A company paying €40,000–€80,000 per year for a SaaS tool. They use maybe 60% of its features. The other 40% they either don't need or work around with spreadsheets and manual processes.
Meanwhile, they've customized the tool so heavily that upgrading is painful, switching is expensive, and the vendor's roadmap doesn't align with their actual needs. They're locked in — paying for someone else's vision of how software should work.
Building custom software typically costs 2–4× the annual SaaS cost. If you're paying €60k/year, expect to invest €120k–€240k in a custom solution. That means your breakeven is 2–4 years.
But the math misses the real value: the custom solution does exactly what you need. No paying for features you don't use. No vendor lock-in. No waiting for their roadmap to match yours. And you own it — it's an asset on your balance sheet, not an expense line.
Companies spending €40k+/year on SaaS that covers less than 70% of their needs.
Operations teams drowning in workarounds and manual processes.
Organizations that need software tailored to compliance or industry-specific requirements.
Businesses that want to turn a cost center into a competitive advantage.
Kontentino started as an internal tool at BRACKETS. We needed a social media management platform and nothing on the market fit. So we built one. It became its own company, now serving 5,000+ marketing teams globally.
Not every custom build becomes a SaaS spin-off. But the principle holds: when you build exactly what you need, the efficiency gains compound over time.
Ready to stop renting your tools?
Let's talk
