The category nobody names
There's a buying mode most people don't know exists. Between "build it yourself with an in-house dev team" and "rent a SaaS product off the shelf," there's a third option: custom-built software that someone else runs for you, on a monthly bill. No contract dev team to manage. No SaaS product to adapt around. Just the tool your business actually needs, as a predictable line item.
We don't have a great name for this yet. "Managed custom software" is accurate and boring. "Dev shop with hosting" is accurate and makes it sound like 2008. The practical way to describe it: you buy the software we write for you, plus the servers it runs on, plus someone to keep the lights on.
What's actually included in the $2,000/month managed-hosting fee?
When I quote a client a first build at $15–40K and then $2K/mo ongoing, the $2K covers specifically (this lines up one-for-one with our FAQ on what's included in the monthly fee):
- Hosting. The servers, databases, domain, SSL, CDN, file storage. Your app runs on our infrastructure — comparable to what you'd otherwise pay separately for AWS Managed Services or DigitalOcean App Platform plus a contractor.
- Uptime monitoring. If the app goes down at 2 AM, someone gets paged. Usually me.
- Backups. Database snapshots every 6 hours, retained 30 days. Offsite. Restorable.
- Security patches. PHP updates, dependency updates, SSL renewals — invisible to you.
- Minor changes. "Add a column to that report, change that dropdown, rename that field." If it's 30 minutes, it's in the month. Larger changes are quoted as a mini-build.
- Support. Email, text, occasional phone. Same-day response on business days, usually within a few hours.
What it's not
It's not a subscription to a product. You're not one of 10,000 customers on a roadmap. The software is yours. If I quit, get hit by a bus, or take a sabbatical, you leave with the full source code, database, and a written migration plan. The door is always unlocked.
It's also not a retainer for a development team. You're not paying me to build indefinitely. The $2K is specifically for running what's already built. If you want new features, we scope those separately and you decide.
How does the math compare to SaaS or a full-time dev?
Compared to the alternatives, for a shop doing $1–10M in revenue (we go deeper on this in our SaaS-vs-custom decision framework):
- vs. SaaS: You'll pay more upfront ($15–40K build vs. $0) but save on licensing ($2K/mo flat vs. $200–500/user/mo that scales with headcount). For per-user benchmarks see Capterra's construction-management category. The real win is the software fits your workflow instead of the other way around.
- vs. Hiring a developer: Way cheaper. A mid-level developer in Texas is $90–120K fully loaded per the BLS national occupation tables for software developers, and you're paying them whether there's work to do or not. $2K/mo = $24K/yr for a running system with on-call support.
- vs. Freelancer + managed hosting separately: Comparable cost, less coordination overhead. The freelancer who built it is the same person who hosts it and picks up the phone when it breaks.
When this model is right
It works when you have one of these three situations:
- Weird workflow that SaaS can't match. Construction AP with job-cost splits. Subcontractor portals with lien waivers. Any ops process where "we almost fit that product but have this one thing we really need" is costing you real money.
- Existing tool that's holding you back. An old Access database, a sprawling Excel file, a legacy vendor system the company still relies on but nobody maintains.
- Integration glue. You use QuickBooks and three other tools, and the glue between them is humans re-keying data. A small custom app can collapse that into automation.
When it's wrong
Don't hire a custom-build studio if:
- Your workflow actually fits a SaaS tool. Use the SaaS. Life is short.
- You don't have $15K. Build a minimum viable spreadsheet and come back when volume justifies the spend.
- You want a vendor you can yell at. Single-principal shops work hard to avoid giving you reason to, but the relationship is more intimate than a 1-800 number.
This model fills a gap that the software industry leaves wide open: the "my business is too weird for SaaS but not big enough for an engineering team" middle. For a real example of a shop that landed there, see how we built and now host WorkForce XL for RLS Construction, LLC. If that sounds like your situation, book a 20-minute intro and we'll figure out if it's a fit. If it isn't, I'll tell you — and usually point you at a SaaS product that is.
Written by Shawn Stevens, Founder & Principal Engineer at Solvyr. If you want the studio to build the version of this you actually need, book a 20-minute fit call.