Custom CRM vs off-the-shelf
HubSpot is fine. The workarounds around it are not.
A CRM is a contact list with opinions about your sales process. Off-the-shelf CRMs have very strong opinions. For a lot of companies that is fine. For some it means bending the business to fit the tool, then building workarounds to bend it back.
Signs the workarounds have won
- Deal stages that do not match how deals actually move
- Custom fields nobody fills in because they do not fit the form
- A spreadsheet "next to" the CRM that is the real source of truth
- Quotes, planning and invoicing in three other tools, connected by copy and paste
What a custom CRM is, really
Usually a small system, not a rebuild of Salesforce: your real pipeline, your real objects (a job, a site, a shipment, not a generic "deal") and integrations to the tools you keep. For a contractor we are building right now, that means quote to planning to invoice in one flow, with photos and a WhatsApp export because that is where the conversation was.
When not to do this
If your sales process is standard and your team is under five people, buy the cheapest CRM that does not annoy you and spend the money elsewhere. If your process is the reason you win, and every tool you try fights it, that is what we are for.
If that is your week too, thirty minutes is enough to find out.
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