Free tool
How much are you really paying for SaaS?
A subscription is priced per month because per month sounds small. Add your tools up, project them out, and let the price increases compound — then put a one-time build next to the total and see which line you would rather be on. Nothing is stored and no email is required.
How to read the number
Renting software is not automatically the wrong call. For a tool you pay $40 a month for, it is obviously right — the calculator will tell you so, and the break-even line simply never arrives. The math turns the other way when a per-seat price meets a growing team, because you start paying more every year for software that does not change.
The compounding is the part people miss. A price increase is not a one-off; it lifts every month that follows it. That is why the subscription line on the chart bends upward while the build line stays flat. The build line is flat because a build finishes.
What the break-even month tells you is how long your current spend takes to add up to the cost of owning the thing outright. Past that point the comparison stops being about savings and starts being about control: nobody can raise your price, sunset your plan, or make you pay for a seat you are not using.
Frequently asked questions
How accurate is this?
The subscription side is exactly as accurate as the numbers you type in — it is arithmetic, and the only assumption is the annual price increase, which you control. The build side is a published range from our estimator, not a quote for your project. It is honest about being a range: the chart plots the midpoint and draws the low and high as dotted lines. A real number comes from a 25-minute call and a written scope.
Do I own the code?
Yes. The repositories are transferred to you at handoff. Nothing is licensed back to you, there is no per-seat fee, and there is no monthly charge to keep using what we built. If you want to move the project in-house or hand it to another developer later, you can.
Isn't the care plan just another subscription?
It is optional and cancel-anytime, and it is the part that makes the comparison on this page fair. If you want us handling hosting, updates, and small changes, there is a plan for that. If you would rather your own developer did it, or nothing needs doing for a while, cancel it. You own the code either way, so cancelling never takes the software away from you — which is exactly what cancelling a SaaS subscription does.
How long does a rebuild take?
One to six weeks depending on scope: simple builds in one to two weeks, medium in two to four, advanced in four to six. AI is the mechanism — it handles the volume work while we direct the architecture, which is why the timeline reads the way it does. You get a live staging link in the first week rather than waiting until the end to find out what you bought.
Now find out what yours would cost to build.
We have done this. A client's $30,000-a-year Kixie contract is now a power dialer they own outright, built for $10,000 — the full story is here. Get a range for your own tool in about 60 seconds.