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

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?

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.

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

I've always thought of a CRM as the place everything eventually ends up while the actual sales work happens across a bunch of other tools but that distinction seems to be disappearing pretty quickly.

More platforms seem to be pulling prospecting, enrichment, outreach, activity tracking and pipeline management into one place so I'm curious whether people really prefer having all of that inside the CRM or if a stack of specialized tools still does each job better.

I have solution called FFC CRM. It's a smart CRM has all the features for making your life easy and simple.

Like

Location tracking

Customer management

Delas and pipeline

Task management

HRMS

Report

Hello everyone.. so we’re on the process of reevaluating our CRM setup for a growing 12-person b2b sales team. Grateful for blessings 😄 We need something that handles inbound lead routing and email sequencing smoothly without requiring a full-time admin just to keep custom objects working.

RIght now we're looking at them both, anyone knows how do they compare when it comes to reporting flexibility, automation usability, and data cleanliness for bigger number of records (around 10k+ and growing)?? Thanks ! 😄

The Gap in the Market
The industry is dominated by massive legacy platforms built in the 90s/2000s. They cost small agencies $500–$1,000+ a month, take months to onboard, and are crammed with complex enterprise features a 2-person team will never use. Most scratch agencies either overpay for these bloated systems or run their entire business on messy spreadsheets.
What I’m Building
I’m building a clean, modern alternative focused strictly on speed, zero setup time, and core operational pain points:
Automated Rate Increase Flags:Instantly spotting client policy price hikes so agents can check in before clients shop elsewhere.

Account Bundling Identifiers:Automatically highlighting single-policy clients for easy cross-selling.

Instant Search Navigation: Allowing agents to pull up any client or file in under a second while on a live phone call.

Simplified Client Workflows:Streamlining public client intakes into a clean visual workspace for the agent.

My Question for the Community
My target audience consists of business owners who are heavily non-technical and used to clunky legacy software.
For those who have launched B2B SaaS into traditional, non-tech-savvy industries:
Onboarding: Do non-tech users prefer self-serve CSV imports, or should I mandate a 10-minute guided setup call?

Early Feedback: What’s the best way to extract honest, actionable product feedback from busy small-business owners who aren't used to testing beta software?

Would love to hear your thoughts or learn from anyone who has tackled a similar legacy industry!

For those using HoneyBook, Dubsado, 17hats or another CRM for an event-based business:

What does it handle really well for you?

More importantly, what do you still end up using Instagram DMs, WhatsApp, spreadsheets, Notes, Google Calendar or other apps for?

Is there anything you wish your CRM handled that would actually make a noticeable difference in your day-to-day business?

And if you’re happy with your current setup, I’d love to hear that too.

This is a weekly post for you to let out about something which happened this week for you in CRM that mattered: features, client requests that were either great or awful this week, and just generally chat CRM / CRM consulting chatter.

No self promo, just a place to share tales from the front-line of CRM!

Looking for input from people who know CRMs better than I do. Long post, but the details matter.

Background: I’ve run my business on Salesforce since 2019. Started as a single license for just me. We’re now 12 people and the whole company lives in it. We’ve customized it heavily — it’s not a stock sales pipeline, it’s a system of record built around our specific operating model.
Where we are now: We’ve hit the point where we need to automate more, integrate across platforms, and cut friction so we can keep scaling. The use cases are legitimate and specific. But we’re boxed in on three fronts.

1. Professional Edition limits.
   We’re capped at 5 active flows. No native API access — that’s a $25/user/month add-on. Our current per-license cost is roughly $50–75, so we’re paying somewhere in the $8–10k/year range. To get API access and unlimited flows — features that cost Salesforce essentially nothing to enable — the real answer is upgrading to Enterprise at $165–175/license. That’s 2.5x our current spend before we’ve added a single new capability.

2. Everything else is a third-party subscription.
   Dialer. Call recording and transcription. Accounting sync. LLM integration. Forms — Formstack alone quoted at $4,800/year. Each one is a separate vendor with a separate 12-month lock-in. Stack them up and the per-seat cost gets absurd.

3. The comparison is brutal.
   HubSpot is comparably priced or cheaper and includes a native dialer, automatic call recording and transcription, real workflow automation, SMS, and dramatically better marketing tooling — out of the box. And it’s not just HubSpot. There are a lot of platforms doing this now.

The Agentforce demo.
When we started looking at what we needed, everyone was talking about Agentforce, so I asked for a demo. I told them in writing beforehand: I’m price-sensitive, I assume this requires a license upgrade, and I need to be confident it actually helps my business. No problem, they said.
I got on a call with four people — two from Salesforce, two from a separate implementation firm. The presentation ended at $85,000 for year one and roughly $30,000 ongoing. Nobody had spent enough time on my business to show me a single application relevant to what we actually do. It was generic Agentforce material. I told them they’d missed the mark and moved on.

The retention call.
We demoed HubSpot and were getting ready to switch. Before pulling the trigger, I went back to my rep and was completely candid: seven-year customer, seriously considering not renewing, here’s what I need, I’d rather stay if there’s a path. He said he couldn’t discuss pricing over email and asked for a 15-minute call.

I got on the call. It was him plus another third-party implementation team, and another prepared demo I couldn’t watch because I was driving. They started pitching without asking about my use cases. I cut in and asked for the annual number.

They’d moved me up to Unlimited — their top tier. $35,000/year. Plus the implementation firm on the call. Plus all the third-party apps I still need. When I pointed out I’m planning to double headcount this year, which puts me north of $70k, the answer was a four-year agreement for a better rate.

Where that leaves me.
I can’t spend $70–100k a year on a CRM at 12–24 people. But our workflows are deeply dependent on Salesforce, and switching to HubSpot means trading one set of problems for another plus a painful migration. I don’t know enough about the rest of the market to know what actually handles heavily customized, custom-object-driven workflows.

What I’m asking:
1. Has anyone negotiated Salesforce down meaningfully at this size? What actually moved the number — timing, escalation, multi-year, threatening non-renewal?
2. For those who left Salesforce after heavy customization: what did the migration actually cost you in time and money, and would you do it again?
3. What platforms should I be looking at besides HubSpot for a business with a lot of custom objects and non-standard workflows? Zoho One, Creatio, Attio, something else?
4. Anyone actually getting business value from Agentforce, or is it the emperor’s new clothes?
5. At what point does hiring an engineer to build something in-house stop being a bad idea?
Happy to answer questions about our setup. Not looking to bash Salesforce — it genuinely helped me grow this company. I just can’t make the math work anymore