On the pricing pages we checked, small businesses pay between nothing and about $100 per user per month for a ready-made CRM, and trade businesses using a field-service CRM pay roughly $29 to $700 a month depending on team size. A custom-built CRM is priced differently, as a build plus a monthly plan. The sticker price is rarely the real cost, because the bill grows with every person you add.
What ready-made CRMs charge
These are prices from the vendors' own pricing pages, as listed in October 2026. Vendors change them, so check before you buy.
| Tool | Built for | What it lists |
|---|---|---|
| Zoho CRM Free | Any small team | Free for up to 3 users |
| Salesforce Starter Suite | Small teams | $25 per user per month |
| Salesforce Pro Suite | Growing teams | $100 per user per month, billed annually |
| Jobber Core | One-person trade business | $29 to $49 a month for 1 user |
| Jobber Grow | Crews that quote and schedule | $149 to $199 a month for 1 user, $229 to $299 for 5 users |
Jobber's range depends on how you pay: the low end is billed annually, the high end is month to month. Extra users on Jobber are $29 a month each.
If you run a trade, a tool built for your kind of work often beats a general CRM. Jobber is one example. We are not telling you to avoid it. For a lot of small crews it is the right answer.
Where the bill really grows
The first price you see is for one person on one plan. Four things push it up.
- Seats. Most CRMs charge per user. An example: six people on a plan listed at $100 per user is $600 a month, or $7,200 a year. Add a seasonal hire and the bill moves again.
- Higher tiers. Features like automation, texting and reporting often sit in the more expensive plans. Ask which plan has the exact thing you need.
- Your setup time. Moving a customer list in, building stages and training your team costs hours, even when the software is cheap.
- Switching later. Your customer list lives in their account. Ask how you export it, in what format, and what happens if you stop paying.
None of these are tricks. They are the normal shape of renting software. You just want them on the table before you sign.
What a team of 3, 5 and 10 pays
Here is the same math for a growing team. It is arithmetic on the list prices above, not a quote.
| Team size | Salesforce Starter Suite | Salesforce Pro Suite | Jobber Grow |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 people | $75 a month | $300 a month | $229 to $299 (the 5-user bundle) |
| 5 people | $125 a month | $500 a month | $229 to $299 |
| 10 people | $250 a month | $1,000 a month, or $12,000 a year | $299 to $399 |
Jobber sells users in bundles of 1, 5, 10 and 15, which is why 3 and 5 people land on the same plan. Salesforce charges for every seat. Neither approach is wrong. The point is that your bill follows your headcount, and that is easy to forget when you are comparing the first month.
Also budget for what the list price leaves out: a texting number, call minutes, and any add-on for AI or automation. Ask the vendor to name each one.
What a custom CRM costs
A custom CRM is software built around how your business already works instead of a tool you bend your habits to fit.
Software development companies publish big numbers for this. Dotsquares lists $30,000 to $60,000 for a basic CRM for a small sales team and suggests budgeting 15 to 20% of the build each year for upkeep. TekRevol lists $25,000 to $40,000 for small-business CRMs. Both write for a wide market, and their own pages disagree with themselves in places, so treat them as the ceiling of what you will be quoted by a large shop.
Our shape is different, and we want to be plain about it.
- Build: $1,000 to $5,000, one flat price in writing before work starts.
- Monthly care plan: half the build price with a $1,000 minimum, so $1,000 to $2,500 a month. A $3,000 build is $1,500 a month. A $5,000 build is $2,500 a month.
- What the plan covers: hosting, AI usage, upkeep, updates and support.
- Ownership: you own what we build.
Here is how that lines up by size.
| Size | Build | Monthly care plan |
|---|---|---|
| Small | $1,000 to $2,000 | $1,000 (the monthly minimum) |
| Medium | $2,000 to $3,500 | $1,000 to $1,750 |
| Large | $3,500 to $5,000 | $1,750 to $2,500 |
Why is it lower than the software companies' quotes? One builder using AI tools, no account managers, and a scope fixed before we start. Scope differs from company to company, so compare what is included, not only the number. See the full list on our pricing page.
Renting versus owning, with honest math
Take a five-person crew. On Jobber's Grow plan with 5 users, the listed price is $229 to $299 a month. A Small custom build has a care plan of $1,000 a month, the minimum. On monthly cost alone, renting wins.
So why would anyone build? Three reasons come up.
- Nothing fits. Your process has steps the off-the-shelf tool cannot do without workarounds.
- Seat fees hurt. You have many people who need to see or update leads, and the per-user bill climbs.
- You want one system. A CRM, booking, an AI text-back for missed calls and an owner dashboard working together, in accounts that belong to you.
If a ready-made tool does the job for less, we will say so on the free call. That is not a sales line. A $49 tool that works is better for you than a build you do not need.
What to do before you buy anything
Spend one afternoon on this and you will compare tools better.
- Write down how a lead moves today, from first contact to paid.
- Count how many people need to see or edit leads.
- List what must be automatic: reminders, texts, booking.
- Decide what you will pay for per month without wincing.
With that page in hand, any price on a vendor's site becomes easier to judge.
When a ready-made CRM is enough
Pick a ready-made CRM if:
- You are a solo owner or a team of two or three.
- Your process is simple: lead, quote, job, paid.
- A free or low plan already has the features you use.
- You do not need texting, booking and reports to talk to each other.
Not sure whether you need one at all? Read Does your business need a CRM? first.
Questions to ask any CRM vendor
Take these to every sales call, ours included.
- What is the total monthly cost for my exact headcount?
- Which plan includes texting, automation and reports?
- What costs extra: phone numbers, texts, AI, onboarding?
- Can I export every contact and note, and in what format?
- What happens to my data if I stop paying?
- Who do I call when it breaks?
Where to go from here
If you want the numbers for your business, book a free 30-minute call. You will leave knowing whether a ready-made tool, a build or nothing at all is the right move. You can also read how an AI system fits on top of a CRM in what AI implementation means for a small business, see how we run our own leads in our CRM case study, or look at the AI & Software page.