Quick answer: A per-user SaaS plan is usually cheaper in year one. An owned system costs more upfront but carries no per-seat fees and no annual price increases, so it can break even within a few years, especially for larger teams or longer horizons. This calculator runs both paths on your own numbers and shows the exact break-even year.
Pick a published plan or enter your own, set a team size and a price-increase assumption, and compare it against a one-time owned build with a flat monthly care plan.
| Year | SaaS cumulative | Owned cumulative | Cheaper path |
|---|
Presets are list prices as published on the vendors' own pricing pages on 8 Oct 2026. Add-ons, overages, setup fees and tax are excluded, and vendors can change pricing at any time. This is a planning estimate, not a quote.
Two running totals, year by year, using the numbers you entered above.
Each year's price is last year's price multiplied by (1 + your annual increase %). In per-user mode that price is multiplied by your team size, then by 12 months, and added to the running total.
Year one is the one-time build cost plus 12 months of the care plan. Every later year adds another 12 months of care at the same flat rate, because an owned system has no per-seat fee and no vendor price increase to compound.
The first year where the owned cumulative total is equal to or lower than the SaaS cumulative total. Small teams on cheap per-seat plans may never cross that line within 5 years, and that is a true result, not a sales pitch.
A subscription is usually the right call when your team is small or your process is standard. Ownership tends to win as headcount, years or vendor price increases grow.
| Factor | Favors SaaS | Favors owned |
|---|---|---|
| Team size | Small crews, fewer than 5 to 10 seats | Larger crews where per-seat fees add up |
| Price stability | Vendor rarely raises prices | Vendor raises per-seat price most years |
| Time horizon | Short-term or seasonal need | Multi-year, ongoing operation |
| Workflow fit | Standard, off-the-shelf process | Multi-location, multi-day or custom quoting workflow the platform fights |
| Data ownership | Comfortable with data inside the vendor's product | Wants the schedule, job and billing data in one system it owns |
Each preset is the published list price on that vendor's own pricing page as of 8 Oct 2026: Jobber Core, Housecall Pro Basic, Service Fusion Starter and Kickserv Start. ServiceTitan has no published price, so there is no preset for it; enter the quote you received instead.
No. It compares the base monthly plan price against a one-time build cost and a flat care plan. Real bills often include onboarding fees, SMS or payment add-ons, and tax, so treat the result as a planning estimate rather than an exact quote.
That is a real outcome for a small team on a cheap plan with little or no price increase: the subscription can stay cheaper than an owned build for years. Try a larger team, a longer horizon or a higher assumed price increase to see how the line moves.
Yes. The math only needs a monthly price, a team size or flat fee, an assumed annual increase, a build cost and a care cost, so it works for CRM, scheduling or portal software too. Use the custom option and enter your own numbers.
If the numbers above point toward ownership, or your workflow does not fit a per-seat platform well, a custom field service system is one way to get there: no per-seat fees, your own data, built around how your crews already work. Brixx Digital builds these systems; that is us.
