How to Build Your Own CRM System from Scratch [Step-by-Step Guide]

Wondering how to create your own CRM system? You're not alone. Many businesses ponder the idea of custom development, considering the potential benefits and cost-effectiveness it can offer compared to off-the-shelf solutions like Salesforce.

 

Drawing from our experience in developing a custom CRM for our own company, an American health insurance company last year, and other clients, we've seen firsthand the transformative power of tailored software solutions.

 

For example, instead of paying thousands of dollars monthly for a Salesforce or similar CRM solution, our client invested a one-time payment of $50,000 and gained a custom CRM to serve their needs for years to come.

Example of custom CRM development by Onix

 

In this guide, we'll walk you through everything you need to know to create your own CRM system, including:

 

- what options are available to you, and how to choose the right approach

- what features your solution may include

- what the software development process looks like

- how much it may cost

- insights from our custom CRM development journey

 

Read also: Custom Healthcare CRM Development: Benefits, Key Features, and Cost

Why would you build a CRM system for your business?

 

There are three options for organizations looking to enhance their customer relationship management:

 

1. off-the-shelf solutions
2. customizable solutions
3. custom CRM development

 

Each option has its pros and cons.

 

Off-the-shelf CRM platforms

These CRM systems are ready to use straight away, and there are hundreds of them on the market. Salesforce, Microsoft Corporation, ADOBE, SAP, Oracle, SugarCRM, Zoho, Copper CRM, Insightly, and Creatio are some of the CRM market leaders.

 

CRMs like Zoho, Pipedrive, or Hubspot are inexpensive and may even be free, and niche CRMs cater to specific businesses. If you find a solution that meets your requirements and performs your day-to-day tasks, you can look no further.

 

However, the basic packages will often lack your needed features, and you’ll have to upgrade to access them. Finding the ‘silver bullet’ is going to be a lengthy and costly trial-and-error process, during which you‘ll have to tweak your processes to adapt to the software. Since CRM vendors charge for the number of users, the monthly price can be steep for a large team.

 

All-purpose CRMs may overwhelm you with a range of features, some of which you’ll never use but still pay for, but you may lack functionality when your needs change. Integrations with other platforms may be challenging. Eventually, you might also face scalability issues due to possible storage space limitations.

 

Customizable CRM solutions 

Most CRM software can be customized to align with the client’s requirements. The vendors offer a pre-made infrastructure where clients can add modules, adapt workflows to their preferences, and integrate with other business applications.

 

These systems are quick to set up, relieve you of the burden of maintenance or updates, and come at a lower development cost than custom CRM solutions.

 

Learn more: Salesforce Customization: When to DIY and When to Call a Pro

 

On the other hand, the number of features you can add is still limited. Building a feature or re-building existing ones requires aid from experts, such as Salesforce developers’ services, and can be time-consuming and costly.

 

Massive rebuilding may also compromise the system’s integrity and security. Moreover, the cost of using a commercial platform will still grow with every new user.  

 

Read also: How Custom Salesforce App Development Сan Boost Your Healthcare Organization

 

 

Custom CRM software

Finally, an organization can create a CRM system from scratch. Against the effort and costs of custom software development, maintenance, and continuous improvement afterward, the advantages of this approach are multiple and diverse:

 

• By designing your own CRM system, you can get unique functionalities and features that exactly match your needs and mirror your unique workflows, not the other way around.

 

• A custom CRM will be easier to integrate with your business operations without disrupting existing workflows.

 

• You can develop a CRM system compatible with your existing applications and third-party solutions, e.g., with your website to capture lead information, an email service to track communications, an accounting software to issue invoices, and even with custom-built or outdated apps that out-of-box CRMs ignore.

 

• The system will comprise only features necessary for your unique business and tailored to your preferences, which facilitates navigation and operations.

 

• You can develop additional features at any time and customize every feature of your CRM however you like.

 

• You can develop an intuitive and convenient interface for your employees and avoid a steep learning curve compared to off-the-shelf solutions, facilitating the adoption and increasing productivity.

 

• When you create your own CRM system, you can create apps your different departments can use conveniently and connect multiple departments to one standardized system in ways a turn-key solution could never achieve.

 

• A custom solution offers more flexibility, compared to generic CRMs, granting you full control over every aspect of the customer journey, precise insights into customer behaviors, and opportunities for creativity.

 

• You can scale and adapt your custom CRM to your changing business needs.

 

• There will be no subscriptions, per-user fees, or extra payments, and you can add as many users as you need, enabling whole-team engagement.

