The Problem
Why teams leave PagerDuty
Per-user pricing limits incident response participation
AIOps and analytics on Enterprise only
Event orchestration quotas on lower plans
Stakeholder notifications require Business plan
Service dependencies mapping needs higher tiers
What We Build Instead
Your custom devops & engineering tool
On-call management and incident response platform
Automated alert routing and escalation
Incident timeline and post-mortem tracking
Status pages for internal and external stakeholders
Integration with your monitoring and chat tools
Unlimited responders — no per-seat limits
The Math
PagerDuty vs. custom build
Based on 30 seats at $39/seat/month, with ~10% annual SaaS price increases.
Keep paying PagerDuty
Build with 86 SaaS
3-year savings with 30 seats
$10,082
22% less than PagerDuty
Pricing Breakdown
PagerDuty tier pricing vs. one-time custom build
Compare what you pay per seat across PagerDuty's tiers against a single investment in software you own forever.
| Tier | Monthly/Seat | Annual/Seat | Key Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Professional | $21/mo | $21/mo | On-call management, Alerting, Escalation policies, Mobile app |
| Business | $41/mo | $41/mo | Stakeholder notifications, Event orchestration, Response mobilizer, Analytics |
| Enterprise | $59/mo | $59/mo | AIOps, Advanced analytics, Event intelligence, Custom integrations |
| Custom Build by 86 SaaS | $15,000–$35,000 one-time | $0/seat | Unlimited users, full ownership, no recurring fees |
Migration Timeline
From PagerDuty to ownership — week by week
A structured migration plan to move off PagerDuty in 4-8 weeks with zero downtime.
Discovery & Audit
1 weekMap current on-call rotations, escalation policies, and alert integrations
Architecture & Design
1 weekDesign incident management platform with routing and escalation engine
Core Development
2-4 weeksBuild on-call scheduling, alert routing, escalation, and status pages
Data Migration & Testing
1 weekMigrate schedules, policies, and test alert routing end-to-end
Deployment & Training
1 weekDeploy platform and train on-call teams
Total build time
4-8 weeks
Feature Comparison
What you keep, what you skip, and why
A transparent comparison of PagerDuty features vs. your custom-built alternative.
| Feature | PagerDuty | Custom Build | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| On-call Scheduling | |||
| Alert Routing & Escalation | |||
| Incident Timeline | |||
| Status Pages | |||
| Post-mortem Tracking | |||
| Mobile Alerts | |||
| Integration with Monitoring Tools | |||
| Stakeholder Notifications | |||
| AIOps Event Correlation | Custom correlation rules tuned to your alert patterns | ||
| Unlimited Responders | No per-user limits on incident response participation |
Your custom build focuses on the features your team actually uses — typically 15-20% of what PagerDuty offers — built exactly for your workflow.
How It Works
From PagerDuty to ownership in 4-8 weeks
Free Audit
We analyze your PagerDuty usage and identify exactly which features your team actually uses.
Scope & Build
We build your custom devops & engineering tool with only the features you need. 4-8 weeks.
Deploy & Migrate
We deploy to your infrastructure, migrate your data from PagerDuty, and train your team.
You Own It
Full source code, documentation, and optional maintenance retainer. No vendor lock-in. Ever.
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