Custom software or SaaS: the five-year calculation, including per-user subscriptions

SaaS costs little in month one and a lot in year five, especially when billed per user. Custom software does the reverse. Here are both columns side by side, with French agencies' public prices and the maintenance line quotes leave out.

Custom software or SaaS: over five years, a subscription remains the right choice while your team is small and your rules standard. A cleaning-business owner on Reddit (r/smallbusiness, June 2026) describes two quotes above $300 per month for one need: $18,000 over five years for a tool they do not own.

What the subscription costs by year five

A small-business software vendor lays out the calculation on Reddit (r/smallbusiness, July 2026): a tool advertised at $25 per user seems cheap until multiplied by six, with a mandatory upgrade bringing the bill close to $200 monthly. Over five years, $12,000 without your usage changing. Another vendor selling to Swiss SMEs (r/SaaS, July 2026) capped their own rate at 350 francs monthly: clients distrust anything becoming more expensive as they grow, and the cap becomes a selling point.

The SaaS curve rises with three things you do not control: the number of people opening the tool, modules the vendor removes from the base package and annual price increases. A bakery owner with two shops and a warehouse reports on Reddit (r/smallbusiness, July 2026) receiving a NetSuite quote of $40,000 annually for a full ERP and a Fishbowl quote of $10,000 annually for warehouse management alone, against revenue of $3–4 million. They add that they are not convinced they need it.

What custom software costs at entry

Prices exist if you find agencies publishing them. Ary Studio displays three custom-development tiers from €5,000 to €25,000, with a line-by-line quote fixed before starting and code transferred at launch. Noxcod quotes €5,000–€15,000 for a simple internal tool and €15,000–€50,000 for a complete web application. A page published in March 2026 by eid-lab.com details ten quotes for the same project: from €3,500 in WordPress to €45,000 at the upper end. Most French agencies display no price at all: on Alegria's ‘Agence Bubble’ page, presenting itself as Europe's leading no-code agency, the only button is ‘Book a meeting’.

The two lines missing from both columns

The first is maintenance. Lonestone estimates it at 15–25% of initial development cost every year to keep pace with system and dependency updates. On a €40,000 build, allow €6,000–€10,000 annually before any enhancement. The second is dependence. A half-day change six months after delivery requires someone's availability and is billed at the daily rate: three accessible barometers, TJMètre, Freeland and a freelance-solution.fr compilation, place the French developer median between €454 and €520 daily in 2026. For no-code, the rent is monthly: nocode.mba estimates a realistic production Bubble application budget at $80–$150 monthly after payments, email sending and extensions.

The column the conventional table lacks

Since 2026, a third option joins the other two: you direct construction, an AI agent team writes the brief, requirements and code, and you approve each document before use. Recurring cost becomes an assistant subscription of around €20 monthly and a few euros in tokens, plus decision hours. What you gain, approved requirements and code, stays with you and is not billed per user. What you pay in exchange is evenings deciding questions a vendor used to decide for you. A tradesperson outgrowing off-the-shelf software benefits; a standard activity does not.

Calculate your own case in a quarter of an hour

Write three numbers. One: today's monthly software bill multiplied by sixty. Two: the number of people who will open the tool in three years multiplied by the per-user price of the tier above yours. Three: your lowest development quote increased by 20% annual maintenance. If the first number exceeds the other two added together, your subscription finances software you could have owned. Our agency, freelancer and agent cost comparison gives ranges for the third box, and the comparison places market tools alongside them.