The SaaS Stack Collapse: What Ecom Brands Can Replace With AI

16 months ago I sent our investors this email:

The market finally figured out what I’ve predicted would happen way back then and changed our company direction. SaaS stocks are dropping. Fast. You can now vibe-code internal tools in an afternoon that used to require $500/month subscriptions.

Most brands will likely screw this up. They'll try to replace everything, build half-finished tools, get frustrated, and conclude "AI can't replace real software."

It’s important to know exactly which 30% of your SaaS stack to replace and which 70% to keep paying for.

Let me show you the realistic path.

The Category Breakdown

Brands doing $10M-$100M annually typically spend $5K-$25K per month on SaaS tools.

Some of that is untouchable. Shopify Plus, Klaviyo, your payment processors. These run your business. You're not replacing them.

But there's a chunk of spend on internal tools. Analytics dashboards. Workflow automation. Data transformation. Asset management.

This is where the opportunity sits.

Analytics and BI tools can run $1K-$4K/month. Custom dashboards that maybe 5 people look at. Waiting on IT to build new reports. Clicking through interfaces to find one number.

Internal workflow tools cost $500-$2K/month. Custom admin panels. Vendor management. Sample tracking. Operations workflows.

Data transformation and ETL runs $800-$3K/month. Complex Zapier workflows that break. Moving data between systems. Custom integrations.

The pattern is clear. These tools are expensive because they're general purpose. They have features you'll never use. They charge per seat even when half your team doesn't log in.

This is the part you can replace.

What You Can Realistically Replace

Analytics Dashboards ($1K-$4K/month savings)

Traditional approach: Pay for Looker or Tableau. Wait days for IT to build a new dashboard. Click through 15 screens to find the number you need.

Vibe-coded approach: Build a conversational SQL interface. Ask "show me weekly sales by category for Q1" and get instant answers. For example you can use our aidb.sh for free. It’ll allow you to do serious big data analysis in ChatGPT or Claude by linking your CSV files to it.

I'm not talking about replacing your entire BI stack. I'm talking about those internal reports that only your team sees. The ones where you don't need a beautiful interface. You just need the right numbers fast.

Time to build: 3-5 hours
Monthly savings: $1K-$4K
Maintenance: 1-2 hours/month

Internal Admin Tools ($500-$2K/month)

Every e-commerce brand at scale has them. Custom tools for managing vendor contacts, tracking sample orders, organizing product data, internal workflows that don't touch customers.

You're probably paying for Retool or Airtable Enterprise. It works, but you're paying for features you don't use.

If you can describe the workflow in plain English, Claude can write the code. Or you can use Replit or Lovable for these things.

"I need a form where the team enters product samples we're testing. It should track status, assign to team members, and show everything in a simple list."

That's a $800/month Retool subscription. Or it's 30 minutes with Claude and a simple Python script.

Time to build: 2-3 hours
Monthly savings: $500-$2K
Maintenance: Minimal

Data Transformation Scripts ($800-$3K/month)

This is where Zapier gets expensive fast. You're paying $1,200/month because you need to move data between systems in specific ways. Pull from this API, transform it, push to that database, send a Slack notification.

The complex workflows break. You spend hours debugging. You upgrade to the more expensive plan because you need more tasks.

Vibe-code it instead. Claude writes Python scripts that do exactly what you need. No task limits. No mysterious failures. Just working code.

Time to build: 3-6 hours per workflow
Monthly savings: $800-$3K
Maintenance: 1-2 hours/month

Custom Reporting ($500-$2K/month)

"I need to pull Meta ad spend, match it with Shopify orders by UTM, factor in returns, and calculate actual ROAS."

That custom report costs $800/month. Or you vibe-code it in an afternoon.

The script pulls from APIs, does the math, formats the data exactly how you want it. Run it weekly. Email it to stakeholders. Done.

Time to build: 4-6 hours
Monthly savings: $500-$2K
Maintenance: 30 minutes/month

What You Absolutely Should Not Try

I need to be clear about this. Some SaaS subscriptions are worth every penny.

Never Touch These

Shopify Plus and your e-commerce platform Your entire revenue stream runs through this. One bug and you're down. Pay the subscription.

Klaviyo or your email/SMS platform Deliverability is everything. You cannot vibe-code your way to inbox placement. Pay the experts.

Payment processing Stripe, PayPal, whatever you use. Never ever mess with payment handling. Security, compliance, fraud detection. Not worth the risk.