 

• You can implement the most sophisticated security protocols to protect your business and customer data.

 

• You can build your own CRM system to be deployed on your website, intranet, or as a standalone application.

 

For example, when Onix was starting the development of its own CRM/ERP system, Hydra, no solution on the market would address our growing IT company’s needs.

 

The management intended Hydra primarily to automate business processes according to their vision, starting with small tasks, and planned not to spend much money on it.

 

Currently, we observe multiple positive results of developing our own CRM, such as:

 

• The cost and time for executing one business process have significantly decreased.
• The system eliminated errors during calculations.
• Automation allowed us to reduce the time for calculations and the cost of scaling while growing the number of employees.

 

Hydra provides comprehensive information about the efficiency of the entire company, each department, and individual employees, as well as their interactions with clients. Instant access to this information saves considerable time.

 

Among other advantages, Hydra also automated invoice generation. Previously, invoices used to take 1-3 days at the end of the month and involved manual data entry and errors. Now, Hydra forms an invoice, checks it, and sends it to the accounting department automatically in a minute.

Hydra – Onix’s own CRM system

 

Custom CRM development may seem daunting, costly, and time-consuming, but will be more cost-efficient in the long run.

 

If you intend to build your customer relationship management system from scratch, it will be helpful to learn first which types of CRM are suitable for particular purposes and which functionalities you can include in your solution.

 

Learning from industry leaders, whose feature sets and user interfaces you may explore during free trial periods, should also be extremely useful. Moreover, you might come across ready-made software that solves your problem without the need to reinvent the wheel.

 

The types and essential features of CRM systems

Three major categories of CRM are distinguished depending on the purpose and functionality: operational, collaborative, and analytical.

 

Operational CRMs

These CRM tools cover anything related to sales, marketing, services offered, and all customer interactions.

 

An operational CRM may distribute tasks for the sales team, help to process and nurture leads and manage contact details, history, and records, generate automated messages to customers across various channels, send follow-ups, and more. Dashboards and reports help track operations and monitor their efficiency in generating leads.

 

Bitrix24, Creatio, Freshsales, HubSpot, Insightly, monday sales CRM, Pipedrive, and Salesforce are some of the leading operational CRM platforms. 

 

If you work in the financial, retail, real estate, or healthcare industries, need to automate and integrate marketing, sales, and customer support, or wish to streamline business processes to increase work efficiency, you should develop a CRM system of this type.

 

For example, for an American client’s scheduler for medical doctors and clinic administrators, Onix developed the following functionality:

 

• User management. A user authorization system uses email and password credentials. The Administrator creates a user account indicating their email, assigns a role to them, and sends an invitation to the mail.

 

At the first login, the invited user creates a password and can enter the app. For security purposes, the app logs out inactive users after 15 minutes.

 

• Lead management. The user can create a lead profile, fill in information like the name, address, company, etc., and assign statuses to a lead.

 

• Task management. Users can create tasks in the system. Each task includes multiple fields, such as name, description, status, assignee, etc. Tasks are managed from a separate interface in the dashboard or pipeline formats.

 

• Calendar. Users can also create appointments and tasks tied to a specific time and date in a calendar-like interface.

 

• Basic reports. The administrator can review reports, e.g., on user activity, and download them in the CSV format.

 

• Integration. The RM features were integrated with the organization’s EHR system.

 

We also created invoicing functionality and performed cloud integration with Salesforce, a chatbot, and social networks.

 

 

Collaborative CRMs

A collaborative or strategic CRM yields information about the customer journey in business operations. It aims to improve customer service, satisfaction, and retention by facilitating  teamwork, communication, transparent data-sharing, and document management.

 

For example, it helps understand when customers leave the sales funnel or ensure that the marketing and sales team’s efforts are aligned.

 

You may create a CRM system for internal purposes, e.g., to streamline customer relationship management across departments, or share it with external users, such as partners for a synchronized customer experience. 

 

Collaborative platforms are usually equipped with functionality for collective discussions, file sharing, and activity streaming.

 

Some of the best collaborative CRM systems are Freshsales, Microsoft Dynamics 365, monday sales CRM, Pipedrive, Salesforce, and Zoho CRM.

 

Analytical CRMs

These CRMs assist businesses with planning and decision-making by providing insights, statistics, and analytical data. For this purpose, analytical CRMs must collect, organize, and process customer and sales data from various sources, and present real-time reports. 

