Build vs Buy Analysis
Counts the maintenance decade rather than the build week, which is where build-versus-buy decisions actually go wrong.
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Running it, start to finish
- Decide whether this is core or supporting before costing anything.
- Estimate annual maintenance explicitly, not just the build.
- Compare over three years and check the pricing at future scale.
What you get back
The output this produces, every time.
- Estimates annual maintenance, the number that decides this and is usually absent.
- Checks the buy option's pricing curve at ten times your current volume.
- Surfaces the hybrid — buy the 80%, build around the rest — which is rarely on the list.
Getting better results
Where this usually goes wrong, and how to avoid it.
- Project over three years. A one-year comparison flatters building, because building is front-loaded and maintenance is not yet visible.
- Let reversibility break a tie. Buying then building later is easier than building then migrating, because the bought product forces you to define the interface.
- Answer section 1 honestly. Building your core differentiator can justify real cost. Building commodity infrastructure almost never does.
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Written for The AI University. Every prompt in this library is original work — authored, tested and revised here, not collected from elsewhere. 365 of them, free with an account.