# Decide whether to build, buy, or partner for a capability

A side-by-side recommendation on building in-house, buying a vendor tool, or partnering, with total cost and risk.

- Topic: Business Strategy & Startups
- Framework: RTF
- Level: Standard
- Tags: Legal, Finance, Analyze, Fill-in Template
- Source: https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/prompts/decide-whether-to-build-buy-or-partner-for-a-capability

## Prompt

```text
Help me decide whether to build, buy, or partner for a product capability.

**Capability needed:** [e.g. in-app payments, search, identity verification]
**Why we need it:** [CUSTOMER PROBLEM OR STRATEGIC GOAL]
**Is it core to our differentiation?** [MY VIEW AND WHY]
**Vendors or partners under consideration:** [NAMES, PRICING IF KNOWN]
**Build estimate:** [TEAM, TIME, ONGOING MAINTENANCE - or "unknown"]
**Constraints:** [budget, deadline, compliance, data residency, tech stack]

Compare the three options on:
- Time to first customer value.
- 3-year total cost (build: team time plus maintenance; buy: license, usage fees, integration, switching cost).
- Control over roadmap and user experience.
- Differentiation: does owning this make us meaningfully better?
- Risks: vendor lock-in, vendor viability, security and compliance, data ownership, team capacity diverted from core work.
- Exit plan if the choice turns out wrong.

Return:
1. A comparison table with a short verdict per row.
2. A recommendation with the 2-3 deciding factors.
3. What would have to be true to change the recommendation.
4. Questions to ask vendors before signing (pricing at scale, SLAs, data export, roadmap commitments).

Use only the costs I provide; where numbers are missing, show the formula and mark [ADD ESTIMATE]. Have legal and security review any vendor contract.
```

## What to fill in

- e.g. in-app payments, search, identity verification
- CUSTOMER PROBLEM OR STRATEGIC GOAL
- MY VIEW AND WHY
- NAMES, PRICING IF KNOWN
- TEAM, TIME, ONGOING MAINTENANCE - or "unknown"
- budget, deadline, compliance, data residency, tech stack
- ADD ESTIMATE

Free to copy and use. From ThinkWithPrompt (https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/), a library of 2,663 curated AI prompts.