Beyond Subscriptions: A School’s Guide to Owning Its Tech

If you’re a school administrator or CFO, you’re likely fighting a battle on two fronts: a mandate to innovate and a budget that’s stretched to its limit. The default solution for every new challenge? Subscribe to another piece of software.

But what if that “solution” is actually the problem?

Many schools are now drowning in what’s known as “SaaS Sprawl”, a sea of disconnected subscriptions that drain the budget and create operational chaos. This isn’t just a theory. A candid March 2025 internal briefing from the Public Schools of Brookline laid the issue bare, revealing over $337,000 in annual software costs across just five categories. And that staggering number didn’t even include their main curriculum software.

This guide provides a clear path to escape the cycle. We’ll show you how to move from being a renter of a dozen tools to an owner of a single, unified platform, freeing up your budget to invest in what truly matters: growth.

The High Cost of Renting Software

The Brookline Schools briefing is a perfect real-world example of the “subscription portfolio” model. It validates the challenges that, until now, have been frustratingly hard to quantify.

The author of the report explicitly calls out the deeper strategic problems this model creates, noting that the “recurring nature of subscriptions can lead to higher long-term costs” and that schools often face “vendor lock-in.”

This dependency traps school leaders in an endless cycle of renegotiating contracts for minor savings, pulling focus away from students.

Why Managing Subscriptions Is a Losing Game

Viewing your software as a “portfolio” of rented tools is fundamentally flawed. It creates three critical problems that hurt your bottom line and your efficiency.

Your Data is Scattered

When admissions data is in one system and student grades are in another, you have no single source of truth. This leads to manual data entry, costly errors, and an incomplete picture of your student lifecycle.

Your Process is Broken

One-size-fits-all software forces you to change your school’s unique processes to fit the tool’s limitations. You end up paying for features you don’t need while missing the ones you do.

You Pay Hidden “Glue” Costs

To make these disconnected systems talk to each other, you spend even more money on integration tools or developers just to build fragile connections. It’s the hidden tax of renting your technology.

The Power of an Owned Platform

What if you could stop renting and start owning? Imagine investing in a single, custom-built platform as a core institutional asset, just like a new library or science lab. This isn’t an expense that vanishes every year; it’s a capital investment that you control and that makes your entire institution more efficient.

A unified platform, built on a modern and lean tech stack, gives you:

• Total Control: Design workflows that perfectly match your school’s proven processes.
• A Single Source of Truth: All your data lives in one secure, centralized place.
• Complete Flexibility: Add features as you grow, without asking a vendor for permission.
• Massive ROI: By eliminating dozens of overlapping subscriptions, you can achieve game-changing savings.

Your 4-Step Roadmap to Ownership

Transitioning from renting to owning is a strategic process. Here is a practical, step-by-step roadmap to get you there.

Step 1: Audit Your Current Subscriptions

You can’t fix what you can’t see. Your first step is to create your own “Brookline Briefing.” Map out every subscription, its true annual cost, and its function. This exercise alone will reveal shocking overlaps and waste.

Step 2: Identify Your “Center of Gravity”

Don’t try to do everything at once. What is the single most critical process that, if fixed, would deliver the biggest impact? For most, this is the core Student Information System (SIS) and Learning Management System (LMS).

Start there.

Step 3: Use the “Core & Spoke” Approach

You don’t have to build the entire system at once. Develop your central “Core” platform first. Once it’s stable, you can systematically build out “Spokes” that absorb the functions of your other subscriptions. This makes the investment manageable and delivers value at every stage.

Step 4: Choose a Partner with a Lean Stack

The goal is to escape bloat, not create more of it. You need a development partner who builds with cost-effective tools. Technologiesike Supabase for the backend and Hugo for the frontend allow for robust, secure platforms without the heavy overhead and licensing fees of traditional enterprise software.

The Financial Case for Owning Your Tech

Let’s use the numbers from a district like Brookline to run a conservative estimate.

• Annual Subscription Spend: $350,000+
• One-Time Cost to Build a Custom “Core” Platform: ~$150,000
• Net Savings in Year 1: $200,000
• Total 5-Year Savings (vs. renting): Over $1.5 Million

This isn’t about finding small 10% reductions. This is about fundamentally changing your cost structure to free up hundreds of thousands of dollars for what really matters.

Answering Your Questions

• Isn’t custom software expensive upfront? It’s a capital investment, not an annual expense. The ROI is often realized within the first year. The real risk lies in continuing to spend millions on rent over the next five years.

• What about ongoing maintenance? A well-built platform on a modern stack requires minimal maintenance. A simple annual support retainer costs a fraction of a single major SaaS subscription.

• Do we need a big IT team to manage this? No. A platform built on a managed, serverless stack is designed to be run by your development partner, freeing your IT team to focus on supporting students and faculty.

Stop Renting, Start Owning

The subscription model benefits software vendors far more than it benefits schools. You have a clear opportunity to break that cycle. By investing in a unified platform that you own, you can convert your single largest IT expense into a strategic asset that saves money, improves efficiency, and provides the foundation for real, sustainable growth.

Ready to see what a custom platform could do for your school? Schedule a free, no-obligation strategy call with us today., and let’s discuss how you can turn your software expenses into a growth engine.