When I decided to build a sales operation at Purcell Ventures, the obvious move was HubSpot. Everyone uses HubSpot. The free tier exists. Why reinvent the wheel?
I evaluated HubSpot for two days. Then I built our own CRM in a week. Here's the math.
The HubSpot pricing reality
HubSpot has a free tier. That's the hook. But the free tier excludes:
- Custom properties beyond 5 — at $50/mo (Starter)
- Workflow automation — at $890/mo (Marketing Hub Pro)
- Pipeline forecasting — at $720/mo (Sales Hub Pro)
- Custom reports — at $50/mo+
- API access beyond rate limits — at $720/mo
For our actual needs — multi-rep visibility + AI-assisted next steps + custom contact stages + activity timeline + email templates with tokens — we'd be at $200-$400/mo. That's $2,400-$4,800/yr.
What I built instead
One week of focused work on what I needed: a CRM with 6 views (List, Kanban, Tasks, Stats, Coach, Reps), per-rep auth, AI-powered features specific to our workflow, and an activity log structured exactly for the conversations we have.
Hard cost: ~$15 in Anthropic API usage (the AI features). That's it. No monthly subscription. Forever.
Why the math actually works
The instinct is "it'll take longer to maintain than HubSpot." That's true in theory and false in practice. Here's why:
1. We control feature scope. When HubSpot adds 47 features I don't need, the UI gets more complex. When I add a feature I do need, the UI gets exactly more complex by that one feature. Compounding clarity.
2. Bug fix latency is zero. If our CRM has a bug, I push a fix. If HubSpot has a bug affecting our workflow, we file a ticket and wait. The latency cost compounds.
3. Custom integrations are trivial. The Steady intake form auto-creates a CRM contact. The /sales-rep form does too. With HubSpot, that's either built-in (then you're paying $50/mo for it) or it requires Zapier ($30/mo) + API setup time.
4. AI features cost real money on third-party CRMs. HubSpot's AI features (Breeze) are tied to a $720/mo plan. Ours run on Claude Haiku at ~$0.001 per call. Same value, 1000x cost difference.
What I gave up
Three things, honestly:
1. Polish. HubSpot looks more sophisticated. Our CRM looks like a small-team CRM, because that's what it is. If the goal was to impress investors, this would matter.
2. Mobile app. HubSpot has a real mobile app. We have a mobile-responsive web app, which is fine but not as smooth.
3. Ecosystem integrations. HubSpot integrates with hundreds of tools. We integrate with what we choose to integrate with. So far that's been enough.
None of these gaps cost us deals. All of them save us money + control.
When you should NOT do this
Be honest with yourself:
- If you don't code: don't. HubSpot is fine. The build cost is your time × your skill.
- If your team is >10 people: the org-management features in real CRMs (permissions, audit logs, compliance) matter. Build cost goes way up.
- If you need SOC 2 / HIPAA compliance: the compliance surface is huge. Pay HubSpot or similar.
- If you have >1,000 contacts and complex pipeline: the database side gets real.
- If you don't enjoy maintenance work: it WILL want maintenance occasionally. If you hate that, pay for someone else to do it.
When you SHOULD do this
- You're solo or 2-3 person team
- You code (or have access to someone who does)
- Your workflow is non-standard and requires custom logic
- You care about owning your data
- You're going to spend a year+ on this business — the build cost amortizes
- You want to use AI in custom ways the SaaS CRMs don't support
The hidden benefit nobody mentions
Building our own CRM forced us to know our sales process intimately. Every stage, every field, every report — we had to design it. That clarity is worth as much as the CRM itself.
When you outsource the tool, you outsource the thinking behind it. We've eaten our own dog food in the most literal way possible.
What this looks like in our shop
We've packaged the actual system prompts, the database schema reasoning, and the operational handbook into our $19 PV AI Starter Kit. The same prompts powering our CRM's AI features. Steal it, run it locally on your AI of choice.
Or if you want us to build a custom CRM for your business, see Custom Software. We've done it for ourselves; doing it for you is just adapting the patterns.
First draft written by our AI Content Generator. Edited and signed off by Elijah Purcell.