Most associations start with subscription software, and that is usually the right start: a tool for members, one for forms, perhaps a third for courses. A few years later the bill has grown with every new member, the tools do not talk to each other, and someone spends evenings copying data between them. At that point the question comes up: should we build our own portal?
The honest answer depends on numbers, not on preference. Here is the five-year model we walk through with organizations before anything is built.
What SaaS really costs
The subscription price is only the visible part. Over five years, these lines belong in the calculation:
- Fees that grow with membership: per-member pricing or tiers that jump at the next threshold.
- Modules sold separately: courses, events, voting, donations, an extra language.
- Price increases, which are common over a five-year horizon.
- Several tools at once — and their subscriptions add up.
- Manual work between the tools: exports, imports, reconciling payments, answering the same questions by hand.
- The exit: what it takes to get your data out, complete and usable, when you leave.
What your own portal really costs
Building your own has its own list, and it deserves the same honesty:
- The build, ideally in fixed-price phases so that each phase is useful on its own.
- Hosting on managed infrastructure — for a typical association usually a small monthly amount.
- Maintenance: updates, security patches, monitoring and backups, best budgeted as a yearly amount.
- New features over time, decided when they are needed rather than bought in advance.
- Responsibility: someone has to own the system, and its documentation has to be good enough for someone else to take over.
A worked example
The example below uses relative values instead of prices: the build of your own portal counts as 100, and everything else is measured against it. The assumptions are illustrative for a mid-sized association, not quotes. Replace them with your own; the structure of the calculation is what matters.
- Members: 600 in year one, growing by 15 % a year to about 1,050 in year five.
- SaaS: per-member pricing across all tools — 36 in year one, rising with membership to about 63 in year five.
- Manual work around the tools: about 8 a year.
- Own portal: 100 for the build, 3 a year for hosting, 10 a year for maintenance from year two; manual work largely automated away.
Over five years the subscription route adds up to about 285, the own portal to 155 — a little more than half. The lines cross during year three: until then SaaS is cheaper, after that every year widens the gap. With fewer members, slower growth or simpler needs, the crossing point moves later — sometimes beyond five years.
When SaaS is the better choice
A fair comparison has to say this clearly. Subscription software usually wins when an association is small, its needs are standard, nobody is available to take ownership of a system, or the organization itself is still finding its shape. A custom portal for 80 members and one annual fee is rarely worth it.
When your own portal pays off
- Membership grows, and per-member fees grow with it.
- Several tools are in use, and staff time disappears into the gaps between them.
- Processes are specific: board resolutions, research data, course academies, multilingual communities.
- Member data is sensitive and should stay on infrastructure the organization controls.
The Verein für holistische Gesundheit is an example of the last group. Three separate SaaS tools were replaced by one portal with 22 member areas. Payments, reminders and deadlines now run through 15 automated workflows inside that one system instead of across three — all on infrastructure the association owns.
Checklist for your own calculation
- 1.List every tool you pay for today, with its pricing model.
- 2.Project your membership over five years and apply each pricing model to it.
- 3.Estimate the hours spent moving data between tools, and price them honestly.
- 4.Ask what leaving would cost: format, completeness and effort of the data export.
- 5.Get a phased, fixed-price estimate for your own portal, plus hosting and maintenance.
- 6.Compare the five-year totals, find the crossing point — and decide with the numbers in front of you.