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Advisory Decision Matrix

Build vs. Buy vs. Inference Advisory Engine

Your SaaS vendor charges per seat, per month, forever. Model the 3-year total cost of keeping that subscription vs. building organization-owned code — across 7 verticals.

Dedicated Stack Planner
Common SaaS: Salesforce, HubSpot Pro, Attio•Organization-Owned Path: Custom Postgres DB + Next.js Portal + Webhooks

Commercial & Workflow Parameters

Interactive Model
Total User Seats (1–250):25 Seats
1 seat (Single User)50 seats250 seats
SaaS Quoted Price ($/seat/month):$95/mo
$15/mo$150/mo$300/mo
SaaS Implementation & Setup Fee:
$15,000
$0 (Self-serve)$15k (Mid-market)$50k (Enterprise)
Total SaaS Vendor Spend:$2,375 / month
$28,500/ year
Projected SaaS Price Creep (5% Annual Escalation):Year 1: $95/seat → Year 2: $100/seat → Year 3: $105/seat
+10.3%Year-3 rate increase vs. Year 1 (5%/yr compounding)
Monthly Document / Task Volume:
25,000 tasks/mo
1k tasks100k tasks200k tasks
Unstructured / Ambiguity %:
35% Unstructured
0% (Pure Rules)50% (Mixed Workload)100% (Natural Lang)
Upfront Custom Software Build:
$47,000
$15kDynamic Formula Active$150k
Annual Infrastructure Hosting:$1,800/yr
$600/yr (Shared VPS)$3,600/yr (Cloud PaaS)$12k/yr (Dedicated)
Tier-1 Retained Core SaaS:$0 (Complete Replacement)
$0 (Full Decouple)$15k/yr (Base ERP/CRM)$30k/yr (Multi-Platform)
Annual Discount Rate (for NPV):8.0%
0% (undiscounted)8% (base case)20% (high hurdle)
Advisory Recommendation

Hybrid Architecture: Organization-Owned Core + Targeted AI Routing

3-Year NPV Savings vs. SaaS
+$14,972
vs. SaaS NPV of $95,532

Deploy organization-owned deterministic rules for 65% of structured transactions, reserving targeted model-assisted inference for the remaining 35% unstructured ambiguity.

Commercial SaaS NPV$95,532
Hybrid NPV$80,560
Organization-Owned NPV$71,200
NPV Savings vs. Pure AI+$53,390
Lowest-NPV eligible architecture: Hybrid Architecture: Organization-Owned Core + Targeted AI Routing ($80,560)
Screened out by suitability (not by cost): Organization-Owned Software: Workflow contains 35% unstructured ambiguity, exceeding the 25% threshold for pure deterministic logic.

Strategic Decision Rationale

  • Permanent source-code ownership eliminates compounding 5% annual SaaS renewal price hikes.
  • Derives 65% of operations from deterministic code, minimizing non-deterministic hallucinations.
  • Fractional stewardship/maintenance of 15% ($7,050/yr) + $1,800/yr hosting ensures active oversight.

Key Risks & Model Assumptions

  • Internal code maintenance required: models 15% ongoing fractional stewardship, never $0 ongoing operational cost.
  • Edge model hosting must be monitored for token rate limit throttling during peak volume surges.
Context & Governance Layer · $50k ACV Market Boundary

Enterprise Catalog Disqualification & Turnkey Context Core

Sub-250 Seats: Boundary Enforced
Disqualified Heavyweight Catalogs (<250 Seats / <$25M Budget)

Heavyweight enterprise catalogs are disqualified for mid-market and SMB organizations due to prohibitive seat floors and full-time platform engineering overhead.

Atlan$50k+ ACV floor (min 50 data seats)
FTE Overhead: 1–2 Full-Time Data Engineers
Prohibitive contract minimums and catalog maintenance overhead for sub-250 seat organizations.
Snowflake Cortex$40k-$75k consumption commit
FTE Overhead: Dedicated Snowflake Platform Admin
Requires enterprise warehouse migration, credit floors, and continuous cloud lock-in.
Glean$35-$50/seat/mo ($60k ACV floor)
FTE Overhead: IT Systems Integration Lead
High enterprise seat floor with continuous license drag on operational budgets.
Recommended: Turnkey Fulcrum Context Core

Deploy lightweight organization-owned semantic layer alongside the client's existing workspace UI with zero per-seat tax.

Recommended Pragmatic Stack:Git + SQLite + DuckDB + FastMCP Streamable HTTP + LiteLLM
Deployment Model:Alongside existing workspace UI
Zero seat tax, sub-second deterministic metric execution, version-controlled markdown glossary, and Cloudflare Workers edge compatibility.
Architecture & Scoping Layer

5-Domain Functional Platform Connection Matrix

Pre-configured integration patterns, auth controls, semantic gotcha protections, and Stage 0–2 SOW pricing.

Pattern: Webhook + Nightly Parquet + FastMCP
RevOps & CRM Functional MatrixHubSpot ⟷ QuickBooks Online
Supported Platforms: HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Close, QuickBooks Online
Connection Pattern

Webhook + Nightly Parquet Sync + MCP execute_metric_query

Auth & Security Control

Scoped OAuth2 / token rotation schedule (e.g., QBO 101-day token refresh alert & HubSpot private app token rotation)

Semantic Gotcha Prevented

Deal-to-Ledger grain divergence: Prevents CRM sales pipeline booking date and deal amounts from corrupting GAAP revenue recognition schedules.

FastMCP Metric Tool Callexecute_metric_query(metric_id='active_customer_count', dimensions=['tier'], as_of_date='2026-10-31')
Stage 0–2 SOW Implementation Pricing Estimate:
Stage 0Stage 0 Definition Sprint ($6k–$14k)Entity mapping, conflict ledger, and data contracts
Stage 1Stage 1 Registry Build & MCP Serving ($18k–$40k)Context Core registry build & FastMCP gateway
Stage 2Stage 2 Fractional Stewardship ($2.5k–$5.5k/mo)Ongoing schema drift CI & registry maintenance

Annual Cash Outlay (Y1–Y3) & 3-Year Discounted NPV (@ 8%)

Year 1–3 series are undiscounted annual cash outlay; the 3-Year NPV series is discounted

Detailed Architecture Cost Matrix

ArchitectureYear 1Year 2Year 33-Yr NPVΔ NPV vs. SaaSSuitability
Commercial SaaS Subscription$43,500$29,925$31,421$95,532$0Eligible
Organization-Owned Software (Custom Rules)$55,850$8,850$8,850$71,200+$24,332Screened out (>25% unstructured)
Pure AI / LLM Pipeline$52,000$52,000$52,000$133,950-$38,418Eligible
Hybrid Architecture (Deterministic Core + Inference)$59,350$12,350$12,350$80,560+$14,972Eligible

Workload routing split: 65% Deterministic Rules / 35% Model Inference (derived from the 35% unstructured input). Recommendation = lowest 3-year NPV among architectures eligible for this workload.