Development
Custom CRM vs off-the-shelf for franchises and multi-site businesses
Off-the-shelf CRMs win for small teams. For franchises and multi-site businesses with dozens of users, a custom or hybrid CRM can cost less over…
· 8 min read
A CRM is where a business keeps track of who its customers are, what they asked for, what was quoted and what happens next. For plenty of UK firms that system is still an inbox, a shared spreadsheet and the memory of one person in the sales team. HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho and Salesforce fix that for most companies, and if one of them fits you, buy it.
A custom CRM is for the businesses where they don’t: where the process has enough of its own shape that your team spends more time working around the software than with it. Franchises, multi-branch service firms, installers with site surveys and deposits, membership bodies, specialist B2B suppliers. That is the work we do.
Signs the off-the-shelf CRM isn’t working
- Your team keeps a spreadsheet next to the CRM because the CRM can’t hold what they need.
- You pay per-user fees for thirty people who only ever use one screen.
- Franchisees or branches need to see their own customers and nobody else’s, while head office sees everything.
- Leads from the website, the phone and walk-ins land in different places, and some are never followed up.
- Your process has steps the CRM has no idea about: surveys, deposits, approvals, compliance checks, recurring service visits.
- Every customisation needs a paid consultant and a higher subscription tier.
If none of that sounds familiar, an off-the-shelf CRM is almost certainly cheaper, and we will say so in the first call. Our article on custom CRM vs off-the-shelf sets out the comparison for multi-site businesses in detail.
The honest maths
Per-user pricing is what usually tips the decision. Take a franchise network with 25 users on a mid-tier plan at, say, £60 per user per month. That is £1,500 a month, or £54,000 over three years, before add-ons and implementation consultants. Published prices vary by vendor and tier, so plug your own numbers in, but the shape of the sum is the point.
A first custom release covering contacts, pipeline, lead capture and reporting typically takes 80 to 150 hours. At our rate with volume discounts, 100 hours is £4,500 plus VAT and 150 hours is £6,750 plus VAT, with hosting on top at tens of pounds a month. You then pay for changes when you want them rather than a fee per seat for ever.
For a five-person sales team on a standard pipeline, the sum goes the other way. Buy the subscription.
What a WE-DEV CRM can include
- Contacts, companies and a full activity history: calls, emails, notes, quotes, orders, files.
- A pipeline with your stages, and the fields and rules each stage needs before a deal can move on.
- Roles and permissions for owners, managers, branches, franchisees and outside partners.
- Automatic lead capture from website forms, landing pages and booking systems, with the source recorded.
- Quotes and invoices generated from CRM data, with Stripe or GoCardless payment links.
- Task reminders, follow-up sequences and email templates.
- Reports that answer your actual questions: conversion by lead source, revenue by branch, overdue follow-ups by person.
- Integrations with Xero, QuickBooks, your email platform or an ERP through their APIs.
How we build it
Map the process, not the screens
We walk through how a customer goes from first contact to paid invoice, and where it goes wrong. We would rather do that with the people who use the system fifty times a day than from a requirements document written by someone who uses it twice a week.
Get the data model right
Before any interface, we decide what a customer, a site, a job and a quote really are in your business. Is a franchisee a user, a branch or both? Can one customer belong to two branches? These questions sound dull and decide whether your reports can be trusted a year later.
Release in stages
Release one replaces the spreadsheet: contacts, pipeline, lead capture. It usually goes live within six to ten weeks. Quotes, automation, payments and deeper reporting follow in later releases, in the order you choose, once real use has shown what matters.
Migrate and train
We import your existing data from spreadsheets or CRM exports, merge duplicates, and train the team. Adoption makes or breaks a CRM. A screen that saves a branch manager two clicks per lead is worth more than a clever dashboard nobody opens.
Technology and data protection
We build CRMs as secure web applications in Laravel with a Vue or React interface, hosted on UK or EU servers in your name behind Cloudflare. Staff log in from any browser. Field teams can have a Flutter app or a progressive web app that works with patchy signal.
Customer records are personal data under UK GDPR, so access controls, audit logs, data export and deletion tools are part of the first release, not an afterthought. They help you meet your obligations and answer subject access requests in minutes rather than days, in line with what the ICO’s guidance expects.
What it costs
Custom CRMs are built with custom development hours at £60 an hour excluding VAT. Hours never expire, and larger blocks are discounted.
| Stage | Typical hours | Price excl. VAT |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery and written specification | 10–15 | £570–£810 |
| Release one: contacts, pipeline, lead capture, basic reports | 80–150 | £3,840–£6,750 |
| Multi-branch permissions and franchise reporting | 30–60 | £1,530–£2,880 |
| Quotes, invoicing and payment links | 30–50 | £1,530–£2,400 |
Worked example: release one at 100 hours is £6,000 less 25 %, so £4,500, or £5,400 including VAT. You get a written estimate after discovery, and the code and database belong to you.
Working with us
The team is based in London and builds CRMs for businesses across the UK. Discovery and training sessions work best in person, so for a multi-site client in Manchester, Bristol or Glasgow we plan a day or two on site and run the rest of the project remotely. For London and the Home Counties we can usually be with you within the hour.
Talk to us about your CRM
Tell us how leads reach you today, how many people need access and what your current system can’t do. We will give you a straight view on custom versus off-the-shelf and a realistic budget. Contact us or call 020 3918 3814.
