“Should we build or buy?” is one of the most common questions we get from clients. And the honest answer is: it depends — but not on as many factors as people make it.

After helping dozens of businesses make this call, we’ve found it comes down to a few clear signals.

Buy when the problem is generic

If your problem is “we need a CRM” or “we need project management software” or “we need email marketing” — buy. These are solved problems with mature products that have years of development behind them.

No custom build is going to beat Salesforce at being a CRM or Linear at being a project management tool. The switching costs of buying are low, and the value of proven, maintained software is enormous.

Buy signals:

  • The problem is well-defined and common across industries
  • Multiple mature products exist with good reviews
  • Your requirements don’t deviate much from standard features
  • The vendor has a clear pricing model you can afford at scale

Build when the problem is yours

If your competitive advantage depends on how you do something — the specific workflow, the proprietary logic, the unique data — then buying off the shelf forces you to conform to someone else’s assumptions.

We’ve seen companies twist themselves into knots trying to make a generic tool do something it wasn’t designed for. They customize it, add plugins, build integrations, hire consultants — and end up spending more than a custom build would have cost, with a worse result.

Build signals:

  • The workflow is specific to your business and is a source of competitive advantage
  • You’ve tried off-the-shelf tools and they don’t fit (or require heavy customization)
  • The tool will be used heavily by your team every day
  • You need to own the data and the logic, not depend on a vendor
  • The requirements will evolve as your business grows

The middle ground: build on top of buy

Often the best answer isn’t pure build or pure buy — it’s using off-the-shelf tools as a foundation and building custom layers on top.

Examples:

  • Use Shopify for e-commerce but build a custom inventory management dashboard
  • Use HubSpot for CRM but build custom AI lead scoring that feeds into it
  • Use Slack for communication but build custom bots that automate internal workflows

This gives you the stability and features of proven platforms, with custom functionality where it matters.

How to evaluate the cost

People consistently underestimate the cost of buying and overestimate the cost of building (or vice versa). Here’s what to actually calculate:

True cost of buying:

  • License/subscription fees (at current and projected scale)
  • Implementation and migration costs
  • Customization and integration work
  • Training and change management
  • Ongoing maintenance and vendor dependency
  • Cost of compromising on workflows that don’t fit

True cost of building:

  • Design and development time
  • Ongoing maintenance and updates
  • Infrastructure and hosting
  • The opportunity cost of engineering time
  • Risk of building the wrong thing

Neither is cheap. The question is which cost structure makes more sense for your situation.

Our rule of thumb

If you can describe your problem in one sentence and find 10 tools that solve it — buy.

If explaining your problem requires a whiteboard and 30 minutes — you probably need to build.

And if you’re stuck in the middle, talk to us. We’ll help you figure out the right call — and we’re genuinely fine telling you to buy something if that’s the better move.