What per-seat pricing really costs over five years
Is a custom CRM cheaper than paying per seat forever?
Per-seat pricing feels small monthly and is enormous over a horizon. Ten seats at ninety dollars is nearly eleven thousand a year before add-ons and the consultant who keeps it configured — and the price goes up when you hire and when the vendor repackages tiers.
This compares that path against owning the system: a one-time build plus what it costs to run. Enter your real numbers and read the crossover month.
How this is calculated:
The subscription path is seats times per-seat price, plus your monthly admin and add-on spend, extended over one, three and five years with no price increases assumed — so treat it as the floor.
The owned path is the quoted build cost plus a monthly running cost for hosting and upkeep.
The crossover month is the build cost divided by the monthly gap between the two paths. If the gap does not cover the build inside five years, the calculator says so plainly — on cost alone, keeping the subscription would be the honest answer.
Cost is only half the question. The other half is whether the tool fits how you work, which is what the CRM fit scorecard measures.
Questions people ask about this tool:
What numbers should I use for the custom column?
A real quote if you have one. If you do not, the 24-hour plan costs you nothing and includes one, scoped to your actual process rather than a category average.
Is a custom CRM always cheaper?
No, and the calculator will tell you when it is not. Small teams on a cheap tier that fits how they work should usually stay put. The economics turn when seats multiply, when add-ons stack, or when the workaround cost starts showing up in payroll.
What about the costs that are not subscriptions?
They are usually the larger half: the hours spent re-entering data between tools, the deals lost to a pipeline nobody trusts, the report rebuilt by hand each month. This calculator deliberately counts only the visible bill — the software spend calculator counts the glue work.
Who maintains a custom system?
Whoever built it should run it, with the running cost agreed as a number before anything is built. That number belongs in this calculator, not in the fine print.