Answers

The questions teams ask before replacing SaaS

Direct answers, not marketing. Build costs, five-year ROI, which tools are worth replacing, and what "your own system" actually means for your data and your team.

Understand the bill

What does a per-seat SaaS tool really cost, beyond the list price?

The price on your invoice is the smallest number in the deal. The real cost includes unused seats, paywalled features, integration time, admin overhead, and compounding annual price rises.

Cost & ROI

How much does it cost to replace WorkPal with your own system?

WorkPal charges ~£38/seat/month: a 44-engineer team pays over £20,000 a year for job scheduling, a mobile app, digital forms, and invoicing. A custom replacement covering the same scope typically costs around €49,000 to build in total. Split across a founding cohort of five firms, each pays ~€9,800 upfront, then a flat ~€2,500 a year to run, with no per-seat charge, ever. Payback on the build contribution lands inside the first year for a 44-engineer team.

How much does it cost to build a custom CRM in 2026?

A custom CRM covering the features most SMBs actually use, including contact records, deal pipeline, activity logging, email integration, reporting, and a mobile view, typically costs ~€40,000 to build in total. Shared across a founding cohort of five firms, each pays ~€8,000 upfront. Annual running cost is ~€2,500 flat. For a 20-user team on a €30/seat/month CRM, break-even is inside two years; for a €60+/seat CRM, year one.

How much does a custom time tracking app cost to build?

Time tracking is one of the simplest SaaS replacement candidates: start/stop timers, manual entries, project and client tagging, approval workflows, and exportable reports. A custom build costs €24,000–€30,000 in total. Split across five firms, each pays ~€5,000–€6,000 upfront. Annual running cost is €2,500/year flat. For a 100-user team on Toggl Track Business, break-even is inside 12 months.

How do you escape SaaS price increases in 2026?

Most SaaS tools have raised list prices 5–15% each year since 2022. At renewal, the choice is: absorb the increase, renegotiate (one year's grace before the next increase), or replace. The only structural escape is to replace the tool with your own system. One upfront build cost shared across a founding cohort, then a flat annual running fee locked at your founding price for 10 years, with no annual reviews and no per-seat compounding.

UK field service

What is the best Joblogic alternative for UK FM and M&E contractors?

Joblogic is a major UK field-service platform at £45–55/seat/month (source: joblogic.com, July 2026), with around 7,000 customers, strong for FM and M&E. The feature set covers job scheduling, PPM, SFG20 forms, asset management, invoicing, and a subcontractor portal: a focused workflow architecture that maps well to a targeted rebuild. A 30-engineer team pays ~£19,000/year. A custom replacement built to your FM workflow costs ~€52,000 total shared across ~5 co-funders, then ~€2,500/year flat.

What is the best Commusoft alternative where you own the system?

At ~£90/seat/month (list price, commusoft.com, July 2026), a 25-engineer HVAC or plumbing contractor pays around £27,000 a year for job scheduling, a mobile app, digital forms, asset tracking, and compliance certs. A co-funded custom build covering the same workflow costs ~€58,000 total split across ~5 firms, then €2,500/year flat. For that level of spend, payback typically arrives in year 1 or 2, and your data is yours permanently.

Which SaaS to replace

How do you know which SaaS tools are worth replacing with a custom build?

Four questions reveal whether a SaaS is worth replacing: Does your team use fewer than half its features? Is the cost more than €100/month for your whole team? Is there no deep integration into your payment rail or accounting system? And can your data be exported cleanly? If all four are yes, you have a strong candidate.

What is the best ATS alternative for UK recruitment agencies that want to own their system?

UK recruitment agencies pay £80–165/seat/month for ATS and CRM systems that are, at core, candidate and client databases with kanban pipelines, email sequences, and job board posting. A custom replacement covering the same scope typically costs €25,000–€30,000 total shared across ~5 agencies. Annual running cost is ~€2,500 flat. For a 15-recruiter agency on Firefish (~£110/seat), break-even is inside 12 months, and your candidate data never leaves your own system.

What SaaS tools should you NOT replace with custom software?

Not every SaaS is worth replacing. Payment rails, accounting systems, email infrastructure, compliance-critical tools, and platforms where the vendor's data network is the value carry migration risk that almost always exceeds any licence saving. If replacing it would require rebuilding the vendor's network, certification, or regulatory relationship, not just their software, do not replace it.

How it works

How does co-funding a software build work, and what do founding members get?

Co-funding turns a ~€40,000 bespoke build into a ~€8,000 investment per company. Around five firms with the same core use case form a cohort, collectively fund one build, and each get their own isolated instance. Each founding member gets pricing locked for 10 years, influence over the feature set, and a 5% revenue share on new customers until half their build contribution is returned. Later joiners pay an entry fee: they benefit from what the founders built, but they do not get the founders' economics.

