Custom CRM vs HubSpot vs Salesforce: 3-Year Cost and When to Choose Each

What does each CRM cost over three years?

Compare three-year cost, not the first month. At about $100 per seat per month, ten users on HubSpot Sales Hub Professional or Salesforce Pro Suite cost about $12,000 a year, or about $36,000 over three years, before onboarding, add-ons and price rises. Twenty users double that.

A custom CRM from WebsNexus starts from $2,000 for a first version, or from $5,000 for a platform with several panels and integrations. Running costs are hosting plus maintenance, which starts from $100 a month (about $3,600 over three years). The cost does not change when you hire.

Check current prices on each vendor's site before you decide. Plans, discounts and minimum seats change often.

When should you choose HubSpot?

Choose HubSpot when you want to start this week, your team is small, your sales process is a standard pipeline, and marketing (email, forms, landing pages) matters as much as sales. Its free and starter tiers are generous, and non-technical staff can run it.

HubSpot gets expensive as you add seats and move to Professional features, and it is harder to bend around unusual workflows. If that happens, many teams keep HubSpot for marketing and connect it to a custom system for operations.

When should you choose Salesforce?

Choose Salesforce when you have a large or growing sales team, complex territories and forecasting, and someone who can administer it. It can model almost anything, and its partner ecosystem is huge.

That flexibility has a cost: Salesforce projects usually need an admin or implementation partner, and licence costs rise with every user and add-on product. For a 5 to 20 person business, it is often more CRM than you need.

When should you build a custom CRM?

Build a custom CRM when your workflow does not fit a standard pipeline, for example tutoring enrolments, clinic bookings, legal intake or field operations. It also makes sense when several roles need their own panels, when the CRM has to run operations rather than only sales, or when seat fees for 10 or more people outgrow a one-off build.

E Online Tutoring is an example. It moved from spreadsheets to a custom CRM with eight role-based panels and grew from 1,000 to more than 15,000 students without paying more per new staff member.

• Under 10 users, standard pipeline, marketing-led: choose HubSpot.
• Large sales team, complex forecasting, an admin on staff: choose Salesforce.
• Unusual workflow, several roles or portals, 10+ users and growing: build a custom CRM.
• Happy with HubSpot or Salesforce but tools don't talk: keep it and add integrations instead.

Can you start on HubSpot and move to a custom CRM later?

Yes, and many teams do. Start on HubSpot or Salesforce while your process settles, then move once you know exactly what you need. Plan the exit from day one: keep fields consistent, avoid storing key data only in notes, and export regularly. A CRM migration then takes 1 to 3 weeks.