FAQ

When Should a DTC Brand Build Custom Tech vs Use Shopify or SaaS Tools?

DTC Operations

Key Takeaways
  • For brands under $500K in annual revenue, Shopify, Klaviyo, and off-the-shelf tools are the correct choice.
  • The operator replaced all six SaaS vendors with one internal platform.
  • Build custom when three conditions are met simultaneously: (1) your SaaS spend exceeds $3K/month and is growing, (2) you are spending operator or contractor hours managing integrations between platforms rather than growing the business, and (3) you have the technical capability or partnership to build and maintain owned infrastructure.

Build custom when your SaaS stack costs more than $3,000/month, you are managing five or more vendor integrations, and the friction between platforms is consuming operator time that should go toward growth. Before that threshold, Shopify and SaaS tools are the right call.

The SaaS Stack Works Until It Doesn't

For brands under $500K in annual revenue, Shopify, Klaviyo, and off-the-shelf tools are the correct choice. They are fast to deploy, require no engineering, and cover 80% of operational needs. According to a 2024 Shopify report, merchants on Shopify Plus process an average of $1M--$10M annually before platform limitations become a significant constraint.

The inflection point arrives when the SaaS stack becomes the bottleneck. At Stealth Labz, Michael George Keating operated on six separate SaaS platforms: CRM ($599/month), affiliate tracking ($332/month), social management ($99/month), email ($250/month), marketing automation ($210/month), and phone system ($75/month) -- totaling $1,565/month in subscriptions. On top of that: $9,046/month at peak for contractors to manage these platforms and build integrations between them.

The real cost was never the subscriptions. It was the friction. Data lived in six places. Every integration was a potential failure point. Changing one platform meant re-wiring connections to the other five. Hours every week went to vendor management instead of business growth.

The Build Decision: What Changed

The operator replaced all six SaaS vendors with one internal platform. Monthly burn dropped from $6,312 to $825. Total annual cost displaced: $82,640 (comprising $19,909 in SaaS subscriptions and $62,731 in contractor costs). Integration points collapsed from 15 fragile vendor-to-vendor connections to 8 clean, internally controlled API integrations.

The platform consolidated CRM, affiliate tracking, analytics, email, automation, and communications into a single system with 135 database tables processing 616,543 leads across multiple verticals and geographies. Every improvement to the platform benefited every part of the business simultaneously -- no re-wiring required.

The Decision Framework

Build custom when three conditions are met simultaneously: (1) your SaaS spend exceeds $3K/month and is growing, (2) you are spending operator or contractor hours managing integrations between platforms rather than growing the business, and (3) you have the technical capability or partnership to build and maintain owned infrastructure. If any of those three are missing, stay on SaaS. The worst outcome is a half-built custom system that requires more maintenance than the SaaS stack it replaced.

For most DTC brands, the answer is Shopify plus best-in-class SaaS tools until the integration friction becomes undeniable. When it does, the displacement economics can be dramatic -- but only if the build is executed with discipline.

Related: How Do You Scale a DTC Brand Profitably Past $1M/Month?

References

  1. Shopify Plus (2024). "Commerce Report." Merchant scaling benchmarks and platform economics.
  2. Keating, M.G. (2026). "Case Study: The Platform Displacement." Stealth Labz. Read case study
  3. Keating, M.G. (2026). "The Compounding Execution Method: Complete Technical Documentation." Stealth Labz. Browse papers