 

If you aim to maximize customer acquisition, you need an analytical CRM solution. It may employ data mining to analyze relationships and reveal patterns in customer behaviors, discover cross-selling and upselling opportunities, help build buyer personas, predict future demands, and more.

 

You can build a CRM system with the exact types of reports and filters you need to understand where your ideal customer comes from, their preferences, etc., and with the functionality for targeting the right audience at the right place and time.

 

The top analytical CRMs include Freshworks Neo, HubSpot Marketing Analytics, Insightly, Salesforce Einstein, Zendesk Explore, and Zoho Analytics.

 

Most CRM solutions cover marketing, sales, and customer support needs. Dividing CRM features into respective modules is practical when you build your own CRM system. Now, it will give you an idea of the possible timeframe and help plan the budget for your software development project.

 

Marketing module

A CRM marketing module may include:

 

Marketing campaign management functionality (3-4 months to build). Campaign management tools facilitate the management of tasks for salespeople, creation and management of marketing events across multiple channels, tracking customers and leads, monitoring their position in the marketing pipeline, marketing budget and ROI tracking, centralization of marketing materials, and performance analysis.

 

Social media integrations help automate community outreach and blog posts, and customizable templates speed up the creation of personalized emails.

 

 

Customer segmentation functionality (min. 2 months to build). The segmentation feature facilitates the categorization of customers based on purchases, preferences, interests, demographics, and behavior and targeting them with personalized messages.

 

Read also: Hyper-Personalization in Hospitality – a Step beyond Customization

 

Marketing analytics functionality (~3 months to build). These features facilitate real-time tracking of entire marketing campaigns and individual pieces, comparing their performance across different channels and audiences, analyzing the budget, and more.

 

Sales module

A CRM sales module may include:

 

Account management functionality (min. 4 months to develop):

 

• The contacts section should collect, store, and update all potential and current customers. Each customer’s contact information, deals, tasks, documents, transactions, and communication history should be easy to review.

 

• A dashboard with lists, graphs, charts, sales funnels, etc., provides a quick overview of the company’s activities, deals, leads, sent emails and customer responses, sales, and related metrics.

 

• Task management tools, including a calendar and file-sharing, enable managers and team members to create, schedule, and assign tasks for appointments, calls, follow-up emails, deals, and transactions, track deadlines, set alerts, reminders, and notifications, write comments, and track the sales team’s activities and communications.

 

• The opportunities feature enables salespeople to see the potential sales opportunities across the pipeline.

 

• The leads management feature allows them to automate lead processing, quickly assign leads to the right agents, score leads, and see what they can do to convert the leads into sales.

 

A custom CRM will enable you to create your own rules for assessing the quality of leads based on various data and customize the grading scale.

 

• The sales pipeline view, whose stages should differ depending on the business specifics, helps understand at what stage each lead is at the moment, see how many leads you have at each stage, set goals based on real-time data, see the conversion rate at each stage, understand your bottle-necks, identify areas that require more attention, and assess the team performance.

 

• Invoicing functionality allows to generate and send invoices, search and check their status, and track invoice history.

 

 

 

Sales analytics functionality (min. 1 month to develop). Custom reports and interactive dashboards should enable salespeople to visualize the progress of their activities, including statistics on ‘open,’ ‘won,’ ‘lost,’ and ‘closed’ deals, conversion rates, sales trends, the team’s performance, and other indicators valuable for your company.

 

Sales forecasting functionality (~2 months to develop). This sophisticated functionality uses historical data to predict sales trends and profits for better sales strategies and plans.

 

Customer support/success module

Customer-facing CRM features include:

 

Help desk and agent dashboard (~2 months to build). Here, customer support reps can view requests, assign tickets, manage tasks, and even address needs proactively.

 

Knowledge base (min. 1 month to build). The knowledge base stores all information about the company, processes, products, services, and other resources the customer support team needs to do their jobs and solve issues. 

 

Service analytics functionality (2-4 months to build). This functionality helps monitor the customer support team’s efficiency through statistics about customer requests via social media, chat, phone calls, email, resolution times, customer satisfaction levels, etc.

 

The more sophisticated and advanced, i.e., automated, AI and ML-driven, you wish these features to be, the longer it may take to build your customer relationship management system.

 

 

Depending on your organization’s needs, you may also develop or integrate a chatbot that can answer common leads’ questions, recommend products, collect lead details for human agents to process, schedule appointments and create reminders, solve issues 24/7, and more.

