Finance and treasury teams often face a tough decision: should we build an in-house reconciliation system or adopt a specialized SaaS platform? While building seems attractive at first, the hidden costs and inefficiencies often outweigh the perceived control.
• Development Costs: Building requires a team of engineers for 3–6 months, plus integrations. For example, 4 engineers × $2,000/month × 6 months = $48,000 just for version 1
• Maintenance & Updates: Beyond launch, ongoing updates, bug fixes, and integrations with new payment methods, file formats & business rules changes demand continuous engineering resources
• Hidden Costs: Delays, opportunity cost, risk of errors, and diverting focus from core business add up quickly
• Opportunity Cost - Every engineer tweaking reconciliation logic for new payment methods is one less engineer building customer-facing innovation
• Competitive edge: While the team is busy reinventing the wheel, competitors adopting proven SaaS solutions are moving faster, scaling better, and serving customers more efficiently.
Choosing a SaaS reconciliation platform changes the economics entirely.
Cost of SaaS
• Predictable Subscription: Tiered pricing by transaction volume keeps costs manageable.
• Instant Upgrades: Compliance, features, and integrations are always up-to-date.
• Specialization: A provider whose entire business is reconciliation ensures expertise and reliability
Aspect | Buil In-House | Saas Platform
Upfront Cost | $48,000+ (V1) | None
Ongoing Cost | $1,500+/month maintenance | $1,500 – $3,000/month
Time-to-Value | 6+ months | 2 – 4 weeks
Risk | Delays, compliance gaps, errors | Low – handled by provider
Opportunity cost | New features that could have brought in more revenue | None
• Faster time-to-value – start reconciling in weeks, not months.
• Reduced risk – compliance, accuracy, and audit-readiness are built-in.
• Focus on core business – let engineers build products for customers, not internal tools.
In the build vs. buy debate, the real winner is the team that scales efficiently, reduces risk, and frees up resources to focus on growth.
