The Build vs Buy Price Book, October 2026: 40 Business Tools Priced, and When Custom Is Cheaper
Published prices for 40 business tools read in October 2026, what they cost a 40-person company over one and three years, and the four tests that say whether a custom build is worth it. Free PDF inside.
Oct 21, 2026
Every number in this book was read from the vendor's own pricing page on the date shown. Prices change; the date is the proof. KUMO's own prices are its published bands and nothing else. Use this to walk into any vendor conversation with the arithmetic already done.
Download: KUMO Build vs Buy Price Book, October 2026 (PDF, 8 pages). Free, no form. Next edition November 2026; the dated tables below are the same content.
Key facts (updated 20 October 2026)
- 40 tools, 9 categories, every price read from the vendor's own page on the date shown (29 September to 19 October 2026)
- Twelve-month and three-year totals computed at a 15 to 40 person company where the vendor publishes enough to do it
- KUMO's only prices: $20,000 to $50,000, $50,000 to $100,000, and $5,000 to $10,000 per month
- The four tests that decide buy, configure or build are in section 10; most companies stop at test 1
- The same content as a free 8-page PDF, link below; next edition November 2026
How to read these numbers. Subscription prices are list prices before taxes, overages, add-ons and seat growth. The custom-build figures are KUMO's published bands for the build only: hosting, model usage, third-party fees and ongoing engineering sit on top. A standard tool is the right answer when your workflow fits it; configuration is enough when the gap is small; a custom build is justified only by a specific complexity, never by preference.
1. KUMO's bands (the only KUMO prices that exist)
| What | Price | Typical time |
|---|---|---|
| Starter Build: one workflow, one integration set, one agent, assistant or portal | $20,000 to $50,000 once (the smallest builds from $15,000) | 8 to 12 weeks |
| Grow Build: multi-step agents or several workflows across several systems, a portal or approval layer | $50,000 to $100,000 once | 12 to 20 weeks |
| Ongoing engineering for companies with no engineers | $5,000 to $10,000 per month | Month to month |
How to read these numbers. Subscription prices are the vendors' published list prices on the date shown, before taxes, overages, add-ons and seat growth. The custom-build figures are KUMO's published bands for the build only: hosting, model usage, third-party fees and ongoing engineering ($5,000 to $10,000 per month if you have no engineers) sit on top, and we say so wherever a total is compared. A standard tool is the right answer when your workflow fits it; configuration is enough when the gap is small; a custom build is justified only by a specific complexity named on this page, not by preference.
What is included in a build: discovery against your real work, the application or agent, integrations, approvals and audit log, tests on last quarter's real cases, handover of code, prompts and runbooks. What sits on top: hosting (a few hundred dollars a month), model usage, and any platform plan whose API you need.
2. AI agents and assistants (read 19 October 2026 unless stated)
| Tool | Published price | Billing basis | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT Business | $20 per seat per month; $25 monthly; Premium seat $100 / $125 | Annual or monthly | Workspace agents, connectors, no training on your data; 2 to 200 employees |
| Claude Team | $20 per seat per month; $25 monthly; Premium seat $100 / $125 | Annual or monthly | Connectors, skills, enterprise search, up to $500 a month pooled API credits |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot (read 7 Oct) | $30 per user per month | Paid yearly | Needs a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan |
| Microsoft Copilot Studio | $200 a month per 25,000 Copilot Credits; pay as you go available | Monthly packs | Azure subscription required; credits per action |
| Lindy Team | $49.99 a month per active user, 5,000 credits; $10 per 1,000 extra | Monthly | Everyday task 2 to 250 credits, deep work 250 to 1,000 |
| Relevance AI | Not published, enterprise only | Quote | Multi-agent workforces, SSO, audit logs |
| Smith.ai AI Receptionist (read 8 Oct) | Free for 25 calls then $3.00 a call; Pro $150 a month at $2.00 a call; Enterprise $500 at $1.67 a call | Monthly | 24/7 AI answering, scheduling, integrations |
| Ruby live receptionists (read 8 Oct) | $250 for 50 minutes, $395 for 100, $720 for 200, $1,725 for 500 minutes a month | Monthly | Human receptionists |
Model fees (the part everyone overestimates). Anthropic API, read 19 October 2026, per million tokens: Claude Haiku 5.5 $0.10 input / $0.50 output (prompts up to 100K); Sonnet 5.5 $2 / $10; Opus 5.5 $4 / $20. OpenAI API, read 7 October 2026: gpt-6.1-sol $2.00 / $10.00; gpt-6-luna $0.10 / $0.50. An agent doing 2,000 runs a month at 4,000 input and 1,000 output tokens per run costs about $1.80 a month on Haiku 5.5, $36 on Sonnet 5.5, $72 on Opus 5.5. Agent cost is an engineering cost, not a model cost.
Deeper: cost to build an AI agent, best AI agent builders, Copilot Studio vs ChatGPT Business vs custom, Smith.ai vs Ruby vs a custom voice agent.
