What you pay
Do you know what your software costs?
Add it up. Your website, your CRM, your bookkeeping, your email, your automation. Per user, per month, year after year. And if you cancel tomorrow: what do you take with you?
Six functions we own. On the left the licences at market leaders. On the right ours.
Market leaders
€640
in licences, per month
DataDrift Digital
€0
in licences, per month
+ €43.09 server
93% less
Where does €640 come from? Five plans, unfolded.
- HubSpot Professional€490hubspot.com
- DocuSign Standard€46ecom.docusign.com
- Squarespace€27squarespace.com
- Airtable Team€40airtable.com
- Vercel Pro€37vercel.com
Middle tier, two users, per month, measured 16 September 2026. Every line links to the provider’s own pricing page. These are not our tools, they are tools that perform the same functions.
The six are in block 1 below, with their status: two of the six are not running yet. What we do rent alongside them is in block 2. This is our bill, not your quote.
The rental agreement
Six questions you would rather not answer
Not what it costs, but what happens when you leave. Open a card for the usual route, the exit rule, and whether there is an open-source route. For three of the six our own answer is uncomfortable, and those are in there too.
Website
Could you switch hosting tomorrow without losing anything?
you rentyou own
The usual route. A site builder like Wix, from about thirty dollars a month for the business plan. You pay for the builder and the hosting at once, because it is one product.
If you leave. Your site cannot come with you: it runs on their own technology and cannot sit anywhere else. Your domain can move; your words and images you retype or rebuild.
The open-source route. A framework that makes ordinary files, which you put wherever you want. We run this ourselves: this page is one of them.
Email
Who owns your mailing lists and your archive when you cancel?
you rentyou own
The usual route. A mailbox at a large platform, per employee per month. The price moves with the number of colleagues, not with the number of messages.
If you leave. You can export your messages, but your addresses, filters and groups hang on the platform. And as long as your address sits on their domain, your identity does not move with you.
The open-source route. It exists and runs on your own server. We rent this too. The difference is that we know what it costs and what we would lose.
Calendar
What happens to your appointments when the link with your site stops?
you rentyou own
The usual route. The calendar usually sits in the same package as the email, and you pay for it per person. A booking service on top charges per seat again.
If you leave. The appointments themselves export as a file. What stays behind are the booking pages, the availability rules and the links your clients have sitting in their inbox.
The open-source route. A scheduler you host yourself and that talks to your site. We rent this too. The difference is that we know what it costs and what we would lose.
Client list
What does your client list cost once three colleagues join?
you rentyou own
The usual route. Pipedrive Growth charges thirty-nine euros per user per month. Three colleagues more is three times that, every month, no matter how much you use it.
If you leave. Your deals, people, organisations, activities and notes export as a file. About automations, email templates and reports their export documentation says nothing; do not count on those coming with you.
The open-source route. The same function on your own server, where one more user costs nothing. We are building this now: it stands there, filled it is not.
Bookkeeping
Who holds your ledger if your package stops tomorrow?
you rentyou own
The usual route. A bookkeeping package with a bank connection, from ten or fifteen euros a month for a sole trader.
If you leave. You export your entries and invoices, and you have to: you carry the retention duty yourself. What does not come along is the bank connection, the recognition rules and the filing history.
The open-source route. It exists, and here renting is often the sensible choice: the bank connection and the tax return have to keep working when the law changes. We rent this too. The difference is that we know what it costs and what we would lose.
Automation
Do your automations keep running if you drop down a tier?
you rentyou own
The usual route. Zapier Professional, twenty dollars a month on annual billing for seven hundred and fifty tasks. More tasks is a higher tier.
If you leave. Your account stays alive and drops back to free, but anything with more than two steps, with paid connectors or with branches is paused. The run history disappears after twenty-nine to sixty-nine days, and the automations themselves cannot be exported.
The open-source route. The same connections on your own server, where an extra automation is not a higher tier. We run this ourselves, and it is the only one of the six already fully in use here.
Block 1
This we own
Six functions we pay no licence for. On the left what the usual provider charges, with their own pricing page attached. On the right what we run, where it runs, and whether it runs yet.
| Function | The usual route | Our route |
|---|---|---|
| Client list | Pipedrivefrom €39 per user per monthGrowth, pricing page | €0Twenty CRMon our own serverin progress |
| Automation | Zapierfrom €18 a monthProfessional, annual billing, pricing page | €0n8n self-hostedon our own serveractive |
| Signatures | DocuSignfrom €9 a monthPersonal, five documents a month, pricing page | €0Documensoon our own serverin progress |
| Website | Wixfrom €27 a monthCore, annual billing, pricing page | €0Astroordinary files, not a serviceactive |
| Database | Supabasefrom €23 a monthPro, pricing page | €0Supabasehosted by the provider, free tieractive |
| Hosting | Vercelfrom €18 per user per monthPro, pricing page | €0Cloudflare Pageshosted by the provider, free tieractive |
Look at the right-hand column: three of these six run on our own server, two run at their provider on a free tier, and Astro is not a service but a tool that makes files. Cloudflare Pages is not even open source. A free tier is not ownership, it is a cheaper dependency, and the difference is that Supabase is open source and so can move.
