Compare a custom website with SaaS across setup, hosting, seats, traffic, apps, transaction fees, internal effort, launch delay, migration risk, and present-value TCO.
Defaults are not market benchmarks. Replace them with like-for-like quotes, current price schedules, invoices, and work logs.
Apply one horizon, traffic level, online-sales base, delayed value, and internal hourly cost.
Use the same horizon for both alternatives.
Enter the business hurdle rate or cost of capital.
Applied to custom infrastructure and SaaS traffic overages.
Use only sales subject to the SaaS platform’s incremental transaction fee.
Use evidenced incremental contribution or savings, not gross revenue.
Apply one consistent employer or opportunity-cost basis.
Separate development, design, migration, internal acceptance work, and contingency from the SOW.
Requirements, content preparation, acceptance, testing, and launch preparation
Not applied again to internal labor value.
Enter hosting, traffic, security licenses, maintenance, enhancements, oversight, and expected transition cost.
For tiered billing, enter the effective monthly amount for the expected tier.
A planning assumption, not a forecast.
Include internal learning, content preparation, setup, and acceptance effort as well as agency fees.
Capture base fees, seats, traffic, apps, transaction fees, support, capability gaps, and migration.
Exclude payment-processing fees common to both options.
Recurring manual work, extra SaaS, or duplicate entry
Planning probability for content, member, order, SEO, and domain migration
Lower present-value cost
SaaS
33.93%
Estimated PV saving
$53,624.00
Risk-adjusted present-value difference
Sustained cost crossover
No crossover within the horizon
The initial cost ordering persists within the horizon.
Break-even SaaS base fee
$1,853.00
First-year base fee with all other SaaS inputs held constant
| Cost category | Custom nominal | Custom PV | SaaS nominal | SaaS PV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| External initial cost | $58,000.00 | $58,000.00 | $6,000.00 | $6,000.00 |
| Initial contingency | $8,700.00 | $8,700.00 | $600.00 | $600.00 |
| Internal labor value | $34,438.00 | $31,383.00 | $42,199.00 | $37,957.00 |
| Platform, infrastructure, and usage | $20,807.00 | $18,473.00 | $42,852.00 | $37,992.00 |
| Maintenance and external support | $30,264.00 | $26,870.00 | $11,687.00 | $10,362.00 |
| Enhancements | $22,698.00 | $20,153.00 | $7,791.00 | $6,908.00 |
| Incremental platform transaction fee | $0.00 | $0.00 | $11,687.00 | $10,362.00 |
| Capability-gap workarounds | $0.00 | $0.00 | $11,687.00 | $10,362.00 |
| Launch-delay opportunity cost | $20,000.00 | $19,682.00 | $5,000.00 | $4,968.00 |
| Expected migration cost | $2,000.00 | $1,588.00 | $7,200.00 | $5,716.00 |
| Year | Month range | Custom annual cost | SaaS annual cost | Custom cumulative PV | SaaS cumulative PV | Lower cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1–12 | $125,940.00 | $54,320.00 | $124,322.00 | $52,749.00 | SaaS |
| 2 | 13–24 | $33,642.00 | $40,954.00 | $154,207.00 | $89,129.00 | SaaS |
| 3 | 25–36 | $37,324.00 | $51,430.00 | $184,850.00 | $131,226.00 | SaaS |
| Scenario | Custom PV | SaaS PV | Lower cost | Estimated PV saving |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base | $184,850.00 | $131,226.00 | SaaS | $53,624.00 |
| Custom +20% initial, +10% recurring, +2 launch months | $214,393.00 | $131,226.00 | SaaS | $83,167.00 |
| Visits +100%, sales +50%, plus SaaS pricing and migration stress | $189,888.00 | $188,801.00 | Within a 5% tie band | $1,087.00 |
Method sources checked 2026-08-02. NIST and W3C materials support present-value, secure-development, portability, and accessibility review boundaries; they are not price lists or conformity certificates.
A custom website quote and a SaaS website builder subscription describe costs with different timing and scope.
