Build vs buy
Why not build it ourselves?
Lots of firms have a digitally minded engineer who could try to build their own version of Piramade. Here’s why it costs more than it saves.
The maths
One firm paying for everything, or many firms sharing
Building your own tool means you carry the full cost of development via an engineer’s salary and time. Piramade’s costs are shared across users, so each firm pays only a portion.
Build it yourself
AUD $150,000
every year, for one engineer
- Salary, digital technologies specialist
- AUD $150,000
- Hosting, AI and software
- on top
Your firm pays all of it.
Piramade
A small share
typically less than one billable hour per engineer per month
Piramade’s costs are shared across users. Every firm that uses it helps pay for building, running and improving it, so no firm carries the whole bill.
You pay a small share, and get every improvement.
Indicative full-time salary for a digital technologies specialist in Australia. Excludes superannuation, hosting, AI usage, software licences and management time.
Beyond the salary
What a home-built tool really asks of you
Time off billable work
Every hour your engineer spends building and fixing the tool is an hour they are not on project work.
One person holds it all
If they move on, the knowledge of how the tool works leaves with them, and the tool stalls.
Upkeep never ends
AI models, file formats and software platforms change constantly. Someone has to keep up, every month.
Software isn’t your core business
Your firm’s expertise is engineering. Building reliable software means scoping, hiring and directing developers, which is hard to do well without that experience in-house.
Every decision is yours
Which AI model, where to host it, how to read scanned drawings: each choice takes research, and a wrong one means rework.
It only improves when they have time
A home-built tool moves at the pace of one engineer. It won’t get the features other firms are asking for.
With Piramade
Up and running, with the hard parts handled
Running straight away
Connect your existing storage and your engineers start searching. No development time.
Decisions made for you
We choose, test and manage the technology, so your team doesn’t have to.
Gets better over time
New features and improvements arrive as part of your subscription.
Costs shared across firms
You pay a share of a product delivering value to multiple firms, not the whole bill.
Keep your engineers on engineering
Piramade is ready to deploy today. Connect your storage and your engineers are finding precedent within days.
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