Custom CRM Development vs Salesforce: A Practical Comparison
Salesforce dominates the CRM market, but that does not mean it is right for every business. Here is an honest breakdown of when custom CRM development delivers better ROI.
Synaptis TeamNovember 27, 20259 min read
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In this article
The Real Costs Nobody Talks About
$165
Salesforce Enterprise/User/Month
50%
Companies Overpaying for CRM
6-12%
Salesforce Price Hike (2025)
$0
Custom CRM Per-User Fees
The sticker price of Salesforce is just the beginning. A 200-person sales team on Salesforce Enterprise costs $396,000 per year in licensing alone—before implementation, customization, training, or the premium features that should have been included in the first place.
When Custom CRM Wins
Choose Custom When:
- You have 100+ users (TCO breaks even around year 3)
- Your workflows do not fit standard CRM models
- You need deep integration with proprietary systems
- Data sovereignty and security are non-negotiable
- You are building CRM into a product (not just using it)
Stick with Salesforce When:
- You need to be live in 30 days
- Your team is under 50 users
- Standard sales workflows fit your process
- You lack internal technical resources
- The ecosystem integrations outweigh the costs
Feature Comparison
5-Year Total Cost of Ownership
For a 200-user organization, here is how the numbers typically break down over five years:
Custom SaaS Development
Build a CRM that fits your business—not the other way around
Frequently Asked Questions
A functional MVP typically takes 3-4 months. Full-featured enterprise CRM with advanced analytics, automation, and integrations runs 6-9 months. We recommend phased delivery so your team can start using core features while we build advanced capabilities.
Custom CRMs integrate with the same tools via APIs. Most popular integrations (Slack, email, calendar, marketing automation) work identically. For Salesforce-specific partners, we evaluate whether the integration value justifies maintaining a Salesforce connection or finding alternatives.
Yes. Salesforce data exports are straightforward, and we build migration scripts that preserve relationships, history, and custom fields. The bigger challenge is often cleaning data during migration—something clients often appreciate as a side benefit.
Plan for 15-20% of initial development cost annually for maintenance, updates, and minor enhancements. This covers security patches, performance optimization, and small feature additions. Major new features are scoped separately.