DeFi Orbit vs Building It In-House Indexers, RPC costs, PnL math and protocol upgrades: what it takes to build position data yourself, and when it still makes sense. Canonical: https://defiorbit.xyz/compare/in-house --- [Compare Solutions](/compare)/Build it yourself # DeFi Orbit vs. building it in-house Building your own position data pipeline looks like a few weeks of work. It is a system you will maintain for as long as you need the data. We know, because we run one every day. This page sets out what it takes. Last reviewed October 2026 Build in-house only if all three are true Position analytics is the product you sell, not a feature inside it You can fund a dedicated data team for years, not one engineer for a quarter You are ready to rebuild part of it every time a protocol changes Use DeFi Orbit when You need the numbers to be right, and they are not what you sell You want to ship this month and keep engineers on your own product You want a known cost per call, not a team you have to keep staffed 01 / Side by side ## What each path costs you Topic Building in-house ![DeFi Orbit](/assets/logo-white.png) Time to first data Weeks to months per protocol before the first number you would show a client An API key and a first call the same day The second protocol Start again. Different contracts, different events, different edge cases Already covered: Uniswap V3, Aerodrome, Orca, Aave, Morpho and Kamino Calculations Your team writes PnL, fees, impermanent loss and APR, then defends every formula Calculated for every position, with documented methods History Backfill from the first event, then run snapshot jobs forever Full event history and daily snapshots included RPC costs Your bill. It grows with every wallet, chain and backfill Covered for the data we provide Protocol upgrades Your indexer breaks, and your roadmap waits while someone fixes it We maintain it; your integration does not change When a number is wrong Your client finds it first Values reconciled to chain state before they reach you Who keeps it running An engineer on call for reorgs, RPC outages and stuck jobs Our team. That is the whole job Cost model Salaries, infrastructure and RPC every month, used or not Prepaid credits with a fixed cost per endpoint What your engineers ship Data plumbing your customers never see Your product AI agent access Another build Included through DeFi Orbit AI, on the same key 02 / The in-house build ## What "we will just index it ourselves" turns into Reading a balance is one call. A position you can report on needs every piece on this list, for every protocol, kept running. This is the work we do full time. 1. 01 An indexer per protocol Contracts, events and edge cases differ for each one. None of the work carries over. 2. 02 Event decoding and storage Deposits, withdrawals, fee collections and rebalances, in order, with reorgs handled. 3. 03 Historical price data A price for every token at the time of every event. Today's price is the easy part. 4. 04 A calculation engine PnL against holding, fees, impermanent loss, APR and health factors, each with rules you have to decide and document. 5. 05 Snapshot jobs Daily values for every position, forever, so you can answer what it was worth on any date. 6. 06 Reconciliation Checks that your numbers still match chain state. Without them you find out from a client. 7. 07 Monitoring and on-call RPC failures, reorgs, stuck jobs and rate limits, at any hour. 8. 08 Then the protocol upgrades A new version or a migrated contract, and part of the list starts over. 03 / After the build ## The costs that are not in the build estimate The first version is the cheap part. This is what the estimate leaves out. ### It is never finished A build estimate covers getting to the first number. It does not cover the years of upgrades, new deployments and new chains after it. ### It depends on one or two people The engineers who understand the pipeline become the only ones who can fix it. When one leaves, so does that knowledge. ### Wrong numbers cost more than no numbers A PnL figure that is slightly off goes into an investor report before anyone notices. ### The bill is not predictable RPC usage jumps with a backfill, a busy chain or a new client. So does the invoice. ### You have to defend every number Auditors and investors ask how a figure was calculated. With your own pipeline, your team writes and maintains that answer. ### It competes with your roadmap Every week on indexers is a week not spent on the product your customers pay for. 04 / When we are not the fit ## The short list of reasons to build There are three, and they apply to few teams. If one is yours, we will tell you so. ### The data is your product If position analytics is what you sell, owning the pipeline can be worth it. Expect a standing team, not a project. ### You need something we do not cover Check supported networks and protocols first. If it is missing, ask about Custom Data: adding it is usually faster than you building it. ### You have strict data residency rules DeFi Orbit is a hosted API, so if your policy rules out any external service, build in-house. Before you decide, note that we only process public on-chain data for the addresses you query, with no keys, funds or personal data, which satisfies most residency reviews. 05 / FAQ ## Questions teams ask before deciding Can we start with DeFi Orbit and move in-house later? Yes, and that’s a sensible order. There’s no subscription or commitment on credit packs, so you can ship with our data now and build your own pipeline later if it still makes sense. Having correct numbers to compare against makes an in-house build far less risky than starting from nothing. We already started building. Is it too late? No. Run the API next to your own pipeline on the same wallets for a couple of weeks. Where the numbers agree, you’ve validated your work; where they differ, you’ve found an edge case before a client did. Then you can decide whether to keep going or hand the rest to us. How do we know the numbers are right? Test them on wallets you already know. Every figure is calculated from on-chain events using documented methods for PnL, impermanent loss, fees and APR, so you can trace any number back to the transactions behind it. If something doesn’t match your expectation, tell us and we’ll show you the calculation. What does it cost compared with building? Each call costs a fixed 1 to 30 credits, with packs starting at 500 credits for $10, so you can price your usage before you write a line of code. Building means engineer time, RPC bills that grow with every wallet and chain, and someone on call when a protocol upgrades. For most teams, a month of our credits costs less than a day of that. What if we need a protocol you do not support? We add protocols and networks as scoped Custom Data projects, with a timeline and a price agreed before we start. Once live, the new protocol works everywhere: the API, DeFi Orbit AI and Portfolio. It’s usually faster than building the indexer yourselves, because the calculation layer already exists. Do you need access to our keys or funds? No. Everything is read-only and works from public wallet addresses. There’s nothing to connect and nothing we could move, which also means the integration adds no security surface to your own systems. [See all comparisons](/compare) Other comparisons [All comparisons →](/compare) [ Build it yourself Your own tracker + DeFi Orbit ](/compare/build-your-own-tracker)[ Manual tracking DeFi Orbit vs. spreadsheets ](/compare/spreadsheets)[ Indexing protocols DeFi Orbit vs. subgraphs ](/compare/subgraphs) ## Find out in an afternoon, not a quarter Run one API key against wallets you know before you commit a team to building it. [Get API key](https://platform.defiorbit.xyz)[Book a demo](/book-a-demo) × Book a demo ## See how DeFi Orbit fits your stack Thirty minutes with the team. Bring a wallet address and the report you wish you had. - A walkthrough using your positions, not sample data - Which product fits: Portfolio, the API or both - Pricing for your wallets, clients and volume Just want to try it? [Get an API key](https://platform.defiorbit.xyz) or[launch the app](https://app.defiorbit.xyz). 1. 1 · Your details 2. 2 · Pick a time ## Pick a time, there 30 minutes · Video call · Your details are filled in for you ← Edit details[Open the calendar in a new tab ↗](#)