Tailored to your pipeline, not Salesforce's. Email + calendar sync, reporting that matches how you sell, first version in 4–5 weeks.
- Scope
- Ship
- Iterate
monthly subscription
Who this is for
You're a founder or sales lead where Salesforce is overkill, HubSpot Sales Hub Pro is $450/seat for features your team ignores, and off-the-shelf CRMs charge per field configuration. Your reps avoid the CRM. Deals live in spreadsheets. You need custom CRM development that fits how you actually sell.
The pain today
- Salesforce seat cost at $150–300+/user/month once consulting and add-ons stack up
- HubSpot hitting workflow limits but the upgrade is $450/seat for features only two people use
- Sales team logging nothing because the CRM stages don't match the actual sales motion
- Pipeline stages and custom fields that require a Salesforce admin to change
- Reports that answer Salesforce's questions instead of yours
The outcome you get
- Pipeline model built around your sales motion, not a generic funnel template
- Two-way Gmail and Outlook sync so every email threads to the deal automatically
- Forecast and pipeline velocity reporting answering 'what closes this month'
- HubSpot-compatible data export so you're never locked in
- Custom fields and workflow rules with no per-field licensing fees
When a custom CRM actually makes sense
Three signals tell me a custom CRM build is worth evaluating. First: your sales process has stages or deal types that generic CRMs force-fit awkwardly. Marketplace deals with supply and demand sides, multi-party deals tracking champion versus decision-maker, long procurement cycles with custom milestones none of the off-the-shelf tools expose as first-class objects. Second: your real seat cost is punishing relative to active users. Salesforce's list price starts at $25/user/month but real-world deployments hit $150–300+/user/month once you factor in consulting, premium support, and the add-ons that gate features competitors include by default. Paying for 20 licenses when 6 people actually log in is a common pain with a calculable cost. Third: the team has specific workflows they keep doing in spreadsheets because the CRM makes those workflows harder. If any one of these applies, custom is worth evaluating seriously. If none applies, HubSpot Starter or Pipedrive are probably fine at a fraction of the cost. I'll say which camp you're in during the first conversation — custom CRM is a meaningful investment and should match a meaningful problem.
Pipeline model built around your sales motion, not a generic funnel template
Core features every custom CRM ships with
I build the same four modules into every custom CRM because they cover 90% of actual daily CRM usage. Pipeline: deals with configurable stages, probability per stage, expected-close date, deal amount, and owner assignment. Activities: calls, emails, meetings, and notes tied to contacts and deals, with timestamps and outcomes. Email sync: two-way with Gmail and Outlook so outbound emails auto-log and inbound emails thread to the deal without manual entry. Reporting: pipeline velocity, stage conversion rates, forecast roll-up, and rep activity summaries. Calendar sync rounds this out — meetings create activities automatically. Mobile is a responsive PWA, installable to the home screen, covering call logging and deal updates on the road. These four — pipeline, activities, email, and reporting — are where reps spend 90% of their CRM time. I ship these first, then layer in anything else once the team has lived in the core for a few weeks.
+500%: Lead base growth.
Integrations: Gmail, Outlook, HubSpot export, and webhooks
Gmail and Google Calendar connect via OAuth per user, giving two-way sync for emails and events. Inbound emails surface in the activity feed without manual logging — the system detects threads by recipient domain and contact match. Outlook and Microsoft 365 follow the same pattern through Microsoft Graph. HubSpot export is built to the standard API export format, so if you ever migrate back to a commercial CRM the data ports cleanly with no custom extraction work. Zapier and direct webhooks cover anything else — Slack deal notifications, Stripe revenue events, Intercom conversation links. I avoid vendor lock-in by design. Work Made for Hire means you own every line of code the day the first invoice clears, and the data schema is documented so any future engineer can pick things up without needing me.
A real example: Norte Web Digital's custom CRM pipeline
Norte Web Digital is a digital marketing agency that needed a CRM capable of processing Google Maps scraping into an outbound lead pipeline at scale. Off-the-shelf tools couldn't model the workflow — the lead source was non-standard, the qualification steps were proprietary, and the outreach ran through WhatsApp at volumes that would have triggered bans on commercial tools. I built a custom CRM around exactly that motion. The result was 250 new leads per day entering the pipeline, a 3–4 day lead-to-customer cycle, and a +500% growth in their lead base. The CRM handled 9,030+ companies in active pipeline with zero WhatsApp bans. That kind of result only happens when the software is shaped around the actual sales process rather than the other way around.
