Building an in-house secrets manager service can be a costly endeavor for startups, requiring a minimum of 3-4 engineers working full-time for at least 2 months. The solution is not a one-and-done fix and will likely require rebuilds as the company grows. In addition to engineering costs, liability and coverage of data breaches increase with team size and growth, resulting in rising security compliance standards and potential costs of $30,000+ per month. Alternatives include having engineers manage secrets themselves, which is error-prone and costly, or using plug-and-play services like Doppler that offer scalability, security, and compliance built-in at a significantly lower cost.