How much does a custom CRM cost? Price factors and tips

What determines the cost of a custom CRM?

A custom CRM is a web application that does exactly what your business needs. The price depends mainly on these points:

• Number of modules: just customers and contact moments, or also quotes, projects, scheduling, tasks and reports.
• User roles: can everyone see everything, or do sales, planning and management each have their own permissions?
• Integrations: with your accounting, inbox, calendar, website forms or phone system. Read more in getting an API integration built.
• Data migration: cleaning up and importing customer data from Excel or an old system.
• Automation: reminders, follow-up tasks or automatic emails.
• Mobile use: do staff need to look up customers or make notes on the go?
• Design and ease of use: a clear screen that matches how your team works.

Custom CRM or off-the-shelf package: comparing costs

You usually pay for an off-the-shelf CRM per user per month. Depending on the package and features, that ranges from a few euros to tens of euros per user per month. That's an indication; check the current price with the provider. A custom CRM has higher upfront costs, but no per-user licences after that.

To compare fairly, look at the total cost over three to five years. A worked example with made-up numbers, just to show the method:

• Off-the-shelf package: 8 users times €40 per month is €320 per month. Over five years that's €19,200, plus any extra modules and integrations.
• Custom: a one-off build price plus hosting and maintenance per month. If your team grows, the costs barely rise with it.

Which comes out cheapest depends on your team, your needs and how well an off-the-shelf package already fits. If a package fits almost completely, custom work is often unnecessary. If you constantly have to work around the package with Excel lists and manual work, those hours count too. Read more about that trade-off in custom software or an off-the-shelf package.

Hidden costs of a CRM

With both custom and off-the-shelf systems, there are costs you don't see straight away in the quote:

• Data clean-up: duplicate customers, old addresses and empty fields. This often takes more time than expected.
• Training and rollout: a CRM only works if everyone uses it. Plan time to bring your team along.
• Hosting and backups: a CRM holds customer data and has to run securely and reliably.
• Maintenance and updates: security, new browser versions and small improvements.
• Extensions: once the CRM works well, new wishes come up naturally.

Include these items in your budget from the start. You can read roughly what maintaining custom software involves in web application maintenance costs.

Spreading the cost: build your CRM in phases

You don't have to build everything at once. A phased approach keeps the first investment low and stops you paying for features nobody uses:

• Phase 1: the core. Customers, contacts, notes and follow-up tasks. This usually already replaces the loose Excel lists.
• Phase 2: sales. Quotes, an overview of open opportunities and reminders to follow up.
• Phase 3: integrations. Accounting, inbox or website forms, so data isn't entered twice.
• Phase 4: extras. Reports, a customer portal or a mobile view for field staff.

After each phase you use the system for a while and see what's really needed. It often turns out that some wishes on the original list no longer matter.

A phased approach is good for your team too. People get used to the new system step by step, instead of having to change everything at once. And you notice sooner what doesn't work in practice, so the next phase fits better.

When does a custom CRM pay for itself?

Your own CRM is an investment. Whether it pays for itself depends on how much time and revenue you're losing now. Look out for these signs:

• Your team looks up information every day across different Excel files, inboxes and notebooks.
• Quotes aren't followed up because nobody knows exactly what's open.
• Data is entered two or three times: in your CRM, your schedule and your accounting.
• You pay for an off-the-shelf package of which you only use a small part, and you're missing the one feature you actually need.
• Your licence costs go up every time someone joins.

Work out how many hours a week your team spends searching, retyping and chasing. Multiply that by an hourly rate and a year. That number gives you an honest picture of what the current system costs you, and what a better solution is allowed to cost.

How to keep the cost of your custom CRM down

• Write down how you work now, step by step. The clearer the process, the less time the design takes.
• Separate must-haves from nice-to-haves. Build the must-haves first.
• Clean up your data yourself before it's moved across.
• Use existing services where you can, such as your accounting software for invoices, and connect them instead of rebuilding everything.
• Ask for a fixed price per phase, so you don't get any surprises.
• Make sure you own the code and the data.

Getting a custom CRM built at Violexa

At Violexa we build custom web applications and software, including CRM systems. A custom web application starts from €1,799 excl. VAT (€2,177 incl. VAT) per project, including design, development, a layout that works on every screen and training. A CRM with several modules is usually a bigger project. That gets a fixed price on paper upfront.

After launch you can choose a maintenance plan: Silver €179 (€217 incl. VAT), Gold €299 (€362 incl. VAT) or Platinum €699 (€846 incl. VAT) per month excl. VAT.

Want to know what a custom CRM would cost for your business? Book a free quickscan. In 30 minutes, online or on site, we discuss how you work now. Afterwards you get brief written advice with a price indication, with no obligation.

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