Off-the-shelf CRM or a custom one: how to decide

CRM means customer relationship management. It usually brings together customer details, conversations, potential sales and follow-up tasks. That is useful, but it does not automatically include staff scheduling, job visits, stock, membership renewals or the evidence needed to finish a job.

Write down a normal enquiry from first contact to payment, including who handles each step. List the tools it touches and where staff enter the same information twice. Then identify the steps a new system must cover and the software you want to keep.

Use those steps as a test for every option. A business with straightforward sales follow-up may fit a ready-made CRM well. A business organised around customers with several sites, repeat visits and approval stages may need a job-management product, a custom system or a connection between existing tools.

• Can one customer have several contacts, locations and jobs without creating duplicate customer records?
• Can the next person see the task, its deadline and the information they need, including on a phone?
• Can a changed date, cancelled job or revised quote pass through the whole process without someone correcting several tools?
• Can managers see outstanding work and payments without rebuilding a report in a spreadsheet?
• Can you limit each role's access and recover the records if something goes wrong?

These are starting points for a shortlist, not a ranking. Test the actual edition you can afford. A feature demonstrated in a top-tier trial may not be included in the plan you intend to buy.

• HubSpot is worth testing when sales, marketing and customer service need to share customer information. Its free tools can be enough for a small team with basic needs. Higher tiers add more automation and control, but the cost depends on the products, seat types and usage you buy.
• Pipedrive is worth testing for a visible sales pipeline, meaning the stages an enquiry passes through before a sale. Its Growth tier adds automation features, and Projects can help manage work after a sale. Check whether those features are enough for your jobs, rather than assuming that closing a deal covers delivery.
• Zoho CRM is worth testing when you need configurable records and processes. Its paid editions add progressively more automation and customisation. The free edition supports three users. Configuration still takes time, and choosing Zoho CRM does not mean every other Zoho application is included.
• Freshsales is worth testing for contacts, sales stages and communication in one place. Growth includes custom fields and basic workflows, meaning rules that trigger actions. Enterprise adds custom modules and field-level permissions. Freshsales Suite is a separate offer, so compare the right product.
• Bigin, also from Zoho, is worth testing if you want a simpler shared pipeline rather than a large CRM setup. Its free edition is for one user. Paid plans add more pipelines and automation, but check the record limits and whether your job history fits its structure.

The figures below are published vendor prices reviewed on 13 October 2026. A monthly rate with annual billing usually means a yearly commitment, not a payment you can stop next month. Use the linked pages and a written quote before buying, and confirm VAT, currency, renewal terms and the exact edition. US dollar prices below are not estimates of a UK bill.

Do not compare these plans as if they contain the same features. A low-priced seat that cannot handle your required approval or permissions is not an equivalent alternative. A more expensive tier can still be good value if it replaces other subscriptions and removes manual work.

• HubSpot's UK-facing platform pricing page shows Starter at a promotional £7, Professional at £81 and Enterprise at £155 per seat per month on annual billing. On monthly billing, the Starter promotion is £9 and Professional is £90 per seat per month. Free accounts allow two users. The page links to limited-release pricing terms, so confirm which offer applies to your account. Professional and Enterprise require paid onboarding. Ask for that charge, the Starter renewal rate and the seat types in your written quote.
• Pipedrive publishes an entry price of US$14 per seat per month on annual billing for its Lite plan. Its Growth, Premium and Ultimate plans cost more, so get the price for the tier your workflow needs rather than budgeting from Lite. Pipedrive charges for purchased seats even when they are unassigned. LeadBooster, Projects and Smart Docs cost extra on Lite and Growth but are included on Premium and Ultimate. Campaigns and Web Visitors remain paid add-ons on every tier.
• Zoho CRM's GBP rates per user per month are Standard £12, Professional £18, Enterprise £35 and Ultimate £42 on annual billing. On monthly billing they are £16, £28, £45 and £55 respectively. Local taxes are additional. A five-person team using Professional therefore commits to £1,080 a year for the licences on annual billing, before tax or extras.
• Freshsales publishes Growth at US$9, Pro at US$39 and Enterprise at US$59 per user per month, billed annually. Its pricing page separately lists branded documents at US$19 per user per month and Freddy AI Agent at US$49 per 100 sessions. Those are optional extras, not costs every business needs to add.
• Bigin publishes Express at US$7, Premier at US$12 and Bigin 360 at US$18 per user per month on yearly billing. Its free edition is limited to one user. This can make a simple pipeline a cheaper starting point than buying a more complex CRM, provided its features cover the work.

