Build vs buy
Should you build it, buy it, or leave it alone?
27 questions about your problem, your capacity and your money. You get one of four answers, including the one nobody sells you: do nothing yet and fix the process. The scoring is fixed and published, so you can argue with the logic.
No account. Answers stay in your browser.
Buy
Buy something that already exists
Buy and extend
Buy the platform, build the thin edge
Build
Build it, with eyes open
Neither yet
Fix the process before you spend
How the decision is made
- Every answer carries fixed weights across the four paths. Nothing is generated on the fly.
- Scores are normalised against the maximum you could have reached, so skipping nothing and answering honestly is the only way to move them.
- Contradictions between your answers are called out rather than smoothed over, and they reduce the confidence score.
- Some combinations trigger a gate: no owner, no clarity or no adoption plan overrides any spend recommendation.
What it actually costs
Change the numbers to match your business. The arithmetic is plain and shown in full, so you can argue with the inputs rather than the output.
Buy
$81,320
- Subscriptions $51,840
- Implementation $5,000
- Internal time $24,480
Buy and extend
$145,040
- Subscriptions $51,840
- Implementation $5,000
- Custom extension $36,000
- Extension maintenance $21,600
- Internal time $30,600
Build
$180,720
- Build $90,000
- Maintenance $54,000
- Internal time $36,720
Difference over 3 years
Buying is $99,400 cheaper.
Break-even
A build does not pay back inside 20 years at these numbers.