“From $15 per user per month.” That sentence is true — and radically misleading. A CRM’s price is almost never its licence. Here is the honest breakdown, line by line, for a team of two to ten people.
Line #1: the licence (the visible tip)
Between $12 and $35 per user per month for so-called “professional” tiers. The trap: the features a small business actually needs — automations, documents, reports — are precisely the ones that define the paid tier, never the entry level.
Line #2: configuration (the hidden monster)
This is where budgets explode. Adapting a generic CRM to your trade — fields, stages, document templates, follow-up rules — typically takes five to twenty days, in-house or outsourced, repeated at every change. Price that time high: it’s time not billed to your clients.
Line #3: data entry (the permanent cost)
Ten minutes of typing per person per day is more than thirty-eight hours per person per year — a full work week, per person, spent copying data from one tool to another. It’s the line nobody budgets and everybody pays.
Line #4: hosting and maintenance
Cloud offerings: nothing to manage, but your data lives with a third party. Self-hosted: server, updates, backups — time and skills. Both models have a cost; neither is free.
Summary for a 5-person team, over one year:
| Line | Configured generic CRM | Generated CRM (Ystura) |
|---|---|---|
| Licence / subscription | $1,800 – $3,600 | Quoted, all inclusive |
| Initial configuration | 5 – 20 days of work | Included (proven base) |
| Manual data entry | ~190 h of typing | Minimal (emails, documents) |
| Evolutions | Billed at every need | Quoted, then developed |
What fast bespoke development changes
Ystura’s bespoke CRM inverts line #2: configuration is no longer a project — the team develops directly for your trade, on a proven base. And because the tool feeds on your emails and documents, line #3 melts away. Two clear lines remain: the all-inclusive subscription (hosting, backups, updates) and your time — spent on your trade, not on the tool.
Want a quote for your exact trade? Describe your business — proposal within 24 h, no commitment.