Make one cost list for the complete ready-made setup. Include implementation, data cleaning, training and any consultant who configures it. Then count the paid seats, required tier, add-ons and other tools that remain. Check whether occasional users need full seats or a cheaper role actually lets them do their work.

Price the team you expect to have, not just today's users. Include limits on records, emails, automation, storage and connections between systems. An integration is a connection that passes information between tools. It may need a separate subscription and maintenance when either tool changes.

Keep staff time in a separate column from money you pay suppliers. Value repeated copying and reconciliation using measured hours and your own internal cost. Do not count the same saved time twice, or treat it as guaranteed extra profit.

• Ask what happens to a promotional rate at renewal and what notice is needed to reduce seats or cancel.
• Check whether buying one advanced feature requires upgrading every user or a whole product subscription.
• Include paid connectors, document tools, messaging charges and usage fees only where your process needs them.
• Keep a note of which costs rise with users, contacts, messages or transactions. Apply the same growth assumptions to each option.

At Zoho CRM Professional's £18 annual-billing rate, five users cost £1,080 a year, or £3,240 over three years. Ten users for all three years cost £6,480. Both calculations assume unchanged rates and exclude VAT, setup, extras and staff time. Add those separately rather than comparing either licence total with a bare custom-build price.

Changing field names, choosing sales stages and setting a reminder are normal configuration. You do not need a custom build just because your business uses different words from the vendor's demonstration.

A workaround is different. It might mean pretending a property is a customer, keeping job visits in a separate sheet or making someone copy a completed job into invoicing every evening. Some workarounds are harmless. Others make reporting unreliable and grow with every new job or staff member.

Ask the ready-made supplier to demonstrate the awkward cases using fictional records. Watch what happens after a reschedule or a customer changes an address. If the process stays clear and the information updates correctly, keep that option on the shortlist.

If the demonstration keeps adding separate tools and manual steps, write those into the cost comparison. A custom system may be the better fit because it can represent your actual customers, sites and jobs directly. The advantage is fewer repeated tasks and fewer conflicting records, not simply having software made for you.

Custom software has an upfront design and build cost. Lagden Ltd's custom software starts from £2,500. That is a starting point for a scoped project, not a claim that this price buys every feature in a large commercial CRM. Imports, complex permissions, reporting and connections to other tools can increase the scope.

Get a written quote for the same tasks you tested in the ready-made products. Include data migration, testing, training and launch support. Then add hosting, monitoring, backups, security updates, ongoing support and the changes you expect to need over the comparison period.

A custom system can avoid a CRM licence fee for every staff member, depending on its design and commercial terms. It can still have third-party charges for email, text messages, storage or other services. More users or records can also increase hosting and support costs. Confirm those costs rather than assuming custom software is free after launch.

For each option, add setup costs to three years of recurring supplier bills and expected changes. Compare the remaining admin time separately. If the ready-made product does the job for less, choose it. If a custom build removes expensive workarounds and costs less over the same period, the larger upfront payment may be justified. Savings only matter if the team will use the system.

With a subscription product, test an export before signing. Check whether it includes customer and job records, notes, attachments and the links between them. A list of contacts alone may not let you reconstruct the business history. Ask what access remains when the subscription ends.

With a custom build, agree rights to the source code in writing. Ask who controls the hosting, administrator accounts and backups, whether you can appoint another maintainer, and how you receive the documentation needed to run it. Custom does not automatically mean you own everything or can move it without help.

Both approaches need someone responsible for security and support. The ICO requires measures appropriate to the risks of the personal data you hold. Review staff access, recovery arrangements and contracts with suppliers processing that data. A vendor's security features do not remove your responsibilities, and a custom build does not meet them automatically.

Keep sensitive records out of trials until you have checked the supplier and sharing arrangements. If your business handles health information or other sensitive data, check the requirements for your situation rather than assuming an ordinary customer database is enough.

Give each shortlisted supplier the same workflow and fictional sample records. Ask someone who will use the system to complete an enquiry, revise a job and find a customer's history without the demonstrator doing it for them. Include a staff member using a phone if that is part of the work.

Choose a ready-made CRM when its standard records and configuration cover the important tasks, the team can use it and the complete cost remains sensible as you grow. It can be faster to introduce than a build and spreads the development and maintenance cost across many customers.

Choose a custom system when the important work repeatedly falls outside the ready-made structure, connections remove substantial copying or control over the system is a firm requirement. Confirm that the budget covers both the build and keeping it running. A focused first version can handle customers and jobs while established accounting or booking software stays in place.

Before committing, agree what success means, who owns migration and how staff will learn the new process. Pilot with a small group and make clear which system is the authoritative record. A good choice should make the next person's task easier, not merely replace one screen with another.