There is a quiet tax inside many companies: vendor shopping.

Weeks of discovery calls with sales teams who promise everything. Months of account management that leans into upsells instead of outcomes. By the time procurement clears, the original problem is more expensive, less urgent, and you’re often facing vendor lock-in.

I work differently. I sit with your team, define success in writing, and ship a specific tool that fits your workflow and integrates with your systems in days or weeks. No bloated feature sets. No mystery pricing. No “maybe next quarter” answers. Just a business-ready app, self-hosted or private cloud, that you can run, extend, and own.

This is not anti-SaaS. It is a practical option when you want control, speed, and predictable cost, especially when considering the true value of a custom internal application or bespoke software.

The Boutique Build Model: Custom Internal Tools, Powered by AI

This growing niche is where I’ve been finding success this year. Small, focused, self-hosted apps that integrate with your APIs and infrastructure. Each is scoped to one job, built to your security posture, measured against success criteria we agree on, and designed for easy handoff and maintainability.

How I move fast without cutting corners

Clear requirements first. With my background in both full-stack development and Product, I focus on a detailed product write up first. A one-page product spec with Who and Why, acceptance criteria, and a definition of done. No code until the job is clear. Your team can provide the API endpoints, contracts, and even code style or integration requirements.

Then I focus on the prototype with AI as a powerful partner that overcomes the need for days of initial building just to get to a workable v1. With tooling advancing every week I’ve been able to build a consistent pipeline with that allows rapid prototyping without sacrificing security, testability, or code quality.

SSO, audit logs, rate limits, and observability are not forgotten but benchmarks for a successful project. My goal is to finish of a project with clear documentation ready for handoff. Playbooks, runbooks, and a clear README so your team can operate the app confidently.

Result: production in weeks, and you keep the keys.

Where Bespoke Internal App Development Works Best

System Orchestration Engines: Connect CRM, billing, ticketing, and data warehouse with a simple rules engine and UI.
Bespoke Reporting Views: The 80 percent your BI tool cannot represent cleanly.
Review and approval portals: Move approvals out of email into a lightweight app with roles, SLAs, and an audit trail.
Governed Data Import/Export Tools: Governed imports and exports, schema contracts, and alerting your teams will actually use.
Content and localization helpers: Page-aware tools that keep layout context and integrate with your CMS or repo.

Predictable ROI: Why Custom Internal Apps Save Real Money

These numbers are from a recent project where I built a custom solution specifically to compete with a quote from a SaaS product:

• Vendor: $2,800 per month equals $33,600 per year and first year at $28,000. This vendor offered a first-year discount of 2 months free for onboarding.
• Custom app: $15,000 one time plus ~$100 per month for infrastructure equals $16,200 for the first year, $1,200 per year for self-hosting after.
• Year-1 difference: $28,000 minus $16,200 equals $11,800 saved
• Year-2 difference: $33,600 minus $1,200 equals $32,400 saved

Custom built link attribution integrated with all their tools, apis, and custom dashboard with over ten thousand dollars of savings in the first year! This client emailed me a few weeks after completion to let me know the sales team from the vendor reached out with a special deal to lock in pricing as they were going to be raising rates next year. So the year-2 difference will be even greater.

Simple build versus buy check:

Payback in months = One-Time Build Cost / (Vendor Monthly Fee – Monthly Infra Cost)

Measurable Results: Anonymized Case Studies

These are real-world examples demonstrating the speed and financial impact of the Boutique Build Model. Each result is from an anonymized client engagement:

• Ops approvals portal in 10 days. Replaced a pilot quote at $18,000 per year. Integrated with Company CMS, Slack, and Jira, shipped with audit logs and SLA timers.
• Revenue reconciliation tool in 2 weeks. Matched CRM deals to billing records. Cut manual spreadsheet work by about 8 hours per week and surfaced missed invoices.
• Marketing content hosting tool in 1 week. Smart routes for assets to CMS and localization. Avoided a $17,000 upsell and cleared a four week backlog.
• Deeper summaries are available under NDA.

When Not To Build

• Your need is non-differentiating and solved well by an existing tool at a reasonable price.
• Your team is not able to own a light operations footprint, including patching, monitoring, and approvals.
• The job is many customers to one surface, for example email delivery, where economies of scale favor a vendor.
• If building is not the right call, I will say so and help you choose a vendor with a clean exit plan.

What You Get

• A specific solution that people actually use.
• Clear requirements and success criteria tied to time, money, or risk.
• Ownership of app, and documentation in your repositories.
• Predictable cost, one-time project fee plus optional small retainer.
• Speed measured in days and weeks, not in quarters.

FAQ

Is this “AI builds it for you”?
No. AI accelerates scaffolding, tests, documentation, and refactors, so I can focus on the problem, the integrations, and quality.

What about security and compliance?
We follow your policies. SSO, RBAC, audit logs, data retention, encryption, and change management are standard. I can map controls to SOC 2 or HIPAA where needed.

Will this create vendor lock-in with you?
No. Code and infrastructure live in your organizations. You can run it without me. I am available for enhancements if you want them.

What if we need to scale it later?
Design for today with a clear path to scale, using queues, idempotency, and horizontal slices. We do not gold-plate version one.

Ready To Explore This Path

If another quarter of vendor demos and custom pricing is on your calendar, there is a faster and more controlled option.

Book a 20-minute discovery call. I will scope the job, outline success metrics, and give you an honest build versus buy recommendation, even if the best answer is to buy.