How to Create a Build vs. Buy Analysis Presentation

Build-vs-buy decisions are high-stakes and frequently made badly — either by defaulting to building because "we can do it ourselves" or by buying a vendor solution without accounting for total cost of ownership and integration complexity. A structured build-vs-buy analysis presentation forces rigorous thinking on both options and gives decision-makers the information they need to make the right call.

When to Present a Build-vs-Buy Analysis

Not every capability requires a formal build-vs-buy analysis. The situations that warrant a presentation:

• The capability is strategic or core to the product — getting this wrong has long-term consequences
• The cost of the decision is significant (either building would require substantial engineering investment, or buying would require a material annual contract)
• Multiple stakeholders have different opinions that need to be aligned before a decision is made
• The decision has organizational implications beyond engineering — legal, security, compliance, or vendor relationship dependencies

For trivial tooling decisions, a Slack message is usually sufficient.

Slide 1: Decision Statement

What decision is being made, and by when. Specific capability or system in scope. Name the context — what is driving this decision now, and what happens if it is delayed.

Slide 2: The Capability Being Evaluated

What the capability does and what requirements it must meet. Be specific: not "authentication system" but "multi-tenant authentication supporting SSO via SAML 2.0 and OIDC, MFA enforcement, session management, and audit logging for SOC 2 compliance." The requirements list is what you will evaluate both build and buy options against.

Separate requirements into must-have (any solution must meet these to be viable) and nice-to-have (preferred but not disqualifying if absent). This prevents vendors from winning on impressive features that do not matter while failing on requirements that do.

Slide 3: Build Option Analysis

What building the capability would require:

Engineering cost — estimated team size, time to build a minimum viable version, and time to reach production readiness. Be honest about engineering complexity and the risk of underestimation.

Ongoing cost — engineering time for maintenance, support, and iteration. Capabilities you build are capabilities you own forever. Security patches, dependency updates, scaling work, and feature additions all accrue to your team.

Timeline — when a built solution could be available. Compare this to the business need.

Risk — the risk of building. Under-scoped initial build, security vulnerabilities in a capability built without domain expertise, team dependency on the engineers who built it.

Strategic value — does building this capability create a competitive advantage? Is the resulting capability differentiated from what is available commercially?

Slide 4: Buy Option Analysis

Evaluate one to three vendor options against the same dimensions:

Licensing cost — annual contract cost at current and projected usage. Include per-seat, per-API-call, or per-volume pricing at realistic usage levels. Get actual quotes where possible — vendor pricing pages are often illustrative rather than accurate.

Integration cost — engineering time to integrate the vendor solution. Often underestimated. Show estimated integration effort for each option.

Ongoing cost — vendor price escalation risk, professional services for customization, and the engineering time to maintain the integration.

Coverage of requirements — for each must-have requirement, does the vendor meet it? Present a requirements matrix: requirements down the left, vendor options across the top, met/not met/partial for each cell.

Risk — vendor lock-in, vendor stability, data handling and sovereignty, contractual terms, and what happens if the vendor is acquired or shuts down.

Slide 5: Total Cost of Ownership Comparison

A five-year TCO comparison across all options. Build TCO includes initial development, ongoing maintenance, hosting, and the opportunity cost of engineering time spent maintaining the capability versus building product. Buy TCO includes licensing, integration, customization, and price escalation.

Show the crossover point if there is one — the point at which building becomes cheaper than buying over a long enough time horizon. For many capabilities, buying is cheaper until the scale of usage makes licensing cost prohibitive.

Slide 6: Qualitative Factors

Factors that do not fit into a cost model but matter significantly:

• Strategic control — if this capability is core to your product differentiation, building it gives you control. Buying it means a competitor can access the same capability.
• Expertise — does your team have the expertise to build this well? Security, payments, ML infrastructure — some domains require deep expertise that takes years to build.
• Speed — buying is almost always faster. If time-to-market is a strategic constraint, the build option's timeline may be disqualifying regardless of long-term cost.
• Flexibility — can the vendor solution be customized to your exact needs, or will you be constrained by vendor design decisions?

Slide 7: Recommendation and Rationale

Your recommended option with the reasoning. State which requirements drove the decision, what trade-offs the recommendation accepts, and what the conditions would be under which you would revisit the decision.

Do not hedge. A recommendation that says "either option could work" is not useful. Make a call and show your reasoning.

Slide 8: Next Steps

If the recommendation is approved, what happens immediately: vendor contract process, engineering team assignment, timeline, and first milestone.

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