Find every tool you're overpaying for — and calculate exactly when it's cheaper to build custom instead of buying.
Pull your credit card statements and check your company email for subscription receipts. Don't skip the small ones — $9/mo tools multiply fast.
For each tool, capture: name, monthly cost, annual cost, what it does.
Group each tool into a category. Overlap lives inside categories — you likely have 2–3 tools doing the same job.
For every tool, rate it honestly across three dimensions:
Usage frequency — daily / weekly / monthly / rarely
Unique features used — what % of available features do you actually use?
Team reach — how many team members use it regularly?
Red flag: If a tool is used monthly or rarely by fewer than 3 people, it's a candidate for removal — period.
Look at tools in the same category and ask:
Which tools do the same thing? If two tools both handle task tracking, pick one.
Which features duplicate across tools? If your CRM has email sequences and you pay separately for an email tool — that's overlap.
Eliminate duplicates before running the cost math. You may find $200–$400/mo in low-hanging fruit here alone.
Subscription price is the floor, not the ceiling. The real cost is:
True Cost = (Monthly × 12) + onboarding hours × hourly rate + integration maintenance hours/year × hourly rate + training hours × hourly rate
A $49/mo tool that required 20 hrs to onboard, needs 5 hrs/mo to maintain integrations, and took 3 hrs to train the team costs roughly $3,000–$4,000/year in real terms — not $588.
A tool is a replacement candidate if it meets either of these criteria:
Usage score below 50% — you're using less than half its features
Cost above $50/mo AND fewer than 3 unique features used — you're paying for capabilities that don't fit your workflow
Replacement candidates either get eliminated, swapped for a cheaper narrow tool, or evaluated for a custom build in step 7.
For each replacement candidate, run a quick build vs. buy comparison:
One-time build cost — what would it cost to build the 2–3 features you actually use? (Custom tools usually take 20–80 hrs to build.)
3-year SaaS total — monthly × 36, plus realistic maintenance overhead
Breakeven point — divide build cost by monthly savings to find the month it pays off
A $150/mo SaaS with a $4,000 custom build breaks even in under 27 months — and saves money every month after that, forever.
Build custom when all three conditions are true:
If even one condition is false, stick with SaaS. Custom builds are an investment — they pay off only when you know exactly what you need.
We'll go through your entire SaaS stack, identify the highest-ROI cuts, and show you exactly what's worth building custom.
Book a Free SaaS AuditNo credit card. No obligation. Just a clear picture of where you're overspending.