The budget meeting is a few weeks away, and someone on the board has asked a fair question: what would it cost to own our platform instead of renting all these tools? It deserves an answer you can show your working for.
Most cost comparisons you’ll find, including some we used to publish, pick one platform, assume a price rise, leave out what owning costs after launch, and announce a break-even year. This is the one comparison we stand behind now. It uses the same method as our calculator, so you can take any example here and change it to match your own organization.
You’re comparing a set of tools with one platform
The usual comparison is one subscription against one build. That isn’t the real choice. Most organizations run their community on several tools at once: groups, check-in or attendance, giving, events, volunteers, email, texting, forms, an app. An owned platform replaces the set, so the set is what it should be compared with. We walked through a church’s set in you’re paying for nine platforms.
The method
What renting costs, each year:
- Every subscription, at the vendor’s published price for your size.
- Any platform fee charged on your revenue: a share of memberships, a per-ticket fee. Card processing isn’t counted, because you pay it whatever platform you use.
- Staff time spent moving data between tools, at what that time costs you.
- A price rise, if you have evidence for one. We assume none unless you choose one; your own renewal history is the best evidence.
What owning costs:
- The build, once: $28,000–$38,000 for a Foundation web platform, $45,000–$65,000 for a Community build, $75,000–$110,000 with your own iOS and Android apps.
- Hosting, paid to your own cloud provider: $200–$800 a month depending on size.
- Stewardship, if you want it: $4,800–$18,000 a year. It’s optional.
Where the lines cross. Add up both, year by year. The year the running total for renting passes the running total for owning is your break-even. If it never does within ten years, owning isn’t cheaper for you on cost alone, and it’s better to know that.
Five worked examples
Here is the method applied to an organization of about 1,000 people in each sector, on the most common tool for each job at its published price for that size. Staff time is 4 hours a week (8 for a creator, who usually runs everything by hand) at $25 an hour. The owned side is a Community build at the middle of its range, which covers groups, check-in and attendance, giving, events, volunteers, memberships and courses; the smallest hosting; and no stewardship. Tools a Community build doesn’t replace, such as an email newsletter tool, texting, forms or a donor CRM you keep, are left out of both sides. No price rise is assumed.
| Example | Tools a year | Staff time a year | Break-even | After 5 years | After 10 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Church | $5,244 | $5,200 | Year 7 | Owning $15K more | Owning $25K less |
| Nonprofit | $15,468 | $5,200 | Year 4 | Owning $36K less | Owning $128K less |
| Association | $12,012 | $5,200 | Year 4 | Owning $19K less | Owning $93K less |
| University | $12,648 | $5,200 | Year 4 | Owning $22K less | Owning $99K less |
| Creator | $2,784 | $10,400 | Year 6 | Owning $1K more | Owning $53K less |
What changes the answer
Those examples start from our entry build and the smallest hosting, which is where an organization of that size would start. Change the assumptions and the answer moves, sometimes a long way. Here is the church example again, one change at a time.
| Church example | Break-even | After 10 years |
|---|---|---|
| The example as above | Year 7 | Owning $25K less |
| With no staff time counted | Not in 10 years | Owning $27K more |
| With a Foundation build ($28,000–$38,000), which replaces fewer of the tools | Year 7 | Owning $17K less |
| With the Steward stewardship plan | Not in 10 years | Owning $23K more |
| With the Partner plan and the largest hosting | Not in 10 years | Owning $227K more |
Two things matter most. The first is staff time. The hours spent reconciling separate tools are a real cost that no invoice shows, so count yours carefully rather than taking our 4. The second is what you choose to spend after launch. A larger build or a full stewardship plan can make owning cost more than renting on a pure cost basis, even when it’s the right decision for other reasons.
So owning is often cheaper over a few years, and sometimes it isn’t. The reasons to own that don’t show up in the sum (everyone in one place, knowing where everyone is, and data and code that stay yours) are real, but they should be weighed for what they are, and kept out of the cost figure.
When renting is the right answer
If you have fewer than about 1,000 members, run your community on two or three tools, and nobody spends their week reconciling lists, keep renting. It’s cheaper, it’s faster to start, and the problems a platform of your own solves aren’t problems you have yet.
The signals that it’s time to look at owning:
- You have 1,000+ members, and they're spread across several tools.
- Your team spends time every week moving data between those tools.
- You can’t answer the questions that matter because the answers sit in different systems.
- You want your own app, on code you own.
- Your member data has become too important to keep on someone else’s terms.
- The platform is part of your mission, not just a tool that supports it.
You don’t need all of them. Two or three, together with a cost comparison that holds up, is usually enough to make the conversation worth having.
Making the case to your board
If you’re convinced and someone else holds the budget, bring them the method rather than a conclusion. Show both sides with the same assumptions and your own figures, and the number boards care about most: what you pay each year now, and what you’d pay each year after launch. Then be ready for these.
“It’s too expensive.”
Compare it with what you’d pay for the tools it replaces over the same years, rather than asking whether $45,000–$65,000 sounds like a lot. Run both through the same method, with your own figures, and let the difference answer it.
“We don’t have the budget this year.”
Subscriptions come out of the operating budget every year. A build is a one-time project, and depending on how your organization accounts for it, it may be treated differently from an operating expense; ask your finance team. If a single payment is the obstacle, the investment can also be spread as a monthly commitment that ends with you owning the platform.
“What if it breaks?”
An owned platform needs looking after: security updates, monitoring, fixes. Your team can handle that, or a stewardship plan can, at $4,800–$18,000 a year depending on scope. The risks are different in kind: with ownership they’re operational and in your hands; with rented tools, pricing, features and terms can change without you.
“We’re not a technical organization.”
You don’t need to be. Your team runs the same things it runs today: content, members, events, messages. The technical work sits with whoever looks after the platform, whether that’s your own developer or a stewardship plan.
“Why not just find a cheaper tool?”
Sometimes that’s the right answer. Under about 1,000 members, or on two or three tools, a SaaS product usually is. Put the criteria on the table (size, what you pay, how much time goes on reconciling, how central the community is to your mission) and let them decide.
What to bring into the room:
- What you pay now, per year, for every tool, from your actual invoices.
- A careful count of staff hours spent between those tools each week.
- The year-by-year comparison from the calculator, with your numbers in it.
- The questions you can’t answer today, and what answering them would change.
- A short statement of what member data you hold, where it lives, and what happens to it if a vendor changes its terms.
Run yours
Use your own numbers. A comparison that gives you an answer before it asks for your figures is selling something. The calculator opens on the examples above. Pick your kind of organization, change every row to what you actually pay, set the hours your team really spends, and choose the build and hosting that fit. If the numbers point toward owning, bring them to a call and we’ll check them with you, including whether now is the right time.