Resources · Decision tree
6 honest questions. One verdict. No gating.
Honest > optimistic. Answers don't leave your browser.
01
How many people need to use this every week?
02
Does more than one person write to the same data at the same time?
03
How complex is the business logic that lives in the data?
Validations, multi-step approvals, branching rules, calculated fields.
04
If this breaks for a day, what's the impact?
05
Do you need an audit trail — who changed what, when?
06
How many other systems need to read or write this data?
Awaiting answers
Answer the 6 questions to see the verdict.
Three signals: (1) multiple people writing concurrently with frequent conflicts; (2) business-stopping risk if the file is corrupted or deleted; (3) audit trail required for compliance. Any one of these usually pushes you out of spreadsheet territory.
Upfront, yes. Over 3 years, often not. Low-code costs $20–80/user/month and the platform lock-in is real. If you have 20+ users for 3+ years, custom software's TCO often wins.
Buy the SaaS, automate the 20% gap. Don't build what you can buy in the standard case. The exception is when that 20% is the part that differentiates your business — then custom is worth it.
Yes — and you should. Different workflows in the same business often land on different verdicts. Run one workflow at a time.
