Third price increase in two years. We're a 6-person team and just got notified our HubSpot plan is going up again. At this point I'm paying for a brand, not a product. Agree?

Started looking at self-hosted options last month. First It looks doable: spin up a VPS, export contacts from HubSpot, import, done. I even ended up putting together a comparison of self-hosted CRMs you can run on your own server.

Then I had testing a few on a cheap instance on Serverspace, $9/month for 2GB RAM, and it actually ran fine. Some of the UIs are pretty dated, but the core functionality is all there.

What's making me hesitate is the maintenance side. Updates, backups, potential downtime with HubSpot someone else deals with all of that. I set up a daily backup cron job during testing, but if anything goes wrong, I'm the one taking on all the risk. Do you guys think it’s worth it?

For those who've actually moved off HubSpot or Salesforce to something self-hosted CRM - was the maintenance overhead worth the savings? Did anything break badly at a critical moment? And did your non-technical teammates adapt to a different interface without too much friction? I’m trying to figure out if this is a smart move or if I'm about to trade a monthly bill for a different kind of headache…

Im an automation guy and recently got into GTM engineering so im interacting with the CRM alot.

Obviously my CRM is like 80% automated. Everything from tracking buying signals, filling in lead context, and even enrichment and messaging. Only real work is handling the replies when they come in (no AI of course)

I thought this was standard practice but this sub is telling me otherwise...

So question is, what CRMs are you guys using? Are you not taking advantage of the automation features in them?? If not, why not? For context Im using Twenty on a small VPS

Building CRM architecture has been the highlight of my days recently

I built this mainly around keeping the sales side organized when you're managing multiple leads and deals.

It has:

→ Follow-ups, so you can quickly see what needs attention

→ Deal health to get a quick overview of how things are progressing

→ Weighted pipeline to estimate the value of your current opportunities

→ Connected companies, contacts and deals

→ Won/Lost views to keep the active pipeline clean

→ A “Why Lost” field to keep track of patterns over time

I’ve been refining the workflow for a while and thought I’d share it here in case it’s useful for anyone managing a similar pipeline.

I’m also doing a small discount for the first 5 people who pick it up

The mail just won't send.

The SMTP username and password is correct. I have tested with two SMTP credentials, one that is working on a wordpress site on the same server.

PHP version is 8.3. Drupal version is 10.6.1.

I get similar error with module 'SMTP Authentication Support'.

Here is the error message on verify page when I send a test email:

Failed to authenticate on SMTP server with username "smtpusername" using the following authenticators: "PLAIN". Authenticator "PLAIN" returned "Expected response code "235" but got code "535", with message "535 Authentication credentials invalid".".

Is there a simple way for mail notifications to work with Drupal 10?

Hey guys,

The #1 reason people abandon CRMs isn't missing features — it's friction. Nobody wants to spend 5 minutes typing client context into form fields after a coffee meeting or phone call.

I wanted a personal relationship tool that felt as fast as sending a quick voice message, so I built Shaks.

What makes it different:

• Voice Memos -> Relationship Data: Speak 15 seconds about your conversation. AI automatically tags client interests, promises made, and follow-up dates.

• Morning Coffee Digest ☕: A clean daily briefing of all follow-ups due today with 1-click batch outreach.

• Human-Sounding AI Drafts: Generates non-generic follow-ups tailored to your context, ready to send on WhatsApp or Email.

• WebRTC Card Scanner: Instant camera scanner for physical business cards.

• Spotlight Command Palette (Ctrl+K): Fast desktop search and quick action triggers.
check it out
Would love to hear how you manage your relationship pipeline on the go!

Hey everyone, just got my P&C license and started selling last week. I'm looking for some advice on CRMS.

What CRM do you guys recommend for someone just getting started? Ideally, I'd like something that also allows me to purchase leads directly through the platform, so I can manage the leads and follow-ups all in one place.

We’ve just made the move from being a HubSpot provider to an official HubSpot partner.

It was a reasonably big call for us as a small agency. We’ve been implementing and supporting HubSpot for clients for more than 10 years and have been to INBOUND for the last two, so we know the platform well. What’s new for us is building the partner side of the business more deliberately.

For those who have already been through this, what actually helped you build your HubSpot pipeline before reaching the tiers where HubSpot starts sending opportunities your way?