Licences together: €0. What we pay for is the server underneath, €43.09 a month.
If you cancel
What you take with you, and what you lose
Per provider, from their own documentation, read on 16 September 2026.
Pipedrive. You export your deals, people, organisations, activities, notes and files as CSV or Excel. About automations, email templates and reports the export documentation says nothing; do not count on those coming with you.
sourceZapier. Your account stays alive and drops back to free. Automations with more than two steps, with paid connectors or with branches are paused. Zapier keeps the run history for 29 to 69 days. The automations themselves cannot be exported.
sourceDocuSign. Close the account and you lose access to your signed documents. DocuSign itself advises not to close but to drop back to a free plan, and to download everything first.
sourceWix. Your site cannot come with you: the build runs on their own technology and cannot sit anywhere else. Your domain can move. Blog posts can be imported into another Wix site, and your member list cannot be exported.
sourceSupabase. The software is open source and runs with Docker on your own server. What you give up are the hosted extras: managed backups with point-in-time recovery, branching and the analytics module are not in the self-hosted build.
sourceVercel. Your source code sits in your own repository and stays yours. Drop back to the free plan and every active member except the owner is removed, and stores and domains you have to move yourself first.
source
Block 2
And this we rent
Because that is where we stand. Five functions we do pay for every month, with the reason per item that there is no open source underneath.
| Function | What we pay | Why it is not open source |
|---|---|---|
| Mail and calendarGoogle Workspace | €48.60 | Running your own mail is the heaviest thing on this page: deliverability, spam filters and reputation are work that never ends, and post that fails to arrive is dearer than post that costs money. |
| TelephonyRinkel | €19.36 | A business number with forwarding runs through a telecoms provider. There is no open-source layer underneath that we could run ourselves. |
| BookkeepingMoneybird | €15 | The bank connection and the tax return have to keep working when the law changes. That is exactly the sort of upkeep you are better off outsourcing than owning. |
| Outbound mailInstantly | €43 | Cold mail needs its own sending reputation, separate from our own domain. That is a service, not a server. |
| The client portalGoHighLevel | €270phasing out | This is the portal our clients see today, and it is the dearest item we have. It is marked for phase-out: the six in block 1 are exactly what replaces it. As long as it is paid for, it counts. |
Together €396 a month. That is more than we spend on our own servers, and it is the honest position on 16 September 2026.
Block 3
And then a colleague joins
The same six functions, only with more people logging in. The left column charges per seat, the right one per server.
The usual route
€135
per month
Our route
€43
per month
At 1 user the usual route costs €135 a month and ours costs €43. The difference is not that it is cheaper; the difference is that one figure moves with your headcount and the other does not.
The usual route
€310
per month
Our route
€43
per month
At 3 users the usual route costs €310 a month and ours costs €43. The difference is not that it is cheaper; the difference is that one figure moves with your headcount and the other does not.
The usual route
€471
per month
Our route
€43
per month
At 5 users the usual route costs €471 a month and ours costs €43. The difference is not that it is cheaper; the difference is that one figure moves with your headcount and the other does not.
Four of the six packages charge per user or switch to a dearer plan at the second user; two charge per organisation and stay flat. Our column is the server, and a server does not count people.
It takes work
Not the software, that part is free. But the installation, the configuration, and the upkeep. You have to host it yourself or find somebody who does. It is not click-and-go. It is a choice that asks more up front and costs less afterwards.
The proof
We do it ourselves
The six items from the table above run on open source here and cost €0 in licences between them. What we do pay for is the server underneath: €43.09 a month. Our whole stack counts 36 parts, of which 13 are open source; for email, calendar and bookkeeping we still rent as well. See exactly what we use and what it costs.
Our stack, part by partNone of the thirteen agencies in our field publishes what their own site runs on, or what that costs. Measured on 15 September 2026: their public site, against three questions. No names.
The other side
And if they do find you, the enquiry shouldn't be left sitting in WhatsApp.
- On the Map
- Eight pages are live. ChatGPT says your name.
- Autopilot
- The follow-up happens by itself. Reviews, measurements and posts keep running.
- Headquarters
- One screen, Monday morning. Not eleven tabs.
We put you On the Map. Once that stands, we switch on the Autopilot. And then you open Headquarters.
What we build for thatBoundaries
What we do not do
- No advisory report that ends up in a drawer. We build it, or we do not do it.
- No eight-week discovery. Your system diagnosis is there in a minute and a half.
- No platform you cannot leave. We build on a dedicated server of ours in the EU, with open source, and the code and the data are yours.
- No exit fee. If you leave, you get the code, the data and an export of the server, within ten working days, at no cost.
Curious what this looks like for your business?
Then we look at it together: what you rent today, which of it could be open source, and what it would cost you in work to move it across.