The best advice is sometimes "don't build it"
An agency came to me wanting a bespoke reporting platform. It would have been a fun build. It would also have been the wrong call.
The math
A custom build was going to run about $180K up front plus ongoing maintenance for a team that had no interest in owning software. An off-the-shelf tool covered 90% of the requirement for a $1,100/mo license.
The throughline
My job as a fractional Chief AI Officer is to find where technology makes a business money — and sometimes that means avoiding a $180K build that would never pay back. The custom work should be reserved for the 10% that is genuinely your edge.