Verdict up front: Salesforce wins for 50+ rep sales orgs running multi-cloud (Sales + Service + Marketing) with complex automation. Custom CRM wins for 10-30 rep teams with a clear, specific sales process where Salesforce's flexibility is overhead, not value. The break-even is roughly €60,000/year in licensing — past that, custom usually wins.
Real Salesforce pricing (2026)
Salesforce publishes per-user pricing but the actual bill is always higher. Real numbers from teams we've audited:
- Sales Cloud Starter Suite: €25/user/month (limited features)
- Sales Cloud Professional: €80/user/month (most teams need this)
- Sales Cloud Enterprise: €165/user/month (Flow, custom objects)
- Sales Cloud Unlimited: €330/user/month (sandboxes, premier support)
Plus typical add-ons:
- Pardot / Marketing Cloud Account Engagement: €1,250/month for 10k contacts
- Service Cloud (for support tickets): €165/user/month per agent
- Salesforce Inbox / High Velocity Sales: €25-€75/user/month
- Implementation partner: €15k-€80k upfront
For a 10-rep sales team on Enterprise: €19,800/year licensing + likely €15k implementation = €34,800 year 1, €19,800/year recurring.
Custom CRM cost (Madrid market, 2026)
A typical custom CRM covering contacts, accounts, deals, pipeline, activity logging, email sync, and basic reporting:
- Discovery + design: 2 weeks, €4,000
- Backend (Supabase or Postgres + API): 3 weeks, €6,000
- Frontend (Next.js dashboard): 4 weeks, €8,000
- Email integration (Gmail + Outlook): 2 weeks, €4,000
- Deployment + auth + testing: 1 week, €2,000
- Total v1: €18,000-€24,000 over 10-12 weeks
Ongoing: €400-600/month maintenance + €30-100/month infra. Yearly run rate ~€5k-€8k.
Break-even at different team sizes
3-year total cost:
| Team size | Salesforce Enterprise | Custom CRM | Custom saves |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 reps | €29,700 + €15k impl = €44,700 | €20k + €15k = €35,000 | €9,700 |
| 10 reps | €59,400 + €15k = €74,400 | €20k + €18k = €38,000 | €36,400 |
| 25 reps | €148,500 + €25k = €173,500 | €22k + €21k = €43,000 | €130,500 |
| 50 reps | €297,000 + €40k = €337,000 | €25k + €25k = €50,000 | €287,000 |
Custom CRM cost barely scales with team size (a few hundred more for additional seats in your auth provider). Salesforce scales linearly. The bigger you are, the more custom saves.
What you lose going custom
- AppExchange: 5,000+ apps for everything from contract management to lead scoring. Custom CRM = you build or integrate each yourself.
- Reports + dashboards: Salesforce reports are powerful out of the box. Custom CRM needs you to build (or wire to Metabase / Grafana / Looker Studio).
- Mobile app: Salesforce has polished iOS + Android apps. Custom needs you to build them (or accept mobile-responsive web).
- Salesforce certifications: Your salespeople have likely used Salesforce. Onboarding to a custom tool = training cost.
What you gain going custom
- Sales process fit: Your CRM models YOUR pipeline, not generic stages. Reps don't fight the tool.
- Speed: Custom UIs are 5-10x faster than Salesforce's Lightning interface.
- Cost predictability: No per-user creep, no surprise add-on bills.
- Data ownership: Your data in your Postgres database. Export, migrate, integrate freely.
- Integration depth: Custom integrations to your internal systems are trivial vs Salesforce's middleware overhead.
HubSpot: the middle ground
Before deciding "Salesforce vs custom," check if HubSpot fits:
- HubSpot CRM (Free): Up to 1k contacts, basic pipeline, email integration. Genuinely usable.
- Sales Hub Starter: €18/user/month — email sequences, meeting scheduling, 500 templates
- Sales Hub Professional: €90/user/month — workflows, custom reports, 1k sequences
- Sales Hub Enterprise: €150/user/month — custom objects, predictive lead scoring, AI
HubSpot Professional at €90 vs Salesforce Professional at €80 is essentially a wash on price, but HubSpot's UX is significantly better and onboarding is faster. For 10-30 rep teams that want a packaged solution: HubSpot before Salesforce.
Side-by-side
| Aspect | Salesforce Enterprise | HubSpot Pro | Custom CRM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per-user/month | €165 | €90 | €0 (flat) |
| 10-rep year 1 total | €34,800 | €10,800 | €23,000 |
| 10-rep year 2+ recurring | €19,800 | €10,800 | €5,000 |
| Time to first usable version | 4-12 weeks (impl) | 1-2 weeks | 10-12 weeks |
| App ecosystem | 5,000+ (AppExchange) | 1,500+ | None (build/integrate) |
| Mobile app | Polished native | Polished native | Responsive web or build |
| Customisation depth | High (Flow, Apex) | Medium (workflows) | Unlimited |
| Sales process fit | Generic, configurable | Generic, configurable | Built for your process |
| Reps' familiarity | High | Medium | Zero (training needed) |
| Data export | Possible, painful | Easy | Trivial (your DB) |
| Vendor lock-in | Very high | Medium | None |
When Salesforce wins
- 50+ reps + you need Sales + Service + Marketing unified
- Regulated industry needing Shield (encryption at rest, audit trails)
- Heavy AppExchange dependency (specific apps you need)
- Your investors / board require Salesforce ("real" enterprise sales)
- Complex commission structures, partner portals, channel sales
When custom wins
- 10-30 reps with a clear, repeatable sales process
- Tight integration needed with internal systems (ERP, billing, custom data)
- You're paying €60k+/year on Salesforce licensing
- Reps complain about Salesforce slowing them down
- You have engineering capacity for ongoing maintenance
When HubSpot wins
- You don't have time/budget for custom but Salesforce is overkill
- Inbound-marketing-heavy sales motion
- You want one tool for marketing + sales + service
- Team is <25 reps
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