Stuck in the Middle: Marketers, Vibe Coding, and SaaS
Flexibility vs reliability in the modern marketing stack.
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Weâre back for September, talking about some of the interesting opportunities and challenges of vibe coding for marketers specifically. And if youâre in the Chicago or Denver areas, check out our upcoming happy hours below!
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Nate
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Marketers, Vibe Coding, and SaaS
Marketers are in a strange spot right now. On one side, thereâs a wave of âvibe codingâ tools like Lovable or Replit that make it easier than ever to spin up scrappy, custom solutions. On the other side, thereâs the established world of polished, enterprise-grade SaaS platforms that promise reliability, support, and scale.
Neither option feels quite right at the moment, and thatâs what makes this such a challenging time to be in the middle.
The First 90% Problem
Iâve spent plenty of time tinkering with both Lovable and Replit to build internal tools, thinking that maybe we could even replace some of our tech stack with custom solutions.
Anyone who has gone down this road knows the same truth: the first 90% is easy, the last 10% is brutal.
Getting an MVP up and running on Replit feels fast, fun, and empowering. You can pull together a tool that solves a real pain point in a matter of hours. It feels like magic when you hit ârunâ and see something working that you built yourself.
But then comes the last 10%.
The edge cases
The unintended changes to Y while trying to fix X
The error handling
The polish that makes something reliable for a team, not just a playground project
Thatâs where vibe coding starts to hit its limits. Suddenly, what felt like momentum slows to a crawl.
Why SaaS Still Wins (Sometimes)
This is where SaaS products pull marketers back in. Even though they might feel generic, expensive, or overly rigid, they come with one thing that vibe coding rarely does: reliability.
A SaaS tool is battle-tested. It has support, documentation, security layers, compliance certifications, and teams behind the scenes patching bugs before you even know they exist.
And you canât beat a solid tech stack of tools that work well together with native integrations, bi-directional syncs, and libraries of templates and recipes to use as starting points for your customization.
So when the last 10% of a vibe-coded tool becomes overwhelming, itâs natural to fall back on SaaS.
The Taste of Flexibility
Hereâs the tension: once youâve experienced the flexibility of vibe coding, itâs hard to go back.
I recently spent time working in Replit to create an AI visibility tool that we could use to track how all of our clients were performing in LLMs. As noted above, the first 90% was easy and fun. The last 10% dragged on and I reach a point where I didnât feel it was worth our time to get itâand keep it atâ100%.
So, we made the decision to shelf that tool and start using an existing AI visibility tool, which I will not name. It has been very disappointing.
For $500/mo, Iâm getting less data for one domain than my tool was getting for each domain across dozens of domains for a fraction of the cost in API calls. Rather than feeling satisfied with the decision, it left me feeling like I was paying more for less, even if it was still the right business decision.
Where This Leaves Marketers
Marketers are stuck in the tension between vibe coding and SaaS. Vibe coding gives us speed and flexibility to prototype, test, and create tools that feel tailored to how we work. But the last 10% exposes its limits, especially when reliability, scale, or security matter. SaaS fills those gaps, yet can feel more rigid, generic, or overpriced once youâve experienced the freedom of building something yourself.
The reality is that both approaches have a place. Vibe coding works best for lightweight experiments and internal hacks that help you move quickly. SaaS is still necessary for operations that touch sensitive data, cross-team workflows, or anything customer-facing.
The challenge for marketers is learning when to explore and when to lean on supported products, while seeking vendors that offer more flexibility. The ones who can navigate this balance will be better positioned to grow in todayâs messy middle.
đ What the Ten Speed team is readingâŠ
Does LLM Traffic Convert Better Than Organic? A New Data-Backed Study (Amsive)
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Google August 2025 Spam Update Impact Felt Quickly (SE Roundtable)
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Marketing History
September 4, 1998 - Google incorporates; search (and soon search advertising) begins its rise to the center of digital marketing.
September 6, 2006 - Facebook launches News Feed, the algorithmic stream that rewrites distribution, organic reach, and eventually paid-social strategy.
September 20, 2021 - Appleâs Mail Privacy Protection ships with iOS 15; open rates become unreliable, pushing teams toward clicks, conversions, and modeled metrics.