Is AI-built software safe for a business to rely on?

AI-assisted development is safe when senior engineers own the architecture, review the output, write the tests, and accept full accountability for the result. It is risky when it is 'vibe-coding': non-engineers prompting AI tools with no review, no tests, and no accountability. Rollout IT uses agentic methods to go faster, not to replace senior engineering judgment.

Data & ownership

What is a perpetual software licence, and how does it differ from SaaS?

A perpetual licence means you have the right to use the software indefinitely: you do not lose access when payments stop or when the vendor ceases trading. SaaS is the opposite: stop paying and access ends immediately. Rollout IT delivers a perpetual, escrow-backed licence: the platform IP stays with us (which keeps your price low), but the licence and your data are yours permanently. An escrow holds the code; if we ever stop trading, the escrow releases it so your system keeps running.

How does owning your own system help with GDPR and EU data residency?

Most US-hosted SaaS tools rely on Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) to justify EU data transfers. SCCs are legally fragile: one court ruling can invalidate them overnight. A custom system on your own isolated EU instance removes that risk entirely: your data never leaves the jurisdiction you choose, you control retention and deletion, and there is no vendor data-sharing agreement to audit at renewal.

Other

How much does it cost to replace Clockify with your own system?

A bespoke time-tracking system typically costs €24,000–€30,000 to build in total, and when shared across a founding cohort of around five firms, each pays only a fraction of that (~€5,000–€6,000). Running costs are a flat ~€2,500 per year, covering hosting, maintenance, and updates. For a 20-person team on Clockify Business, the crossover point is usually under two years; after that, you add unlimited users for the same flat fee.

Is building a custom system cheaper than per-seat SaaS fees over five years?

For most teams of ten or more, yes: typically within 12 to 24 months. The key shift is paying once for a build (usually shared across a founding cohort) plus a flat annual running fee, rather than a bill that multiplies with every new hire and rises every year. As Forbes notes: if your tool is "a simple database, a form and a dashboard," you are almost certainly overpaying rent.

Which SaaS tools are the best candidates to replace with your own system?

The strongest candidates are simple, vertical SaaS tools: time tracking, field-service scheduling, visitor management, appointment booking, or basic project tracking: where your team uses 30–40% of the features but pays for the whole platform. Poor candidates are deeply integrated or compliance-critical tools like payment processors, email infrastructure, or your accounting system. A rough rule of thumb: if you are paying more than ~€100/month for a tool your whole team uses, and half the feature menu goes untouched, the numbers usually favour building.

Which UK field-service SaaS tools are best to replace with your own system?

The UK field-service category is the strongest on the whole SaaS-replacement map. Commusoft, WorkPal, Joblogic, and Klipboard are all fundamentally the same architecture: a job-scheduling database, a mobile technician app, and a digital forms engine: dressed in different UX. At €40–€100/seat they are expensive for what they are, and a 25-engineer team can realistically pay back a custom build within 12–24 months. The only sensible reason to stay on a per-seat platform is if you are in the first year of your contract or are genuinely using 80%+ of the feature surface: which almost no one is.

How much does it cost to replace Commusoft with your own system?

At ~€90/seat/month (list price, commusoft.com, July 2026), a 25-engineer team pays around €27,000 a year on Commusoft. A custom replacement covering job scheduling, a mobile technician app, digital forms, asset management, quoting, invoicing, and compliance certs typically costs €55,000–€60,000 to build in total. Split across a founding cohort of five firms, each pays ~€11,000–€12,000, then a flat ~€2,500 a year to run. For that level of annual spend, payback typically arrives in year 1 or 2. After that, you add engineers without adding to the annual bill.

How much does it cost to replace Joblogic with your own system?

Joblogic is the UK's most widely used field-service platform at €50–€60/seat/month: a 30-engineer FM contractor team pays over €20,000 a year. A custom replacement covering job scheduling, PPM, SFG20 compliance forms, asset management, quoting, invoicing, and a subcontractor portal typically costs €50,000–€55,000 to build in total. Split across a five-firm founding cohort, each pays ~€10,000–€11,000. Annual running cost is a flat ~€2,500, no per-seat, no annual rise. Payback on the build contribution lands in year two for a 30-seat team.

What is the best Jobber alternative for a UK field-service business?