Was it existing clients, implementation projects, specialising in a particular HubSpot problem, content, outbound, co-selling, or something else?

And what would you do differently if you were starting again?

@here Board Election Extension

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CRMs have so many features that it’s easy to end up using only a small part of what you’re actually paying for.

What’s one CRM feature you thought would be a game changer but ended up barely using?

Could be automation, reporting, lead scoring, AI features, integrations, anything really.

And what do you actually use every day that you couldn’t work without?

I’ve been building a CRM for small businesses, freelancers and agencies that combines lead generation and CRM in one place.

The main idea is simple:

• Find potential leads based on your target niche/location
• Collect lead details in one place
• AI Lead Generation Agent helps with lead research
• Organize leads inside the CRM
• Track lead status and follow-ups
• Manage notes and contact information
• Avoid keeping leads scattered across Excel, WhatsApp and different tools

I built this because I noticed a lot of small businesses/agencies are still manually searching Google/LinkedIn, copying leads into spreadsheets, and then struggling to follow up.

I’m currently improving the product based on real-world use cases.

If you run a freelance business, marketing agency, sales team, or small business:

What is the biggest pain you have with lead generation + CRM?

And if you already use a CRM, what feature do you wish it had that it currently doesn’t?

I’m especially interested in honest criticism — what’s useful, what’s unnecessary, and what would actually make you pay for something like this.

​

I’ve been working on a Notion CRM for small agencies and service businesses, and I’m at the point where I’d rather get honest feedback than keep adding random features.

The main workflow is built around:

Leads, companies, contacts and deals being connected

Deal health based on expected dates

Weighted pipeline value based on deal stage

Automatically organizing connected information when a deal becomes Won or Lost

I’ve included an example with realistic data so you can actually click through the workflow instead of just looking at screenshots.

If you were using this for your own business, what would you change, remove, or add?

Especially interested in anything that feels confusing, unnecessary, or like it would become annoying once the database gets bigger.

Hi there,

Are there any recommendations for how to collect/report/quantity the topics and problems customers contact customer service for?

Meaning the CS agent afterwards inputs what it's about, some context potentially etc.

Though effort and friction needs to be low to ensure adoption and usage.

If there are good commercial or open source solutions, I'd be happy to learn about them.

For moving forward, I'm at first thinking ieally DIY solutions as software implementation takes ages.

Hence successful DIY solutions that make use of, widely known office tools, Microsoft 365, excel, power BI or similar would be of special interest.

Wondering how to build up and grow the pre populated topic selection without insight into what's incoming yet? Any templates to get inspired by?

How's this kind of work step or software actually called in the CS/CRM field? Not even sure what to search for to learn about best practices...

Thanks a lot!

What CRM's do yall use to keep track of everything, and what do you like/dislike about them? Be as descriptive as you like lol

Our abandonment rate has been higher than I'd like for a couple of months and I haven't landed on a fix yet. People get most of the way through checkout or spend real time on a product page, then drop off without any clear signal why. Some recover on their own within a day or two. Most don't.

I've got a recovery flow running on email and I've been testing SMS on top of it, but I honestly can't tell how much of the return traffic is the emails doing their job versus people just remembering to come back on their own. Splitting the flow based on exactly what was in the cart versus sending a generic reminder feels like it should matter more than it does sometimes.

I'm stumped. What's actually working for people running abandonment flows right now? Email only, SMS on top, retargeting ads, some mix of those? And more specifically, how are you sequencing it, timing wise and message wise?

I'm not looking for the textbook answer, I'm more interested in what you've tested and kept because it worked.

🗳️ Board Election Reminder: Voting is currently open for the 2026 Drupal Association At-Large board seat! The Board Election is closing today 14 August, 23:59 UTC

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If you were signed up as a Ripple Maker (Drupal Association member) as of 24 hours before the election opened you should have received a ballot from Helios Voting. ( [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])).

Voting began 22 July at 00:00 UTC and closes 14 August at 23:59 UTC.

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There are lots of features that are very specific to my company I wish I had available in a CRM, which don't exist in off-the-shelf tools.

Everybody says building CRMs (and indeed any software) has become absurdly easier thanks to AI. I'm not technical though, so I won't be be building this myself.

How can I hire someone to build a CRM for me? Where do I look for these people? And, most importantly, how much does it cost and how long does it take? Any hint would be extremely useful