The Real Cost of Building an Internal Tool: Custom vs SaaS in Dhaka

Every month a founder pings us with the same question: "SaaS X costs BDT 15,000 a month, you quoted us BDT 4 lakh to build. How do I decide?" The honest answer isn't about the numbers on the quote. It's about the numbers that appear on the operating budget three years from now.

**The SaaS path — real costs, three-year view**

BDT 15,000 a month is the sticker. In practice, this is what shows up in the ledger by year three. Base subscription BDT 15,000 × 36 = BDT 5,40,000. Per-user overage: the tool that "included 5 users" needed 12 by month 8 — extra 7 users × BDT 800 × 28 remaining months = BDT 1,56,800. Storage overage (all SaaS oversells storage): BDT 4,000/month from month 18 onward = BDT 72,000. Integration retainer for the accountant to reconcile the SaaS export against Tally: BDT 8,000/month = BDT 2,88,000. Migration off the SaaS in year 3 when the vendor got acquired: BDT 1,20,000 one-off. **Total, three years: BDT 11,76,800.** And you don't own the data.

**The custom path — real costs, same window**

BDT 4,00,000 build. Monthly maintenance retainer: BDT 15,000 × 36 = BDT 5,40,000. Hosting (Vercel + Neon) at scale for a Dhaka SME: BDT 3,500/month = BDT 1,26,000. Two feature-expansion rounds (year 1.5 and year 2.5): BDT 1,20,000 each = BDT 2,40,000. **Total, three years: BDT 13,06,000.** You own the code. You own the data. You can hand-migrate the whole thing to a new vendor without asking permission.

**The delta and what to make of it**

BDT 1,29,200 more for custom over three years. That is BDT 3,600 a month. In exchange you get: no per-user pricing pressure as you hire, a system that speaks Bangla and understands VAT, a codebase your next engineer can read, and no five-figure "acquisition price change" letter in year four.

For a business earning below BDT 50 lakh a year, that delta is real money and SaaS wins on cash flow. For one earning above BDT 2 crore, it's a rounding error — and the compounding gains of a purpose-built system pay it back the first quarter you use it.

**The number nobody puts on the quote**

Custom software costs your team time. Two hours a week of the founder's or the ops lead's attention, for the first six months. If those two hours are worth more than the delta above, keep renting. If they aren't — and if you are the one running operations, they usually aren't — you save more by building than by shopping.

We have built internal tools for accountants, distributors, garment shops, real estate developers, coaching centres, and one poultry farm. The pattern is the same every time: the businesses that outgrew SaaS wish they had switched twelve months earlier than they did.