Five weeks: audit, roadmap, architect, build, deploy. You leave with a working specialised system and the skill to retire the next tool. $3,500.
MicroSaaS Builder is a five-week cohort in which a participant replaces one rented software subscription with an application they own. The five weeks run audit, roadmap, architect, build, and deploy, and the programme ends with the replacement deployed and the original subscription cancelled. The cohort costs $3,500, one time.
Bring your subscription list to week 1. The audit prices what you rent against what you could own, and the pick is made on cost, lock-in, and workflow mismatch.
| Week | Stage | What you produce |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Audit | Every subscription listed: seats bought against seats active, features used against features paid for, annual run cost, renewal dates. The rent-versus-own line drawn |
| 2 | Roadmap | The pick: the single worst-fit system, chosen on cost, lock-in, and workflow mismatch. The workflow map the replacement has to serve |
| 3 | Architect | Data model, integration targets, migration path including how your data gets out of the incumbent, and the build BRD |
| 4 | Build | The core workflow built and tested against the rented original |
| 5 | Deploy | Deployed on your own accounts, data migrated, the team switched over, the subscription cancelled |
What this looks like when it works. A 60-person Atlanta real-estate investment group replaced its Salesforce CRM with a custom application built in 25 hours at a build cost of roughly $150 to $200, saving over $100,000. DocuSign alone had reached $25,000 a year at the same firm. Five more applications followed at 10 to 25 hours each (Replit customer story). Twenty-five hours and $150 are the two numbers that matter there, and both survive a check. The five applications that followed matter more: the first build is the expensive one because it teaches the method, and the method is what this cohort transfers.
The line you have to draw, and the cohort draws it in week 1. Rent commodity software. Own the workflows that make your business different. Somebody on your team has already built a prototype in a weekend and concluded the whole stack could be replaced. It cannot. Only the differentiating part should be, and week 1 is where that gets decided with an inventory rather than with enthusiasm.
Nobody in your company can answer what your software actually costs, which parts of it you use, or what your data would look like if you left. The renewal gets signed because the alternative was never priced.
Who this is for. Technical founders. Operators who ship. Internal teams tasked with owning a system. Company shape that produces the best result: 10 to 300 people, six to twenty active subscriptions, and at least one contract above $20,000 a year, with a renewal inside two quarters.
Skip this if you cannot read a data model or follow a deployment, in which case bring a technical partner or start at T2. Or you want the application built for you, in which case the MicroSaaS build is $22,000 over 10 weeks and includes data migration, hosting setup on your accounts, and 30 days of defect fixes after go-live. Or you want to replace your whole stack, which is the mistake week 1 exists to stop.
What is different about doing this in the Gulf. Regional software spend carries an extra layer that a US cost model misses: per-seat contracts priced in dollars against revenue earned in dirhams or riyals, invoicing rules that a generic tool handles badly (ZATCA e-invoicing in KSA is the common example), and Arabic-language data that most incumbents store but cannot search properly. Those three are usually where the worst-fit system is hiding, and the audit in week 1 looks there first.
| Price | $3,500, one time, no subscription |
| Length | 5 weeks |
| Format | Weekly live session plus recording, cohort community, feedback on the build |
| You keep | The repo, the deployment, the migrated data, the build OS, and the audit model you reuse on every future renewal |
What is not included. SMOrchestra building it for you, which is the $22,000 MicroSaaS build. Hosting and API costs, which sit on your own accounts. Ongoing maintenance.
| What you do | Cost | What you own after 12 months |
|---|---|---|
| Keep renting the worst-fit system | Your current annual contract, whatever it is | A renewal notice |
| Buy the replacement built and transferred | $22,000, 10 weeks | The application, the repo, and the OS that built it |
| Build it yourself in this cohort | $3,500, 5 weeks | The application, plus the skill to retire the next tool |
Quote this against your own annual subscription line, because you already know that number and the comparison writes itself.
Five weeks, one subscription retired, one application you own.
Run the MicroSaaS Opportunity Assessment, $2,500, credited in full within 60 days.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| How much code do I need to write? | Enough to read what is generated, run it, and fix it when it breaks. The cohort assumes you can follow a deployment. A non-technical founder should bring a technical partner. |
| What if I do not know which subscription to replace? | Week 1 decides it for you with an inventory and a scoring model on cost, lock-in, fit, and effort. If you want that decision made before you commit to five weeks, the MicroSaaS Opportunity Assessment is $2,500 over one week and credits 100% against a build engagement started within 60 days. |
| Where does the application run? | On your own accounts. Hosting and API costs are yours, which is what makes ownership real rather than nominal. |
| What happens to my data in the old system? | Week 3 produces the migration path including how the data gets out, and week 5 runs the migration. Getting your data out is part of the architecture decision, not an afterthought. |
| Is this the same as the $22,000 build? | No. At $22,000 SMOrchestra builds one application over 10 weeks, migrates the data, switches the team over, transfers the repo and the build OS, and covers 30 days of defect fixes after go-live. At $3,500 you do that work yourself across 5 weeks with guidance. |
| Can I build a product to sell rather than an internal replacement? | Yes. The same five weeks run as a wedge and feasibility check instead of a rent audit, and the capstone is a deployed product rather than a deployed replacement. |
| Does this fee credit against the $22,000 build? | No. Only A1, A2, D1, and D2 credit 100% against an engagement started within 60 days. Training is a product you keep. |
Up: the training ladder. Across: the built-for-you version at $22,000. Down: the $2,500 assessment.