I was reading this piece on SaaS vendor lock-in yesterday, and it really made me think. It argued that many "easy-to-use" platforms are designed to make it extremely hard to leave.
As someone who's currently comparing CRM and marketing automation tools, this is a big worry. How do you even evaluate for this? Is it mostly about data export formats, or are there other hidden traps I should be looking for? I'm trying to balance ease of use with not painting myself into a corner later.
That's my exact situation too. I'm looking at marketing automation tools and the lock-in worry is huge.
It's not just the data export. What about the workflow automations you build? If they use proprietary logic or connectors, you might have to rebuild everything from scratch.
How are you checking for these "hidden traps" in your evaluations? I've started asking vendors about their API limits and if workflows can be exported as templates.