Build vs Buy AI Data Pipeline Calculator

Calculate the true cost of building your own AI data pipeline vs using Encord. Configure your team parameters and project requirements below.

Team icon

Team Assumptions

Configure your engineering team requirements

Including salary, benefits, and overhead

$
150
3 months24 months

Bug fixes, security updates, operational costs

15%30%

Ongoing feature development, enhancements, and platform evolution

10%40%

Do you usually deliver projects on time and budget?

Project scope icon

Project Scope

Define what features and capabilities you need to build

Total number of data samples you expect to process

1K1.0B

Hardware, cloud setup, CI/CD, monitoring, etc.

$

Choose annotation services level (affects operational costs)

Cost analysis icon

Build Cost Analysis

Total Cost of Ownership (3-Year)

$1,402,400
Cost breakdown icon

Cost breakdown

Total Initial Costs$655,400
Initial Build
Engineering Time
Complexity (3 features)
$430,400
Infrastructure Setup
CI/CD, monitoring, databases
$100,000
Recruiting & Training
Team onboarding, training costs
$50,000
Security & Compliance
SOC2
$75,000
Annual Operating Costs$249,000
Traditional Maintenance
Bug fixes, security, operations
$108,000
Continued Build Cost
Ongoing features, enhancements
$81,000
Hosting & Storage$60,000
Annotation Services$0
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Project Summary

Team Size2 Engineers
Features Selected3
Data Types2
Data Volume1.0M samples
Annotation Servicesnone