How a 10-Person Startup Saved $50K/Year with Open Source
How a 10-Person Startup Saved $50K/Year with Open Source
This is a composite case study based on real startup stacks. Here's how a 10-person team replaced $54K/year in SaaS with self-hosted tools for under $2K.
The Starting SaaS Stack
A typical 10-person B2B SaaS startup paying for:
| Tool | Plan | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Slack Business+ | $15/user | $1,500/year |
| Jira Premium | $16/user | $1,920/year |
| Notion Business | $18/user | $2,160/year |
| Figma Professional | $15/user | $1,800/year |
| Intercom Starter | $39/seat (5) | $4,680/year |
| Calendly Teams | $12/user | $1,440/year |
| Mailchimp Standard | — | $2,400/year |
| 1Password Business | $8/user | $960/year |
| Datadog Pro | $15/host (5) | $1,260/year |
| Zapier Pro | — | $3,588/year |
| Zoom Business | $13.33/user | $1,600/year |
| Google Workspace Business | $14/user | $1,680/year |
| HubSpot Starter | $20/user (5) | $1,200/year |
| Sentry Team | — | $312/year |
| Vercel Pro | $20/user (5) | $1,200/year |
| GitHub Team | $4/user | $480/year |
| Auth0 Essentials | — | $276/year |
| Linear | $8/user | $960/year |
| Postman Team | $14/user | $1,680/year |
| Loom Business | $15/user | $1,800/year |
| Total | $30,896/year |
Add growth from 10 → 15 users over the year: ~$54,000/year projected.
The Migration Plan
Phase 1: Quick Wins (Week 1)
| Replace | With | Annual Savings |
|---|---|---|
| 1Password → Vaultwarden | Self-hosted | $960 |
| Calendly → Cal.com | Self-hosted | $1,440 |
| Uptime/monitoring → Uptime Kuma | Self-hosted | Free (new) |
| Postman → Hoppscotch | Self-hosted | $1,680 |
Phase 1 savings: $4,080/year Setup time: 4 hours
Phase 2: Communication (Week 2-3)
| Replace | With | Annual Savings |
|---|---|---|
| Slack → Mattermost | Self-hosted | $1,500 |
| Zoom → Jitsi Meet | Self-hosted | $1,600 |
Phase 2 savings: $3,100/year Setup time: 6 hours
Phase 3: Project Management (Month 1)
| Replace | With | Annual Savings |
|---|---|---|
| Jira/Linear → Plane | Self-hosted | $2,880 |
| Notion → Outline | Self-hosted | $2,160 |
Phase 3 savings: $5,040/year Setup time: 8 hours (including data migration)
Phase 4: Business Tools (Month 2)
| Replace | With | Annual Savings |
|---|---|---|
| Intercom → Chatwoot | Self-hosted | $4,680 |
| Mailchimp → Listmonk | Self-hosted | $2,400 |
| HubSpot → Twenty | Self-hosted | $1,200 |
| Zapier → n8n | Self-hosted | $3,588 |
Phase 4 savings: $11,868/year Setup time: 12 hours
Phase 5: Dev Tools (Month 3)
| Replace | With | Annual Savings |
|---|---|---|
| Sentry → GlitchTip | Self-hosted | $312 |
| Datadog → Grafana + Prometheus | Self-hosted | $1,260 |
| Vercel → Coolify | Self-hosted | $1,200 |
| Auth0 → Keycloak | Self-hosted | $276 |
Phase 5 savings: $3,048/year Setup time: 10 hours
What They Kept (SaaS)
| Tool | Why | Annual Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Google Workspace | Email + Drive, no good self-hosted email | $1,680 |
| GitHub | Git hosting, CI/CD, team workflows | $480 |
| Figma | Collaboration quality unmatched | $1,800 |
Remaining SaaS: $3,960/year
The New Stack Cost
Infrastructure
| Component | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Hetzner CX32 (8 GB) — main services | $7 | $84 |
| Hetzner CX22 (4 GB) — monitoring + CI | $4.50 | $54 |
| Backblaze B2 backups | $3 | $36 |
| Domains (3) | $3 | $36 |
| SES email sending | $2 | $24 |
| Infrastructure total | $19.50 | $234 |
Time Investment
| Activity | Year 1 | Year 2+ |
|---|---|---|
| Setup (40 hours × $75/hr) | $3,000 | — |
| Maintenance (3 hours/month × $75/hr) | $2,700 | $2,700 |
| Time total | $5,700 | $2,700 |
Total New Cost
| Category | Year 1 | Year 2+ |
|---|---|---|
| Remaining SaaS | $3,960 | $3,960 |
| Infrastructure | $234 | $234 |
| Time | $5,700 | $2,700 |
| Total | $9,894 | $6,894 |
The Results
Financial
| Metric | Before | After (Year 1) | After (Year 2+) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual cost | $54,000 | $9,894 | $6,894 |
| Annual savings | — | $44,106 | $47,106 |
| Savings % | — | 82% | 87% |
5-Year Projection
| Year | SaaS (5% increase) | Self-Hosted | Cumulative Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $54,000 | $9,894 | $44,106 |
| 2 | $56,700 | $6,894 | $93,912 |
| 3 | $59,535 | $6,894 | $146,553 |
| 4 | $62,512 | $6,894 | $202,171 |
| 5 | $65,637 | $6,894 | $260,914 |
5-year savings: $260,914
Non-Financial Benefits
- Full data ownership and GDPR compliance
- No vendor lock-in on critical tools
- Faster onboarding (no per-seat decisions)
- Custom integrations between self-hosted tools
- Team learned infrastructure management
Challenges Encountered
- Week 1: Team resisted leaving Slack (resolved after 2-week adjustment)
- Month 1: Outline missing some Notion features (accepted trade-off)
- Month 2: n8n automation setup took longer than Zapier equivalent
- Month 3: Grafana learning curve steeper than Datadog (used community dashboards)
Key Lessons
- Migrate in phases — Don't switch everything at once
- Keep what works — Figma, GitHub, Google Workspace were worth keeping
- Quick wins build momentum — Start with easy switches (Vaultwarden, Cal.com)
- Budget for learning — First month is slower, then it accelerates
- Share infrastructure — One PostgreSQL, one Redis, one Caddy for everything
The Bottom Line
A 10-person startup went from $54K/year in SaaS to $7K/year with open source — saving $47K annually (87% reduction). Over 5 years, that's $260K back in the business.
The migration took 3 months of gradual rollout and 40 hours of setup time. Year 2+ maintenance: 3 hours/month.
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