Case Study
How I Saved JET Hospitality $50K+/Year by Replacing SaaS with Open Source
Fractional CTO for a 10-property glamping and boutique hotel group across the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain West.
$50K+/yr
Saved
99.99%
Uptime
10
Properties
6+
SaaS Tools Replaced
The Opportunity
Rapid growth, ready for the right tech.
JET Hospitality was scaling fast — 10 glamping and boutique hotel properties spread across multiple states. The business was thriving, and the team was ready to invest in technology that matched their ambition.
Like most growing companies, they'd accumulated a mix of SaaS tools over time — Zapier, Mailchimp, Asana, LastPass — each solving one piece of the puzzle. The opportunity was to unify everything into a cohesive stack purpose-built for hospitality.
They brought me on as Fractional CTO to provide dedicated technology leadership — to build a strategic roadmap, stand up proper infrastructure, and replace off-the-shelf tools with solutions designed for how the team actually works.
The goal: unified systems, real-time visibility into business performance, enterprise-grade security, and a custom CRM built specifically for multi-property hospitality — all while cutting over $50K in annual SaaS spend.
The Approach
Embed. Audit. Architect. Build.
01
Embed
Joined the leadership team as Fractional CTO. Understood the business before touching the tech.
02
Audit
Mapped the entire SaaS stack. Identified every tool, its actual usage, and viable open-source replacements.
03
Architect
Designed AWS infrastructure from scratch — EC2, Lightsail, SES — optimized for cost and reliability.
04
Build
Built custom tools where off-the-shelf didn't fit. Migrated data. Trained the team. Zero downtime cutover.
What Was Built
Six systems. One unified stack.
Custom CRM (JET CRM)
Django 5.1 + HTMX + Tailwind + PostgreSQL. Built from scratch as their first CRM. Lead management, Kanban pipeline, email campaigns, guest profiles, ATS, ticketing, project management, Level 10 ROCK reviews and meetings, and LinkedIn content automation.
View project →3 Production Websites
Migrated jethospitality.com, invest.jethospitality.com, and growthfund.jethospitality.com off GoDaddy, IONOS, and Wix onto unified AWS EC2 + S3 infrastructure. Custom WordPress plugins for investor portals and booking flows.
Sales Intelligence System
Python web scraping tools generating qualified leads from property listings and monitoring competitor pricing across all markets in real time.
Security Infrastructure
Passbolt + GPG for company-wide secrets management with least-privilege access controls. Enterprise-grade security built from the ground up.
Observability Stack
Uptime Kuma monitoring all properties, services, and infrastructure with real-time status dashboards and instant alerting.
API Integrations
Python integrations with booking and inventory APIs automating revenue workflows that previously required hours of manual data entry.
Loyalty & Rewards System
Custom points-based loyalty program integrated into the website. Automatic guest accounts and profiles, reward tracking, and redemption — driving repeat bookings across all properties.
The Breakdown
SaaS vs. open source, line by line.
CRM
N/A — net new/yrBefore: No CRM (spreadsheets & email)
After: JET CRM (Django, self-hosted)
Automation
$600+/yrBefore: Zapier Pro ($50/mo)
After: n8n + custom Python
Before: Mailchimp ($300/mo)
After: AWS SES ($0.10/1000)
Monitoring
$2,760+/yrBefore: Datadog ($23/host)
After: Uptime Kuma (self-hosted)
Project Mgmt
$1,300+/yrBefore: Asana ($11/seat × 10)
After: Built into JET CRM
Passwords
$360+/yrBefore: LastPass Teams ($6/seat)
After: Passbolt (self-hosted)
Web Hosting
$3,000+/yrBefore: GoDaddy + IONOS + Wix (multiple plans)
After: AWS EC2 + S3
| What | Before (SaaS) | After (Open Source) | Annual Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| CRM | No CRM (spreadsheets & email) | JET CRM (Django, self-hosted) | N/A — net new |
| Automation | Zapier Pro ($50/mo) | n8n + custom Python | $600+ |
| Mailchimp ($300/mo) | AWS SES ($0.10/1000) | $3,500+ | |
| Monitoring | Datadog ($23/host) | Uptime Kuma (self-hosted) | $2,760+ |
| Project Mgmt | Asana ($11/seat × 10) | Built into JET CRM | $1,300+ |
| Passwords | LastPass Teams ($6/seat) | Passbolt (self-hosted) | $360+ |
| Web Hosting | GoDaddy + IONOS + Wix (multiple plans) | AWS EC2 + S3 | $3,000+ |
The Results
What changed.
$50K+ annual SaaS savings redirected to growth
99.99% uptime across all properties and services
Unified dashboards consolidating 5+ tools into one view
Enterprise-grade security infrastructure stood up from scratch
Technology roadmap aligned with executive growth strategy
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