Integration guide
Should we buy an integration platform or build a custom integration?
Buy an integration platform such as Workato when you have many systems to connect and a team that will build and manage those connections as an ongoing job. Build a custom integration when a small number of connections carry most of your data, because over five years the platform keeps billing by usage and the code you own does not.
| What you are comparing | A product | A custom build |
|---|---|---|
| Cost over five years | A subscription every year, usually sized by tasks, credits, executions or edition, plus the staff time to build and maintain the connections. The total grows with volume. | A one-time build scoped in writing, then running costs such as hosting. No licenses, so the total does not grow with the number of records you move. |
| Per-seat and usage fees | Most platforms bill by usage. Zapier bills per task, Make in credits and n8n per execution. Power Automate Premium is billed per user, and Zapier Team is capped at 25 users. | None. There is no per-seat, per-task or per-connection fee, and adding a user or doubling volume adds no license cost. |
| Fit to your process | You build inside the connectors and steps the platform offers. Rules it cannot express end up as workarounds, or as a person checking the sync by hand. | Written from your rules, including which system owns each record, how records are matched and what happens when one is rejected. |
| Time to launch | A simple automation can run the day you sign up. A governed rollout across many systems is a project, with design, testing and training before anyone depends on it. | Starts with discovery and a written scope. The schedule is set in that scope, and you see the integration working against test data before it goes live. |
| Who can maintain it | Business staff on the self-serve tools, and a central automation team on the larger platforms. | Any competent developer. Black Badger writes the code to be read and extended and sets up every account in your name. |
| When something fails | Depends on the plan. Log retention and audit history vary by edition, from 7 days of logs on Tray.ai Pro to 90 days on Workato Enterprise MCP. | The integration keeps its own record of every sync for as long as you choose and alerts the people you name when a record is rejected. |
| Vendor risk | Pricing units, plan limits and packaging are the vendor's decisions and can change at renewal. | No vendor to renew with. The risk moves to keeping a maintainer available, which owning the code and accounts is meant to cover. |
When an integration platform is the right answer
Buy a platform when you have many connections and they change often. If marketing, sales, finance and operations each want new automations all the time, a platform gives one team a place to build, watch and govern them all.
Buy as well when the need is simple and immediate. Copying a new lead into a second app does not justify a build, and a self-serve tool will have it running today.
When building a custom integration is the right answer
Build when the business depends on a few connections. An ERP that must agree with a CRM, or operations that must agree with accounting, is one designed system and should not be a collection of automations.
Build when usage pricing no longer suits your volume. A sync that moves more records every year costs more every year on a platform. Code you own costs what it costs to host.
Build when the automations you have are fragile and nobody can say what all of them do. Moving those automations to a bigger platform keeps the same problem.
How to compare the cost of an integration platform with a custom build
Price the platform at your actual volume and ignore the entry tier. Multiply records by steps, find the plan that covers your busiest month, and add the features you will need, such as SSO, audit logs and a test environment. Then add the hours your own people spend building and repairing.
The custom number is a one-time build plus running costs. Black Badger does not publish a price, because the figure depends on how many systems are involved and how good their interfaces are. A written scope gives you the number to put beside the platform total.
What a custom build involves, and how to ask about one
Questions buyers ask
Is a custom integration cheaper than a platform?
A custom integration is not always cheaper than a platform in the first year, and for a few simple automations it never will be. The comparison changes as volume grows and years pass, because a subscription repeats and grows with usage while a build is paid for once.
Can a company use an integration platform and a custom integration together?
Yes, a company can use an integration platform and a custom integration together. Keep a self-serve tool for small conveniences that business staff build themselves, and own the few syncs the business cannot run without. The mistake to avoid is letting the self-serve tool carry the critical data.
What if the developer who built our integration is no longer available?
Losing the original developer is the risk ownership is designed to cover. Every account the integration runs on is in your name, and the code is written and documented so another developer can read it and carry on.