Buy SaaS—Median of 2,000 runsExpected line A$59k
TSG Build or Buy
What custom software costs once AI writes it: SaaS against four ways of building, for one Australian organisation and one use case.
For your AI: give it the pre-run findings and assumptions and ask it anything.
Who is this for
Choose an organisation like yours and the software it needs. The answer below sets buying that software as SaaS against building it four ways.
Yarrabin Shire Council. A regional council of about 350 staff running roads, parks, halls and community grants across a large rural shire. A small IT team of four developers maintains a handful of internal systems alongside the corporate suite. Ratepayer records fall under the Privacy Act, and the council has little tolerance for incidents.
Asset register. Sold as a flat fee for a small team of users, with a free open-source product (Snipe-IT) whose fit gap is put at a tenth of a full build.
Figures are illustrative: every value is a sourced or labelled assumption you can change.
Public claims, tested
| Claim, in our words | As claimed | For you |
|---|---|---|
| Testing | Testing | |
| Testing | Not asked of your scenario: this claim is about CRM software. | |
| Testing | Not asked of your scenario: this claim is about CRM software. | |
| Testing | Testing |
‘As claimed’ tests each claim on the example it describes, so it stays put. ‘For you’ asks the same question of the organisation, software and values on screen, and moves as you change them.
Testing the claims…
The answer
Running 2,000 scenarios…
Band updating…
Choose a build route to compare it with SaaS in the answer and the chart.
Cumulative cost, month by month
Cumulative cost by month 60: SaaS A$58,800; In-house A$173,636; Business staff A$166,864; Agency A$180,918; Open-source/low-code A$120,240.
Hover the chart to read any month; click it to pin the month and see what the costs are made of. Choose a route below to shade its range.
Month 60: In-house A$173,636, SaaS A$58,800
| Route | Cost so far | Against SaaS |
|---|---|---|
| A$58,800 | — | |
| A$120,240 | A$61k more | |
| A$166,864 | A$108k more | |
| A$173,636 | A$115k more | |
| A$180,918 | A$122k more |
Lines show the expected line.
Go deeper
- Favours SaaS end
- Favours building end
- This scenario (A$115k)
| Value | Favours SaaS end | Gap at the SaaS end | Favours building end | Gap at the building end |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum support for a live build | 0.17 FTE | A$182,613 | 0.04 FTE | A$92,063 |
| Traditional build hours, simple app | 700 h | A$174,365 | 200 h | A$89,915 |
| Salary to fully loaded cost | 1.75× | A$141,499 | 1.22× | A$94,394 |
| Yearly compliance effort, Privacy Act | 160 h a year | A$142,358 | 20 h a year | A$99,546 |
| In-house developer salary | A$132,000 a year | A$134,184 | A$101,000 a year | A$98,902 |
| Asset register price | US$3.33 per seat a month | A$123,865 | US$28.56 per seat a month | A$99,022 |
| Actual ÷ estimated build hours | 1.6× | A$127,698 | 1.1× | A$106,261 |
| Workaround hours, simple | 0.5 h a month per 100 seats | A$116,287 | 22 h a month per 100 seats | A$95,492 |
| SaaS's share of the regime's yearly compliance hours | 20% | A$122,194 | 70% | A$103,798 |
| Productive hours per FTE a year | 1,300 h a year | A$122,759 | 1,680 h a year | A$105,449 |
| Connector or iPaaS fee per SaaS integration | A$0 a month | A$117,578 | A$150 a month | A$101,125 |
| Yearly SaaS vendor security assessment, per product | 4 h a year | A$119,041 | 30 h a year | A$105,375 |
General information only, not advice. See our Disclaimer. Built by TSG Technology, which builds software for organisations, so it has a commercial interest in the choice to build. Every value, its basis and its sources are published so the figures can be checked.