Every product and partnerships leader hits this moment.
Integrations are working. Partners are asking for better visibility. Customers expect your product to connect cleanly with the rest of their stack.
Then the question lands:
Do we build our own app marketplace, or do we buy one?
Ten years ago, the answer was simple. If you wanted a marketplace, you built it. That’s what Salesforce did with AppExchange. There was no other option, and they had the scale, patience, and budget to pull it off.
Today, that logic doesn’t hold up.
You wouldn’t build your own CRM instead of using HubSpot or Salesforce. You wouldn’t build your own analytics stack or billing system either. App marketplaces are no different. They are infrastructure, not differentiation.
Let’s break it down.
Building an app marketplace in-house
Building from scratch sounds empowering. Full control. Custom UX. No vendor lock-in.
That control comes at a cost most teams underestimate.
Flexibility can backfire
Yes, you can build exactly what you want. The problem is that most teams don’t yet know what “good” looks like for a marketplace.
You end up:
- over-building features that don’t drive adoption
- under-building partner workflows that matter later
- locking yourself into early decisions that are hard to unwind
Flexibility without proven patterns is expensive experimentation.
Engineering time is not free
An app marketplace isn’t just a page with logos.
You’re committing to:
- backend infrastructure
- APIs and auth
- content models for listings
- search, tagging, and filters
- analytics and reporting
- security and compliance
- ongoing UX improvements
That work doesn’t stop once you launch. It competes directly with your core product roadmap, and it usually pulls in your most experienced engineers.
Maintenance never ends
Marketplaces age fast.
New integrations. New partner requirements. New security standards. New expectations from customers who compare you to best-in-class platforms.
What starts as a “quick internal build” becomes permanent operational debt.
As Hugh Durkin from appmarketplace.com puts it:
For most SaaS businesses, building app marketplaces is not their core competency and shouldn’t be. Product teams create unique customer value. Marketplace infrastructure doesn’t.
That’s the key distinction.
Buying a marketplace platform
Buying doesn’t mean giving up control. It means deciding where your team’s effort actually creates leverage.
A purpose-built marketplace platform lets you:
- Launch faster
Weeks or months instead of years. That matters when integrations are already influencing deals and retention. - Reduce engineering drag
Infrastructure, security, and scaling are handled so your team stays focused on the product customers pay for. - Use proven patterns
Partner onboarding flows, listing structures, discovery UX, and analytics that have already been battle-tested. - Stay configurable
Modern platforms still let you control branding, taxonomy, placement, and how your marketplace shows up across your public site and in-app experience.
This isn’t a shortcut. It’s a strategic decision to treat your marketplace as ecosystem infrastructure, not a side project.
Platforms like Partner Fleet exist because this problem is now common, repeatable, and solvable without reinventing the wheel.
The real question leaders should ask
The build vs. buy debate is usually framed wrong.
The real question is:
Where does your team create unique value?
Is it:
- maintaining marketplace infrastructure, or
- recruiting better partners
- driving integration adoption
- improving partner experience
- aligning integrations to revenue and retention
Most executive teams already know the answer.
Ready to build your app marketplace?
If you’re weighing options internally, clarity helps.
We’ve put together:
- a practical build vs. buy guide
- a calculator to estimate true cost and timelines
Headline: Build smarter, not slower
Tagline: See what building really costs
CTA: Get the guide & calculator
Beyond build vs. buy: building a real ecosystem
A marketplace is not the goal. Adoption is.
The companies that win focus on:
- partner enablement, not just listings
- discovery inside the product, not only on the website
- measurable impact on usage, retention, and pipeline
Buying the right foundation lets you invest where it counts.
If you want to stop debating architecture and start building momentum, see how Partner Fleet helps teams launch scalable app marketplaces without draining their product roadmap.
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