Build it or buy it
Small teams build the wrong things for good reasons — it's interesting, it's cheaper on paper, and the vendor's pricing feels insulting. Here's the test that holds up.
The test
If a customer would pay more because you built it yourself, build it. If not, buy it. Billing, authentication, telephony and email infrastructure almost never pass that test.
Count maintenance, not construction
The build estimate everyone makes is the first version. The real cost is the edge cases, the tax rules, the deliverability, the on-call. Multiply your honest estimate by three and compare again.
When buying is genuinely wrong
Three fair cases:
- The vendor's pricing scales with a number that will grow a hundredfold.
- The capability is the core of your product's differentiation.
- Data residency or compliance makes the vendor unusable.