{"id":1321,"slug":"custom-portal-build-20-60k-15-20pct-maintenance","title":"Custom portal build economics — $20K-60K initial, 3-12 months, 15-20%/year maintenance (~$3K-10K+/yr) for patches/auth/updates","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","smb-owner","candid-team"],"topics":["client-portals","build-vs-buy-software"],"reference_body":"**Claim:** Custom client portal: **$20,000-$60,000 initial**, **3-12 months**, **maintenance 15-20% of build/year** (~$3,000-$10,000+/yr) for security patching, auth management, updates.\n\nWordPress / plugin route: membership plugin $199-$399/yr (MemberPress, WooCommerce Memberships) + ~$1,000-$4,000/yr developer maintenance.\n\n**Source:** spp.co/blog/true-cost ; agencyhandy.com/client-portal/client-portal-pricing ; spaceotechnologies.com/blog/web-portal-development-cost ; milesit.com/web-portal-pricing\n\n**Confidence:** Industry-consensus — multiple developer sources converge.\n\n**Caveat:** Both portal-SaaS vendors (motivated to make custom look expensive) and dev shops (motivated to quote high) appear in the source list. The **convergence on $20-60K + ongoing maintenance is credible**.\n\n**Why this matters for Candid:** Over 5 years, custom routinely exceeds the bought cost — by an order of magnitude or more vs SuiteDash. The bar for custom is correspondingly high — see [[rule-default-buy-portal-not-build]] and the five-narrow-cases list in [[narrow-cases-where-custom-portal-justified]].","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-client-portals-smb-june-2026","title":"Research brief: client portals for SMBs — the honest case (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"narrow-cases-where-custom-portal-justified","title":"Five narrow cases where a custom portal is justified: unmodeled workflow / proprietary integration / portal-is-the-product / data-residency / scale-inversion","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"rule-default-buy-portal-not-build","title":"R1 — Default to BUY, not build, for client portals; recommend a horizontal platform ($19-79/mo) or the bundled vertical-SaaS portal","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-20T17:57:32.146Z","updated_at":"2026-06-20T17:57:32.146Z"}