The "SaaS tax"
In money. You pay full price for software you use 60% of. The other 40% gets absorbed by spreadsheets and workarounds.
In workarounds. Senior people doing junior work because the tool can't model what actually happens. None of it shows up on an invoice.
In time. Onboarding doubles because new hires learn the tool and the workarounds. Data lives in three places, so decisions wait.
Most companies absorb all three quietly. Eventually one gets too expensive to ignore.
Why now
Custom software used to mean six-figure budgets and 12-month timelines. That kept it locked to enterprises, while everyone else had to go with SaaS.
AI moved that math. The systems we used to reserve for enterprises now work for mid-market operations and small businesses with clear processes.
What we build
Who this is for
Companies whose work doesn't fit any SaaS. Compliance edges, hybrid workflows, industry-specific operations, etc.
Operations teams drowning in workarounds, spreadsheets and manual processes.
Mid-market organizations spending €10k+/year on SaaS that covers less than 70% of their needs.
Smaller companies who couldn't afford custom three years ago and can now. The minimum viable project size moved.
What this looks like in practice
Dr.Max didn't come to us with a SaaS to replace. They came with a process the market hadn't built a tool for. Every month, two people spent three days producing the marketing leaflet: exporting product data from the sales team's tool, dropping it into spreadsheets, chasing external vendors and designers by email, reconciling versions, then doing it all again 30 days later. Six person-days of manual coordination, every month, on a workflow nobody had thought of as "a system."
So we built one. They hadn't come looking for custom software, just for someone who could help with a process that hurt. Three years ago, building bespoke software for a single internal workflow would have been an absurd answer at the budget and timeline they had. AI moved both. We delivered the system in under two months.
Not every custom build replaces an existing tool. Some of them replace assumptions about what you have to live with. Both count.
Common questions
Tell us what you're working around. We'll tell you whether building it makes sense.