Let’s cut to the chase: I’m the founder of a “By Application” software vendor, and for 7 years, I’ve watched this model blow up—mostly for the better. Back when we started, everyone just bought generic, one-size-fits-all tools, right? You picked a marketing CRM, plugged in your deets, and hoped it stuck. But now? No one wants that. They want software tailored exactly to their niche: a vet clinic doesn’t need the same appointment scheduling as a construction firm, a SaaS startup’s onboarding workflow is nothing like a grocery chain’s inventory tracking. By Application (or “BA” for short) is the fix for that, it’s the whole “build once, adapt for every use case” thing, where we customize our core platform for your needs, not the other way around. But here’s the tea—this model isn’t all rainbows and custom integrations. I’ve spent late nights on support calls, fielding panicked emails from clients who picked us for the flexibility and now are stuck yelling at their screens because they didn’t think through the tradeoffs. Yeah, disadvantages of By Application? I live them every day. Let’s spill. By Application
First up: the biggest one I see day in and day out is that BA’s not cheap. Like, way pricier than generic, off-the-shelf (OTS) tools. Let’s be real—when you pick a $50/month CRM, that’s a flat rate, no surprise add-ons. BA? We don’t slap a number on a cookie cutter. We’re sitting with you for 3 days at kickoff, interviewing your team, mapping out every process, hiring devs to tweak features, testing integrations with your clunky old QuickBooks or that legacy POS you refuse to replace. Last year, I had a small landscaping business client who wanted a custom field for “tree height” in their work order tool. That’s it, right? Nope. It tied into their invoicing, their payroll for their crew, their route-planning app. The final bill? $12k upfront, plus $800/month in maintenance. They called me 2 months later crying, saying it was twice what they budgeted. I get it—small businesses especially have tight cash flow, and BA’s upfront costs aren’t for the faint of heart. OTS starts at $10/month; BA might start at $2k, and that’s before you add anything. It’s not “affordable for most” — it’s for teams that can swing that kind of upfront spend.
Next up: the “customization tax” that never really goes away. I love saying this, but with BA, once you build it, you can’t just flip a switch. When OTS rolls out a new feature? You click “update” and done. With BA? Every new update requires us to tweak your custom build. That means more billable hours, more delays, more “we’ll have it done in 2 weeks” that turns into 6. Last quarter, our product team launched a new security update to patch a vulnerability. For our OTS clients, that was free, automatic. For our BA clients? We had to schedule 3 hours of their time to test the update on their custom modules, plus 5 hours of dev time to make sure their custom fields didn’t break. That’s $1,800 just to apply a security patch. Imagine having to pay to keep your house’s electrical code updated—you don’t want to do it, but you have to. It’s a never-ending bill that OTS users don’t deal with. And it’s not just updates. Want to hire a new employee and add a custom role? That’s more dev time. Want to change a workflow because your business expanded? More hours. The flexibility stops feeling like a win when every small change costs you.
Then there’s the time suck, for both sides. BA isn’t a “sign up and go” kind of thing. OTS takes 10 minutes to set up. BA? We’re talking weeks, sometimes months. The discovery phase alone—where we dig through every nook and cranny of your business—can take 2-3 weeks. I had a tech startup client who wanted to roll out a custom project management tool. They were in a rush to launch their new product, so they pushed us to skip the final testing phase. We said no (bless us), and they got mad. But 3 months later, they called us begging to fix all the broken custom integrations because they’d launched too fast. They lost 2 clients because the tool crashed mid-onboarding. The thing is, your team has to put in work too. You can’t just hand us a list of features and ghost. You have to show up to every call, approve wireframes, test prototypes, answer 100 follow-up questions. A client of mine recently switched from BA to OTS and told me their whole operations team was wasting 5 hours a week just collaborating with us on tweaks—time they’d rather spend on their actual jobs. OTS, they logged in and went, no extra work required. BA requires a lot of hand-holding, and if your team’s already stretched thin, that’s a real strain.