 

It can also assist salespeople by automatically creating new leads, retrieving valuable information from chats with leads, and even suggesting the next step in the interaction.

 

In addition to these and other company-specific features, you may also integrate your CRM system with third-party apps, such as:

 

• Google Apps
• accounting software
• social networks
• social media management tools
• content management systems
• performance management software
• email marketing tools like MailChimp, HubSpot, etc. 
• inventory management solutions
• analytical software
• Slack or another live chat
• call center and helpdesk software

 

as well as with your company’s internal ERP system, logistics or property management software, online travel booking platform, telemedicine platform, eLearning platform, or other specialized applications to create a smooth user experience and reduce the duplication of information across your organization. 

 

If your business benefits from your salespeople and customer support reps doing their job on mobile devices, you may also create a mobile CRM system. In any case, a responsive design of your CRM solution would be highly beneficial. 

 

Once you’ve decided that custom CRM development is the only way to go, it’s time for action.

 

How to build a CRM system from scratch

We can distinguish the following phases in a CRM software development project:

 

1. Research, requirements documentation, and planning
2. Assembling the development team
3. Design of the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI)
4. Coding and testing the solution
5. Deployment, maintenance, and support

 

Below, you can find the details of each step.

 

1.Requirements documentation and planning

 

Approximate cost at Onix: $1,000 with the Lean Inception approach. A proper product discovery may cost $2,000+. (The numbers here and below are rough estimates since the costs largely depend on the client’s requirements.)  

 

Firstly, you need to list and prioritize your current business problems and goals for the project, i.e. why you chose to create your own CRM system and what you intend to achieve with it, e.g., you need to automate the salespeople’s routine tasks to reduce workload and costs.

 

Be sure to involve the company leadership, sales, marketing, and customer service departments to create a comprehensive view of the problems and cross-departmental synergy. 

These details will help you determine the type and feature set of your future CRM solution.

 

For instance, if you require more insights into your customers’ preferences and behaviors to increase sales, you need to invest in marketing and sales analytics. The larger your business and the more departments face problems and need improvement, the more modules and features you will plan.   

 

Then, you need to formulate your requirements for the CRM software.

 

Organize brainstorming meetings with the target departments’ managers and employees: they know their problems best, can say a lot about the software they use currently, may have ideas on how to improve it, and can enrich the project with domain knowledge, e.g., regarding health data protection and interoperability in healthcare IT. Collect lists of tasks from them and create a tree of functions.  

 

Learn more: A Guide to HIPAA-Compliant Software Development 

 

A comparative study of leading software of the required type should give you ideas regarding both worthwhile CRM features and how you can improve them.

 

The best way is to ask the employees to try the commercial solutions and then analyze their feedback. This concerns both the CRM functionalities and the look and feel: you should specify your requirements for your CRM design as well. 

 

It’s safer and more cost-effective to start with a minimum viable product (MVP): a functional system with the bare minimum of features, to which you may add more features, bells, and whistles later. 

You may also prioritize your modules and features based on your business strategy: the more urgent a problem or the greater expected impact on the bottom line, the sooner you should roll out the solution.

 

Businesses usually start with something their existing solution doesn’t offer or a feature that is going to be the basis for other modules, such as the customer database.

 

Learn more: How to Prioritize Features for an MVP 

 

When you describe the future CRM software features, you need to define the role-based groups (e.g., sales, marketing, and support) and roles like Admin, Supervisor, Head Manager, Manager, Affiliate, etc., describe their prospective interactions with each other, and specify each user’s levels of access to each functionality and type of data. You also need to describe the user flow and user stories.

 

You should also consider legal and security requirements that may affect the CRM system design. Some privacy policies restrict the collection of specific information on customers and even your employees. The project requirements document must reflect these.

 

 

 

If you don’t have the time or expertise for such writing, you may delegate it to professional software developers. For instance, Onix provides software product discovery services to bridge the gap between a vision of a software product and its technical execution.

 

 

The functional specifications document will be extremely useful when you search for specialists to develop a CRM system for your organization.

 

2. Assembling the development team and preparations

A CRM software development team typically consists of:

 

1. one or several programmers (back-end, front-end, and mobile developers, if you build a mobile version)
2. UX/UI designer 
3. Quality assurance (QA) engineer
4. a project manager

 

…and may include a system architect, database administrator, integration specialist, security expert, DevOps engineer, data analyst, business intelligence specialist, compliance specialist, and other experts.

