Twelve SaaS tools, none talking. Internal tools your ops team will actually use.
Twelve SaaS subscriptions, none of them sharing data. Your team copy-pastes between four tabs to close out a workflow that should run end-to-end. EUR 3-5k a month on tools that half-fit, renewals creeping up, and finance never sees a clean view of total cost. The lever is not a thirteenth tool. It is a custom module that consolidates the pieces that should never have been separate.
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Your SaaS stack is expensive, and it does not fit your operation
Tool fragmentation
More than twelve SaaS subscriptions inside a single ops team: CRM, project management, knowledge base, pricing spreadsheets, HR tracking, reporting, file storage, plus three more your finance team does not even know about. No shared source of truth. Your operators spend their day re-typing the same record from one tab to another, and the numbers diverge as they go. The real work happens in the seams between tools, not in any single one of them.
Compounding burn
EUR 3-5k a month on tools that half-fit, plus renewals that creep up year after year without a real arbitration. When the CFO asks for a consolidated SaaS line, nobody has the real view: it takes fifteen minutes just to count subscriptions, longer to guess what each one is doing for the business. For teams stepping into editorial intelligence or AI that works in production, that hidden cost already funds the first version of the module that replaces it.
Shadow IT and process drift
According to Retool, more than 60% of companies already have software built outside of IT oversight: Airtable bases nobody owns, Google Apps Scripts living on one person's laptop, Zapier flows nobody audits. Your real workflow does not match what any vendor sells, because it is the result of fifteen successive workarounds. Without a custom business tool codifying it, the drift continues every quarter.
From fragmented stack to consolidating module
Map your real workflow
I sit with your ops team and walk every step of how they actually work: who opens what, when, to produce which outcome. We log the copy-paste hops, the manual exports, the month-end reconciliations. We take a full SaaS inventory — every subscription, every owner, every monthly bill. Not a slide deck — a measurable artefact your finance team can sign off on.
Identify the consolidation seams
Not every tool deserves to be replaced. Some do their job correctly and cost little; others cover 30% of the requirement and bill per seat. I separate the two and propose a consolidation plan with priority order: which modules to build first, which SaaS to keep, which SaaS to cancel as soon as the first module ships. Decisions are based on cost burn, friction score, and integration debt — not gut feel.
Build the consolidating module(s)
I build the first module on Next.js, TypeScript and PostgreSQL, with SSO, multi-level RBAC, and audit trails as standard rather than add-ons. Not low-code that will need rewriting in two years. Not a fragile MVP. A production-ready module that concretely replaces N of the SaaS tools on its first day in service. You see working features weekly.
Iterate quarterly
Once the first module is in service, we measure adoption, hours saved per operation, and SaaS spend actually cut. The following quarters add the modules with the strongest ROI, not against a vendor roadmap but against what your ops team observes on the ground. You hold the keys: the code, the priorities, and the pace.
What this looks like in production
On a multi-module business platform in production, six modules absorbed a dozen SaaS subscriptions: financial modelling, design collaboration, content management, knowledge base, file storage, and investor reporting. One login, one shared data model. Manual exports disappear; the consolidated SaaS line is a single number a CFO can read at a glance.
Forty tables modelled around the actual business, not generic CRUD. Multi-channel profitability models, partnership capital allocation, design variants, granular permission tracking. Financial modelling finally sits on real code, not on spreadsheet formulas only one person can read.
850+ TypeScript files, 1,500+ tests, deployed on Docker behind Keycloak SSO. Production-ready software, not low-code with a shelf life. You own the code, the schema and the infrastructure; no vendor can pull access or hike the subscription 30% at renewal.
A dozen SaaS, one system
- 6 integrated modules replacing 12+ SaaS tools, consolidated under one auth and one shared data model
- Financial modelling on real business logic, not a glorified spreadsheet: 50+ KPIs, multi-currency, channel allocation, partnership ROI
- Multi-level permissions, threaded collaboration, audit trails, role-based access: the governance layer no SaaS pile-up gives you natively
Two services, one module that holds
Custom business tools
The full-stack custom build that replaces your SaaS stack: Next.js, PostgreSQL, TypeScript, SSO, RBAC, audit trails. Production-ready, not an MVP that needs rewriting in two years.
Financial modelling tools
When the build-vs-buy maths hits the CFO's desk, this is what we model: three-year SaaS total cost, build ROI, quarter-by-quarter switchover plan.
Common questions
How do I know which SaaS tools are worth replacing first?
Three criteria, in this order: monthly cost x functional gap x daily friction. A SaaS tool that costs EUR 200 a month and nobody likes using weighs less than an EUR 80-per-seat tool your team works around for twenty minutes a day. During the mapping phase, every tool gets a friction score and a replacement-ROI ranking. The first module I build always targets the seam where consolidation frees the most time in production, not the most expensive SaaS in absolute terms. To dig into the method and the financial side, see financial modelling tools.
What's the typical timeline from "we need this" to "module shipped"?
For a focused module replacing two or three SaaS tools, expect eight to twelve weeks from mapping to deployment. For a multi-module platform like the reference business platform, four to six months for the first usable version, then quarterly iterations. You see working features weekly, not a six-month black box. The trigger is always the same: from week two, your ops team is testing part of the module on real data, not a wireframe. Discovery, build and rollout overlap deliberately so adoption starts before the final ship date, and your CFO sees SaaS lines drop in the same quarter the module goes live.
Won't a custom tool become its own maintenance burden?
Not if you build it on industry-standard foundations. Next.js, TypeScript, PostgreSQL and Docker are pillars any senior engineer can maintain, not a proprietary framework only one vendor knows. The code is documented, tested (1,500+ tests on the reference business platform), and follows community conventions. You can hand the next chapter to your in-house team, another freelancer, or keep going with me: the choice stays with you, unlike a SaaS subscription where the vendor decides on your behalf. The same logic applies to any custom business tool.
What about SSO, permissions, and audit logs?
On governance, custom quickly outpaces stacked SaaS, because there is a single source of truth. SSO via Keycloak or any OIDC-compatible provider on day one. Multi-level RBAC modelled on the data layer, not patched in afterwards. Audit trails at the database level, with every action logged against user, timestamp and context: useful for internal reviews and for regulatory obligations alike. SCIM provisioning, session management and field-level access controls are standard, not premium add-ons billed per seat. For organisations anticipating AI-specific requirements, see EU AI Act compliance.
How does pricing compare to renewing all the SaaS subscriptions?
Compare the two curves. Twelve subscriptions averaging EUR 200-500 a month run EUR 30-60k per year, repeating indefinitely and creeping up at every renewal. The consolidating module, on the other side, builds in eight to sixteen weeks depending on scope, pays back in twelve to eighteen months for most operations, and keeps serving you long after, without a monthly invoice. You stop funding twelve vendors' roadmaps; you fund yours. The same economics apply to custom business tools across the board.
Your ops team doesn't need a thirteenth SaaS. It needs tools that fit how they actually work.
Lay your current stack on the table. We'll count the subscriptions, score the friction tool by tool, and pick the first module worth building to hand your operators their hours back.
30-min call. No commitment. Reply within 24h.