Build vs buy SaaS software
Build or buy? Focus your engineering budget on what differentiates your product. A guide to the right strategic decision.
The Strategic Buy
Do not build what you can buy as a utility. Focus your engineering budget on the core features that differentiate your product in the market.
What to Buy
Buy commodities: payments (Stripe), email (SendGrid), auth (Clerk), analytics (PostHog), hosting (Vercel).
What to Build
Build differentiators: your core business logic, unique workflows, proprietary algorithms, custom data models.
Build Cost Analysis
Building payments takes 3-6 months. Maintaining payments takes ongoing effort. Stripe handles PCI compliance and fraud detection.
Buy Cost Analysis
API fees are predictable. Integration takes days not months. But per-transaction costs add up at scale.
Hybrid Strategy
Buy for non-core functions. Build for core differentiators. Evaluate buy vs build every quarter.
Lock-In Concerns
Choose vendors with exportable data. Avoid deep integration with proprietary services.
Sapterc Editorial Team
Expert insights on SaaS architecture and engineering.