Should you buy it, or let us run it?
Both are real options and we sell both, so here is the version with the downsides included. Most small businesses are better off managed at the start and better off owning it later — the useful question is where you are on that line.
What it actually costs over time
Owning it is cheaper eventually. The question is when — and whether you want the job that comes with it.
Product
Time horizon
3 yearsIf you own it
Own it
Cheaper here$3,454
over 3 years
- Growth website build
- $2,950
- Hosting you pay for (36 mo)
- $504
- Your time on updates
- Not costed above
Sawhorse Managed
$5,290
over 3 years
- Setup
- $790
- Plan (36 mo)
- $4,500
- Hosting, backups, patching, monitoring
- Included
At 3 years, owning it is about $1,836 cheaper. Managed stays ahead for roughly the first 20 months; after that owning it pulls ahead — provided you actually do the updates. These are honest estimates, not a quote. Hosting costs vary, and your own time is not free even when it does not appear on an invoice.
What each one actually gets you.
The row that decides it for most people is “needs someone technical on your side”. If that person does not exist, owning it is cheaper on paper and more expensive in practice.
| Side by side | Own It | Sawhorse Managed |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | Higher | Lower |
| Ongoing cost | Hosting only | Monthly plan |
| You own the source code | You get an export, not the platform | |
| You can move to another developer | Yes, with an export | |
| Hosting set up for you | ||
| SSL, domain and DNS handled | ||
| Security patching | Your responsibility | |
| Backups | Your responsibility | |
| Uptime monitoring | ||
| Someone to call when it breaks | ||
| Integrations fixed when an API changes | Quoted per fix | |
| Content edits included | Per plan | |
| Predictable monthly budget | ||
| Cheaper over 5+ years | ||
| Needs someone technical on your side |
Pick the one that matches your situation.
Own it if…
- You have someone technical — in-house or on call — who can patch and deploy.
- You want the asset on your balance sheet and no recurring bill.
- You are keeping it for years and the maths works out in your favour.
- Your IT policy requires the code and data to live on your own infrastructure.
- You already run hosting for other things, so one more site costs you nothing extra.
Let us host it if…
- Nobody at your business wants to be responsible for a server.
- You would rather a predictable monthly cost than an occasional surprise.
- The thing is business-critical and downtime costs you real money.
- You want someone to call, rather than a repository nobody has opened in a year.
- You expect to keep changing it, and want the changes handled.
Both options have a catch. Here they are.
Any studio that tells you their preferred option has no downside is selling, not advising.
The catch with owning it
- Security updates are yours. Dependencies go stale within months, not years.
- When a third-party API changes, the integration breaks and the fix is a new quote.
- Hosting, SSL and DNS become your problem, including at 11pm on a Sunday.
- Backups only exist if someone set them up and checks they restore.
- If nobody owns it internally, it quietly rots until it becomes a rebuild.
The catch with managed
- You pay every month, forever, and over enough years it costs more.
- You depend on Sawhorse staying in business and staying good.
- Changes happen on our schedule and within your plan’s included time.
- You get your data on export, but the hosted platform itself is not yours.
- For hosted products like Operations, there is no source-code option at all.
You are not locked into your choice
Managed → Own it
Buy out the build at any point for the difference between what you have paid in plan fees and the Own It price, with a floor of 40% of the original build price. You get the source code and deployment documentation, and we help you move it.
Own it → Managed
Hand it back to us later for the standard setup fee plus any remediation the build needs after a period without updates. We will tell you what that costs before we start, and if the answer is “rebuild it”, we will say that too.
Hosted products — Sawhorse Operations and communication agents — are managed only. There is no source-code option for those, and we say so up front rather than at renewal.
Still not sure
Describe your situation and we’ll tell you which one.
Including when the answer is “neither yet”. We would rather scope the right thing than sell the bigger one.