Guide
Custom software or off-the-shelf: how to decide
The short answer
Buy off-the-shelf when a product fits how you already work. Build when you’re paying for several tools that don’t talk to each other, typing the same thing in twice, or changing how you work to suit software that wasn’t made for you.
When to buy
Some jobs work the same way in every business. Accounting, payroll and email are the obvious ones. Products for those are mature and cheap, and building your own would be money spent for nothing.
Buy, too, if a product fits nine-tenths of what you do and the last tenth doesn’t cost you much.
When to build
The signs are usually about the gaps between tools, not about one tool:
- You pay for several subscriptions, and someone copies information between them.
- A spreadsheet holds the whole thing together, and one person understands it.
- The way you do the work is part of why customers pick you, and the product makes you do it its way instead.
- Per-user prices keep climbing as you hire.
- You can’t answer a simple question, like what’s late or what’s in stock, without calling someone.
The middle path
Most businesses don’t have to choose one or the other. Keep the products that work, such as QuickBooks for the books, and have the part that’s specific to you built around them, connected so nobody types anything twice.
That’s usually smaller, cheaper and quicker than replacing everything.
Questions to ask yourself
- Where does the same information get typed in more than once?
- Which mistakes keep happening, and where do they start?
- What do you work around, every week, because the software can’t do it?
- If it all ran in one place, what would you stop doing?