So, you're in the market for a solution to rent your properties, and you’re considering your options. The problem is, everyone is shouting something different. There is a group of people that will tell you that having your solution built from the ground up is the way to go, because “it’s the only way to end up with a solution that will work for your company.”

 

Sure, you can throw money at the development of a brand new booking portal. The odds of ending up with a solution that fits like a glove are pretty good, but at what price? You’d usually have to think about a price tag in the tens of thousands of dollars. After all developing bespoke web based software isn’t cheap. If you want it done right.

But we’re going to look at three reasons to choose the other option: buying an out of the box property booking and rental solution, like JomRes.

Save big on development

The first reason to go for an out of the box solution, is money. To be specific, the money you can save by buying an existing solution. Unlike having a custom solution developed, you pay the price that is listed on the box – or, in this modern age, on the website of the vendor. Unless the vendor is trying to trick you, you know exactly what you are getting for that kind of money.

That doesn’t rule out that there might be some extra costs down the road. You might want to hire a developer to tweak the code a bit, or to do the implementation for you. However, the end price will still be lower. Compare it to buying a car, then driving it to the garage to have some options installed versus paying someone to building a custom car for you.

Don’t reinvent the wheel

Building a solution from scratch is a lot of work. And unfortunately, not just for you or your developer. You will be asked to write detailed requirements. There will be different rounds of testing, to see if the software meets your requirements. There’ll be lots of communication with the developers to make sure that the end product meets the requirements you initially had for the product.

With an existing solution, you can rely on a strong foundation, tried and tested by hundreds of other developers that are active in the same market segment as you. It’s almost cheating that you can freely profit from the research, development and continuous refining that the developer and previous users have done for you.

The maintenance costs will be lower

When you choose an existing product, the maintenance costs will be significantly lower down the road. If it’s an established product, built on a strong foundation, you should have no problem finding developers that can customize the product in question. Perhaps it’s even possible to have custom development done by the developer you bought the solution from.

With custom development, however, the maintenance can become an expensive routine. You either sign a maintenance contract with the original developer, at the price they set. Or, you can choose to hand over the product to another developer and hope that they can figure out how your solution was built. Expect them to charge you for the “research” they will be doing, regardless.

Conclusion

While there are benefits to choose for a custom solution, buying an out-of-the-box solution definitely has it’s upsides that will most likely have a positive impact on your budget and future maintenance. But in the end, the decision is up to you!