 

You are lucky if you have the required specialists already, probably the best IT team in your industry, but wouldn’t they rather focus on your core business functions? If so, there are basically three options with different pros and cons and impact on your budget:

 

1. Recruiting local talent for a new in-house development team, which gives you the most control over the development process and result but also requires significant effort, commitment, and investment. 

 

2. Hiring individual freelancers, which allows you to choose from the worldwide pool of talent and cut the project cost dramatically, but comes with some organizational, control, and reliability issues.

 

3. Outsourcing the job, i.e. delegating your CRM system development to a software development agency or hiring a remote dedicated project team from such an agency for a lengthier project. The outsourcing option combines the benefits of in-house development with significant time and money-saving.

 

Learn more: 2025 Guide to Software Development Outsourcing

 

 

If you go for offshore outsourcing, some of the factors to consider are each candidate’s time zone and English proficiency, portfolio, previous client reviews, and, most importantly, niche experience.

 

For instance, Onix’s backbone and central nervous system Hydra is living proof that we know how to build a CRM system from scratch. Our specialists built it in-house and keep working to improve and adapt the functionalities to the changing business conditions and goals.

 

The system currently includes CRM, sales, production, HR, and financial modules. It’s integrated with Atlassian’s Jira project management software, QuickBooks, Xero, PipeDrive, and Slack.

 

Hydra improved the data collection and accessibility across the company and keeps all customer-related information consistent and accurate.

 

Data-sharing across the sales and production departments enhances collaboration, faster access to accurate customer information and history enables salespeople to interact with leads and customers more efficiently and improve customer relationships, and user permission rules and built-in controls ensure data integrity and security.

 

When you contact a potential partner, you probably won’t get a quote right away: the software developers would first enquire about and discuss your requirements for the future system.

 

Typically, it is a lead developer who will analyze your functional requirements, ask you about desirable or possible integrations, work speed, automation, and other requirements before they can estimate your CRM development cost. 

 

Before any design or coding can commence, your CRM software developers should complete the technical documentation.

 

For example, they must understand the relationships between the existing functional units and new components. They would suggest technologies and project architecture options. To visualize the new app structure, they may need to create a high-level information architecture.

 

These details should be included in a detailed technical specification, which should also outline:

 

• the system’s architecture
• database design
• data structures
• users’ access permissions
• technology stack for the project
• plan for migrating data from existing systems to the new CRM

 

The developers should also prepare the project roadmap, development backlog (list of developer-specific tasks, ranging from must-haves to less important), and budget. Once you have defined the scope of the app’s features, you are ready to move to the design.

 

NB. Data migration to the new platform, setting up a bug tracking system, creating documentation for developers, administrators, and end-users, and even advising your employees and IT team members, if needed, would also entail expenses that should be negotiated and included in the budget.

 

3. UX/UI design

 

Approximate cost at Onix: $2,800-$5,600.

 

CRM brings tons of information into a single interface that often balances between being useful and overwhelming the user. You will need a competent product designer to make your CRM app both efficient and easy to use. 

 

Good CRM software design requires both research into your employees' behaviors, problems, preferences, and expectations and following industry design best practices. For instance, when Onix was developing the scheduler for medical doctors, our designers studied medical CRM software and delivery applications.

 

The result is a minimalist interface that helps clinic administrators concentrate on their job and the doctors to access and perceive important patient information faster. 

Example of CRM software development by Onix – a CRM for healthcare professionals

 

After collecting the necessary information, the UX/UI designers typically build user flows and customer journey maps. Then, they proceed to iterative prototyping and testing of the proposed layouts and navigation with the prospective users and stakeholders until the optimal version is approved.

 

4. CRM system development, testing, and debugging 

 

Approximate cost at Onix: $45,000-$70,000.

 

The tech stack for CRM software development varies from project to project, but we may recommend the following:

 

• Front-end languages: HTML, CSS, JavaScript
• Front-end frameworks and libraries: AngularJS, Vue.js, React.js
• Back-end languages: Java, Python, PHP, JavaScript, Node.js
• Back-end frameworks: Laravel,  .NET, Nest/ExpressJS, Symfony, Django, Ruby on Rails
• Cloud: AWS, Microsoft Azure, Heroku, Digital Ocean, Google Cloud Provider
• Cross-platform mobile app: Flutter or React Native
• Native mobile apps: Kotlin or Swift

 

Cloud deployment is considered more secure, flexible, stable, easier to maintain, and more budget-friendly, which makes it a good option for startups and growing businesses.