Wait, let’s not sleep on the vendor dependency, either. When you pick BA, you’re not just buying a tool—you’re tying your business to us. Why? Because we built all the custom stuff. If you want to switch to another vendor later, you can’t just export your data and go. You have to rebuild every custom module, every integration, every workflow from scratch. That takes weeks, months, and thousands of dollars. Last year, I had a restaurant client who wanted to switch to a new POS system because they found a cheaper plan. They told me switching would cost them $20k to rebuild their custom loyalty program and table reservation tool. They stayed with us—even though the other vendor was $300 cheaper a month—because switching wasn’t worth the cost. That’s a catch 22: we’re solving their problem, but we’re also locking them in. It’s not malicious, it’s just how custom builds work. But that dependency means if we take too long, or raise our prices, or go out of business (knock on wood), they’re screwed. I’ve had a couple of clients hit that panic button when we had a 2-week dev delay last year—they thought we’d disappear. Yeah, trust is a big factor here, and BA tests that.
Also, let’s talk about the “it’s only flexible if you know what you need” problem. BA sounds perfect, right? “Custom built for your needs!” But a lot of clients come to us saying, “We need a tool for our retail store,” and they have no clue what that actually means. They think, “I want to track sales and inventory,” but they don’t realize they also need it to sync with their e-commerce site, generate specific tax reports for their state, and let part-time staff clock in from the floor. If you don’t outline every single detail, the BA build will end up being “custom” but not actually tailored to the stuff you need. I had a small boutique client last year who built a custom inventory tool with us, but forgot to mention that they sell online and in-store, so their stock levels wouldn’t update across channels. They spent $8k on a tool that only worked for their in-store sales, and they had to pay us another $5k to add that e-commerce sync. That’s the mistake so many people make with BA: they overestimate how much they actually know about their own workflows, and they end up with a tool that’s half-baked, or way more than they need. OTS still has extra features, but at least you know exactly what you’re getting—you don’t have to define every tiny thing upfront.
Wait, before you think I’m just bashing my own business model, let’s be clear: BA isn’t all bad. It’s why we’ve kept 90% of our clients for 3+ years. It’s why that vet clinic we built a tool for now books 30% more appointments because the workflow fits their staff, not a generic clinic template. It’s why that SaaS startup we built a customer onboarding tool for reduced their churn by 20%—it’s exactly what their users wanted. But the disadvantages are real, and no one talks about them enough. Because everyone’s selling BA as the “future of software,” the fix for OTS’s one-size-fits-all garbage. But if you’re a small business owner with a $50k annual tech budget, BA might not make sense. If you’re a startup that needs to launch in 2 months, BA is a no-go. If you hate having ongoing work (and bills) for your software, BA will frustrate you.
Here’s the thing: we’re still a By Application vendor, we still stand by our model, but we’ve learned a ton from the missteps we’ve taken with clients. We now do a full “fit assessment” before anyone signs, to make sure BA is actually the right fit for their business. We give clients a clear breakdown of upfront costs and ongoing maintenance, no hidden fees. We’re building a self-service version of our platform too, for teams that only need small tweaks, to cut down on the dev time. And we’ve started offering “exit planning” for clients who might want to switch vendors later, to make that transition less painful.
At the end of the day, software isn’t one-size-fits-all. OTS works for a lot of people, BA works for others, and there’s a million tools in between. But if you’re considering By Application, don’t just go in thinking it’s the “perfect” solution. Do your research, ask for a full cost breakdown, make sure you know exactly what you need, and be prepared for the work and the bills that come with building something custom.
If you’re curious to chat about whether By Application is right for your team, or want to learn more about how we handle the tradeoffs I mentioned, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’d love to hear what you’re working on, and walk through your specific needs to see if it’s a fit.
Industrial Parts Die Casting Mold References:
- Gartner. (2023). Market Guide for Custom Application Development and Integration Services.
- Statista. (2024). Global Software as a Service (SaaS) Market Size, by Deployment Model.
- McKinsey & Company. (2022). The Hidden Costs of Custom Software: A Survey of Small and Medium Business Tech Purchasers.
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