I didn’t decide to build software because I wanted to code.
I decided to build because buying had become the bigger risk.
That realization came from a quote that felt less like a price tag and more like a ransom note.
Mid-2025. I needed to digitize the rest of my security operations. I went back to the same vendor who built our payroll system. Their product works. I trusted them.
The quote for the full ERP was simple:
- Upfront: ₹25 Lakhs
- Monthly “Cloud Hosting”: ₹15,000
- Annual Support: ₹3.5 Lakhs (starting year two)
I ran the math. Even if I stretched this over ten years—which is generous for software life cycles—the cost of ownership worked out to roughly ₹70,000 per month.
For a low-margin manpower business, that isn’t a petty cash item. It’s a permanent fixed cost.
But the number wasn’t the stop signal.
The Hidden Tax: Being the Guinea Pig
During the sales call, I asked a simple due-diligence question:
“How many others are using your full ERP suite?”
There was a pause. Then the answer:
“Most customers only use the payroll module. Very few buy the full ERP.”
That changed the nature of the deal. Their payroll software has 500+ paying customers. It is battle-tested. However, their ERP is a ghost town.
If I bought this system, I wouldn’t just be a customer. I would be a beta tester—paying enterprise prices to find edge cases no one else had stress-tested. That is not a partnership. That is subsidized product development.
The Lock-In Math Nobody Shows You
Then I looked at the trend line. When we first bought the payroll software, the annual support fee was ₹15,000. Today, it is ₹35,0005.
Nothing fundamental changed in the software. Their leverage did.
Once employee records, tax history, and compliance data are locked into a system, leaving is painful. Vendors understand this. Pricing follows power.
If I moved all operations—attendance, shifts, invoicing, client data—into their ERP, that leverage multiplies by 10x.
- What stops the ₹3.5 Lakh support fee from becoming ₹5 Lakhs in 2027?
- What stops the hosting charges from creeping up?
Nothing. At that point, it was clear: I wasn’t buying software. I was trading control for convenience.
When the Equation Changed
A few years ago, building custom software, would have been financially irresponsible for small companies such as mine. It would have required an agency or a full-time CTO, both risky bets.
However by end of 2022, the equation shifted. AI had made coding possible for anyone and everyone. I had already built internal tools and coded my entire company website using AI. Coding was no longer the barrier. Time was.
I estimated I could build what I needed over 4–7 months, using:
- AI Coding Tools: Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Cursor, Codex and many more
- Infrastructure: Low, predictable costs (₹4,000/mo cap)
- Feedback Loop: Direct input from the people actually using the system.
That didn’t make building easy. It made it possible.
The Actual Decision
Buying software hides risk:
- Future price hikes.
- Dependency on roadmaps you don’t control.
- Being a small account inside a large vendor’s database.
Building introduces risk. Despite the hype, AI is not a magic wand. It introduces:
- Bugs.
- Security risks.
- Maintenance overhead.
- Personal time cost.
But there is a difference that matters.
When you build, you own the failure modes.When you buy, you inherit someone else’s incentives. If a system I build breaks, I fix it.If a vendor system breaks, I wait.
In my business, waiting is the bigger risk. So I chose to own it.