 

Learn more: Cloud Migration Planning and Execution: Onix Expert Guide

 

Besides proper features coding according to the technical specifications, this project stage includes:

 

• Development of connectors and APIs to enable seamless integration with other systems and tools

 

• Implementation of the best security practices

 

• Ensuring compliance with applicable regulations, such as GDPR

 

• Ensuring the CRM system’s responsiveness and accessibility on desktops, tablets, and smartphones

 

• Planning the deployment process, including staging environments, user training, and rollback procedures in case of issues during release

 

The team should build the CRM system with scalability in mind, and throughout the development stage, the QA engineers must 

 

• thoroughly test the code and look for bugs
• test the system for consistency
• ensure that the code and the CRM system comply with relevant regulations

 

All bugs, performance issues, and usability problems identified during user testing will be reported to the programmers and fixed before launch.

 

 

5. Monitoring and maintenance

 

Approximate cost at Onix: min. $560 per month.

 

You may have internal IT staff capable of supporting the software post-launch or you can delegate it to external specialists. As the team that developed your CRM software knows it best, it would be reasonable to continue the collaboration.

 

In any case, from the launch on, the CRM project team should work on

 

• addressing any issues, bugs, and user concerns that may arise
• Improving the product by enhancing the usability of existing features, adding new functionality, and removing irrelevant features
• updating the software periodically to keep pace with new technologies, security demands, and business requirements

 

It may take weeks or months to stress-test your new software, so you should have a plan for emergent issues and be ready to build patches and fixes quickly.

 

The team should always be attentive to user feedback and requests that can further improve your CRM system, For instance, Onix’s Slack includes an active chat dedicated to Hydra, where users report issues and receive updates.

 

You may gauge the success of your custom CRM implementation against the goals identified at the first project stage, as well as assess the system’s speed, security, analytics, integration, and compliance.

 

How much does it cost to build a CRM system?

The exact cost of a custom CRM software can’t be estimated off the bat because it depends on several factors:

 

• The number and complexity of the features you require
• The number of planned integrations
• Technology choices
• The developers’ qualifications and experience
• The developers’ salaries or hourly rates

 

These factors determine the two variables in the general CRM development cost formula: the time and the cost per hour.

 

Below is a breakdown of the approximate time required to create a CRM system from scratch:

 

 

If you need a mobile version of the CRM application, the development time may grow by 50-60%.

 

The second variable, the cost per hour, will primarily depend on your software developers’ expertise and location. For example, a team from Eastern Europe will be at least twice as expensive as US-based software engineers.

Source: Accelerance

 

For instance, Onix’s average software developer’s rate of $35/hour leaves you with the minimum price tag of $49,000. This is an approximate number, so it’s best to contact our representatives to discuss your project specifics before we can provide you with a more accurate quote.

 

Onix as your CRM software development partner

Onix team has extensive experience in customizing and building CRM solutions for its customers – businesses of all sizes working across various industries.

 

Our company offers full-cycle development services and highly qualified software designers, web and mobile app developers, QA, and experienced project managers – everything you need to upgrade or build your customer relationship management system.

 

FAQ

 

Shall I choose сustom CRM development or off-the-shelf software?

The decision depends on your business needs, budget, and project demands. Customer software development enables you to get specialized features that you won’t get from off-the-shelf software. It can smoothly work with your existing tools and can help you meet specific regulations.

 

However, custom CRM requires a significant initial investment and takes time to develop, while a ready-made solution is usually ready to use right away.

 

Is it better to build a CRM system in-house or hire external developers?

This depends on your resources, budget, product requirements, business requirements, and expectations. An in-house product development team gives you total control over the development process, cost, and information security.

 

However, if you don’t possess relevant expertise and domain knowledge, finding the right talent may be challenging, and hiring developers, onboarding, teambuilding, organizing the processes, etc., is going to take time. Afterward, you’ll pay monthly salaries and bonuses regardless of the workload.

 

Outsourcing means quick access to specialized skills at competitive prices. You will be paying your temporary team members literally per hour, i.e. only for the work done, and can dismiss them at any moment, but may also face organization, communication, and trust issues.

 

Dedicated teams experienced in custom CRM development provide a solution: they are well-organized and can start the work in a couple of days; this is important if you need to speed up the system delivery.

 

How long does it take to create a CRM solution?

Depending on the product scope and complexity, it can take between 3 and 18 months (or longer) to develop a CRM system.

 

How much does CRM software development cost?

Custom CRM development cost may range from $35,000 to $600,000 and up.