A custom build tends to expose more discovery, design, development, migration, and acceptance cost at the start, while SaaS can accumulate plan, seat, traffic, app, transaction, and support charges over time.
This calculator places both alternatives on one monthly cash-flow timeline for as many as 120 months and reports nominal as well as present-value total cost of ownership.
TCO means total cost of ownership.
Here it includes acquiring, operating, improving, and eventually migrating a website rather than only paying for its first release.
It is a worksheet for your like-for-like quotes, current price schedules, invoices, analytics, and internal work logs; it is not a market-price database or a vendor recommendation.
Match the number of pages and languages, CMS needs, forms, bookings, commerce, membership, search, accessibility, security, performance, analytics, migration, training, support, and tax treatment.
If the scope differs, the result measures a quote gap rather than the economic difference between custom and SaaS delivery.
A custom contract does not automatically give you complete source ownership or portability, and a SaaS plan does not automatically include every maintenance duty.
Verify source files, design files, fonts, media, domains, analytics accounts, export formats, data retention, and termination assistance in actual contract documents.
The defaults are illustrative USD scenarios, not exchange-rate conversions, typical prices, or acceptable quotes.
Replace them with documents dated for the same decision point and preserve the source date in your working paper.
| Input | Meaning | Preferred evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly visits | One traffic base for custom infrastructure and SaaS overages | Six to twelve months of analytics plus campaign plans |
| Monthly online sales | Sales subject to the incremental SaaS platform fee | Fee schedule, order report, and refund policy |
| Monthly value delayed | Incremental contribution or evidenced savings unavailable before launch | Tested funnel contribution or operating-time evidence |
| Internal hourly cost | Economic value of planning, content, review, and operations time | Employer cost or one consistent opportunity-cost basis |
| Migration cost and probability | Expected transition reserve at the end of the horizon | Termination clause and a tested export sample |
If billing is tiered, translate the plan upgrade and overage expected at your traffic level into an effective amount per 1,000 visits.
Enter only the incremental SaaS platform fee, not payment-processing charges that both alternatives would pay.
Convert real weekly vendor, content, app, price, analytics, and quality-management work into monthly hours.
Initial TCO adds external initial cost, contingency applied only to that external amount, and initial internal labor value.
First-year monthly recurring cost is then escalated once for each completed twelve-month block using the alternative-specific recurring growth rate.
Base hosting + monthly visits ÷ 10,000 × infrastructure per 10,000 visits
+ annual security and license cost ÷ 12 + monthly maintenance
+ annual enhancement budget ÷ 12 + monthly internal hours × hourly cost
Base plan + editor seats × fee per seat
+ max(monthly visits − included visits, 0) ÷ 1,000 × overage per 1,000 visits
+ apps and plugins + online sales × incremental transaction-fee rate
+ partner support + annual enhancements ÷ 12
+ monthly internal hours × hourly cost + capability-gap workaround
Monthly discount rate = (1 + annual discount rate)^(1/12) − 1
Month m present value = month m cost ÷ (1 + monthly discount rate)^m
Risk-adjusted PV TCO = initial TCO + recurring PV + launch-delay PV + final-month expected-migration PV
Launch delay is an opportunity-cost scenario rather than a supplier invoice.
Use incremental contribution or evidenced operating savings, never gross revenue or an unsupported brand-value claim.
Expected migration cost equals migration cost multiplied by your planning probability and is placed in the last analysis month.
The English defaults use 50,000 monthly visits, USD 30,000 of monthly sales subject to a 1% incremental SaaS fee, USD 5,000 of monthly value delayed before launch, and an 8% annual discount rate.
They are independent illustrative USD inputs, not converted Korean prices.