3. Chatbots and customer support (read 7 October 2026 unless stated)
| Tool | Published price | Billing basis | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intercom Fin (read 29 Sep) | $0.99 per resolved conversation ("Fin outcome") | Per outcome | Also sold standalone on other helpdesks |
| Intercom Essential / Advanced | $29 / $85 per seat per month, plus Fin per outcome | Annual | Advanced adds the workflow builder and 20 free Lite seats |
| Zendesk Suite Team / Professional | $55 / $115 per agent per month ($69 / $149 monthly); AI agents billed per automated resolution, rate not published | Yearly | Ask for the per-resolution rate in writing |
At 1,200 resolutions a month Fin alone is about $1,188 a month; at 5,000 it is about $4,950 a month ($59,400 a year), which is more than a custom support bot's build price. Build only when the bot must act inside your own systems or the per-resolution bill passes the build cost within a year.
Deeper: chatbot cost to build, AI chatbot development services, Intercom vs Zendesk vs a custom support agent.
4. Workflow automation platforms (read 15 October 2026)
| Tool | Unit counted | Published price |
|---|---|---|
| n8n | One execution per workflow run, however many steps | Starter €20 a month billed annually (2,500 executions); Pro €50 (10,000); Business €667 self-hosted (40,000); Enterprise custom |
| Zapier | Every step is a task | Professional from $19.99 a month; Team from $69; 33% off billed yearly; tiers to 2 million tasks |
| Make | Every module action is a credit | Core $12, Pro $21, Teams $38 a month for 10,000 credits; billing basis not stated; Enterprise custom |
The same 40,000 five-step runs are 40,000 units on n8n and 200,000 on Zapier or Make. None of the three prints a price for that volume; get a written quote at your step count. The ceiling on all three: approval rules that differ per record, three or more systems in one flow with rollback, and a bill that climbs with volume.
Deeper: n8n vs Zapier vs Make, no-code automation tools, no-code workflow automation.
5. Work management and CRM (read 8 October 2026; CRM read 5 October 2026)
| Tool | Published price | Billing basis |
|---|---|---|
| monday.com Standard / Pro | $12 / $19 per seat per month, 3 seat minimum | Annual |
| Asana Starter / Advanced | $10.99 / $24.99 per user per month ($13.49 / $30.49 monthly) | Annual or monthly |
| Smartsheet Pro / Business | $9 / $19 per member per month ($12 / $24 monthly) | Yearly or monthly |
| HubSpot Sales Hub | Free to 2 users; Starter from $7 (list $20); Professional from $90 (list $100); Enterprise from $150 per seat | As shown on the page |
| Salesforce Sales | Starter Suite $25; Pro Suite $100; Core $195 per user per month | Monthly or annual as stated |
| Pipedrive | Lite $14, Growth $24, Premium $49, Ultimate $69 per seat | Annual |
Fifteen seats for three years: Pipedrive Growth $12,960; HubSpot Starter $10,800 at list; Salesforce Starter $13,500; HubSpot Professional $54,000; Salesforce Pro Suite $54,000; Salesforce Core $105,300. A custom workflow app ($20,000 to $50,000 once) beats monday.com Pro on three-year cost at about 22 paid seats, but only replaces the one workflow you build it for, not the platform.
Deeper: monday.com vs Asana vs Smartsheet vs custom, HubSpot vs Salesforce vs custom CRM.
6. Internal apps, portals and no-code builders (read 13 and 14 October 2026)
| Tool | Published price | Billing basis | Included limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Power Apps Premium | $20 per user per month ($12 at a 2,000-seat minimum); Dataverse $40 per GB per month | Yearly | 40 users: $9,600 a year |
| AppSheet Starter / Core / Enterprise Plus | $5 / $10 / $20 per user per month | As shown | Core included in most paid Google Workspace plans |
| Softr Basic / Pro / Business | $19 / $99 / $329 per month | Billing basis not stated | Business: 30 team users plus 100 client users, 1M records, 25K workflow actions |
| Bubble Starter / Growth / Team | $59 / $209 / $549 per month | Annual | 175K / 250K / 500K workload units a month |
Watch the included limits: a 10-staff firm with 120 clients is above Softr Business's 100 client users and pays for the extra 20.
Deeper: Power Apps vs AppSheet vs custom, Softr vs Bubble vs a custom client portal, Retool vs Airtable vs custom.
7. Finance and invoices (read 13 October 2026)
| Tool | Published price | Billing basis | Fees |
|---|---|---|---|
| BILL Essentials / Team / Corporate | $49 / $65 / $89 per user per month | Not stated | ACH $0.59; mailed check $1.99; virtual card free |
| Ramp | Free plan $0; Plus $15 per user per month plus an unpublished platform fee | Monthly | ACH $0.59; check $1.99; same-day ACH $10; wire $15 (waived from a Ramp Checking Account) |
| Nanonets | $50 free credits, then $100 a month for 100 credits; $0.02 simple, $0.10 standard AI per block run | Monthly plus usage | Up to 3 users on Starter |
At 1,000 invoices a month the payment fees ($10,440 a year on ACH) dwarf the seats on either platform. A custom AI invoice workflow ($15,000 to $50,000 once) pays when approvals differ per entity or vendor and the ledger needs an audit trail.
