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The short answer on build vs buy
Buying a configurator gets you live in days and moves the cost of every later change from a developer invoice to an afternoon in an admin screen. Building one gives you full ownership and freedom, at the price of a project up front and a maintenance bill that never quite stops.
How the costs are structured
The two options are paid for in different ways, which makes them easy to compare badly. A build is a project: a quote from an agency or months of an in-house developer’s time, then hourly work for changes, hosting and updates. A SaaS configurator is a subscription: a fixed monthly or yearly amount, with changes made by you.
A worked example, with numbers that are purely illustrative: say an agency quotes you X for the first version and you budget a further share of X every year for changes and upkeep. Put that next to twelve months of a subscription and compare over three years, not one. The first year often looks close; years two and three rarely do, because a build keeps billing for every new option, every price list update and every browser change.
For Next Configurator the subscription side is simple: one plan, €499 per month excl. VAT (or €4,999 per year), everything included, no setup fee for products that start from a template. See pricing.
Time to launch
An agency build starts with a specification, then design, modelling, development and testing. Plan in weeks at best, often months. A SaaS configurator starts from a template: a first configurator takes about three minutes in the builder, and setting your real sizes and prices is typically an afternoon.
Maintenance nobody budgets for
Browsers change, 3D libraries change, your price list changes every season. With a build, each of those is a ticket. With a SaaS configurator the vendor keeps the software running and you only touch your own products and prices.
3D models
This is where builds get expensive. A static 3D model of one veranda at one size is a few days of work; a model that correctly resizes from 3 to 7 metres, adds posts at the right spacing and swaps a glass roof for louvres is a parametric generator, and that is real engineering. Next Configurator ships 120 parametric models: pergolas, verandas, carports, garden rooms, fences, gates, awnings, doors, windows, saunas, pools and more. Custom models for unusual products are quoted separately.
Pricing logic
Made-to-measure pricing is rarely one formula: size bands, RAL surcharges, per-metre side walls, minimum charges. In a build, that logic sits in code. In a SaaS configurator you enter it as a price table or per-option prices, or run a product quote-only while you work it out.
Quotes and CRM around the configurator
A configurator that only sends an email solves half the problem. Next Configurator turns each request into a numbered quote with options, a PDF, an online quote page with e-signature and deposit, automatic follow-ups, a pipeline and production sheets. Building all of that yourself is a second project.
If you build: what to put in the brief
If building still looks right, put these in the specification so the quote covers them:
- Speed on mid-range phones, not just on the developer’s laptop.
- A way for non-developers to change prices and options.
- Where requests go, and in what format.
- Quotes the buyer can open and come back to.
- A share link for every configuration.
- AR at real scale.
- Where it is hosted and how data is handled.
- Who maintains it, at what cost, and for how long.
- What happens to the code if you change agency.
For a longer comparison read SaaS configurator vs agency build and what a product configurator costs, or book a walkthrough.