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A comprehensive guide to help you make the right decision for your organization.

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The Real Cost of Building In-House

Building a conversation intelligence platform is more complex and expensive than most teams initially estimate. Here’s what you’re really signing up for:

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Time & Resource Investment

Development Timeline

6-8 months minimum
  • 2-3 months for basic infrastructure
  • 2-3 months for core features
  • 2 months for testing and refinement

Team Requirements

3-5 dedicated engineers
  • AI/ML expertise required
  • Data pipeline experience
  • Frontend development
  • DevOps for infrastructure

Initial Investment

500K−500K - 1M+ Year 1
  • Engineer salaries
  • Infrastructure costs
  • Third-party APIs
  • Ongoing maintenance

Hidden Costs

Often overlooked expenses
  • Compliance certifications
  • Security audits
  • Feature updates
  • Bug fixes and support

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Real Customer Story

An enterprise customer with an AI-native team spent 6 months with 5 engineers trying to build a similar solution. Despite their expertise and significant investment, they couldn’t match BuildBetter’s capabilities. Their BuildBetter contract ended up being 50x cheaper than what they’d already spent attempting to build it themselves.

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Build vs Buy Calculator

Visit our interactive Build vs Buy Calculator to see a detailed cost comparison based on your specific needs.

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Quick Cost Comparison (Year 1)

  • Build In-House
  • Buy BuildBetter
One-Time Setup: $175,000
  • Infrastructure setup
  • Initial development
  • Basic feature set
Monthly Ongoing: $24,243
  • 2 engineers for maintenance
  • Infrastructure costs
  • API fees
Year 1 Total: $465,920

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What You’re Really Building

Many teams underestimate the complexity of building a conversation intelligence platform. Here’s what’s actually required:

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Core Components

  • Meeting platform integrations (Zoom, Teams, Meet, Webex)
  • Calendar syncing (Google, Outlook)
  • CRM connections (Salesforce, HubSpot)
  • Email and Slack ingestion
  • File upload capabilities
  • Audio/video transcription
  • Speaker diarization
  • Context extraction
  • Signal identification
  • Pattern recognition
  • Report generation
  • Custom AI models (not just LLM wrappers)
  • Contextual understanding
  • Sentiment analysis
  • Topic modeling
  • Trend identification
  • Actionable insights
  • Search functionality
  • Filtering and segmentation
  • Report customization
  • Team collaboration
  • Permission management
  • API access
  • SOC 2 compliance
  • GDPR compliance
  • HIPAA readiness
  • Data encryption
  • Audit logging
  • SSO integration

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Why Buy BuildBetter?

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Immediate Benefits

Day 1 Value

Start getting insights immediately, not in 6-8 months

Proven Technology

Battle-tested with thousands of B2B teams

No Maintenance

We handle all updates, improvements, and infrastructure

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Long-Term Advantages

  1. Continuous Innovation
    • Regular feature updates
    • Latest AI model improvements
    • New integrations added automatically
    • No additional development costs
  2. Enterprise-Ready
    • SOC 2 Type 2 certified
    • GDPR compliant
    • HIPAA compliant options
    • 99.9% uptime SLA
  3. Usage-Based Pricing
    • No per-seat licensing
    • Everyone in your org gets access
    • Pay only for what you use
    • Scales with your business
  4. Expert Support
    • Dedicated customer success
    • Technical support included
    • Best practices guidance
    • Regular training sessions

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Common Misconceptions

“We can just use ChatGPT with our transcripts”This approach fails because:
  • Context window limitations (3-10 transcripts max)
  • No persistent memory or pattern recognition
  • No integration with your tools
  • No compliance or security guarantees
  • Poor performance on analytical queries
“We’ll start simple and add features later”The reality:
  • “Simple” still requires significant infrastructure
  • Feature requests pile up quickly
  • Technical debt accumulates
  • Maintenance becomes a full-time job
  • You’re always playing catch-up

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Decision Framework

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Build In-House If:

  • ❌ You have 6+ months to wait for results
  • ❌ You can dedicate 3-5 engineers long-term
  • ❌ You have $500K+ budget for Year 1
  • ❌ Conversation intelligence is your core product
  • ❌ You need highly specialized, unique features

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Buy BuildBetter If:

  • ✅ You need insights now, not in 6 months
  • ✅ You want to focus on your core business
  • ✅ You need enterprise-grade security and compliance
  • ✅ You want access to continuous improvements
  • ✅ You prefer predictable, usage-based costs

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The Bottom Line

For ~200−500/month,yougetaplatformthatwouldcost200-500/month, you get a platform that would cost 1M+ to build and maintain. The math is simple: unless conversation intelligence IS your product, building doesn’t make sense.

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What Our Customers Say

“We tried building this ourselves for 6 months. Switching to BuildBetter gave us better results in 2 weeks than we achieved in half a year of development.” - Enterprise Customer
“The build vs buy decision was easy once we calculated the true costs. BuildBetter pays for itself in the time savings alone.” - Series B Startup
“We thought we could build a ‘simple version’ - there’s no such thing. BuildBetter has features we didn’t even know we needed.” - Tech Company

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Ready to Get Started?

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Run your own numbers with our interactive Build vs Buy Calculator

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Still Have Questions?

Our team is happy to discuss your specific use case and help you make the right decision. Contact us for a personalized consultation.