4 Types of Third-Party Solutions You Can Integrate With Instead of Building Them From Scratch

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time you bring a new product to the market unless there’s a business justification behind it. As the saying goes, “There’s an app for that”, so you don’t have to build solutions from scratch.

Let’s assume you need an invoicing system for a project, but you don’t want to link your company’s future to such a service. So, why would you build such a solution from the ground up? That’s one situation when it’s better to use ready-made software, allowing you to save both time and money. There are many applications that you can use instead of making one on your own. Let’s go over four examples of third-party solutions to see how they can make your life easier.

1. Invoicing systems

Many invoicing software solutions are on the market already. You can choose from desktop, web, or mobile applications that offer a whole range of features necessary to support accounting processes. Some of them are also related to human resource management.

If your idea is to create a web app that uses invoicing software, you’ll save tons of time by choosing one of the many tools that let you integrate through an API. Your app will automatically deal with invoicing calculations and tax legislation. You’ll get high-volume invoicing infrastructure, so you won’t have to manage invoices manually. You’ll eliminate unnecessary complexity and get an easy-to-maintain system.

There are, however, some exceptions—for instance, when you want to integrate an accounting system with other niche software. But again, perhaps it will be cheaper to ask the invoice app owner to make a dedicated integration that fits your business needs.

2. Subscription management software

If you’re thinking about building an in-house app to manage recurring payments, think twice and consider using one of the well-established solutions, such as Chargebee. You can use its APIs to integrate a subscription system into your app and streamline your subscription billing operations.

You can automate recurring billing in your web app and set a recurring payment scenario that fits your business model best. Ready-made subscription management software handles subscription lifecycles and makes it easy to set trials or discounts. It also helps prevent involuntary churn by automatically notifying customers when their payment card is expired or there aren’t enough funds in the associated bank account.

Why is it better to implement a ready-made solution instead of building your own subscription management software, especially when you need it for only one project?

Solutions such as Chargebee let you manage payments through well-known payment processors, such as Stripe or digital wallets like Amazon Pay or Apple Pay, to name a few. You don’t have to bother with attaining EMV and PCI compliance or licenses, paying regulatory fees, acquiring relationships, and anything else.

3. Email software

An application that engages users should come with decent email software to send messages in response to a specific action. Well-established services, such as SendGrid or Mailchimp, provide you with a convenient user interface and visual editors that make message customization as simple as moving several content blocks.

A number of features let you create a better workflow and even integrate your web application with other business software. At the end of the day, you have a flexible and scalable email delivery service without bothering your dev team.

What do you think? Can you quickly build transactional email software with great infrastructure, decent tracking metrics, and near-zero downtime?

4. Content management system

Another solution that you might need for the next project is a content management system (CMS), especially if your website or application will be based on content provided by administrators or users.

Here, you can choose from ready-made components for CMSs that are easy to customize so that you can decide what type of content you want to manage. If you have a web app in place but need to add or edit some content from time to time, think about using code components that are publicly available and developed under open source.

A lot depends on the templates or plugins you need for your project, so you may want to use WordPress (the most popular CMS) for your website. Quick implementation, useful plugins, and ease of use are just a few of WordPress’s benefits. It’s worth your attention if you want to have a complete system for both simple and advanced content management.

Final words

As you can see, ready-made solutions offer a variety of features, so you don’t have to waste your time creating them from scratch. You can simply integrate the solution that fits your product through a set of APIs and customize it the way you need it.

Software providers usually deliver well-written documentation and expert support because their solutions are made by developers for developers. You can then focus on building user-friendly software with just a few lines of code.

One of the main benefits of third-party solutions is that you can avoid many maintenance problems and related costs. Ready-made software providers usually charge a small monthly fee for a specific service, so it’s not only a time-saver but also a budget-friendly solution.