one week how much time your team spends transferring, reconciling and fixing.
- Project both paths over 3 years, with working time as a cost position.
- Check per tool whether a standard process sits behind it or whether your own process is being bent.
- Before any switch, clarify who owns the data and how you can export it.
Wondering what this means for your project?
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