Custom initial TCO is USD 73,900 and first-year recurring cost is USD 2,670 per month; SaaS initial TCO is USD 11,400 and first-year recurring cost is USD 3,160 per month.
| Metric | Custom build | SaaS |
|---|---|---|
| Initial TCO | $73,900 | $11,400 |
| First-year monthly recurring cost | $2,670 | $3,160 |
| Baseline nominal TCO | $174,906 | $134,503 |
| Risk-adjusted nominal TCO | $196,906 | $146,703 |
| Baseline present-value TCO | $163,580 | $120,542 |
| Risk-adjusted present-value TCO | $184,850 | $131,226 |
| Equivalent monthly risk-adjusted cost | $5,769 | $4,095 |
SaaS is lower by USD 53,624 in risk-adjusted present value, a 33.931080% difference measured against the average of both PV totals.
The break-even SaaS base fee is USD 1,853 per month while all other SaaS inputs remain fixed.
Custom overrun leaves SaaS lower, but the fixed SaaS scale stress brings the two PV totals within the 5% tie band, showing why traffic and fee-bearing sales deserve explicit sensitivity testing.
The model holds every other SaaS input constant and solves for the first-year monthly base fee that makes SaaS PV equal custom PV.
It is a negotiation ceiling within the current scenario, not a recommended price or plan.
The model finds the first interpolated month where cumulative nominal cost reverses and does not reverse again before the horizon ends.
No crossover means only that the ordering persists within the selected horizon, not forever.
Content approval, analytics, CRM integration, and internal editorial effort may matter more than transaction fees.
If template limits produce recurring work or extra tools, record that amount as a SaaS capability-gap workaround rather than hiding it in staff time.
Seats, traffic, apps, and incremental platform transaction fees can grow on different drivers.
Use the contractual sales base, check how refunds are treated, and exclude common card-processing cost to prevent double counting.
Compare translation workflow, editorial roles, CMS item limits, media storage, search, and redirects on equivalent scope.
Migration should preserve URL structure, metadata, structured data, alternative text, and established search entry points.
Content cleanup, data validation, redirects, analytics tags, domains, and email connections may cost more than the new shell.
Keep initial migration into the new option separate from the future exit-migration reserve.
A cheaper option is not economical if it cannot satisfy a mandatory requirement.
Keep the following criteria in a separate mandatory, preferred, and unnecessary decision matrix rather than turning unsupported quality judgments into money.
Sources were checked on August 2, 2026 (2026-08-02).
NIST Handbook 135e2022 anchors the lifecycle and present-value method, while NIST SP 800-218 frames secure-development and supplier discussion and NIST SP 800-146 frames cloud risk, interoperability, and portability review.
W3C WCAG 2.2 is a web-content accessibility standard that helps define requirements and testing scope; this calculator does not test or certify conformance.
None of these documents supplies custom-development prices, SaaS fees, contingency rates, migration probabilities, or a vendor ranking.
Not necessarily. If a clearly identified prepaid hosting amount covers the entire horizon, you may keep it in initial cost and enter zero monthly base hosting. Still verify renewals, traffic overages, backup, monitoring, and post-horizon pricing.
Divide the prepaid amount by twelve for the effective first-year monthly base fee. If the discount expires or renewal pricing differs, reflect that through recurring growth and a separate downside run.
No when both alternatives pay the same processor fee. Enter only the incremental fee imposed by the SaaS platform or by using an external processor on that platform.
Do not use gross revenue. Use evidenced incremental contribution after variable cost or verified operating savings, and start at zero when launch value has not been validated.
No. It is an editable planning example, not a statistic. Test export formats, APIs, termination clauses, redirect preservation, and actual content or order samples before choosing a rate.
It satisfies one cost condition only. Mandatory functionality, brand, performance, accessibility, security, ownership, support, and termination conditions still need independent approval.
Set external development cost to zero and enter the actual initial and monthly team hours at a consistent internal cost. If roles have materially different costs, use an external-cost adjustment or a separate working paper.
No. Technology choice alone does not establish ranking or conversion. You may use conservative evidenced incremental contribution in a separate scenario, but should not manufacture a performance premium.
Replace every illustrative amount with current scope, traffic, sales, work-time, and transition evidence, then save base, downside, and growth cases.
The inputs that reverse the result usually reveal the pricing or contract terms worth negotiating first.