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Selecting SaaS Software as a Small Project

Selecting SaaS software goes better when you treat it as a short project with an owner, a deadline and a written result. Without those, searches drift for months and end with whichever vendor called last.

Give the search a deadline and a short list

An open-ended search never ends, it just goes quiet for a few months. Set a date to decide, and cap the short list at three tools. Three is enough to see the range of the market and few enough that you can test each one properly. A longer list feels thorough and mostly costs you weekends.

Give every tool the same task and the same amount of time. Judging gets simple when the test is identical, and it gets impossible when each demo wanders somewhere different. Write down what a good result looks like before you start. Otherwise the tool with the most persuasive salesperson wins by default.

A four-week outline

1. Week one: write the job, name the owner, list the must-haves and the deal-breakers.
2. Week two: find candidates, cut to three, and start trials.
3. Week three: run the same task through each, with real data and the people who will use it.
4. Week four: compare notes, check terms, decide, and tell the others politely.

Shorter or longer is fine. The point is that every stage has an end.

Count the whole cost, not the sticker

The monthly price is the smallest part of what a tool costs you. The rest of it hides in hours that nobody puts on an invoice.

• Setup: moving your data in, and cleaning it once it lands
• Training: the hours before the team stops asking how to do things
• Seats: who really needs a login, and what each new hire adds
• Add-ons: the features that turn out to live on a higher plan
• Care: the person who owns it when something breaks on a Friday

Involve the right people, once

The daily users should help test. The person who pays should see the final comparison. Anyone who must approve security or legal terms should be told at the start, not the end, so they can raise concerns while you can still change course. A single short meeting at the start with everyone present saves several hallway conversations later.

Write the exit before you sign

Switching is the part everyone forgets, and it is the part that actually hurts. Ask two questions early, while the vendor is still keen to answer. Can you get every record out in a normal file, on your own, without asking support for help? And whose name is on the account, yours or a contractor's?

Put both answers in your notes. If a tool cannot answer them clearly, you already have your answer. The same goes for the domain and the logins around a website project. Own the account, and you can change your mind later.

When a formal project is too much

For a small, inexpensive tool with a monthly plan, skip the project. Pick one, use it for a month and cancel if it does not help. The project approach is for software that holds important records, touches many people or costs real money over time.

Roles for a small selection project

• Owner: keeps the schedule and writes the result.
• Daily user: tests with real work.
• Approver: controls the budget and signs.
• Reviewer: checks terms, privacy and security where relevant.

One person may hold several roles in a small company. Naming them keeps the project moving and makes sure nobody learns about a decision after it has been made.

Questions to settle in the first week

• What problem are we solving, in one sentence?
• Who will use the software every day, and who only needs to see results?
• What data will move into it, and where does that data live now?
• What is the most we would pay per month, and per year?
• What is the date by which we must decide?

Write the answers on a single page and share it with everyone involved. When a vendor's pitch wanders, the page brings the conversation back to what you actually need.

After the decision

Tell the vendors who lost, politely, and ask for brief feedback if they are willing to give it. Keep the notes from the trials for a year, since your needs may change and one of them may be the right choice later. Set a review for three months after the start, with a short list of the questions you asked during selection, and check whether the answers held true in daily use.

Next steps

Read the companion guide on judging a short list of SaaS products, the readiness score feature, and the pricing page.

How Microsite Generator handles this

Try it before you commit to anything. Every plan starts with a 15-day free trial, and the pricing page lists the monthly cost right next to the caps.

Before a site goes live you get a Readiness Score: the platform's publish check, which has 51 checks in nine groups, is run against the site you actually built. Nothing publishes until it clears the compliance gate and is checked against Google Search Essentials and modern web standards.

Pages are individually built from your answers rather than stamped out of a template, which is what makes them genuinely useful to a reader.

Your leads belong to you. Export every lead across every site to a spreadsheet file in one click, whenever you want it.

Updated October 2026