I build custom CRMs, so you might expect me to tell you that you need one. Often you don't. Off-the-shelf tools are cheap to start, quick to set up and good enough for a lot of businesses. The question is when "good enough" stops being good enough.
When off-the-shelf is the right call
- You're early on and still working out how you do things.
- Your process looks a lot like everyone else's in your industry.
- An existing tool already does most of what you need, and you can live with the rest.
Signs you've outgrown it
- You're copying information between systems. Bookings in one place, client notes in another, invoices in a third, and a spreadsheet holding it all together.
- You're paying for features you never use, or per-user prices that climb every time you take someone on.
- You've bent your business to fit the software. If you've changed how you work because the tool couldn't do it your way, that's a cost too.
- The things that matter most aren't tracked at all, because the software doesn't have anywhere to put them.
