STAKATERSTAKATERCloud Orchestrator
Build vs Buy · Time to Revenue · Three-Year TCO
to build the equivalent in-house
before first revenue on the build path
three-year TCO advantage
The Decision
Every infrastructure operator reaches the same fork. Both paths reach the same destination — a commercial cloud product. The question is time, cost, and risk.
Path A — Build
Self-service portal — 12–14 months
Hard multi-tenancy — 16–18 months
Metering + billing pipeline — 10–12 months
Governance + compliance — 6–8 months
2–4 years · €3M–€5M · Ongoing team
Path B — Cloud Orchestrator
Portal, catalog, multi-tenancy — included
Metering + billing API — included
Governance + white-label — included
Ongoing updates + support — included
90 days to first revenue · License fee · No build team
Build Cost
Five engineering challenges. Each one is a specialist hire, a long timeline, and a maintenance commitment that never ends.
Assumes €140K/year fully-loaded engineer cost. Industry-typical builds land 1.5–2× initial estimate. Ongoing maintenance adds €420K+/year (3 engineers). Numbers illustrative — adjust to your context.
Opportunity Cost
The build cost is visible on the budget. The cost of delay is invisible — until you calculate it.
Illustrative scenario
Service provider. 20 enterprise tenants at €5,000/month average. Customer ramp over 12 months.
Monthly recurring revenue at full ramp
= €1.2M ARR
Revenue deferred during 24-month build
not counting deals lost to competitors who shipped first
Build cost + deferred revenue
before you generate a single euro of cloud product revenue
Comparison
Timeline
The commercial opportunity doesn't wait. Competitors are evaluating the same paths today.
Build Path — Month 36 before first revenue
Architecture
Mo 1–3
Portal
Mo 4–14
Tenancy
Mo 6–18
Metering
Mo 14–22
Billing
Mo 20–28
Testing
Mo 28–33
Revenue
Month 36
Cloud Orchestrator — Day 90 to first revenue
Agreement
Week 1
Environment
Wk 2–4
First Tenant
Wk 6–8
Revenue
Day 90
earlier to market. At €100K MRR that's €3.3M in additional revenue earned in the window where competitors are still building.
Three-Year TCO
Same scenario: 20 tenants at €5K/month, 12-month ramp. Adjust to your numbers.
Build Path — Cumulative Net Position
End of Year 3: −€2.7M net
€4.1M costs · €1.4M revenue
Cloud Orchestrator — Cumulative Net Position
End of Year 3: +€3.95M net
€750K costs · €4.7M revenue
Ownership
You do own it. The things that actually create competitive advantage — you keep all of them.
You own
Your brand — white-labeled portal, your domain, your identity
Your customers — relationships, contracts, and pricing are yours
Your infrastructure — compute, storage, and networking stays yours
Your data — tenant data and audit logs stay in your environment
Your pricing model — what you charge is entirely your decision
We deliver — so you don't have to build
The portal, catalog, and self-service layer
KCP virtual control plane architecture
Metering pipeline and billing API
Ongoing maintenance, updates, security patches
The commercial layer is not your competitive advantage. Your infrastructure, pricing, brand, and customers are. We deliver the plumbing so you can focus on the market.
Risk
Both paths carry risk. The profile is fundamentally different.
Build Path Risks
Key person dependency
The engineers who built it hold all the knowledge. If they leave, the platform is at risk.
Market window closes
Competitors who shipped faster lock in customers while you're still building.
Scope creep & overruns
Industry average: 1.5–2× initial estimate in both time and cost.
Technology decisions that age
Architecture locked in year 1 must be maintained and evolved — by different people.
Cloud Orchestrator — Risks & Mitigations
Vendor dependency
KCP is open-source. APIs are standard Kubernetes. No proprietary lock-in at the data layer.
Customisation limits
API-first + CRD-based. Any capability expressible in Kubernetes can be added to the catalog.
Roadmap dependency
Co-development model — large operators influence the roadmap directly.
Pricing model change
Fixed-term agreements lock pricing. No usage-based costs that scale with your revenue.
The math is clear.
saved vs the build path
earlier to market
better 3-year net position
The next step: a 90-day scoped proof of concept — one XaaS model, your infrastructure, live in production.
stakater.com · hello@stakater.com