Using the stated base assumptions, building and operating 30 HRIS integrations costs $6.93 million over three years. Buying costs $0.84 million of internal work plus three annual vendor fees; the two paths are equal at an annual vendor fee of $2.03 million. These are editable planning assumptions, not a quote or promised outcome.
Bindbee’s benchmark is 4 to 8 weeks for one integration and 1 to 2 maintenance weeks per year; Unified.to’s submitted guide includes maintenance in the decision. The model’s 600-hour base and 1,000-hour high inputs are buyer-selected stress assumptions, not vendor benchmarks, and public pages do not establish the buyer’s salary, security, or contract costs. The decision rule is: buy below the $2.03 million base annual-fee boundary when provider scope is equivalent, and rebuild the model when any input changes.
What does the dated evidence show?
The model keeps vendor benchmarks separate from buyer-selected assumptions and logs every low, base, and high input, total, formula, and omitted delay-cost component.
| Vendor | Decision attribute | Status | Exact evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bindbee | Published initial connector engineering benchmark | supported |
Bindbee estimates 4 to 8 weeks for one HRIS integration. Source 1 |
| Bindbee | Ongoing maintenance included in TCO | supported |
Bindbee estimates 1 to 2 maintenance weeks per integration per year. Source 1 |
| Unified.to | Published initial connector engineering benchmark | not_documented |
The reviewed page does not publish initial engineering hours for one connector. Source 1 |
| Unified.to | Ongoing maintenance included in TCO | supported |
Unified includes ongoing maintenance in the build-versus-buy comparison. Source 1 |
Here, supported means the linked page documents the exact statement in the cell. not_documented means the inspected page is silent at the required scope; it does not mean the capability is absent. not_tested is reserved for behavior a buyer has not executed.
Worked scenarios
| Scenario | Connector build / annual maintenance | Rate | Shared build / annual ops | Buy implementation / annual ops | Three-year build | Three-year buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low | 320h / 80h | $125 | 1,200h / 800h | 40h per connector / 400h | $2.55M | $0.30M + 3V |
| Base | 600h / 160h | $175 | 2,400h / 1,600h | 80h per connector / 800h | $6.93M | $0.84M + 3V |
| High | 1,000h / 300h | $225 | 4,000h / 3,000h | 160h per connector / 1,600h | $15.75M | $2.16M + 3V |
In the base case, $0.84M + 3V = $6.93M, so V = $2.03M. Launch-delay cost is intentionally excluded because no scenario provides that input.
What operating model follows from the evidence?
Use build TCO = connector build labor + shared build labor + three years of connector maintenance and shared operations. Use buy TCO = implementation labor + three years of internal operations + three annual vendor fees.
The operating model should keep provider-specific exceptions visible instead of flattening them into a platform-level label. Every record should retain its provider, retrieval time, effective time when available, and last successful reconciliation state.
What must be tested before launch?
Replace the planning assumptions with loaded salaries, incident history, written vendor quotes, security effort, provider gaps, and a separately valued launch delay before approving the decision.
Use representative providers, record expected and observed results, and attach failures to the exact provider and operation. Contract language should identify which party owns remediation when an upstream system cannot meet the required behavior.
Frequently asked questions
Does a unified API label guarantee identical behavior across providers?
No. A common schema can reduce application work, while source APIs, connection methods, permissions, and timing still vary.
Does not documented mean unsupported?
No. It means the reviewed public source did not establish the capability at the required scope. Ask for a dated product artifact or run an acceptance test.
What evidence should be refreshed before a buying decision?
Refresh the exact provider feature pages, security and support terms, pricing or order form, and acceptance results for the intended providers.
Publication and measurement notes
Before publication, add Article and FAQ structured data, make this page internally reachable, and verify canonical and indexability settings. After publication, track qualified visibility and conversion separately from product capability.