Custom software guide
Should we buy customer portal software or build a custom portal?
Buy customer portal software such as Zendesk when the portal is mainly a help center, a ticket tracker or a shared file space and the product already holds what customers need to see. Build a custom portal when customers need orders, projects and invoices from your own systems, because a product needs copies of that data and a system you own reads it directly with no fee per login.
| What you are comparing | A product | A custom build |
|---|---|---|
| Cost over five years | A subscription every year, priced by external login or member, by agent or seat on your side, or by plan allowance, plus onboarding fees and add-ons. It rises as customers or staff are added. | A one-time build with the price set in a written scope, then running costs such as hosting, database and email. Adding customers adds no license. |
| Per-login and per-seat fees | Usually one or the other. Some vendors license each customer login or member, and others charge for each agent or seat on your team. A few charge a flat price with storage or user caps. | None. Customers, staff and occasional users such as a client's accountant are all added without a fee. |
| Fit to your process | Customers see what the product holds, arranged the way the product arranges it. Anything else is linked out, uploaded by hand or left to email. | Customers see what your process produces, such as orders, job stages, documents and invoices, in the order they think about them. |
| Time to launch | A help center or file space can be live quickly. A portal for thousands of customers still needs access rules, branding, content and invitations before it opens. | Nothing is live on the first day. Discovery and a written scope come first, the schedule is set in that scope, and working screens are shown as the build goes on. |
| Data from your own systems | Depends on the product. Most show their own records, and data from an ERP or accounting system has to be copied or synced in. | Read from your ERP, accounting and project systems directly, so customers and staff see the same figures. |
| Branding and domain | Set by plan. A custom domain, branded emails and a branded mobile app are often on different tiers, and some vendor marks cannot be removed. | Your domain, your design and your email sender. There is no vendor brand to remove. |
| Changes after launch | Limited to what the vendor exposes on your plan. New kinds of data usually mean a workaround. | Anything can be added, since you own the code. Each change is scoped and built when you need it. |
When buying customer portal software is the right call
Buy when the portal has one job and a product already does it. A help center with ticket tracking, a branded space for sharing files with a known set of clients, or a guided onboarding process are all jobs that existing products do. A product will have you live sooner and for less.
Buy as well when your customer data already lives in the vendor's product. A company that runs its service team in Salesforce or HubSpot gets a portal onto that data without building anything.
When a custom portal is the right call
Build when the things customers ask for live in several systems. Order status in the ERP, invoices in accounting, drawings in a document store and job progress in a project tool cannot be shown by a product that holds none of them.
Build when the license fee grows with your customer count. A fee per customer login is small for a hundred customers and large for ten thousand. A portal you own has running costs and no license count.
What to settle before choosing
Write down what a customer should see and do after logging in, in the customer's words. Then mark where each item lives today. If every item lives in one product, buy that product's portal. If the items are spread across systems, you are choosing between copying data into a product and building on the systems themselves.
Count the people too, meaning how many customers will have a login, how often they will use it, and how many of your staff will work in the portal. Those three numbers decide which pricing model is cheapest for you.
How to compare the cost of customer portal software with a custom build
For the product, add five years of subscription at the plan you would need, with the customer and staff counts you expect by year five, plus onboarding fees and add-ons. Vendors publish most of those figures, and where they do not, ask for a quote.
For the custom route, Black Badger does not publish a price, because it depends on what the portal shows and how many systems it reads. A written scope gives you the build figure, and the running costs are estimated alongside it.
What a custom build involves, and how to ask about one
Questions buyers ask
Is a custom customer portal more expensive than customer portal software?
Yes, a custom portal is more expensive than portal software for a simple portal with few users, and a product is the right buy. The comparison changes as customer logins grow and as more of your own systems need to appear in the portal, since a product charges for the first and works around the second.
Is a custom customer portal secure?
A custom portal has to be secure, and we design ours to be secure from the start of the build. Each customer sees only its own records, sign-in follows current practice, and access is tested before launch. Ask any vendor or builder, including us, how customer data is separated.
Can a custom portal include support tickets?
Yes, a custom portal can include support tickets. Either the request flow is built into the portal, or the portal connects to the support product your team already uses. Which one is right depends on how your support team works, and it is decided in discovery.
Who runs a custom portal after launch?
You run a custom portal after launch, with as much or as little help as you want. The code and the accounts are yours. Your own developers, Black Badger or another firm can maintain it.