The Question We Get Every Week
"Should we go with Salesforce or build our own CRM?" We get this question constantly — and the honest answer is: it depends on three specific factors that most agencies won't walk you through because they have a financial incentive to sell you one or the other.
We've implemented both, and we've made the wrong recommendation once (Salesforce for a 5-person team with a ₹2L/year budget — we regret it). Here's the framework we've developed since then.
When Salesforce Wins
- Complex sales process with multiple stages — if you have 7+ deal stages, automated task assignments, and approval workflows, Salesforce's native automation is genuinely powerful
- 10+ sales reps — below this, the overhead of admin and training rarely pays off
- Budget above ₹8L/year — Salesforce Sales Cloud starts at ~₹3,600/user/month; add implementation, training, and admin overhead and the real cost is often 3x the licence fee
- Your salespeople already know Salesforce — adoption friction is the #1 reason CRM implementations fail; if the team has used it before, you skip a major barrier
When Custom CRM Wins
- Unique workflow that doesn't map to standard objects — insurance renewal pipelines, hotel booking workflows, export inquiry management — these all behave differently from a typical B2B sales pipeline
- Tight budget — a custom CRM built on Laravel/Next.js costs ₹4–8L to build and ₹0 in recurring licence fees
- Simple pipeline with deep integrations — if you need CRM data to flow into your ERP, your dispatch system, and your WhatsApp bot, custom is almost always faster and cheaper to integrate
The 3-Question Decision Framework
We ask every new client three questions before making a recommendation:
- How many stages does a deal go through from first contact to closed? (Under 5: custom. Over 8: Salesforce)
- What does your CRM need to integrate with? (Standard integrations: Salesforce. Proprietary or legacy systems: custom)
- What's your 3-year budget for CRM including admin and training? (Under ₹15L: custom. Over ₹25L: Salesforce worth serious consideration)
If you're unsure about any of these, book a free call. We'll give you a straight answer without trying to sell you either option.
