CRM guide
Should a large company buy an enterprise CRM or build a custom one?
Buy an enterprise CRM such as Salesforce Sales Cloud when your sales process is close to standard and you want a system running soon with a large talent pool behind it. Build a custom CRM when you would spend the license budget forcing a product to match your process, because over five years the product keeps charging per seat and a system you own has no license fee.
| What you are comparing | A product | A custom build |
|---|---|---|
| Cost over five years | License fees every year for every user, plus onboarding, add-ons and the consulting needed to configure and change the system. The total grows with headcount. | A one-time build scoped in writing, then running costs such as hosting, database and email. No licenses, so the total does not grow with headcount. |
| Per-seat fees | Yes. Every vendor on our lists publishes or quotes a per-user price, and the editions a large team needs sit at the upper end of the price list. | None. Adding a salesperson, a manager or a read-only executive adds no fee. |
| Fit to your process | You adapt the product through configuration, inside the limits of your edition. What it cannot model ends up in spreadsheets beside it. | Built from your process, including the quoting rules, approvals and handoffs that are specific to you. |
| Time to launch | You can sign up quickly, but a large rollout is a project of its own, with configuration, data migration and training before the team can use it. | Starts with discovery and a written scope. Working screens are shown during the build, and the schedule is set in that scope. |
| Who can maintain it | A large market of admins and consultants, strongest for Salesforce and Microsoft. | Any competent developer, since Black Badger writes the code to be read and extended and sets up every account in your name. |
| Changes after launch | Limited by edition and by what the vendor exposes. Larger changes go through an admin or a consultant. | Anything can change, because you own the code. Changes are scoped and built as you need them. |
| Vendor risk | Pricing, packaging and roadmap are the vendor's decisions. Renewal terms can change. | No vendor to renew with. The risk moves to keeping a maintainer available, which ownership of the code and accounts is designed to cover. |
When buying an enterprise CRM is the right answer
Buy when your sales process looks like most sales processes. If your stages, fields and reports are close to what an enterprise CRM offers by default, configuration covers the rest. You also gain a product that thousands of administrators already know.
Buy as well when the timing is tight and the need is plain. A product can be in front of a team sooner than a system that has not been scoped yet, and a standard need does not justify a build.
When building a custom enterprise CRM is the right answer
Build when the product has become a project. The signs are consistent. A spreadsheet runs beside the CRM, one person acts as the link between two systems, and leadership asks for a report nobody can produce cleanly.
Build when the license bill is more than the software is worth to you. Per-seat pricing means a growing company pays more every year for the same system. A custom CRM costs what it costs to build and then costs what it costs to run.
How to compare the cost of an enterprise CRM with a custom build
Do not compare a first-year license quote with a build. Compare five years. Add up seats at the edition you need, add-ons, onboarding fees and the consulting you already pay for changes. That is the product number.
The custom number is a one-time build plus running costs. Black Badger does not publish a price, because the figure depends on what the system has to do and how many other systems it has to agree with. A written scope gives you the number to put beside the product total.
What a custom build involves, and how to ask about one
Questions buyers ask
Is a custom CRM cheaper than Salesforce?
Custom is not always cheaper in the first year. A build costs once and a subscription repeats per seat, so the comparison usually turns in favor of custom as headcount and years add up.
What if the developer who built our custom CRM disappears?
A developer who disappears was a risk with custom software for a long time. Black Badger answers it two ways. Every account the system runs on is created in your name, and the code is written so that another developer can read it and carry on.
Can we keep our accounting or ERP system and replace only the CRM?
Yes, you can keep your accounting system and replace only the CRM. Most custom CRM builds connect to the finance and operations systems already in place. A tool that works does not need replacing.