How much a CRM costs depends on which route you take. A subscription CRM is a monthly fee, usually per user — you are not buying the tool, you are buying access. A custom CRM is a one-off build cost calculated in hours: a simple app with user accounts, modules and an admin panel falls within our range of €4,150–10,400 net (excl. VAT), while a large system with many roles and integrations starts at around €23,000 net (excl. VAT). For a typical sales process, a subscription is usually enough and will be cheaper.
Euro amounts converted at the NBP mid-market rate of 14 September 2026 (€1 = 4.3391 zł) and rounded. We invoice in PLN.
What a CRM system is — in plain terms
A CRM is where you keep everything you know about a client: contact details, the history of calls and emails, the stage in the sales pipeline, your sales team's tasks and reports built from all of it. Instead of five spreadsheets and an inbox, you have one database that everyone on the team can access according to their role.
Technically, a CRM is a textbook example of a web application: user accounts, permissions, data modules, an admin panel and reports. That is why it is priced exactly like any other panel — from hours, not from the number of "licences".
How much does a subscription CRM cost?
We will not quote prices for specific vendors here — price lists change, and we do not want to repeat figures we cannot verify. What is worth understanding is the mechanics, because they decide what the bill looks like after three years:
- you pay monthly or annually, most often per user — the cost grows with your team,
- the range of features depends on the plan you choose — check which plan includes the reports, automations and API access you need,
- some add-ons are charged separately — include them in your calculation,
- you do not own the tool. If you cancel, all you are left with is exported data.
A formula you can use yourself
Go to the price list of the vendor you are considering and plug in the numbers:
number of users × plan price per user per month × 12 × number of years + add-ons = subscription cost
Calculate two scenarios: your team today and your team after the growth you are planning. It is the second figure that is worth comparing with the one-off cost of your own system.
How much does a custom CRM system cost?
With us, an estimate is hours × rate: development €46/h net (excl. VAT), design €35/h net (excl. VAT). There is no per-user fee, no licence and no subscription for access — once the project is settled, you receive full intellectual property rights to the code and the design, and the code goes into your repository.
Which price range a CRM falls into depends on the number of roles and modules:
| Scope of the system | Price range, net (excl. VAT) | Delivery time |
|---|---|---|
| Simple app / panel: user accounts, basic modules, admin panel | €4,150–10,400 | 6–10 weeks |
| Platform / product MVP: several modules, integrations, payments, roles and permissions | €9,200–23,000 | 2–4 months |
| Large system: many roles, complex logic, integrations with ERP and CRM, high scale | from ca. €23,000 | built in stages |
Four things affect the price most: the number of roles and permissions, integrations with external systems, recurring payments and the scope of the admin panel. We set out a wider breakdown of ranges and features in our article on how much a web application costs.
What a CRM estimate is made up of
These are the efforts from our pricing model — development only, without design, at a rate of €46/h net (excl. VAT):
| CRM element | Hours | Cost, net |
|---|---|---|
| Accounts and login | 10–26 h | €460–1,200 |
| Admin panel | 20–46 h | €920–2,120 |
| Email and push notifications | 6–18 h | €280–830 |
| Advanced search | 8–20 h | €370–920 |
| Reports combining several data sources | 16–44 h (+ 6–14 h of design) | €740–2,050 (+ €210–480) |
| Form submissions, case statuses, reminders | 16–40 h | €740–1,850 |
| Integration with an ERP or warehouse system | 16–44 h | €740–2,020 |
On top of that comes the number of screens: with 5–15 screens, the base design and development hours grow by around 1.7 times; above 15 screens, by around 2.6 times. Language versions add +8–20 h for 2–3 languages and +16–40 h for four or more. An urgent start adds +20%.
A worked example (an illustration, not an offer)
A CRM for a sales team that needs a client database with accounts for sales reps, a panel for the manager and one report built from several sources:
- accounts and login: 26 h,
- admin panel: 46 h,
- reports from several sources: 44 h,
- a total of 116 h × €46 = €5,350 net (excl. VAT),
- design of the report interface: 14 h × €35 = €480 net (excl. VAT).
That is €5,850 net (excl. VAT) in total — within the range for a simple app. It illustrates the mechanics, not the price of your project: a full estimate also covers the base effort for the application type itself and the design of the remaining screens, and with a different number of screens, roles and integrations the result will be different.
How much does it cost to maintain a CRM after launch?
Your own system does not disappear from the budget once it is handed over. After launch you pay for:
- servers and infrastructure — from around ten to a few hundred euros a month, depending on the number of users and the volume of data,
- technical support — monitoring, backups, library updates, minor fixes and further development, typically 5–15 hours a month, i.e. €230–690 net (excl. VAT) per month.
