Custom CRM vs Salesforce
All the power, none of the bloat.
Salesforce is the 800-pound gorilla of CRM. It can do almost anything, if you're willing to pay for it and hire consultants to configure it. For enterprise companies with dedicated Salesforce admins, that trade-off makes sense. For small and mid-size businesses? Salesforce is like renting a 747 to fly across town. You're paying for a platform built for Fortune 500 complexity when what you need is a system that fits your team, your workflow, and your budget.
Where Salesforce Falls Short
Common pain points businesses hit with Salesforce, and why they start looking at alternatives.
Per-Seat Pricing That Scales Against You
Salesforce charges per user per month, starting at $25 and climbing to $500+ for full features. Add 10 users and you're looking at $30,000-$60,000/year before consulting, add-ons, or storage fees. Every new hire increases your CRM cost. With a custom CRM, you pay to build it once and own it forever. Add users for free.
You Need a Consultant to Change a Dropdown
Salesforce's flexibility is also its curse. Want to add a custom field? Change a workflow? Build a report? You'll probably need a certified Salesforce admin or consultant. The platform is powerful but not self-serve for most teams. Custom CRM is built to be maintained by your team, because it only has the complexity your business actually needs.
Feature Bloat That Slows Everyone Down
Salesforce has thousands of features. Your team uses maybe 15% of them. The rest is noise: cluttering the interface, slowing page loads, and making training a months-long ordeal. A custom CRM has exactly the features you need and nothing else. Clean interface. Fast. Easy to train on day one.
Integration Tax on Everything
Need Salesforce to talk to your other tools? There's an AppExchange connector for that, usually with its own monthly fee. Need a custom integration? Budget $10,000-$50,000 for a Salesforce integration partner. Custom CRM integrations are built directly into your system with no middleware fees and no third-party dependency.
Feature Comparison
How custom CRM stacks up against Salesforce on the things that actually matter.
| Feature | Salesforce | Custom CRM |
|---|---|---|
| Per-seat licensing | $25-$500/user/month | Unlimited users, one-time build |
| Customization | Requires certified admin/consultant | Built around your exact workflow |
| Training time | Weeks to months | Hours to days |
| Integrations | AppExchange add-ons (extra fees) | Direct API, built-in |
| Data ownership | Stored on Salesforce servers | Your infrastructure, your data |
| Feature set | Thousands of features, most unused | Only what your team needs |
| Ongoing cost | Grows with headcount + add-ons | Fixed maintenance, no per-seat |
| Time to value | 3-6 month implementation | 4-8 weeks typical |
Cost Comparison
The real total cost of ownership, not just the sticker price.
Salesforce
25-person team on Salesforce Enterprise: ~$45,000/year in licensing alone. Add AppExchange apps, storage upgrades, and consultant hours: $60,000-$100,000/year total cost of ownership.
Custom CRM
Custom CRM build: one-time investment. Ongoing maintenance and support: fraction of Salesforce's annual cost. No per-seat fees. No add-on marketplace. The system pays for itself within 12-18 months versus continued Salesforce licensing.
When Salesforce Is the Right Choice
Salesforce is the right choice for enterprise companies with 500+ users, dedicated Salesforce admins on staff, and budgets that absorb six-figure annual licensing. For small and mid-size businesses (5-100 users), custom CRM delivers more value at a fraction of the long-term cost.
The Bottom Line
Salesforce is powerful. It's also expensive, complex, and built for a scale most small businesses will never reach. If you're paying for features you don't use, hiring consultants to make basic changes, and watching your CRM bill grow with every new hire, it's not a power problem, it's a fit problem. A custom CRM gives you the functionality your team actually needs without the enterprise overhead you don't.
What Our Clients Say
“Group benefits enrollment was a manual disaster before. Now employers submit through a portal, everything syncs to our CRM, and we onboard groups in half the time.”
Christine Palmer
Operations Director, Lakeshore Benefits Group
Milwaukee, WI
“ASIC compliance requirements meant off-the-shelf wouldn't cut it. Custom CRM with Australian data residency and full audit trails. Exactly what we needed.”
James Whitfield
Managing Director, Harbour City Advisors
Sydney, NSW
“Tracking client services, donor relationships, and volunteer hours across 3 programs was impossible in spreadsheets. This system has transformed our operations.”
Father Thomas O'Brien
Director, St. Francis Community Services
Boston, MA
“Foster family management, case tracking, and donor relationships in one system. We can show funders exactly how their dollars create outcomes. Grants increased 40%.”
Diane Foster
Executive Director, Children's Hope Alliance
Charlotte, NC
“Cross-selling used to be an afterthought. Now the CRM surfaces opportunities automatically. Home buyer? Here's an auto quote. New baby? Life insurance reminder.”
Frank Adebayo
Principal Agent, Adebayo & Associates Insurance
Houston, TX
“Custom quoting tool integrated into the CRM. Our estimators went from building quotes in Excel to generating professional proposals in 20 minutes flat.”
Howard Mills
CEO, Mills Metal Fabrication
Detroit, MI
“Commercial energy audits, proposal generation, and project tracking all streamlined. We close more deals because prospects see professionalism at every touchpoint.”
Lisa Chen
Account Manager, GreenGrid Utilities
Sacramento, CA
“Customer health scoring, usage analytics, and automated expansion triggers. Our net revenue retention went from 95% to 115% in one year.”
Nathan Briggs
Head of CS, DataPulse Analytics
Austin, TX
Thinking About Switching from Salesforce?
Book a discovery call and we'll walk through your current Salesforce setup, what's not working, and what a custom CRM would look like for your team.