Both answers are right for somebody. Here is the test we use on the first call, and we send people to a subscription when that is what the test says.
Subscribe when
Under eight people, no hiring plan
The process still changes every quarter
Customers never need to log in
Two tools and one connection suffice
You might not need it next year
One system run for you, when
Fifteen plus and hiring: per seat pricing compounds
The way a lead becomes an order has settled
Customers need their own screen and login
Three or more tools glued together by hand
You will still run this business in year four
Five questions
1. How many people, and is that number going up?
Per user pricing is cheap at five seats and expensive at fifty. Under eight people with no hiring plan, a subscription is almost always the right call. Above fifteen with hiring, run the arithmetic in the per seat post.
2. Has the process stopped changing?
A system of your own encodes how you work. If the way a lead becomes an order changed twice this year, encode it later. Subscribe until it settles, then build what settled.
3. Do your customers need to log in?
This is the question that decides most cases. A retailer app, a parent app, a client portal: no subscription CRM gives your customers a screen with your name on it that reads from your own data. Once customers need a login, you are building something anyway, and the only question is whether the back office it reads from is on the same record.
4. How many tools have to agree with each other?
Two tools with one connection is fine. Five tools held together by an automation plan is a system you are already maintaining, without owning it. Count the connections. At three or more, one record is cheaper to run and easier to explain to a new hire.
5. What happens in year four?
With subscriptions, year four costs what year three cost, plus the price increase and any new seats. With a monthly plan set by team size, the price is written down and does not move with every login. If you expect to be in the same business in four years, that difference is the whole argument.
Where SaaS wins outright
- Accounting and statutory filing. Regulations change monthly and the vendors track them. Do not build this; connect to it.
- Email, documents, calendars, video calls. Commodity, and the network effect matters.
- Anything you will use for less than a year.
Where your own system wins outright
- Trade specific workflows a generic tool bends around: karigar issue and receive by weight, batch and expiry picking, connector payout grids, fee ledgers with concessions.
- Customer facing apps that read from the same data the office uses.
- Questions that need two tools at once, such as which ad brought customers who actually paid.
- Businesses where the software is part of what they sell, and a competitor on the same subscription looks identical.
The honest middle
Most businesses we talk to land in between: keep the accounting subscription, keep email, and have the back office and the customer app built and run on one record, with the website pointing at both. That is what the five layers on the home page are. From ₹9,999 to ₹49,999 a month plus GST for teams of up to 25, set by what you need and your team size. How the monthly plan works →
Your numbers
Get your exact price in 48 hours.
From ₹9,999 to ₹49,999 a month plus GST for teams of up to 25, set by what you need and your team size. Tell us what you run, and the exact number comes in writing.