How much does custom CRM development cost in the UK?

“It depends” is the true answer to almost every pricing question about custom software, and it's useless unless someone tells you what it depends on. So here's what actually moves the price of a custom CRM, using our own pricing as a concrete reference point.

The starting point

At Setavo, a fully built CRM or business system starts from £2,000. That's a one-off Setavo build fee. There is no Setavo monthly subscription afterwards to keep access to something we've already built.

A starting price is only honest if you also know why a project would cost more. Here are the factors, and why each one adds work.

What makes the price go up

Build time and workflow complexity

A simple pipeline (enquiry, quote, won or lost) is a modest build. Add qualification rules, matching logic or routing by location or specialism and the system has to make decisions, which takes longer to design, build and test.

Integrations

Every existing tool the CRM connects to — accounting software, a calendar, payments, your website, messaging channels — is its own piece of work. Some tools connect cleanly; others need more effort. See how we approach integrations.

User types and permissions

One kind of user seeing everything is straightforward. Sales, operations, managers and external partners each seeing different things, with different permissions, multiplies the screens and rules involved.

Dashboards and reporting

Every report you want answered automatically is something the system has to calculate and present reliably.

Automations

Follow-ups, reminders, notifications and status updates make a CRM genuinely useful, and each one is logic that needs building and testing against your real process.

Portals and custom functionality

Giving customers, investors or partners their own view of the system is effectively a second application. So is anything unique to your business that no standard CRM does.

Costs that sit outside the build fee

A system has to run somewhere, and some of the services it uses charge for usage. Depending on the build, that can include:

• hosting and infrastructure
• third-party services such as email or SMS sending
• AI model usage, if parts of the workflow use it
• domains, if the system lives on its own address

These aren't Setavo fees, and you should see what they are, who provides them and roughly what they'll cost before you commit to anything. If a supplier can't tell you that upfront, ask why.

What keeps the price down

• A simpler process. We map and simplify the workflow before building, and fewer steps means less to build.
• Starting with the core. Build what the business needs now, then extend once it's proven.
• Keeping tools that work. If your accounting or calendar software does its job, connect it rather than rebuild it.
• Build only the missing layer. Sometimes the CRM you own does most of the job and the gap is elsewhere. For one client we kept their existing CRM and built only the missing DM automations, so new social enquiries now flow straight into it. That's a much smaller job than a new system.

Comparing a build fee with a subscription

A subscription is cheaper to start and recurs. A build fee is larger upfront. To compare them fairly, look at the whole period you'd realistically use the system:

1. Monthly subscription per user × number of users × months you'd use it.
2. Add the cost of the workarounds the subscription leaves in place: the side spreadsheet, the manual copying, the missed leads.
3. Compare that with the build fee plus any external running costs.

Compare the total cost, not the monthly headline. A subscription can look cheap until you multiply it by users and years, then add the manual work and extra tools it leaves in place. A custom build costs more upfront, but there's no Setavo subscription afterwards, and it's built around the work you're actually paying people to do. We say more about choosing in custom CRM vs off-the-shelf.

How to get an accurate figure

The fastest route to a real number is to describe the work, not the software:

• how an enquiry moves through your business today, step by step
• which tools are involved
• who uses the system, and what each person needs to see
• what must happen on day one, and what could come later

From there we can map the process and agree the outcome and the price before development begins. And if we can't deliver the agreed outcome, and can't put it right through the agreed revision process, there's no Setavo build fee. Start with the description, or see all of our pricing.