Built to Last: How Any Lab Test Now Chose Ownership over SaaS
Brand: Any Lab Test Now Industry: Direct-Access Medical Lab Testing Franchise Locations: 200+ Partner: Tsource Engagement Type: Strategic Technology Consulting — Assessment, Road mapping, and Ongoing Execution
Any Lab Test Now has built something genuinely different in the healthcare space, a national franchise network that gives everyday consumers direct access to lab testing without a doctor’s referral. With over 200 locations and a catalog of more than 8,000 tests, their model puts healthcare back in the hands of patients. But as the network expanded, the infrastructure behind it struggled to keep up. Managing pricing across thousands of tests, approximately 30 lab partners, and 200 franchise locations, each with their own local market considerations, had become an increasingly complex, manual, and error-prone process. Any Lab Test Now turned to Tsource to find a better way. What followed was a multi-year partnership that produced a purpose-built Pricing Portal, a living technology roadmap, and a shift from reactive firefighting to proactive, strategic technology leadership; delivering an estimated $415,000 to $570,000 in savings over three years compared to a SaaS alternative.
The Challenge
Pricing Chaos at Scale
With over 8,000 lab tests across approximately 30 lab partners, and a growing network of 200 franchise locations, pricing at Any Lab Test Now was anything but simple. Each lab partner maintained their own pricing, and because test pricing also varied by market area, each individual franchise location was responsible for managing their own pricing across all lab partners, tailored to their local market. That meant hundreds of spreadsheets, maintained independently across 200 locations, each tracking thousands of tests from dozens of labs. Corporate had no reliable way to enforce pricing standards or identify margin leakage. Pricing updates that should have taken minutes consumed most of a webmaster’s week. When a test’s price changed with a lab partner, that change had to flow manually through hundreds of pages, internal systems, and point-of-sale configurations across every affected location. The complexity was staggering, and the margin for error was high.
As part of their due diligence, Any Lab Test Now evaluated SaaS pricing platforms. But the per-seat model exposed a structural problem: every new franchise location added approximately $1,140 in permanent annual software expense. Projected over three years, SaaS licensing alone would approach $895,000, before integration fees, vendor price increases, or API charges.
| Year | Locations | Users | Annual SaaS License Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | 200 | 1,000 | $228,000 |
| Year 2 | ~260 | 1,300 | $296,400 |
| Year 3 | 325 | 1,625 | $370,500 |
| 3-Year Total | ~$895,000 |
At the end of Year 3, Any Lab Test Now would own no technology, no roadmap control, and no competitive differentiation. The cost of the status quo wasn’t just operational drag, it was margin risk at scale.
The Tsource Solution
A Purpose-Built Pricing Portal — Phased, Disciplined, and Franchise-Ready
Working with Tsource, Any Lab Test Now chose to build a custom Pricing Portal designed specifically for how their franchise system operates. The approach was phased and disciplined, starting with a minimum viable product and expanding based on demonstrated value.
| Period | Phase | Investment |
|---|---|---|
| Feb–May 2023 | MVP Development | $41,000 |
| Jun–Dec 2023 | Production Build & Planning | $125,000 |
| 2024 | Rollout, Integrations, Enhancements, Support | $186,000 |
| 2025 | Ongoing Enhancements & Support | $128,000 |
| Total (2023–2025) | $480,000 |
The MVP was live within four months for $41,000 — less than one quarter of what a SaaS license alone would have cost that year. The full production system was operational within twelve months.
The platform was built around four core capabilities:
- Centralized catalog governance – over 8,000 tests across approximately 30 lab partners live in a single, authoritative catalog. Pricing flows from one place to every downstream system automatically.
- Controlled franchisee flexibility — franchisees can negotiate better lab pricing locally and configure location-specific adjustments within defined guardrails.
- Automated distribution — pricing changes propagate to eCommerce storefronts, internal systems, and point-of-sale in real time. No manual updates, no lag, no copy-paste errors.
- Integration as a foundation — the portal connects with their Lab Management System (LMS) and serves as the product catalog backing every point-of-sale transaction across the network.
Alongside the portal, Tsource developed a three-year technology roadmap, a living strategic plan aligning technology investment with business objectives, revisited continuously to ensure each enhancement builds logically on the last.
The Outcome
$415K–$570K in Savings and a Platform That Keeps Paying Back
| Category | Build (Actual) | SaaS (Estimated) |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 (2023) | $166,000 | $228,000+ |
| Year 2 (2024) | $186,000 | $296,000+ |
| Year 3 (2025) | $128,000 | $370,000+ |
| 3-Year Total | $480,000 | $895,000–$1,050,000+ |
Estimated savings: $415,000 to $570,000 over the first three years. Unlike the SaaS scenario, costs are declining, not growing, as the system matures.
Operational impact:
- Pricing accuracy improved across all locations, with real-time visibility replacing guesswork
- Franchisees gained leverage to negotiate better lab pricing locally
- The webmaster’s time was freed from manual updates to focus on strategic website initiatives
- Update delays that once took days now happen in real time
Strategic impact:
- Any Lab Test Now owns the technology and controls the roadmap; no vendor can change terms or hold the business hostage
- The platform has evolved continuously over three years without renegotiating contracts or waiting on a vendor’s release calendar
- New integrations have been added as the business required them, not when a SaaS vendor prioritized them
Full payback against the SaaS alternative occurred within 18 to 24 months. Every month since has been net positive and savings grow with each new franchise location that joins without adding per-seat licensing cost.
“Tsource has been a wonderful addition to our team. With their vast knowledge and experience, we have been able to improve our technology infrastructure and get franchisee buy-in on our technology objectives.”
Ready to Build Technology That Pays for Itself?Contact our team at tsourceit.com
