Buy vs build procurement software: Six key factors to consider before you decide

When it comes to procurement solutions, we are finding today that some organisations are at a crossroads: should they build a custom solution in-house or buy a ready-made platform that’s already proven in market? This decision matters most in a world where supply chains are complex, compliance demands are rising, and inefficient manual processes are no longer competitive.  

But while solutions like Felix demonstrate what a mature, purpose-built procurement platform can deliver, many organisations still wrestle with whether buying software like this aligns better with their strategy – or whether building something custom might suit their unique needs.  

In this post, we’ll break down the key considerations that should influence the buy-vs-build decision for your next procurement system. 

Why Buy vs Build? 

Faster time to value  

One of the biggest advantages of buying a ready-built procurement solution like Felix is how quickly it can start delivering value. With implementation times typically in the 6–12-week range, organisations can go from decision to live deployment in a matter of weeks – enabling teams to automate workflows, centralise supplier data, and improve compliance on an accelerated timeline.  

In contrast, building a custom procurement system in-house is a far longer journey: initial development alone can easily stretch 6–24 months, and that’s before factoring in inevitable scope changes, integration challenges, and testing cycles that tend to push timelines even further. For organisations under pressure to drive efficiency, cut costs, and unlock ROI faster, the speed of deployment isn’t just a convenience – it’s a strategic advantage. 

Lower upfront costs 

Buying a procurement solution like Felix also dramatically reduces up-front investment. Felix’s pricing model is based on the number of modules purchased and your number of users, meaning organisations only pay for what they intend to use. 

In contrast, building a custom procurement system requires a significant investment. Whether you utilise skills in-house to build a platform where you need to consider resourcing as an investment, or you outsource the build where an initial payment could be setting you back $579,000+, in either case you’re also not considering internal development resources, maintenance and upgrades.  

For many businesses, buying a software solution not only preserves cash and reduces financial risk, but also aligns spend with realised value over time. 

Ongoing feature and performance updates 

Another major advantage of buying a solution like Felix is ongoing platform enhancements, feature releases, security updates, maintenance and continuous improvement.  

With Felix, the product team regularly releases platform, performance and security enhancements all without additional effort from your internal team. This ensures your procurement platform stays current with industry best practices and evolving business needs.  

By contrast, building software in-house means your organisation is responsible for all maintenance, bug fixes, and upgrades, requiring dedicated development resources and ongoing investment. Over time, this can slow innovation, increase technical debt, and distract internal teams from strategic priorities. 

Proven capability 

When you buy a platform like Felix, you benefit from proven capabilities that have been tested and refined across multiple organisations and industries – in fact, by over 8,000 users managing 115k vendors globally. The platform has already been built to handle complex procurement workflows, vendor management, compliance tracking, and reporting – all validated in real-world use cases and enhanced over 13 years. This reduces risk and gives confidence that the system can handle your organisation’s needs from day one.  

In contrast, a custom-built solution carries inherent uncertainty: features may need multiple iterations to meet requirements, unforeseen challenges can arise during development, and there’s no guarantee the final product will perform as intended.  

A proven software purchase can eliminate the 66-67% failure rate associated with customer enterprise software development. Choosing a proven solution like Felix ensures you’re leveraging technology that works, rather than betting on untested internal development. 

Customer support 

Another key benefit of choosing Felix is dedicated customer support. Every organisation gets a Customer Success Manager to guide onboarding, adoption, and ongoing optimisation, plus a responsive support team. This ensures issues are resolved quickly, best practices are shared, and your team gets the guidance it needs to maximise the platform’s value.  

By contrast, with a custom-built solution, support falls entirely on your internal IT and development teams – creating extra workload, slowing response times, and diverting resources from other critical projects.  

With Felix, support is built into the service, letting your team focus on procurement, not firefighting software issues. 

Seamless integrations 

Seamless integration with existing systems is another area where buying a solution like Felix delivers a real advantage. Felix offers a suite of native integrations – for example, with document management tools such as Asite, Aconex and InEight, plus connections to services like eftsure for vendor payment verification and ERP platforms like Pronto Xi – enabling procurement and vendor data to flow smoothly between tools you already use.  

On top of that, Felix Connect provides an integration platform with a library of pre-built connectors and low-code/no-code automation that lets you link Felix to finance systems, ERPs, project management and other business applications quickly and with minimal technical overhead. This means you get end-to-end workflows working together out of the box.  

By contrast, choosing to build a custom procurement system means creating every integration from scratch – a time-consuming internal development project that slows deployment and adds ongoing maintenance burden for your IT teams. 

Quick reference comparison 

To summarise the above points, please see the below quick reference comparison.

Make the case for Felix 

Connect with the Felix team for a detailed financial, strategic and risk analysis that demonstrates why Felix is the right procurement platform for your enterprise. 

Reach out to the team.