Decide whether to build or buy a web scraper with a workload-based worksheet. Enter the pages, required data and operating conditions your team actually faces. Then compare the cost of producing acceptable records, including maintenance and failed output. A fictional customer story is not a cost model.
Use the same workload on both sides
| Input | Build option | Buy option |
|---|---|---|
| Required pages and fields | Acquisition and parser implementation | Supported acquisition and extraction operations |
| Initial work | Your estimated or logged engineering hours | Integration and adapter hours |
| Recurring work | Maintenance, hosting, proxies and review | Plan, add-ons, integration maintenance and review |
| Failure cost | Retries, missed records and investigation | Retries, missed records and investigation |
| Usable output | Records meeting the same acceptance rule | Records meeting the same acceptance rule |
Keep estimates distinct from observations
Label each input as a measured value, a quote or an estimate. Keep the source and interval next to it. If the build option assumes no maintenance while the buy option includes every operational cost, the comparison is biased before calculation.
For a cost-per-usable-record comparison, include all agreed operating costs and divide by records accepted under the same rule. Repeat the calculation under a small set of stated workload and maintenance assumptions. Do not reuse an unsupported engineering salary, weekly maintenance figure or savings percentage as fact.
Run a decision-changing trial
The worksheet makes the assumptions reviewable; it does not predict every team’s total cost or declare that building is always a mistake. If SERP plus selected-page reading is the actual workload, use the separate credit-cost worksheet for that request mix.
- Choose representative permitted pages and freeze their required fields.
- Measure adapter effort and accepted/failed output for both approaches.
- Record changes that require ongoing maintenance.
- Identify whether missing features or operational limits rule an option out before ranking its price.
Reference documentation: www.searchcans.com — /pricing; www.searchcans.com — /reader-api.
