The short answer
Buy software for the work every company does the same way: accounting, email, payroll, video calls. Build only where your process is different from everyone else's, or where your bought tools do not talk to each other. For most companies with 10 to 100 people, the right answer is neither “all custom” nor “all SaaS”, but a third option: keep the tools you have and build the layer between them.
The classic build-vs-buy debate assumes one big decision: one system, bought or built. In a real company the decision is made fifty times, once for every gap between tools. Here is how we think about it, after mapping processes in companies that had tried both.
When should you buy?
Buy when the process is standard and the tool is good at it. Nobody wins customers with a better general ledger. Accounting software, email, calendars and document storage are cheaper, safer and better maintained than anything you could build for the same money.
Buy, but buy small. In the Standish Group's research, only about 20% of software features are used often and half are hardly ever used. A large suite bought for its long feature list mostly buys features nobody opens. Choose the tool that does the core job well, and check how open its API is before you sign.
What does buying really cost?
The licence is the visible cost. The invisible one is the work between the tools: retyping orders from email into the ERP, exporting a spreadsheet to build the weekly report, checking three systems to answer one customer.
It adds up. Harvard Business Review found that workers switch between applications about 1,200 times a day and lose just under four hours a week reorienting, roughly 9% of their working time. In MuleSoft's 2025 benchmark of large organisations, only 29% of applications were integrated and 90% of IT leaders reported obstacles caused by data silos. Small companies have fewer tools, but the same problem: every new subscription adds one more place where data has to be copied by hand.
“Most companies don't need another tool. They need the part between the ones they have.”Arturs, Visualwise
When should you build?
Build when one of three things is true. The process is how you compete (the way you quote, schedule or serve customers is better than the template a tool forces on you). The work sits between systems and no tool covers it. Or the off-the-shelf option needs so much customisation that you pay a consultant every month to keep it bent into shape.
Building does not have to mean building everything. The most useful custom software we see is small: an integration that moves orders from email to accounting, an internal tool that replaces a shared spreadsheet, a dashboard that reads live numbers from three systems. Each piece connects tools you already pay for instead of replacing them.
What about ownership and risk?
The fair worry about custom software is dependence: what if the developer disappears? Three rules remove most of that risk. The code goes into a repository in your company's name, not the developer's. The data stays in your systems or in an account you own. And every piece is documented well enough that another team could take it over.
Bought software has its own dependence: price increases, features removed, and an export button that never quite exports everything. Neither path is risk-free. The question is which risk you control.
Why the question is different in Latvia
In 2025, 36% of Latvian companies with ten or more employees used business software such as ERP, CRM or business intelligence, against 53% across the EU (Eurostat). Among companies with 10 to 49 employees it was 30%. Many Latvian teams are not replacing a system. They are choosing their first one.
That is an advantage. You can pick tools that connect well from the start, instead of untangling ten years of workarounds later.
A simple way to decide
Map the process first, then decide piece by piece. For each step, find the row that fits.
If you are not sure what that map looks like, How to map a business process shows the method in five steps, and How much does custom software cost? puts numbers on the build side.
