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A CRM shaped like your week.

Off-the-shelf CRMs stop fitting in predictable ways. You pay per seat for features nobody opens. Your job stages don't match their deal stages. The real numbers end up back in a spreadsheet, and someone keeps the two in sync by hand.

A custom CRM costs more up front. Whether it costs more over five years depends on your numbers, so let's look at those.

What it costs

MVP from $16,000 · expect $16,000–$35,000 for most scopes

Where yours lands depends on a few things: how many systems it has to talk to, how many kinds of user need different permissions, how messy the data migration is, how many reports you need, and whether people use it on phones out in the field.

It starts with a discovery sprint: $1,500 fixed, 5–8 business days, credited in full if the build starts within 60 days. That's how the price becomes fixed instead of hopeful.

Prices updated October 2026
Starting prices. The final price is set in a written proposal.

How long

Discovery takes 5–8 business days. An MVP usually takes 8–16 weeks after that. The proposal gives you a timeline for your build. It's an estimate, and it depends on feedback and access as much as on me.

What's usually in the first version

  • A pipeline or jobs board with your stages, not someone else's
  • Customer records with history: calls, quotes, jobs, files, notes
  • Quotes and invoices, or a hand-off to your accounting tool
  • Roles and permissions, so the office sees what the office needs
  • Search and filters that match how people actually look things up
  • A CSV import of your current spreadsheet
  • An audit trail of who changed what
  • Backups, and admin docs for whoever runs it next

What I'll need from you

Your current spreadsheets, warts and all. A walk-through of a real week: where a lead comes in, who touches it, where it goes wrong. One person who decides. The list of tools it has to talk to. And an hour or two for the midpoint review, which is where anything that looked right on paper and isn't shows up.

What I'd build it with

Laravel (PHP) with MySQL or PostgreSQL, and React where the screens need it, or plain server-rendered pages where they don't. It's hosted on a server or managed platform you pay for. None of this is exotic, and that's deliberate: it's widely known, cheap to run, and your next developer will be able to read it.

The 5-year math

This isn't a claim. It's the sum I'd do with you on the intro call, using your numbers, not mine.

Subscription: seats × price per seat per month × 60, plus add-ons, plus the hours someone spends on admin and workarounds.Custom: build price, plus hosting, plus a care plan if you want one, × 60 months, plus any changes you add later.

The longer version, with what to count

Try it with your numbers

Starts at 16,000. Use the top of your estimator range if you have one.

An illustration using the numbers you typed. It leaves out admin time, price increases and growth, and it isn't a quote.

When I'd tell you not to build one

If you're a team of three and a $15-a-month tool does the job, keep it. If your process is still changing every week, wait until it settles; software sets things in concrete. And if the problem is really one annoying copy-paste, an automation for $1,800 might fix it.

Automation and integrations

CRM questions

Can you import our spreadsheet?
Yes. I'll map your columns to the new fields, clean up duplicates I can find, and do a test import you can check before the real one. A single sheet is simple. Several sources that disagree with each other take longer, and the proposal will say so.
Who hosts it, and what does that cost each month?
You do, on your own account. For a small team that's usually a modest monthly hosting bill, and I'll give you the real figure for your setup in the proposal rather than guess here.
Can it connect to QuickBooks?
Yes, through the QuickBooks Online API. Invoices, customers and payments are the usual things to sync. The same goes for Xero, Google Workspace and most tools with a documented API.
What if we need changes after launch?
Bugs in my code are fixed at no charge for 30 days. After that, changes are quoted, billed at $110/hour, or covered by the hours in App Care.
Can staff use it on a phone?
Yes, it's built to work on phone screens. If techs need to work with no signal, say so early. Offline support is possible, but it's real extra work.

Related sample

Field-service CRM

A concept CRM for a fictional 12-person heating and plumbing company. Pipeline, records, quotes, a tech schedule and a QuickBooks sync.

See the sample

Tell me about the spreadsheet

The one everyone's afraid to sort. That's usually where a CRM starts.

Start with the intro call+1 (570) 235-4687