When I recommend against building a custom CRM
Most teams that ask me about custom CRM would be better served by configuring HubSpot or Pipedrive correctly. CRM is a commodity capability. Mature tools cover 90% of needs. Custom makes sense when the sales process is genuinely non-standard, when seat cost is punishing at 50+ users with low utilization, or when the team has specific workflows that no generic tool can express without expensive workarounds. In the initial conversation I probe to see if a configuration fix or a switch to a simpler off-the-shelf tool solves the problem at 10% of the cost. If it does, I recommend that path and explain the switch. If the process is genuinely unusual and the economics favor building, custom is the right answer and I'll make the case with numbers.
AI augmentation: where it actually adds value in a CRM
AI features in CRMs earn their keep in two places: eliminating manual logging and surfacing what reps forget to follow up on. I build AI augmentation into custom CRMs selectively. Call summaries from Zoom or Google Meet recordings mean reps stop writing meeting notes. OpenAI-backed email draft suggestions reduce the time from call to follow-up. Lead scoring from firmographic enrichment lets you sort 250 leads in the pipeline by close probability without a sales manager manually reviewing each one. The CRM ships without AI first so the core workflow is clean and the baseline is measurable. AI layers in once there is real usage data showing exactly where reps spend time that could be automated. That keeps the features targeted instead of speculative.
Pricing and timeline
Custom CRM builds run on the Applications Standard tier at $4,999/mo. Pro at $5,499/mo for larger sales teams — 20+ reps, complex workflow automation, multi-entity deal structures, or commission tracking with payroll integration. First-version timeline is 4–5 weeks. The subscription continues through iteration because sales teams always find edge cases once the CRM is in daily use — a stage that needs splitting, a report that answers a new question from leadership, an integration with a new tool the ops team adopted. 14-day money-back guarantee, cancel anytime. Work Made for Hire means the code is yours from day one. HubSpot-compatible export means your data is portable on day one too.
Recent proof
A comparable engagement, delivered and documented.
A custom CRM that turned Google Maps into a lead machine
Built a purpose-built CRM for a digital agency that captures leads from Google Maps, reaches them via official WhatsApp (Twilio + Meta API), and uses AI to suggest replies and standardize templates. The system scaled the lead base by over 500%, with 250 new leads entering the pipeline every day.
Read the case studyFrequently asked questions
The questions prospects ask before they book.
For most teams, configuring HubSpot or Pipedrive is the right call. Custom is justified when your sales process doesn't fit generic pipelines — marketplace-style deals, multi-party procurement, or unusual qualification steps — or when your real seat cost exceeds $20k/year with low utilization. In the first call I'll be direct about which path makes sense, including recommending the off-the-shelf option if the economics favor it.
My custom CRM builds run on a monthly subscription: $4,999/mo on the Standard tier, $5,499/mo on Pro for larger teams with complex workflows. The first version ships in 4–5 weeks. Compare that to Salesforce at $150–300+/user/month in real-world deployments once consulting and add-ons are included. At 10+ active users, custom often breaks even within the first year on seat costs alone.
The first working version — pipeline, activities, email sync, and core reporting — ships in 4–5 weeks. That covers 90% of daily CRM usage. Additional phases add workflow automation, AI features, commission tracking, or third-party integrations, typically in 1–2 week sprints. Complexity of the data migration from your existing CRM affects the overall timeline but not the core build.
Yes. Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive all export contacts, deals, activities, and notes in standard formats. I handle the schema mapping, transform, and import with validation and a diff preview before anything goes live. Historical email threads and activities port cleanly. Attachments need a separate copy phase. Data migration is typically a 1-week phase within the overall project.
Every build ships with a responsive PWA — installable to the phone home screen, covering call logging, deal stage updates, pipeline review, and contact lookups. Offline support handles reviewing recent data without a connection. Full native apps in React Native are an optional add-on for teams that need extensive offline field work, which is rare for B2B sales but common in field-service hybrid CRM setups.
Core integrations cover Gmail, Google Calendar, Outlook, and Microsoft 365 for email and meeting sync. Beyond that: Zapier webhooks, Slack deal notifications, Stripe revenue events, and marketing tool sync with Mailchimp, ConvertKit, or Klaviyo via their APIs. Commission tracking can integrate with ADP, Gusto, or Rippling for payroll routing. Any API-accessible tool is connectable — I document what's in scope before work starts.
You own the code and the data from day one under the Work Made for Hire terms. The export format is HubSpot-compatible, so if you decide to migrate to a commercial CRM later, the data ports without custom extraction work. The schema is documented so any developer can take over the codebase. No lock-in clauses, no data hostage situations.