Deeper: BILL vs Ramp vs Nanonets vs a custom AI invoice workflow.
8. Vertical operations platforms (read 12 to 19 October 2026)
| Tool | Published price | Billing basis | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jobber Core / Connect / Grow / Plus (read 12 Oct) | $29 / $299 / $399 / $529 a month (1 user; 15 users on the three upper plans); extra users $29 each | Annual (monthly higher) | Field service |
| Housecall Pro Basic / Essentials / Max (read 12 Oct) | $59 / $149 / $299 a month; Max $35 per additional user | Annual (monthly higher) | Field service |
| Cin7 Core Standard / Pro / Advanced (read 15 Oct) | $349 / $599 / $1,199 a month | Monthly as shown | 5 / 10 / 15 users; 6,000 / 24,000 / 120,000 orders a year |
| inFlow Lite / Core / Pro / Max (read 15 Oct) | $99 / $299 / $499 / $699 a month; setup $499 to $2,999 once | Annual | 2 / 5 / 10 / 20 team members |
| Katana Free (read 15 Oct) | $0 up to 30 SKUs | Paid tiers by quote | |
| QuoteWerks Web Essential / Balanced / Pinnacle (read 15 Oct) | $45.83 / $71.50 / $93.50 per concurrent user per month annual ($50 / $78 / $102 monthly) | Annual or monthly | Quoting, approvals, e-sign on Balanced and up |
| PandaDoc Business (read 15 Oct) | $49 per seat per month annual, $65 monthly | Annual or monthly | Quotes and agreements |
| Buildium Essential / Growth / Premium (read 19 Oct) | From $62 / $192 / $400 a month for the smallest unit tier | Not stated | Open API on Premium only; eSignature $5 / $1 / unlimited; incoming EFT $2.35 / $1.35 / $0.60 |
| AppFolio Core / Plus / Max (read 19 Oct) | From $1.49 / $3.20 / $5.00 per unit per month; 50-unit minimum and minimum spend | Per unit | API read-only on Plus, read and write on Max |
| Shopify Advanced / Plus (read 7 Oct) | $299 a month annual ($399 monthly); Plus from $2,300 a month on a 3-year term, $2,500 on 1 year | Annual or term | Card rates 2.5% + 30¢ and 2.25% + 30¢ online |
The pattern across every vertical: the platform's API is a plan upgrade (AppFolio Max, Buildium Premium, Cin7 integrations by tier). Price the plan step before pricing any custom layer on top.
Deeper: Jobber vs Housecall Pro vs ServiceTitan vs custom, Cin7 vs inFlow vs Katana vs custom, QuoteWerks vs PandaDoc vs custom, Buildium vs AppFolio vs a custom workflow layer, Shopify Plus vs a custom build.
9. Knowledge and search (read 12 October 2026)
| Tool | Published price | Billing basis |
|---|---|---|
| Notion Business | $20 per member a month | Yearly shown |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot Business add-on | $18 per user a month paid yearly (regular $21), discount to 31 Dec 2026 | Yearly |
| Microsoft 365 Business Standard with Copilot / Premium with Copilot | $23.50 / $32 per user a month | Yearly |
| Glean, Guru | Quote only |
Deeper: Glean vs Guru vs Notion AI vs a custom knowledge assistant.
10. The four tests before you commission a build
- Does the task live in one or two systems with simple rules? Buy or configure. Stop here.
- Do approval rules differ by record, owner or amount? Custom.
- Do three or more systems take part, in an order that matters, with rollback if a step fails? Custom.
- Is the subscription bill climbing with volume (per resolution, per task, per credit, per unit)? Compute the twelve-month total against the build band; when it passes, custom.
If none of 2 to 4 applies, you do not need a build, whatever a vendor tells you.
What to send for a scoped estimate
Three lines: what takes your team the most manual time, which systems are involved, roughly how many people touch it. A senior KUMO engineer replies within two working days with a band and the questions we would ask on a call. No call needed. Send it here, or run the AI development cost calculator for a range in a minute, or book a 30-minute call.
KUMO is a software engineering studio that builds custom AI agents, workflow apps and portals for 10 to 100 person companies, and a Registered Partner in the OpenAI Partner Network. Published case studies: Volopay (KUMO's founders built Volopay's first production version as its founding engineers), CampaignHQ (KUMO's own product, in production since 2022), Equipp, FLIN, Klickie, Kaft, AutoIQ, Farro Capital. The proof for the bands is adjacent to any one tool in this book (the proof here is adjacent): it is the build work behind those case studies, not a case study per tool.
Prices in this book are the vendors' published list prices on the dates shown and are reproduced for comparison; they belong to their vendors and change without notice. Next edition: November 2026.
