Calculator · Rent against an owned system
What your subscription costs in five years
and when an owned system becomes cheaper.
A subscription costs at least as much in year five as in year one. An owned system costs development once and then server and maintenance. Which is cheaper depends on term, user count and price trend. Here you run that with your own numbers, every assumption sits next to the input and can be changed.
- No invented vendor prices, you enter what you pay
- Price increases, maintenance and hosting are included
- Nothing is stored, the link only carries your numbers
Year by year
The same calculation broken down. Rent rises with the price increase, the owned system carries development in the first year.
| Year | Rent in the year | Rent cumulative | Owned system in the year | Owned system cumulative | Difference cumulative |
|---|
Limits of the model
What the calculator deliberately leaves out.
The calculation is a model, not a quote. It should show you the order of magnitude before you talk to anyone. These points belong in the decision but are not in the table.
Not included
- Internal working time on both sides: administering the subscription as much as running the owned system.
- Migration, training and the weeks in which both run in parallel.
- Discounts, annual prepayment, enterprise and partner terms of the vendor.
- Accounting: development cost can be capitalised depending on the standard (IAS 38), rent is an operating expense. That is a question for your accountants.
- The risk that a vendor discontinues the product or changes the pricing model. How often that happens is documented in the SaaS graveyard.
When renting stays the right choice
- For accounting, email or CRM, software everyone uses the same way. Nobody sensibly builds that.
- With few users and small volume. The seat fee only hurts from a certain team size.
- When the horizon is under two years or the project is not settled yet.
- When nobody wants to run the system and maintenance would have to be bought in entirely.
Worked examples
Six scenarios with sourced list prices.
Each example has its own comparison page with source, price date and every assumption. Here the short version over three years, without price increases, with hosting at EUR 60 per month.
-
Tableau, small team
Small team: 2 Creator, 8 Explorer, Tableau Cloud Standard, 3 years
- Rent
- US$17,496
- Owned system
- €14,160
- Break-even
- 29 months
-
Tableau, wider rollout
Wider rollout: 3 Creator, 10 Explorer, 50 Viewer, Tableau Cloud Standard, 3 years
- Rent
- US$50,220
- Owned system
- €26,160
- Break-even
- 18 months
-
Retool, small team
Small team: 3 builders, 15 internal users, Retool Business, 3 years
- Rent
- €12,528
- Owned system
- €14,160
- Break-even
- 42 months
-
Segment, smaller product
Smaller product: 25,000 monthly tracked users, Segment Team, 3 years
- Rent
- US$10,800
- Owned system
- €20,160
- Break-even
- 75 months
-
HubSpot, 12,000 contacts
12,000 marketing contacts, Marketing Hub Pro and Data Hub Pro, 3 years
- Rent
- US$75,720
- Owned system
- €32,160
- Break-even
- 16 months
-
Webflow, marketing team
Company site with a marketing team, 5 years
- Rent
- US$12,720
- Owned system
- €8,600
- Break-even
- 40 months
Common questions about the calculator
Why do you count maintenance if the system belongs to us?
Because software does not stand still without care. Dependencies get security updates, interfaces change, small requests come in. Ignoring that flatters the owned system. The rule of thumb of 15 percent of the build sum per year is an assumption you can adjust.
Where does the seven percent price increase come from?
It is an assumption, not a statistic. Vendors raise list prices regularly, often at the end of the first contract term. If your contract fixes the price, enter zero. If you know the last increases, enter those.
How do you arrive at the build sum for the owned system?
In the calculator you enter it yourself. The examples take the build sums from our comparison pages, where we disclose them with every assumption. For your project we quote a fixed price after a technical assessment, before the project starts.
Do you store my inputs?
No. The calculation runs entirely in your browser. The share link carries your numbers as part of the address, nothing else. If you want to send us the calculation, copy the summary into an email.
Next step
The order of magnitude fits? Then let us talk about the scope.
We look at what is there and tell you whether an owned system pays off or a finished product remains the better answer.