Customer support platforms Gorgias, Zendesk, whatever you use. Customer-facing tools need to be rock solid. Pay for them - until your brand has reached AI level 8 at least before you can think about rolling out your own.

High-scale production systems If it needs to handle 10,000 requests per hour, you're not vibe-coding that. Pay for the infrastructure.

The rule is simple. Anything customer-facing or mission-critical stays on paid SaaS. Anything internal and low-stakes is fair game for vibe-coding.

The Realistic Economics

Let me give you the honest numbers.

Brands doing $10M-$100M annually can realistically save $3K-$10K per month by vibe-coding internal tools.

Not $25K. Not your entire SaaS stack. Just 20-30% of it.

The tools you replace are the ones that:

• Only your team uses

• Don't need enterprise security

• Can tolerate rough edges

• Aren't mission-critical

You keep paying for:

• Customer-facing platforms

• Payment processing

• Email/SMS infrastructure

• Anything that affects revenue directly

• High-scale production systems

Time investment: 8-15 hours per month maintaining vibe-coded tools.

That's the trade. You save $6K/month but you spend 10 hours/month keeping things running. For most brands at scale, that math works.

The Skills You Need

You don't need to become a software engineer. You need five things.

Understand your data Where does it live? What does it mean? How do systems connect?

Articulate logic "If this happens, do that." Simple cause and effect.

Debug with AI When something breaks, describe the problem to Claude/Replit/Lovable. It'll help you fix it.

Basic Git Version control sounds scary. It's just "save points" for your code. Claude can teach you in 20 minutes.

Run code How to execute a Python script or deploy a simple app. Not complicated, just unfamiliar.

That's it. If you can write a detailed email explaining a process, you can vibe-code a tool to automate it.

Don’t Fall Into This Trap

You build a tool that's 80% done. Works great. Then you realize it needs polish to be actually usable.

You spend weeks on that last 20%. Better error messages. Nicer formatting. Edge case handling.

This is where brands give up.

Here's the fix. Build for "good enough for internal use" not "perfect like SaaS."

Your team can tolerate an ugly interface. They can work around minor bugs. They cannot tolerate tools that don't work at all.

So ship at 80%. Use it. Fix what actually breaks. Ignore the cosmetic stuff.

The Path Forward

Month 1: Replace One Dashboard

Pick your simplest reporting need. Something you currently pay $1K-$2K/month for.

Build a conversational SQL interface with Replit. Or use aidb.sh for free. Connect it to your data warehouse. Ask questions, get answers.

It'll be ugly. It'll work. You'll save money and prove the concept.

Month 2: Replace One Workflow Tool

Find an internal admin tool. Something your team uses but customers never see.

Describe the workflow to Claude. Build the basic version. Ship it to your team. Iterate based on feedback.

Save another $800-$1,500/month. Build confidence.

Month 3: Decide Your Strategy

Now you have data. You know what works and what's painful.

Three options:

Option A: Keep building simple tools yourself Gradually expand. Replace more dashboards and admin tools. Save $4-8K/month.

Option B: Hire developers to build the complex stuff Use what you learned to spec out bigger projects. Hire help for production-grade tools.

Option C: Mix DIY and professional agents You build simple internal tools. Use platforms like our a/gentic for sophisticated multi-agent systems and MCP servers like our dtc.sh that your in-house built agents can use for data access to various backends.

Most successful brands end up at Option C. They vibe-code the easy stuff. They pay for the complex automation that requires real infrastructure.

What This Means for Your Team

The AI shift is changing what "valuable" means at work.

If you're an analyst or ops person Learn to vibe-code simple tools. You go from "person who pulls reports" to "person who builds the reporting system." Way more valuable.

If you're a marketer Learn to vibe-code dashboards. Never wait for IT to build you a report again. Control your own data.

If you're leadership Identify which 30% of your SaaS stack is "internal dashboards and reports." That's your target for replacement.

If you're IT Your role shifts from "dashboard builder" to "agent architect." You manage vibe-coded tools plus production SaaS. You become more strategic.

The Bottom Line

The SaaS apocalypse is real.

You can realistically replace 20-30% of your SaaS stack with vibe-coded tools. That's $3K-$10K per month in savings for brands doing $10M-$100M annually.

The other 70% stays. Customer-facing platforms, payment processors, email infrastructure. Too critical to mess with.

Start with one dashboard this week. Prove it works. Then expand.

Ready to replace your internal SaaS tools with vibe-coded agents?

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Reply to this email or DM Bora on LinkedIn to discuss which parts of your stack you can realistically replace and which sophisticated agents you should buy instead of build.