Ten years ago, a small company bought software. Today it rents a dozen online services. A forms tool, a calendar tool, an e-mailing tool, a CRM, an online database, an automation tool to connect them.

Why the bill climbs without anyone noticing

  • Per-user pricing. Every new person on the team multiplies the cost of every tool.
  • Tiers. Going past a number of contacts, forms or automations pushes you to the next plan.
  • Glue tools. Sometimes you pay for one more service just to make the others talk to each other.
  • Price increases. You don't negotiate them, you put up with them.

A 30-minute inventory

Open your bank statements for the last twelve months and list every software subscription. For each one, note:

  • the annual cost, all licences included, to see the real total;
  • the number of users, to spot what grows with the team;
  • what you actually use, often a small share of the features;
  • the data it holds, to know what would need migrating.

The total is often a surprise. And the third line is often the most telling: a full product paid for three features.

When a custom tool works out cheaper

A custom tool has a cost too: building it, then monthly maintenance. So it isn't always worth it. It becomes interesting when several of these conditions are met:

  • several subscriptions serve the same process (registering, invoicing, following up);
  • costs grow with the number of users or contacts;
  • you only use a small part of each tool;
  • you copy information from one tool to another.

For a five-person team paying two small subscriptions, custom software won't pay off. Better to say so straight away.

Compare over five years

To compare honestly, add up over five years:

  • on one side, all the subscriptions involved, at the expected number of users, plus the time spent copying and working around;
  • on the other, building the custom tool, plus its monthly maintenance.

Beyond money

For an impact-driven company, the argument isn't only financial.

  • Sovereignty: your data sits in one tool, hosted where you chose, and you own the source code.
  • Digital sobriety: one tool that does exactly what you need, rather than ten services that each do a hundred things.
  • Simplicity: one place to look, one password, one logic.

What AI agents changed

Building a custom tool used to take a team and several months. Today, an experienced developer orchestrating AI agents delivers in a few weeks what used to take a quarter. That's what tips the balance for companies of 5 to 100 people.

The right answer is often mixed. Keep off-the-shelf software for what's standard (accounting, e-mail) and replace with a custom tool what has piled up around the way you work.