Affordable Software vs Enterprise SaaS — San Diego
Bloated SaaS sells you 100 features. You use 10. SideGuy builds the 10 you actually need at 10% the cost.
Built by PJ Zonis
TL;DR: Most North County San Diego businesses don't need Salesforce, HubSpot, NetSuite, or Workday. They need 10 specific workflows the bloat-vendors sell wrapped in 90 features they'll never touch. SideGuy builds custom for your specific shape using Claude + n8n + AWS at $100/hr — $5K-30K one-time replaces $50K-300K/year contracts. You own the code. No lock-in. No surprise renewal hike.
The actual cost comparison
| What | Enterprise SaaS | SideGuy custom build |
|---|---|---|
| CRM (10-50 person team) | Salesforce $24K-180K/yr | $8K one-time, $0/yr |
| ATS / hiring flow | Greenhouse / Lever $15K-40K/yr | $5K one-time, $0/yr |
| Internal dashboards | Looker / Tableau $30K-120K/yr | $10K one-time, $0/yr |
| Billing / invoicing | NetSuite $30K-120K/yr | $8K one-time, $0/yr |
| Customer portal | Custom Salesforce dev $50K-200K | $15K one-time |
| Marketing automation | HubSpot $40K-150K/yr | $6K one-time, $0/yr |
Math: replace one bloat vendor → fund SideGuy build for 5 years.
What we actually use
- Claude / GPT-5 — for AI workflows, content generation, classification, decision routing
- n8n — for orchestration (the "if X then Y" glue between systems)
- Supabase / Postgres — for data + auth (replaces vendor databases)
- AWS S3 + CloudFront — for hosting (replaces Heroku / Vercel marketing fluff)
- Stripe / Square direct — for payments (no Salesforce-Commerce middleman)
When custom IS the wrong call
- You have 500+ employees + complex compliance (HIPAA / SOX / GDPR at scale) — bloat vendors absorb that overhead for you
- You have a dedicated IT team that loves enterprise contracts
- You need certifications (SOC 2 / FedRAMP) — vendors carry these
- You don't have ops-savvy leadership willing to own the workflow
For 95% of small + mid-size North County businesses, none of these apply.
What "ownership" actually means
- Your code, in your repo. Walkable, forkable, hire-the-next-dev-able
- Your data, in your database. Not held hostage by a vendor's export limits
- Your workflows, in plain English. Not buried in a vendor's drag-drop UI you have to re-learn after every product update
- Your renewals, $0/year. No 30% annual price hike "due to platform improvements"
Want to know if you're overpaying?
Text PJ your current SaaS stack + monthly cost. One reply tells you what's worth replacing.
📲 Text PJ · 858-461-8054