Your own management system or standard software?

Standard software if your process is the same as what a thousand other businesses do and you want to start right away. Your own management system if the process is what makes your business, connects several tools or forces you into daily workarounds with standard software. For most small and midsize businesses (SMEs) in Germany, the answer is a mix: standard for accounting and payroll, your own system for what sets you apart. Assessment by the author, license prices below with sources, see table

B&S builds custom management systems and therefore has an interest in the answer. In our own companies we still use Lexware Office, Shopify and other standard software where it is the better choice. This page helps you draw the line.

Which criteria decide?

• How specific is the process? Accounting is the same in every business because German tax law prescribes it. How you take orders, approve suppliers or settle commissions is not.
• How many tools have to work together? A single tool is usually standard. Five tools between which someone retypes data today are the classic case for your own system.
• How many users, for how long? Standard costs per user per month for as long as you use it. Your own system costs once and then maintenance. With few users, standard wins. With many users over years, it flips.
• How quickly do you need it? Standard software runs this afternoon. A first stage of your own system takes weeks.
• Who should own the data? With standard software it sits in the vendor's format, with your own system in your database.
• Who maintains it? The vendor maintains standard software. Your own system needs a maintenance contract or someone in house.

How do the two approaches differ?

Criterion	Standard software	Your own management system
Initial cost	None or low, often an onboarding fee. HubSpot Sales Hub Professional charges a one-time EUR 1,470, Enterprise EUR 3,420. HubSpot, 2026-09-22	Development of the first stage, hours times hourly rate. Freelance developers at a median of EUR 90 per hour. freelancermap, 2026-07-02
Running costs	License per user per month, indefinitely. For the range see the table below.	Hosting and maintenance, no per-user license.
Customizability	Within the settings. Beyond that only with extensions that can break with updates.	Complete, every change costs development time.
Vendor dependency	High. The vendor sets price, feature set, term and data format.	Dependency on the service provider for maintenance. Solvable if source code, documentation and the right of termination are with you.
Data ownership	Data with the vendor, export in the vendor's formats, data center of the vendor's choosing.	Data in your database, server of your choosing, export in any format.
Time to go live	Hours to days, setup and data migration can take weeks.	Weeks to the first usable stage, months to full build-out.

What does common standard software cost?

All prices net per user per month, retrieved from the vendors' websites on September 22, 2026. Promotional discounts for the first months are left out because you will use the software for longer. Sources for each row in the table, for example Lexware

Software	Used for	Price per user per month, net	Source
Lexware Office	Accounting, invoicing	EUR 7.90 (S) to EUR 32.90 (XL), cancelable monthly	Lexware, 2026-09-22
sevdesk	Accounting, invoicing	EUR 8.90 (Rechnung, 24 months) to EUR 34.90 (Buchhaltung Pro, monthly)	sevdesk, 2026-09-22
Odoo	ERP, CRM, inventory, projects	EUR 19.90 (Standard) and EUR 29.90 (Custom) on an annual contract, monthly EUR 24.90 and EUR 37.40	Odoo, 2026-09-22
weclapp	ERP for service and trading companies	EUR 39 (Starter), EUR 86 (Dienstleistung) and EUR 163 (Handel) on an annual contract, monthly EUR 95 and EUR 179, add-on modules EUR 55	weclapp, 2026-09-22
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central	ERP	EUR 69.30 (Essentials), EUR 95.30 (Premium), EUR 6.90 (Team Members), billed annually	Microsoft, 2026-09-22
HubSpot Sales Hub	CRM, sales	EUR 20 (Starter), EUR 90 (Professional, annual contract) plus EUR 1,470 onboarding, from EUR 150 (Enterprise) plus EUR 3,420 onboarding	HubSpot, 2026-09-22
Salesforce Sales Cloud	CRM, sales	EUR 25 (Starter Suite), EUR 100 (Pro Suite), EUR 195 (Core), EUR 395 (Advanced), EUR 550 (Max), annual contract only from Pro Suite upward	Salesforce, 2026-09-22

An example: ten users in weclapp ERP Handel cost EUR 1,630 per month, EUR 19,560 per year and EUR 97,800 after five years, not counting add-on modules and price increases. Your own system for the same ten users, for which we assume 300 development hours at EUR 90, costs EUR 27,000 once plus five years of hosting and maintenance. The 300 hours are an assumption, not a market figure. With ten users over five years, your own system is therefore not automatically more expensive. With two users it almost always is. Calculation based on weclapp and freelancermap, 2026

When is standard software the right choice?

