Cost of building software for SMBs with token AI

Small and medium businesses that want to build their own software instead of renting SaaS: pick the modules to build, and the tool estimates resources (person-months, cost, timeline with AI) and the ROI against SaaS rental by number of users. The figures are budgeting estimates, not an actual invoice.

Cost of building software for SMBs with token AI

For small and medium businesses, build-vs-buy is a very real question: is building a sales, accounting or CRM system cheaper than renting SaaS for years? Pick a reference product and the modules you need, and the tool estimates person-months, cost and timeline (AI-assisted), scores four risk dimensions, then compares the ROI against SaaS rental by number of users.

Rebuild cost by software category

ERP for SMBs →SMB marketing →HR for SMBs →CS for SMBs →Accounting for SMBs →PM software for SMBs →Ecommerce for SMBs →POS for SMBs →AI agents for SMBs →Sales software for SMBs →Security for SMBs →SMEs →CAD/PLM for SMBs →Small & medium business →CMS for SMBs →Privacy — small & medium business →Design software for SMBs →DevOps for SMBs →SMB →Manufacturing for SMBs →Automotive · SMB →Education for SMBs →Healthcare (SMB) →Retail for SMBs →CRM for SMBs →

Checklist before you start

Drawn from what we hit in practice — the traps that cost real money or force a rewrite.

  1. Verify the tool still exists Windsurf did not die — it was renamed Devin Desktop on 02/06/2026, with Pro at 20 USD/month; Cursor is still running, Pro at 16 USD/month. Internal docs and older blog posts still carry the old names, so open each vendor's official pricing page before you set a budget or write team process around it.
  2. Measure free tiers over one real sprint GitHub Copilot Free gives 2,000 completions plus 50 chat requests per month — two separate ceilings, and chat requests usually run out first because every explanation or refactor request draws from that pool. Run one real sprint to see which ceiling you actually hit before paying to upgrade.
  3. Pick API or subscription by who clicks Token-priced APIs are usually cheaper at low volume, but they require a developer to open a dev account, pull an API key and write code. If a BA or the business owner will operate the tool directly, pay for a subscription that works straight from the web app instead.
  4. Check invoicing code against the actual decree E-invoices generated from cash registers are mandatory for retail households, retail businesses and F&B from 01/6/2025 under Decree 70/2025/ND-CP, alongside Decree 123/2020/ND-CP; card swipes and dynamic QR flows additionally fall under PCI DSS and the State Bank's payment-intermediary rules. AI states wrong clauses with total confidence, so every data field and business flow has to be checked back against the source text.
  5. Keep payroll data out of prompts Salary, social insurance and personal income tax records are sensitive data with legal obligations attached — never paste a real payroll table into a chat box to have AI build the module. Generate a fake dataset with the same structure and hand that to the tool instead.
  6. Confirm integrations are alive before handover The Sendo marketplace shut down on 15/4/2025 and Sendo Farm stopped on 10/7/2026, yet nhanh.vn's marketing page still advertises Sendo sync — and AI trained on stale data will happily generate a connector for a marketplace that no longer exists. Before handover, open each integration partner's API docs and changelog to confirm the endpoints still respond.

Frequently asked questions

What drives the cost of building SMB software?

The modules you pick: each has its own effort (person-months), summed and then reduced by AI assistance, converted into staff cost plus AI tooling. It is compared against SaaS rental by number of users to give savings and ROI.

Is building cheaper, or renting SaaS?

It depends on scale: enter user count and the SaaS price, and the tool compares multi-year rental against building plus maintenance, giving savings, payback and ROI. Few users usually favour renting; many users start to favour building.

Which AI tool should the dev team use?

The comparison table lists the plans (Copilot, Cursor, Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Devin) with prices and pros/cons. Note that AI tooling is usually only a few percent of the total — staff cost dominates.

How accurate are the figures?

They are budgeting estimates based on average ratios, not a quote. The default SaaS price is per category and editable to what you actually pay.

Does AI-generated code still need review?

Yes. It needs the same review, testing and security checks as human-written code. The estimate here does not include that effort.

Is it risky to send internal source code to AI tools?

Check each tool’s data policy, prefer options that exclude your code from training, and strip secrets and customer data from the context you send.

All figures are reference estimates. Built by the TOT team.