This item has to be counted honestly. An application nobody updates stops being a tool after a year and becomes a risk. The difference compared with a subscription is in the direction of travel: support hours depend on how much you want to change in the system, and the number of users only affects server costs — you do not pay separately for every sales rep.
A third route: stay with your off-the-shelf CRM and add an integration
This is the most frequently overlooked scenario. Instead of replacing the tool, you connect it to what you already have. Enquiries from forms land in the CRM together with information about their source, and a sales rep sees a client's orders and invoices on the client record — no copy-pasting and no second window.
In our model, an integration with a CRM (HubSpot, Pipedrive, a custom system) takes 8–26 h, i.e. €370–1,200 net (excl. VAT). We integrate with any system that has API documentation; where there is neither documentation nor an API, the connection hours increase by around 60%.
The second variant of the same route is process automation: data from your CRM, sales and spreadsheets collected in one panel, so that the report someone used to assemble every week from several files generates itself.
Which CRM system to choose — subscription or custom-built?
| Criterion | A subscription is enough | A custom system is worth considering |
|---|---|---|
| Sales process | looks the same as in thousands of other companies | is your competitive edge and does not fit someone else's template |
| Tools | one tool handles everything | you pay for several tools that have to be linked manually |
| Integrations | standard, available out of the box | the kind an off-the-shelf tool does not allow |
| Team | small, stable | large or growing fast — the subscription grows with it |
| Ownership | access and a data export are enough for you | you want to own the code, the data and full control |
| Product plans | you use it internally | you want to sell your own product as SaaS |
There is no sense in building from scratch something you could switch on tomorrow. Often an off-the-shelf CRM with an integration built on top of it is all you need.
CRM and GDPR — what to keep in mind
A CRM holds your clients' personal data, so choosing a tool is also a decision about who processes that data. A subscription CRM vendor is usually a processor acting on your behalf.
In such a situation, the GDPR requires a contract (or another legal instrument) setting out, among other things, the subject matter, duration, nature and purpose of the processing, as well as the type of data and the categories of data subjects. The vendor also cannot engage another processor without your written consent, and once the service ends it must — depending on your decision — delete the data or return it.
With a custom system, you decide where the data sits and who has access to it — just remember that the company maintaining the system and holding access to the data may also be a processor. This is not legal advice — confirm the scope of your obligations with a lawyer or a data protection officer.
An example from practice
For MarketOrg Engineering from Hungary (Szigetszentmiklós) we built a CRM system for collecting and analysing data. The client's feedback: "Working with CodePort was a pleasure. They built a CRM system for us for collecting and analysing data. The team was responsive, solution-oriented and paid great attention to detail. The project was delivered on time, with an excellent result."
We usually build web applications, including CRM systems, on React, Next.js or Vue with TypeScript, with a backend in Node.js, Python or PHP and a PostgreSQL, MySQL or MongoDB database — we choose the stack to fit the project.
How to prepare for a CRM estimate
The more specifically you describe the process, the narrower the price range will be. Prepare four things:
- A list of processes — exactly what happens from first contact to invoice, and who is responsible for what.
- Roles — who sees everything, who sees only their own clients, who approves.
- Systems to connect — shop, ERP, invoicing software, email, telephony. Check whether they have API documentation.
- Data to migrate — how many contacts and how much history currently sit in spreadsheets and your old tool.
With us, the next steps look like this: a reply to your enquiry within one working day, a free price range and schedule in 2–3 working days, an NDA before the first conversation, a clickable prototype before any code and a working version every 1–2 weeks.
If you would first like to check the order of magnitude yourself, cost your CRM in our cost calculator — or describe your process in the project brief builder and we will prepare a detailed estimate with a schedule.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a CRM system cost for a small company?
If your sales process is standard, a subscription usually works out cheaper in a small company — calculate it with the formula: number of users × plan price × 12 × number of years. A custom system only makes sense once you are already paying for several tools that someone links together manually; in that case, starting with a simple app means a range of €4,150–10,400 net (excl. VAT).
Can a CRM be built in stages to spread the cost?
Yes, we settle projects in stages, and with larger systems that is the default approach. The first stage is usually a client database with roles and an admin panel, with reports and integrations added in later sprints — so you pay for features in the order you actually need them.
What happens to my data if I cancel a subscription CRM?
Once the service ends, the vendor — depending on your decision as the data controller — either deletes the data or returns it, usually as an export. Before you sign a contract, check what format that export comes in, because it determines how much work it will take to move your history to another tool.
Does a CRM integration require changes to my current system?
Not always — if both systems have documented APIs, the connection is usually built in a separate integration layer, without rebuilding your software. If there is no API, it has to be designed first, and the hours needed for the connections then increase by around 60%.
Does CodePort sell an off-the-shelf CRM system?
No, we do not have our own subscription CRM product. We build custom systems and integrations with the tools you already use — and if an off-the-shelf CRM is enough in your case, we will say so plainly.