For a business, everything has a cost. Let's say you need to a payment solution. Most will use something like Stripe instead of hiring new teams of developers to implement from scratch.

The same can be said about smaller services too. Something that sounds simple, like sending emails is actually very time consuming due to spam-filters etc. First you have the initial work, and then you have all the follow up during the lifetime of your business. This includes not only the cost of running servers and patching software, but also all the bugs. Every time a customer does not get a mail, you will have to dig into the system to find out why. Hopefully the dev who implemented it still works there, or you would need time for the new person to ramp up.

The alternative is to pay a small amount for a 3rd party mail service.

That's a good point, I like the idea of identifying solutions using a cost-benefit approach.

That just tells me you value money more than your time. Most people have this the other way around. You can always make more money but you can't make more time.

Not necessaarily, I have a similar mindset to the parent poster and for me it's largely about keeping the business simple and manageable.

To give an example I sell my software through Avangate, this results in a single invoice and payment each month. I know if I switched to Stripe it would save my a couple of percentage points on each sale but then I'd need to maintain systems that handled EU VAT laws, issue license codes and import a lot of data into my accounting system, in fact I'd need to upgrade my accounting system which is fine with a few transactions each month but would be stretched at fifty or more.

This has been my experience with most of these services, great if you want to grow a large business because you are effectively outsourcing some of your work but it does tend to complicate things. Personally I like my work to be small and simple.

Sounds like you have identified a problem that could be solved by a saas offering.

No, the point is all these extra products and services end up complicating things, sure they have benefits for many but not for me. I've got plenty of things in my life, I don't need more.

It's more a function of not having the money to spend rather than being miserly. If I'm able to get traction with one of the projects I'm working on, I'd happily trade some money to save some time.