Are you thinking about making your own in-house email and page builder? At first glance, it may seem like a no-brainer—more control, better customization, faster iterations, and fewer monthly SaaS bills.
You figure that your development team can whip something up and tweak it as needed, and you’ll never have to worry about relying on a third-party tool again.
But here’s the spoiler alert: what may look like a smart move in the longer run often turns into a time-sucking, budget-burning nightmare.
We do agree that an in-house email and page builder might give you the initial flexibility. But beneath the surface are hidden costs that most companies don’t see coming—until it’s too late.
In this article, we’re going to unpack the sneaky expenses, bottlenecks, and tradeoffs that rarely make it into the planning documents (but absolutely should).
1. Development Time & Opportunity Cost 🛠️
Building even a basic Minimal Viable Product (MVP) of an in-house email and page builder isn’t a weekend project. It takes months and years to make something that is functional.
And that’s before you even consider things like drag and drop functionality, responsive design testing, or integration with other tools.
Even when you build such a tool from scratch, it doesn’t stop at launch. That internal tool you have created becomes a living, breathing piece of software that needs:
Maintenance
Bug fixes
Documentation
And constant updates
The opportunity cost? It keeps growing long after you push version 1 live.
Now, let’s get into the numbers and see what the price ranges are for everyone involved in building software.
2. UI/UX Expectations 🎨
Just because it’s an internal tool doesn’t mean end-users will tolerate a clunky design.
Your teams, especially marketers, content folks, and non-technical users, have high expectations.
But what do these expectations really entail?
UI expectations
Intuitive design - the interface should be easy to navigate
Clear visual hierarchy - elements should be arranged logically
Consistent design - a consistent look and feel across elements like fonts, buttons, etc
Accessibility - the interface should be usable by different users
Customization - it should be easily customizable by developers
Responsiveness - the interface should adapt seamlessly to different screen sizes
UX expectations
Ease of use - drag and drop capabilities of the editor
Personalization - to enable users to personalize content and designs based on customer data
Collaboration - for real-time feedback across teams
Reusable blocks - to maintain brand consistency across marketing content
To meet all these expectations, you’re going to need dedicated design and front-end resources. And if you skip this step, you’ll end up with an internal tool that’s technically functional but practically unusable–something end-users might end up complaining about constantly.
3. Constant Maintenance & Bug Fixes 🐛
Your in-house email and page builder worked great last month—but suddenly, the preview of your emails is broken in Outlook, Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons aren’t aligning in Gmail, and someone’s page won’t load on mobile.
Welcome to the world of email client quirks and browser inconsistencies.
Building a tool is one thing, but keeping it working across devices, clients, browsers, and different screen sizes is never-ending work. Every new feature or framework update risks breaking something else.
This puts a strain on your already stretched dev team every time QA flags a bug. So, in our opinion, having a pre-built email and page builder in your stack is the best way to reduce this hidden cost.
Because all good SaaS tool providers have a dedicated engineering team that handles all of this behind the scenes…so constant maintenance doesn’t become your headache.
4. Scalability & Performance 🚀
Your internal tool might work fine when a few people use it. But what happens when your team grows? When you’re launching dozens of email marketing campaigns a week?
Scaling an in-house email and page builder isn’t just about performance—it’s about defining
Processes
Roles
Permissions
Version control
Asset management, etc.
These things aren’t on one’s mind during the MVP stage, but they hit hard once usage picks up.
The more you try to add new features, the messier the codebase gets—and the harder it becomes to improve performance without a full-on rebuild.
So, instead of spending more dev hours building and scaling your own solution, the smarter path would be to consider tools that are built to scale with you from day one (like Unlayer 😏).
These off-the-shelf platforms have built-in performance optimization, user management, advanced customization options, and flexible integrations. So your team can focus on creating stunning marketing campaigns and not debug why a page isn’t rendering properly.
5. Security & Compliance 🔐
You are not just managing code; you’re handling data while building an in-house email and page builder.
This opens the door to a long list of security and compliance responsibilities you shouldn’t underestimate.
For instance, email and landing pages often collect or process personally identifiable information (PII), like names, email addresses, date of birth, etc. That means you need to think seriously about things like GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and data encryption.
This shouldn’t be just at the surface level but baked into how your internal tool works under the hood.
A safer route? Established platforms are built with compliance in mind. They handle consent, data storage, unsubscribe logic, and more, often backed by dedicated legal and security teams.
If your team doesn’t have the time or resources to cover all that, it might be better to lean on a provider who does.
6. Lack of Flexibility for Developers & Marketers ⚙️
Here's the reality with most in-house tools: if marketers want to make changes, they still need a developer.
Want a new section layout? Dev ticket.
Need to tweak the mobile spacing? Dev ticket.
Want to reuse a block from last month’s campaign? You guessed it—dev ticket.
The fix? No-code platforms that give marketers the liberty to create, test, and publish their marketing content without relying on software developers. These tools are built with reusability (reusable blocks), previewing, and real-time editing in mind.
So, teams can move fast without burning out developers and saving you the hidden cost of time here.
Meanwhile, developers can focus on extending the functionality of the integrated no-code tool with the help of custom tools to make things easier for end-users.
7. Integration Challenges 🔌
Your in-house email and page builder doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It needs to interact with your CRM, analytics tools, CMS, marketing automation tools, ESPs, and customer database. Easy right?
Not quite.
Integrating all these systems and keeping them in sync adds a layer of complexity. APIs change, tokens expire, and tools get constantly updated.
This leaves your team spending hours troubleshooting why a form submission didn’t trigger the right workflow or why UTM tracking isn’t showing up in reports.
Therefore, to avoid these bottlenecks, you need third-party platforms that come with built-in workflows to minimize your dev efforts. These tools also have APIs and SDKs, so your team can stay focused on strategy.
The Solution?
There’s no denying that building an in-house email and page builder has its perks—full control, custom workflows, and tailored features. But as we've seen, the hidden costs can quietly pile up, slowing down launches, draining dev resources, and frustrating marketers.
Instead of reinventing your builder from scratch, consider using an off-the-shelf email and page builder that already comes packed with all the features you need.
The right tool can seamlessly extend the functionalities of your internal tools or public-facing platforms, without the overhead of building and maintaining everything from scratch.
👉 Curious what that could look like for your team?
Explore how our builder can plug into your stack and help you move faster, without compromise.
