The Subscription That Multiplied
It usually starts with one tool. A project management platform here, a reporting dashboard there. Each solves a real problem. Each costs a reasonable $50–$200 per month.
But over two to three years, something shifts. The stack grows. Integrations break. Workarounds multiply. And suddenly your firm is spending $2,000–$4,000 per month on SaaS subscriptions — most of which overlap, none of which talk to each other cleanly.
How SaaS Costs Compound
SaaS pricing is designed to feel manageable at the point of purchase. Monthly billing obscures the long-term cost. But the real expense is not the subscription — it is the compounding effect of layered tools that each require their own configuration, training, and maintenance.
Consider a typical mid-size firm running an estimating tool ($1,200/month), a reporting platform ($800/month), and a workflow tool ($600/month). That is $2,600 per month — $156,000 over five years — before accounting for the hours your team spends reconciling data between systems.
Integration Friction: The Hidden Tax
Every SaaS tool stores data in its own format, behind its own API. Connecting them requires middleware, custom scripts, or manual data entry. Each integration point is a potential failure point — and when one vendor pushes an update, your entire workflow can break.
This integration friction is the hidden tax of the SaaS model. It does not appear on any invoice, but it consumes hours of skilled labor every week.
Control Limitations
When your operational workflow depends on a vendor’s product roadmap, you lose strategic control. Features get deprecated. Pricing changes without notice. Your team adapts to the tool — instead of the tool adapting to your team.
For commodity functions like email or payroll, this trade-off makes sense. But for the systems that define how your firm delivers work, vendor dependency creates structural risk.
The Ownership Alternative
The alternative is not building everything from scratch. It is strategically identifying which systems are core to your operations — and owning those. Replace the high-friction SaaS tools with internal systems designed around how your firm actually works. Keep the commodity subscriptions that serve you well.
The result: lower long-term cost, tighter integration, and full strategic control over the systems that matter most.