How much does it cost to implement CRM and how to do it right? A guide for B2B companies
- 6 min read
Implementing a CRM system is one of the most important decisions for any company. It’s an investment that can increase sales, organise customer relationships, and give the team real support in their daily work. And yet, the cost of CRM implementation often raises concerns — and understandably so.
Many organisations have a CRM “on paper”, but no one actually uses it. Salespeople treat it as a necessary evil, managers don’t trust the reports, and the board sees only the cost, not the value. Such failures don’t come from the technology itself, but from project mistakes: too much complexity, an ill-fitted scope, and a lack of features that genuinely support users.
That’s why we propose an approach that reverses this pattern — starting with simplicity, quick value delivery, and high adoption from the very first day.
What should be included in the cost of a CRM project?
A modern CRM is the command centre for sales. It’s no longer just about storing information, but about guiding the team through the process, building relationships, and accelerating work. The system should provide a full 360° customer view, automate repetitive tasks, and give managers reliable data for decision-making.
A modern CRM must also be convenient: clear views, intuitive forms, integrations, automations, and features that shorten work instead of extending it. Only such a system will truly be used.
AI plays an increasingly important role in CRM. To bring real value, it needs well-organised data. In return, a modern CRM delivers a massive leap in capabilities: it analyses customer behaviour, suggests next steps, automatically summarises meetings, and strengthens sales processes. Thanks to this, CRM doesn’t just support the team — it becomes their intelligent partner.
To build a CRM that truly leverages AI, the entire process must be well organised.
Why is it better to start small and grow dynamically?
The best CRM implementations start with an MVP approach — a small but complete project that quickly delivers value and is easy to verify in real work. A small start doesn’t mean a small system. It means smart scope planning and focusing on features that genuinely support sales and customer communication.
This approach helps avoid one of the most common CRM implementation mistakes: trying to build everything at once. Too broad a scope, theoretical requirements, and features untested in real life lead to project overload, low adoption, and huge costs.
We’ve completed many projects that show the difference between these approaches.
First example: for one consulting services client, we implemented CRM in just 15 MD. The key was sensible scope selection and focusing on standard features that worked “out of the box”. The system launched quickly, and during the following 10 months the company consistently expanded new processes and integrations. Today, the CRM is the foundation of sales reporting and continues to evolve.
Second example: we took over a CRM project in a similar company that had already been running for a year and still wasn’t ready to launch. The scope was too broad — the client wanted to build every possible feature before go-live, including purely theoretical ones. The project became costly, complex, and difficult to adopt. Paradoxically, the system could have gone live many months earlier had the scope been simplified.
These experiences show one thing: MVP doesn’t limit — MVP accelerates. It allows you to start working, gain user insights, build adoption, and grow the CRM at a pace that delivers the greatest value.
How much does the start cost? A realistic budget for MVP
An initial CRM in the MVP approach typically requires 20–40 MD, around 1.5 to 2.5 months of work. This scope allows you to build a system that is complete, usable from day one, and a solid foundation for further development.
A typical CRM MVP for a B2B company includes:
- a full customer and contact database,
- customer structure (branches, subsidiaries, relationships),
- a 360° customer view with cooperation history,
- commercial parameters (payment terms, limits, discounts, price lists),
- basic sales metrics and segmentation,
- communication history through Outlook integration,
- a simple lead and opportunity management process,
- a set of reports supporting the management team in decision-making.
This scope provides real value from day one: the salesperson sees full context, managers can plan sales, and the company builds a repeatable customer service process.
A CRM MVP that is too small is risky. An empty or incomplete CRM gives no value to users — they quickly lose motivation, stop recording activities, and stop believing in the project. Regaining trust later can be very difficult.
What makes up the cost of the system
A clear understanding of costs builds trust and makes planning easier. The total cost of CRM implementation consists of several key components which together provide a transparent picture of what the company is actually paying for.
| Element | Scope of work |
|---|---|
| Implementation | Consultations, installation and configuration of the system, basic integration, preparing views and processes, testing |
| Training and support | Training for key users, support during go-live |
| Data migration | Data preparation, import, verification |
The total cost of this MVP scope usually fits within 20–40 MD, which equals approximately 50,000 to 100,000 PLN.
The implementation cost also includes system licences, available as monthly or yearly subscriptions. This is another area worth optimising — for example, by selecting Team Member licences for users who don’t need full functionality, or by properly planning storage usage. In many cases, documents and attachments can be stored in SharePoint, which significantly lowers CRM storage costs.
Thanks to such decisions, licensing costs remain predictable, flexible, and tailored to the company’s needs, increasing only where truly necessary.
What can increase the project budget
Not every implementation fits within 20–40 MD. The scope may increase if the company has specific processes or very advanced requirements. The most common cost-drivers are:
- high functional complexity – the need to reflect extensive processes or migrate all features from the current system,
- complicated data migration – large volumes, lack of consistent structure, the need for cleaning or restructuring,
- integrations with multiple systems – especially with heavy data flows or when the ERP system is not ready for communication.
It’s also important to note situations where access to data and its preparation become the main project challenge. If a company uses many different data sources, lacks consistency, or requires centralised information storage, implementing Microsoft Fabric may be a good solution. It enables building a unified data layer, simplifying integrations, accelerating the project, and reducing maintenance costs in the following years.
How to reduce costs without losing quality
Fortunately, many project challenges can be handled faster and cheaper using ready-made components. With them, the project becomes simpler, more predictable, and significantly less expensive — without the need to build everything from scratch.
Often, it’s enough to use proven standards and a staged approach to achieve an excellent result with a much lower budget. That’s why it’s worth starting the project with an analysis of the system’s built-in capabilities and identifying which elements should be used first.
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What’s next?
Starting with CRM is only the first step. A system that works, is used, and brings value needs ongoing development: iterations, improvements, new processes, and better use of data. It’s in the months after go-live that real advantage is built — adoption grows, data quality increases, and user trust strengthens.
In the next article, we’ll show how to plan CRM development after launch, how the feedback loop works, what role users and management play, and how to choose the right platform and implementation partner so that CRM grows with the company. This phase determines whether CRM becomes the foundation of sales or just another tool.
If you’d like to explore what CRM development could look like in your organisation, let’s talk — even a 30-minute conversation is enough to quickly identify priorities.
