How it works

The founding-five model

Five companies split one build. Each pays a fraction of the cost, shapes the product, and gets a revenue share from late joiners. Here is exactly how the economics work and what is yours at the end.

From shared build to running system: in four steps

Step 01: Co-fund

Five companies split one build

A cohort of ~5 firms each put in a fraction of the build cost: around €8,400 each for a ~€42,000 replacement (50% at kick-off, 50% at go-live). You pay less than a bespoke build would cost alone, and the founding cohort contract protects everyone if someone steps back.

Step 02: Build

Senior engineers build your system, fast

Rollout IT's team uses agentic engineering (senior-led, AI-assisted) to rebuild the workflows your team actually uses, on clean infrastructure. You stay on the old SaaS until we cut over: we target a zero-downtime cutover; the old tool stays live until you sign off. We migrate your data for you.

Step 03: Launch

Your own isolated instance, live

At launch you move to a flat annual fee of ~€2,500/yr: your own isolated instance, your whole team included, no per-seat charges. Hosting, patches and support are our job from day one.

Step 04: Get paid back

5% of every new customer flows back to you

After launch, late joiners pay an entry fee plus an annual licence. Five per cent of each new customer's combined fees (entry fee + first-year licence) flows back to each founding member until you've recovered half your build contribution, e.g. ~13 late joiners to recover half of a €8,400 contribution. The more firms join, the faster the return.

Why it is possible

How can we do this?

A SaaS company spent years building and polishing their product. You want to know how we rebuild it for €35k. Fair question.

AI made senior engineers at least 3x more productive, and we are accountable for every line
Not vibe-coding, not auto-generated slop. Agentic development: senior engineers direct, review, test and own every output. The speed is real. The responsibility is ours. This is the single biggest cost lever in software today.
You are the specification
A SaaS company starts from zero: discovery, user research, product design, wrong bets, pivots. You have been using this tool for years. You know exactly what works and what you never touch. We skip the exploration entirely and build what you already know.
You use roughly 20% of the features
The Pendo 2019 Feature Adoption Report found that on average just 20% of a product's features drive 80% of daily usage. We build the slice your team actually uses, not the full catalogue that justified the vendor's engineering org. That is where most of your €35k goes.
We do not build from zero
Auth, storage, background jobs, email, billing hooks: all of this exists as battle-tested open source. The SaaS vendor had to build infrastructure and product simultaneously, from scratch. We assemble proven components and wire them to your workflow.
We have seen this pattern 50+ times
A tool that manages records, assigns tasks and generates reports is something we can price with confidence because we have shipped variants of it repeatedly. Pattern recognition is the other cost lever. We are not reinventing architecture for your ticket tool.
Example economics

What the numbers look like

Build cost (shared)
~€8,400 each
~€42,000 total, split 5 ways
Annual running cost
~€2,500/yr
Hosting, maintenance, security, support. Flat.
Revenue share
5% per new customer
Until you recover half of your build contribution

Typical payback: at ~€2,500/yr vs a typical SaaS at ~€20,000/yr, payback typically arrives in year 1 or 2, and the exact point depends on your current spend and team size. Use the calculator to see your number.

Ownership model

What is actually yours

What is yours

  • Your data, fully exportable
    Download everything, anytime. No vendor holds your history hostage.
  • A licence that outlives us
    Your contract includes a source-code escrow clause: the platform code is deposited with an independent escrow agent before go-live. If we ever stop trading, the code is released to you automatically, and your access is contractually protected.
  • Your own isolated instance
    Separate servers, separate database, separate backups. Not shared multi-tenant infrastructure.
  • No per-seat pricing, ever
    Add your whole team for free. The fee is per company, not per chair.
  • Founder pricing fixed for 10 years
    Your annual fee is locked from day one. No annual hike letters, no renegotiation.

How the model stays fair

  • Platform IP stays with Rollout IT
    That is what keeps your build cost low and improvements flowing. You are not buying the source code, and you do not need to.
  • Late joiners pay an entry and licence fee
    Nobody gets the founding cohort's work for free. Later joiners pay an annual licence plus a one-time onboarding and migration fee.
  • Founding members shape v1, late joiners do not
    Priority on the first feature set belongs to the founding cohort. Late joiners can request features on the roadmap, but the initial build is yours.

Candour is a feature: other services claim full source ownership as a selling point. We are honest: you do not need to own the source to escape the rent trap. You need your data, a perpetual licence to run the system, and a partner who will still be there in five years. That is what we deliver.

Why co-fund

The case for the founding five

Bespoke software is usually a solo investment. The founding-five model changes that calculus.

Cheaper because it is shared
~5 firms split one build, so each pays a fraction of what a bespoke build would cost you alone.
Founder pricing fixed for 10 years
No annual hike letters. Your fee is locked from day one.
You shape the roadmap
Priority on the features you need, built around how you actually work, not a generic feature set voted on by thousands.
You get paid back
5% of each new customer's combined fees (entry fee + first-year licence) is returned to each founding member, until each founder has recovered half their build contribution.
Fair by design
Later joiners pay an entry and licence fee, nobody gets the founding cohort's work for free.
Lower risk, expert delivery
Senior-led agentic engineering; we build it and run it; your own isolated instance.
Questions

Common questions about the model

From day one, the founding contract includes a source-code escrow clause: the platform code is deposited with an independent escrow agent before go-live, so if Rollout IT ever ceases trading the code releases automatically and your system keeps running. During the build, we migrate your data in full before cutover, so at go-live your records already live on your own isolated instance, exportable at any time in standard formats. You do not buy the source code (the platform IP stays with us, that is what keeps your price low), but your access and your data are protected by contract and mechanism from the moment you sign.

Stop renting. Get your own system

Tell us the SaaS you'd replace. We line up a founding-five cohort, build your system, and run it for you: one flat fee, your data, a perpetual licence.

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