In this episode of Survey & Beyond: The Data Collection Podcast, host Marta Costa sits down with Maria Pervova, Business Development Lead at SurveyCTO. Together, they tackle one of the biggest decisions organizations face when setting up their data collection infrastructure: should you build your own software in-house or subscribe to a SaaS platform?

Maria Pervova is the Business Development Lead at SurveyCTO, where she has spent the past five years guiding organizations through critical technology decisions. With vast experience consulting on data collection infrastructure, she brings deep expertise in evaluating the trade-offs between building custom software solutions and leveraging existing platforms. Maria's work focuses on helping organizations assess scalability, sustainability, and long-term impact when navigating the build-versus-buy decision. In this episode, she shares practical frameworks for evaluating the true cost of ownership, security compliance, and resource allocation.

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Episode Highlights:

[03:34] - The Frankenstein Effect - When organizations build customer software to satisfy every stakeholder’s wish list, they risk the “Frankenstein effect,” a bloated system stitched together from too many competing demands. SaaS platforms avoid this through product managers who set boundaries and say no. For teams needing flexibility, the smarter move is choosing open platforms that allow customization on top of native functionality.

[07:44] - The Expensive Tissue Hypothesis - Organizations evaluating whether to build or buy software often focus on today’s needs while underestimating the long-term burden of maintenance, security, hosting, bug fixes, and keeping pace with rapidly evolving technology. SaaS platforms are purpose-built for this. The real question isn’t whether you can build it, but whether you should spend your finite organizational energy on it. Every hour devoted to maintaining plumbing is an hour not spent on the creative, high-impact work that drives your mission forward and keeps your team motivated.

[23:20] - The Iceberg of True Cost - Building in-house often looks cheaper, but only at the surface. Maria describes the true cost of ownership as an iceberg: the visible part is build time and developer headcount. However, beneath it lies ongoing maintenance, OS updates, browser compatibility, scaling, server reliability, user support, training, and bug fixes. Think about this way: when you build, if there’s an issue with the toilet and things are flooding, it’s on you. With a vendor, someone else handles the repairs. The question is whether the organization is ready to own everything that comes after.