You bought four SaaS tools to run one studio, and the integration glue is a producer's weekend
Custom software for a Wellington studio, agency, or tech firm runs NZD 120,000 to 450,000 over 5 to 11 months. Build custom when your workflow is your competitive edge and no off-the-shelf SaaS models it, or when you're paying for and gluing together four tools that should be one. Generic SaaS is the right call for commodity work. It's the wrong call when your operation runs on a process no vendor has ever built for.
You run a Wellington post-house, a creative agency, or a govtech company, and you've assembled a stack: a scheduling tool, a budget spreadsheet, a CRM (Customer Relationship Management), a file-tracking app, and a person whose actual job is keeping them in sync. Each generic SaaS does its slice, none of them knows that a colourist is double-booked across two productions, and the integration that ties them together is a producer's Sunday and a fragile set of Zapier steps that break quietly.
The work that makes you good, the way you coordinate overlapping productions, attribute cost, and deliver to a milestone, lives in the gaps between tools. Generic SaaS will never close those gaps because closing them is your business, not the vendor's.
The problems nobody warns you about
- Four SaaS tools cover slices of one workflow, and a person spends real hours gluing them together
- The logic that makes you competitive (overlapping-job coordination, cost attribution) lives in spreadsheets between the tools
- Zapier and manual exports break quietly, and nobody notices until a number is wrong
- Per-seat SaaS pricing across five tools quietly grows faster than custom would have cost to own
The case for owning your custom software
Custom software encodes the workflow that is actually your edge, the overlapping-production coordination and cost attribution, into one system instead of leaving it in the gaps between four SaaS tools. You stop paying a person to be human middleware, the logic stops living in fragile spreadsheets, and the thing that makes your studio good becomes software you own rather than a process that depends on one tired producer.
Budgeting a custom software build in Wellington
| Project scope | Typical cost | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Single-workflow custom system | $120k to $200k | 5 to 7 months |
| Multi-workflow platform replacing several tools | $200k to $340k | 7 to 9 months |
| Full platform with integrations and API | $340k to $450k | 9 to 11 months |
What your build should include
What we build under custom software in Wellington
Everything a custom software build here can cover: legacy modernization, systems integration, microservices, database design, bespoke software development and SaaS development.
Exactly what you get
Software that finally models the thing you're good at, coordinating overlapping productions and attributing cost, in one place instead of four. The person who was human middleware gets their week back, the logic leaves the spreadsheets, and the system feeds clean data into your ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and business intelligence dashboards. You own the edge instead of renting five tools that almost fit.
How to choose a developer in Wellington
Choose a partner who spends real time on discovery before naming a stack, because a rushed scope just rebuilds today's mess in code. Wellington's tech and screen sectors prize well-crafted, defensible work, so ask the developer to articulate your competitive workflow back to you. If they can't, they don't understand what they're building.
- !They jump to a tech stack before understanding your workflow. Ask them to describe your overlap problem first.
- !They promise to replace everything with no phasing. Ask which tool gets retired first and why.
- !No discovery in the quote. Ask what they must learn before they can scope honestly.
- !They've never built operational software, only marketing sites. Ask for a comparable workflow system.
- !They wave away ongoing ownership. Ask what your year-two maintenance and roadmap look like.
Most Wellington teams pricing custom software end up comparing notes on website, inventory management, warehouse management too; the systems share one data spine.
Rohan advises mid-market and enterprise teams on ERP, CRM and custom software, and has led delivery on dozens of business-software builds.
Writes for Digital Heroes, shipping business software for 2,000+ brands across 55+ countries since 2017.
Frequently asked questions
When is custom software worth it over generic SaaS?
When your competitive edge is a workflow no vendor models, or when you're paying a person to glue four SaaS tools together. For a Wellington studio coordinating overlapping productions, that edge lives in the gaps between tools, which is exactly what custom software closes.
Won't custom just recreate our current mess?
It can, if discovery is rushed. A serious build invests weeks in understanding your actual workflow before writing code. A team that names a tech stack before understanding your overlap problem is the one that will rebuild the mess.
How long until it pays off?
Payback is measured in years, not months, through reclaimed staff time, retired subscriptions, and better cost control. If you need a return this quarter, a tuned SaaS is the safer call.
What does custom software cost in Wellington?
NZD 120,000 to 450,000 depending on how many workflows it unifies and how much integration it needs. A single-workflow system is at the low end; a full platform replacing several tools reaches the top.
Can we keep some of our existing SaaS?
Usually yes. Custom software often consolidates the core workflow while integrating the SaaS tools that genuinely earn their place, and retiring the ones that existed only to glue the others together.