Own your AI: why lock-in costs more than you think

Lock-in is what happens when a tool becomes so tangled with your business that leaving it costs more than staying, even if staying is wrong for you.

It starts small. A vendor builds you a tool that works. It sits in their cloud. Your data lives there. Your customers talk to it through their account. Six months in, the tool saves you three hours a week. Then the vendor raises prices 40 percent. Or they sunset a feature you rely on. Or a competitor launches something better. You want to switch. But your data is stuck, your code is locked, and your customer relationships live in their system. Moving costs $8,000 and two months of your team's time. So you stay, even though you shouldn't.

This is not paranoia. It is how software vendors make money.

The three things to own

Your data. This is the easiest to protect and the easiest to lose. Before you sign anything, ask: can I export my data in a standard format (CSV, JSON, a database dump) whenever I want. Not on request. Not on 30 days' notice. Whenever. A vendor who says yes is confident. A vendor who hesitates is signalling something.

Example: a property manager in Surrey uses a tool to track tenant inquiries. After two years, she wants to switch to something cheaper. The vendor says she can have her data, but only if she pays $1,200 for a "data export service." That's lock-in. A better vendor would let her download a CSV file in five minutes.

Your code. If a vendor builds custom code for you, you should own it or have the right to own it. This matters most when you're paying them to build something specific.

Example: an accounting firm in Burnaby pays a vendor $15,000 to build a tool that reads their client invoices and files them into the accounting software. Six months later, the vendor goes out of business. The firm has no access to the code. They have to rebuild from scratch. If they had insisted on owning the code upfront, they could have hired someone else to maintain it.

You don't need to be a developer to own code. You just need a copy of it in a place you control. Many vendors will agree to this if you ask. Some will put it in escrow, meaning a neutral third party holds it and releases it if the vendor fails. That costs a few hundred dollars but protects you from catastrophe.

Your accounts and keys. This is the sneakiest form of lock-in. Your AI tool talks to your other software—your email, your CRM, your payment processor. To do that, it needs credentials: usernames, passwords, API keys. If the vendor holds these, they control the connection. If you hold them, you do.

Example: a plumber in Richmond uses a tool that sends appointment reminders via text. The tool needs access to his Twilio account (a service that sends texts). If the vendor owns the Twilio account, the plumber can't send reminders without them. If the plumber owns it, he can switch tools tomorrow and keep sending reminders.

The fix is simple: you create the accounts. You give the tool permission to use them. You keep the passwords. This takes an extra 20 minutes to set up but costs nothing and saves you months of pain later.

What lock-in actually costs

Let's put a number on it.

A 12-person software company in Gastown builds a custom tool for $12,000. It saves them five hours a week. After two years, they want to switch because the vendor stopped responding to support emails. Switching costs:

• Time to export data and check it's clean: 8 hours
• Time to set up the new tool and import data: 12 hours
• Time to retrain the team: 4 hours
• Time lost to mistakes in the first month: 6 hours
• Total: 30 hours at $75 per hour = $2,250

That's a 19 percent hit on the original investment, just to leave. If the vendor raises prices 30 percent, the firm is paying $3,600 more per year to stay stuck. In two years, they've paid $7,200 extra. Now switching looks cheap.

But there's a hidden cost: the time your team spends frustrated, the deals you miss because the tool is down, the customer relationships that live in someone else's database. These are harder to measure but real.

What to ask before you sign

Ask these three questions of any vendor or builder:

1. Do I own my data and can I export it in a standard format whenever I want. 2. If you build custom code for me, do I own it or can I buy it. 3. Do I control the credentials and API keys for any accounts the tool uses.

If they say yes to all three, they're thinking long-term about your relationship. If they hedge or say no, they're thinking about keeping you trapped.

You don't need to be suspicious of everyone. Most vendors are honest. But the ones who aren't will cost you more than the ones who are. Asking these questions upfront takes 15 minutes and saves you months.

Where to start

• List every tool or vendor you pay for that touches customer data or business processes. Write down what happens to your data if they disappear tomorrow. Which ones make you nervous.

• For your next AI project, add three lines to your requirements: data export rights, code ownership, and credential control. Send these to any vendor you're considering and see who says yes.

• Talk to your accountant or lawyer about data escrow for any custom tool that costs more than $5,000. It costs $300–500 but gives you legal protection if the vendor fails.