Accounting and payroll, because German tax law prescribes the process and your tax advisor expects a DATEV interface. Email, calendar, file storage. Appointment booking with simple rules. A small sales operation without special logic. An online shop without special inventory or supplier logic. Here, your own system would only rebuild what is available for EUR 7.90 to 100 per month, and you would carry the maintenance yourself. What can pay off then is connecting these programs to the rest of the business, more on this under hybrid approaches. Sources: Lexware, Salesforce, September 22, 2026

When is your own system the right choice?

From our own companies we know four patterns where standard software stopped working. Supplier or partner portals where external parties register, verify their identity, get approved and receive payouts. Warehouse integration with logistics providers in several countries, with stock levels, shipments and returns in real time. Commission and special pricing logic that depends on customer, quantity, period and partner. Several brands or companies in one system with separate permissions and shared master data.

What all four have in common: the process is the business. If you force it into standard software, you work against the tool every day, and license costs rise with every user who only needs a fraction of the features.

What hybrid approaches are there?

Standard plus your own integration. The most common and usually the best approach. Lexware Office stays in place for receipts, accounting and the tax advisor. Your own system handles orders, suppliers, inventory or team and passes contacts, invoices and payment status to Lexware through its public API. You only build what sets you apart.

Standard with extensions. Odoo Custom, Business Central and others allow your own modules within the standard software. That is faster than building from scratch, but it has two catches: the extension can break with vendor updates, and you keep paying the per-user license, EUR 29.90 with Odoo Custom and EUR 69.30 with Business Central Essentials. Sources: Odoo, Microsoft, September 22, 2026

Your own system with standard building blocks. Even your own system is not built from scratch. Payment processing, identity verification, email delivery and file storage are added as services, each with its own price and its own data processing agreement.

How do you make the decision in practice?

Write down the three processes that cost the most time in your business. For each one, check whether standard software maps it without a workaround. If it does, use it. If not, check whether the workaround really costs time or is just unfamiliar. If both apply, you have found the candidate for the first stage of your own system. This stage covers exactly that one process and can be small, for example an integration that transfers data between two programs that someone retypes today.

How we do it at B&S

B&S Ventures from Hannover built the systems of its own portfolio companies itself and runs them every day: vendor portals with identity verification, shops with inventory connections to logistics partners in Lithuania and Hong Kong, internal boards and mail systems in several languages. The four patterns above come from this day-to-day operation. For clients, we build in stages. The first stage takes on one process and goes into daily use before the next one begins. Source code, documentation and access credentials stay with you, so that your own system does not become a new dependency.

It starts with a free intro call. In the call or shortly after, you get an initial direction on whether standard software is enough, a hybrid approach fits or your own system pays off, also free of charge. Only then do you receive a proposal for the first stage. What such a system costs is covered under What does custom software cost for an SME?, the service itself under Management systems.

Frequently asked questions

When is standard software enough?

When your process is the same as what many other businesses do: accounting, payroll, email, appointment booking, simple sales. There, standard software is cheaper, ready to use right away and tested by many users. Your own system would only rebuild what is available for a few euros a month.

When does your own management system pay off?

When the process is what makes your business and standard software can only map it with workarounds. Typical cases are supplier or partner portals with approvals and payouts, warehouse integration with logistics providers, commission and special pricing logic, multi-level approvals or several brands in one system. Also when per-user license costs overtake development costs as the team grows.

What does standard software cost per user per month?

Accounting from EUR 7.90 at Lexware Office and EUR 8.90 at sevdesk. ERP between EUR 19.90 at Odoo Standard, EUR 39 to 163 at weclapp and EUR 69.30 to 95.30 at Microsoft Business Central. CRM between EUR 20 at HubSpot Starter and EUR 550 at Salesforce Max. All prices net per user per month, as of September 22, 2026. Sources: see price table

What is a hybrid approach?

Standard software for what is standard, plus your own system for what sets you apart, connected through interfaces. Example: Lexware Office for accounting and receipts, your own system for orders, suppliers and inventory that passes invoices and contacts to Lexware. For most SMEs this is the right way.

How dependent are you on the vendor?

With standard software, the vendor sets the price, feature set, term and data format. With your own system, the source code and the data belong to you, but you depend on a service provider for maintenance. Documentation, handover of the source code and a maintenance contract with a right of termination solve that.