Custom CRM or Off-the-Shelf: When Building Pays Off

The question usually sounds like this: "We like everything about it, but three things in this CRM do not work the way we do — can they be tweaked?" Then it turns out they cannot, because the product's architecture does not allow it, and the workaround built on webhooks breaks with every update. That is where the conversation about a custom system begins.

Off-the-shelf is almost always the right start

If you have up to 15 employees, your process fits the pattern "enquiry — call — deal — payment", and you do not sell anything exotic, a ready-made CRM will cover it in two weeks for 100,000–150,000 roubles. Building your own at the same scale takes three or four months and costs 1.5–3 million. There is nothing to argue about: the off-the-shelf option wins by a landslide. The mistake is starting development on the principle of "we want something of our own".

Four signs the box has run out

• More than 25–30 active users: licences turn into 500,000+ roubles a year, and that figure only grows.
• Your process cannot be described as a pipeline. Rental, leasing, made-to-order production, memberships, multi-stage approvals — none of that fits a standard deal record.
• You have more than three workarounds, and you approach every platform update with anxiety.
• Customer data is your core asset and you are not prepared to keep it in someone else's cloud without control over backups and access rights.

How to calculate the payback

Simple arithmetic. Off-the-shelf for 30 people: 1,500 roubles per licence, 540,000 a year, plus 200,000 for support and customisation — 740,000. Over five years, 3.7 million. A custom system: 2.5 million to build, then 300,000–400,000 a year for hosting and development — about 4 million over five years. Parity. But at 50 users the off-the-shelf option already costs 6 million over the same period, while the cost of your own barely moves, because you do not pay for each additional person. The tipping point is almost always the licence count, not the feature set. We usually work through this chart with the client before any work starts and say honestly when development does not pay off — examples of the calculations and the outcomes are in our portfolio.

The third option people forget

Between off-the-shelf and building from scratch sits the industry platform: a product built for one specific kind of business, where 80 percent of the processes are already accounted for and the remaining 20 are configurable. That is how Auto555 works for car rental — it handles vehicle handover and return, deposits, fines and per-car availability schedules, none of which exist in any general-purpose CRM. homade works the same way for salons: stylist schedules, memberships, consumables inventory. The cost of entry is comparable to an off-the-shelf product, but there are far more specialised features. It is worth looking at solutions like these before you commission development from scratch — more about our products on the SaaS platforms page.

What to settle in advance

If you do go the custom route, three questions need answering before the first line of code. First: who owns the code and the source files — this belongs in the contract, not in a conversation. Second: where customer personal data will be stored; under 152-FZ databases of Russian citizens must sit on servers inside Russia, and that affects your choice of hosting. Third: who will develop the system a year from now. A custom CRM with no ongoing maintenance turns into an unmaintainable monolith within two years, which is why support belongs in the budget from day one, not after the first outage.

The short version

Up to 15 people — off-the-shelf. From 15 to 30 — an industry product, or an off-the-shelf one with careful integrations. Over 30, or a process that will not fit a pipeline — custom development. Everything else is a matter of taste, and taste in this area is expensive.