Jobber is a solid product, but at per-seat or tiered pricing, a UK field-service business with 15 or more engineers is almost certainly overpaying for a tool that is, at core, job scheduling, a mobile app, and invoicing. The honest alternative comparison is not 'another SaaS' but 'do you pay forever for someone else's product, or do you build once and own the outcomes?' A custom-built alternative typically costs €50,000–€55,000 total (shared across a founding cohort, ~€10,000–€11,000 each), and runs for ~€2,500/year flat, no per-seat, your data always yours. Build timeline is typically ~5 months.

How long does it take to build a custom SaaS replacement?

A typical SaaS replacement takes ~5 months from founding-cohort kick-off to go-live, including discovery, build, testing, data migration, and cutover. Go-live is scheduled ~1 month before your annual SaaS renewal so you switch cleanly without paying twice. Simpler tools: time tracking, field-service scheduling, visitor management: can land slightly under that. Systems with more moving parts: multi-role portals, deep integrations, compliance cert engines: may take a little longer. The founding cohort meets at the start to shape the feature set; from there the build runs with a senior-engineer team using agentic development to keep pace high and quality accountable.

What happens to my data when I replace a SaaS tool with a custom system?

Your data is migrated before you switch, not after. We export your records from the old tool, transform them into the new data model, and run a full parallel test period where your team can verify the new system against the old one. Only when you are satisfied do we cut over. The old tool keeps running throughout, so your team is never operating blind. After cutover, your data lives on your own isolated instance, exportable anytime: yours permanently, with no vendor holding it.

Q10

How does co-funding work for a SaaS replacement build?

Co-funding turns a €20,000–€60,000 bespoke build into a ~€4,000–€12,000 investment per company. Around five firms with the same core use case form a cohort: they collectively fund one build, each get their own isolated instance to run, and each get founding-member pricing locked for 10 years. Payment is 50% at kick-off, 50% at go-live. The founding members take the real risk (they fund upfront) and get the real reward: a fraction of a bespoke build's cost, influence over the roadmap, and a 5% revenue share on new customers until half their build contribution is returned. Later joiners pay a separate entry and licence fee: the founding cohort's early risk is not given away for free.

Q11

How much does it cost to replace Jobber with your own system?

Jobber looks cheap on paper, but its real cost climbs with every hire ($29/extra user), every gated feature (two-way SMS and job costing live in the Grow tier), and payment-processing fees on top. A 15-technician shop that actually needs those features and takes card payments comfortably clears $10,000/year. A custom replacement covering quoting, scheduling, a mobile app, invoicing and online payments typically costs ~€54,000 to build. Split across a founding cohort of five firms, each pays ~€10,800, then a flat ~€2,500/year to run, with unlimited technicians and no per-seat overage, ever. Payback lands around year three at 15 techs, sooner for larger crews or heavy add-on users.

Q12

How much does it cost to replace BigChange with your own system?

BigChange charges per VEHICLE, approximately £70/vehicle/month for JobWatch, £100 for JobWatch Plus (figures from Capterra UK and GetApp, July 2025; bigchange.com is quote-only), so a 15-vehicle firm pays £12,000–£18,000 a year. A notable feature of BigChange contracts is multi-year minimum terms (typically 5 years with 3-year renewal extensions). A custom replacement covering CRM, scheduling, a field mobile app, quoting/invoicing and BI typically costs ~€59,000 to build. The one genuinely complex part is the native GPS telematics: we don't rebuild hardware, we integrate a third-party tracking API or keep your existing trackers. Split across five founding firms, each pays ~€11,800, then a flat ~€2,500 a year, with no multi-year lock-in. Payback typically lands in year 1 or 2.

Q13

How much does it cost to replace Deputy with your own system?

Deputy is a straightforward scheduling and time-and-attendance tool. At $5–$9 per seat (list price, deputy.com/pricing, July 2026) with a $30/month minimum from September 2025, even a 50-person team only spends ~$3,900 a year. A custom replacement costs ~€41,000 to build (~€8,200 per founding firm) plus ~€2,500/year to run, which does not pay back at typical size. For most teams under ~100 seats, staying on Deputy is the better deal: we'd tell you that on the call. It becomes worthwhile only at 100+ seats, across multiple sites, or when HR/Analytics+ add-ons have substantially raised your effective bill.

Q14

How much does it cost to replace Planday with your own system?

Planday (a Xero company) is a clean, simple rostering tool that's strong across Norway, Denmark and the UK, priced at ~£2.99–£4.49 per user/month (source: planday.com, July 2026). At that price the honest maths don't favour a rebuild for a typical team: a 50-person operation spends only ~£2,700 a year, while a custom replacement (~€43,000 build, ~€8,600 per founding firm, ~€2,500/year to run) comes to ~€21,100 over five years versus ~£16,500 staying on Planday. Worth building only at 150+ seats or for multi-site chains where enforced annual minimum-term contracts create a genuine business case.

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