What a custom CRM actually costs vs. Salesforce or HubSpot for a small BC business
Salesforce and HubSpot look cheap on the first invoice. Over five years, for a 15-person BC business, the math often flips harder than owners expect. Here's the honest version.
Almost every BC small business we talk to about a custom CRM asks the same question first: 'Isn't it cheaper to just use Salesforce or HubSpot?' The honest answer is - it depends on how long you plan to be in business, and how many seats you'll end up paying for. Here's the real math for a typical 10-30 person BC operation.
What Salesforce and HubSpot actually cost over 5 years
The sticker price is the first lie. Both platforms quote a per-seat monthly rate that looks small. Then add-ons, mandatory tier upgrades, and per-seat growth turn it into a real bill.
Salesforce, 15 seats, 5 years
- Sales Cloud Professional: ~CAD $110/seat/month = $1,650/month
- Required add-ons (CPQ, reporting, integration tools): $400-800/month
- Implementation consultant (one-time): $15,000-40,000
- Annual price increases (~9%): compounds the bill every year
- 5-year total: roughly $140,000-180,000
HubSpot Sales Hub Professional, 15 seats, 5 years
- Professional tier: ~CAD $135/seat/month = $2,025/month
- Marketing Hub add-on (most firms add it): $1,200+/month
- Onboarding fee: $4,000 one-time
- Annual price increases: 6-10%
- 5-year total: roughly $190,000-240,000
Both numbers assume your team stays at 15 seats. Every new hire raises the bill, permanently.
What a custom CRM costs
A focused, well-scoped custom CRM for a 10-30 person BC business typically falls in this range:
- Discovery and operations mapping (2-3 weeks): $5,000-9,000
- Build of v1 (8-16 weeks): $25,000-60,000 depending on scope
- Hosting and infrastructure: $100-300/month
- Optional ongoing support retainer: $500-2,000/month
- 5-year total: roughly $40,000-110,000 all-in
After year one, the bill drops to just hosting and whatever support you actually use. There's no per-seat penalty for hiring.
The honest tradeoffs
Where SaaS wins
- Lower year-one cost. Easier to start.
- No build risk - it's already built.
- Big ecosystem of plugins, partners, and consultants.
- If you only have 2-3 seats and a generic sales pipeline, it genuinely fits.
Where custom wins
- No per-seat penalty - hiring doesn't raise the software bill.
- The CRM matches your real workflow, not a generic sales pipeline.
- You own the code, the database, and the data.
- 5-year total is usually 50-70% lower at 10+ seats.
- No annual price increases you didn't agree to.
When SaaS is still the right answer
If you're a 2-5 person business with a standard B2B sales pipeline, HubSpot Starter or Pipedrive will probably serve you well for years. The math on custom doesn't work yet. Stay where you are.
When custom starts to make sense
- You have 10+ seats, or you'll get there in 2 years.
- Your CRM bill is over $1,000/month and growing.
- You've added 2+ paid integrations to bend the tool to your workflow.
- Your team works around the CRM more often than with it.
- You want to own the software outright, not rent it forever.
If three or more of those are true, the cost comparison is worth running properly. Take your current monthly bill, multiply by 60, and compare to a custom build quote. For most BC small businesses at this size, the answer surprises them.
The bottom line
Salesforce and HubSpot aren't bad. They're priced for venture-funded sales teams growing seats fast. For a 15-person BC small business that wants the CRM to fit the work and not the other way around, a custom-built tool you own outright is usually the cheaper - and better-fitting - answer over any horizon longer than 24 months.
If you want to see the math for your specific business, we run cost comparisons as part of the free first call. No commitment - just an honest number.
