Insights · 6 min read
Custom CRM or off-the-shelf? How to tell which one you need
By Austin Hunter ·
We build custom CRMs (LaurelCRM for Laurel Medical, built in 2023 and still being extended, and TaskMerit for landscaping and snow-removal companies), and we still tell most people to start with an off-the-shelf tool. Here's the honest way to decide.
Start off-the-shelf if…
- Your sales process looks like most sales processes: leads, deals, follow-ups, a pipeline.
- You have a handful of users, and per-seat pricing is a small line item.
- You don't have someone who'll own the system, or a budget to maintain software.
- You haven't run the process long enough to know exactly what you need.
Consider custom when…
- Your workflow is unusual and central to the business: properties instead of contacts, jobs and crews instead of deals, regulated records, field work.
- The team lives in spreadsheets and text threads because the CRM doesn't fit, so the expensive tool is barely used.
- You're paying for several tools that don't talk to each other, and someone re-types data between them every day.
- Per-seat fees and add-ons have grown past what a system you own would cost to build and maintain.
- You need customers or partners to log in (a portal) with exactly the access you decide.
What custom actually costs
Every project is different, but from the quotes we've sent: small custom systems have mostly landed between about $8,000 and $20,000, and larger multi-milestone business systems with portals and integrations have been quoted around $50,000 to $60,000. After launch, budget for hosting and a monthly maintenance plan. Software you own still needs updates.
A middle path
Often the best answer is to keep the off-the-shelf CRM for what it does well and build a small custom piece around it: a dashboard that pulls from it, a portal for customers, or an integration that removes the re-typing. That's faster and cheaper than replacing everything.
Questions to answer before you build
- Which three things do people do every day that the current tool makes painful?
- Who owns the system after launch, and who decides what changes?
- What data has to come across from the old tools, and who checks it?
- Which integrations are must-haves (accounting, email, payments, maps)?
How we work
We start with a free call, then a fixed quote paid by milestone, with the first milestone being one workflow done well. You own the code and the data, and we can maintain it afterwards on a monthly plan.