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Lane 01 — From $2,500

Custom AI Systems
that replace your SaaS stack.

One owned system replacing 3 to 8 SaaS subscriptions. Built in 2 to 6 weeks. Code in your repo, deployment in your infrastructure, API costs at a fraction of what the stack cost you monthly. No per-seat licensing, no vendor lock-in, no monthly tax.

When a custom system beats SaaS

SaaS is the right answer when your problem matches the vendor's roadmap and you only need 30% of the feature set. It stops being the right answer when (a) you are paying for 5+ tools that overlap, (b) no single tool covers your full workflow so you are stitching anyway, or (c) per-seat pricing has crossed the point where one-time engineering pays back inside 12 months. That is where Lane 01 lives.

Below: three real replacement patterns with the math. Your numbers will differ; the structure of the savings does not.

Replacement patterns

Outbound stack

Replaces:

  • Apollo ($99/mo)
  • Clay ($349/mo)
  • Lemlist ($79/mo)
  • Smartlead ($59/mo)
  • half-time SDR ($2,000/mo)

$2,586/mo → ~$120/mo in API costs

Payback in ~3 months

Content + distribution

Replaces:

  • Copy.ai ($49/mo)
  • Buffer ($65/mo)
  • Notion AI ($10/seat)
  • Taplio ($69/mo)
  • manual scheduling time (~6 hrs/wk)

$193/mo + ~24 hrs/mo team time → ~$40/mo in API costs

Payback in ~5 months on cash alone, faster including time saved

Ops + reporting

Replaces:

  • Zapier Pro ($73/mo)
  • Geckoboard ($95/mo)
  • Hex ($150/mo)
  • manual Monday reporting (~4 hrs/wk)

$318/mo + ~16 hrs/mo founder time

Payback in ~4 months

How a build runs

Week 1

Discovery + architecture

Audit current stack. Model the workflows end-to-end. Pick the orchestration layer. Lock scope + quote in writing. You sign off before any code.

Weeks 2–4

Modular build

One workflow live at a time. You see progress every week. Test runs against real data starting week 2. Bugs flagged early, not at handoff.

Weeks 5–6

Integration + ship

Cross-workflow integration testing. Deployment to your infrastructure. Documentation in your repo. Handoff walkthrough. You own everything from day 42 or earlier.

Pricing

from $2,500

Fixed-quote per system. Final number depends on workflow count, integration complexity, and data volume. Most builds land between $4,500 and $14,000. Quoted in writing before any code.

  • Multi-workflow custom system
  • Replaces 3 to 8 SaaS subscriptions in one build
  • Orchestration, integrations, error handling, monitoring
  • Code in your repo, owned by you forever
  • Handoff documentation + walkthrough
  • 2–6 week delivery window

Optional maintenance retainer from $1,500/month (monitoring, small changes, model upgrades). Cancel any time.

FAQ

What is a "custom AI system" vs. a custom AI agent?

An agent automates one workflow. A system stitches multiple workflows together to replace a stack. Example: a single outreach agent drafts personalized emails. A custom AI system runs the entire outbound motion — list building, enrichment, scoring, personalization, sending, reply detection, CRM logging, handoff to founder DMs for hot replies. Lane 02 replaces a tool. Lane 01 replaces a stack.

Does the ROI math actually work?

For most SMEs paying $300 to $1,500 a month across 3 to 8 tools, yes. A $2,500 entry-tier system replacing $400/month in SaaS pays back in 6 months. A $7,500 build replacing $1,000/month pays back in 7.5 months. Year 2 onward is pure savings, plus the value of owning the code. The break-even point goes longer for larger stacks but the math gets better, not worse — bigger stacks have more redundancy to consolidate.

Why $2,500 minimum?

Multi-workflow systems require architecture. Picking the orchestration layer, modeling the data flow, designing error states and retries, building monitoring — these are the things SaaS vendors do for you when you pay them monthly. When you own the system, you do it once and the cost is one-time. $2,500 is the floor for that work scoped properly. Most builds land between $4,500 and $14,000 depending on integration count.

What does the build process look like?

Week 1: discovery + architecture. We audit your current stack, model the workflows, lock the scope and quote. Weeks 2–4: build. Modular delivery — one workflow at a time goes live, you see progress weekly. Weeks 5–6: integration, testing on real data, deployment, docs, handoff. Typical timeline 3 to 6 weeks depending on integration count.

What happens after the system is built?

You own the code, the deployment, the API accounts, the data. We hand off documentation comprehensive enough for an in-house developer to extend without us. If you want us to keep iterating, we offer a maintenance retainer (from $1,500/month, optional, cancel any time) covering monitoring, small changes, and model upgrades as providers ship them.

What if my stack is mostly fine and I only need to consolidate 2 tools?

That is a Lane 02 build (custom AI agents, from $500). Lane 01 makes sense when you have 3+ tools doing overlapping work or one workflow that crosses 3+ tools every time you run it. If you are not sure, book a free 30-minute scoping call and we will tell you straight.

Ready to scope a system?

30-minute call. We'll talk through your current stack and tell you straight whether Lane 01 is the right answer or if a starter agent at $500 is the better first step.

Book a Call