When not to hire us.
We build custom software and run it for one flat monthly rate. A lot of the time, that’s more than you need. Here’s when to spend your money somewhere else, written by the team that loses the work when you do.
Buy off-the-shelf when a tool already fits.
If a product on the market does what you need, at a price you think is fair, buy it. It’s cheaper to start, it’s ready this week, and someone else keeps it running.
Most businesses should try that first. Custom software earns its keep when you’ve already tried the tools and keep working around them: six buttons you use on a screen with sixty, a renewal that went up while the tool stayed the same.
Your process looks like everyone else’s in your trade
You use most of what the tool offers
The per-seat bill is fine for the size of your team
Hire a bigger firm when you need a big team.
We’re a team of 12. That’s enough to build and run systems like the ones on this site, but it isn’t enough for every job.
If your project needs dozens of engineers working at once, or you plan to hand the finished software to your own IT department and run it yourself, a larger firm that builds and hands off is a better match. Our whole model is that we build it and then we stay to run it.
You need a large team on many parts at the same time
You want a handoff, not a team that stays
You have your own engineers to run it after launch
Keep your spreadsheet when one person owns it.
Spreadsheets are brilliant at quick math, budgets and lists one person looks after. Everyone already knows how to use them.
They stop fitting when several people change the same numbers, when work has steps, owners and deadlines, or when you may have to prove later who changed what. Until then, keep it.
One person owns the file and nobody else touches it
You use it for analysis, not for running daily work
Nobody has asked “which version is the right one?” this month
Use a no-code tool when the job is simple.
If you need a form, a shared list and an email when something changes, a no-code tool can be enough. One team, a few steps, no surprises. Set it up yourself and spend the money elsewhere.
Where it gets hard is exceptions. “Usually we do it this way, except for these three customers” is where most of the time in any software project goes, and where simple tools start to need workarounds.
One team uses it, and the steps rarely change
Your process has few exceptions
It doesn’t need to connect to your accounting system or EMR
What we’re good for instead.
We’re the right call when you’ve outgrown the tools, the spreadsheet has more than one owner, and the work keeps falling between apps. These are systems we built and still run.
Work no tool was built for
A supplier taking orders from 21 hospice accounts, each with its own approved product list.
Paper that should already be data
For home health agencies, a fax becomes a structured referral when it lands. Nobody retypes it.
“Who changed this?”
CRS runs leads, invoices, permits, daily logs and change orders, with a log of who changed what.
A process that lives in someone’s head
A clinical lab’s kiosk now refuses an expired lot. 250 reagents and 177 stock lots carried over from its own records.
Not sure which side you’re on? Start with the five ways a business outgrows its tools, or read when a spreadsheet stops working.
Still not sure? Ask us.
Tell us what’s broken. One of us will reply, and if a tool you can buy today would do the job, we’ll say so. No deposit, no build invoice if we are the right fit. See the price