Which has the CEO stating they are going to implement it?
imho this budget is too low, you are far better to wait and take out a loan in the meantime (the interest is going to be less than the plugin budget?). The CDCK solution will tick all the boxes, cross t’s and dot i’s. Wait for it imho.
Additionally, you don’t want to introduce potential conflict by having a developer start the project, only for the sponsor to abandon it half way because the official version just released?