Is a custom CRM worth it? A test for advice and insurance practices

For most small businesses, no. If you mainly need a sales pipeline and email tracking, HubSpot, Zoho or Salesforce will do the job for less, and an advice practice should get full use out of Xplan or its practice platform before building anything. A custom CRM is worth it when three things are true: your process has steps a standard CRM can't model, your team copies client information from one tool to another, and you're paying for seats and add-ons while still working around the gaps. If none of those apply, stay where you are.

When is an off-the-shelf CRM enough?

An off-the-shelf CRM is the right answer more often than people who build software tend to admit. Stick with it when:

• You mostly need a pipeline. Leads, stages, email tracking and a few reports are exactly what HubSpot, Zoho and Salesforce are built for.
• It fits after some setup, and your team already uses it. A tool people actually open beats a better tool they ignore.
• You're not sure yet what the process should be. Software can't fix a process nobody has agreed on. Sort that out first, on paper if needed.

Advice practices have a different starting point, because most already pay for practice software. Iress describes Xplan as covering fact finds, advice workflows from onboarding new clients through to reviews, modelling and a secure client portal, with customised workflows and client documents available for larger firms. If you have that, the first question isn't "should we build a CRM?" It's "are we using what we already pay for?" A fair number of "we need a new CRM" conversations end with "we need to configure the one we have."

What does an off-the-shelf CRM actually cost?

CRMs are priced per user, so the bill grows with the team. These are the published Australian prices we checked on 7 October 2026:

Sources: HubSpot Sales Hub pricing and Salesforce Sales Cloud pricing. Both change often. Salesforce's page says its prices are "subject to change", and HubSpot was showing discounted introductory prices on some plans when we looked, so check the live pages before you budget.

To make that concrete: six people on HubSpot Professional or Salesforce Pro Suite at A$140 a month each is A$10,080 a year in licences alone. That's not a reason to avoid them. It's a number to compare against, because the licence is only the visible part of the cost. The rest is setup time, any paid integrations or add-ons, and the hours your team spends doing by hand what the tool doesn't do. Our post on what admin actually costs your business shows how to put a figure on that last part.

When does a custom CRM pay off?

Ask three questions. Be honest, because the answer is often "not yet".

1. Does your process have steps a standard CRM can't model?

Sales CRMs are built around a deal moving through stages to a close. Advice and insurance work doesn't look like that. It's a long relationship with policies that renew, reviews that fall due, documents that must be produced and records that must be kept. For personal advice to retail clients, licensees must keep records showing how the adviser met the best interests duty, and keep them for at least seven years after the advice is given. That comes from ASIC's record-keeping instrument for personal advice. A generic pipeline has no idea what that record is, so someone keeps it somewhere else.

2. Is client information copied between tools?

If a client's details live in the practice platform, the CRM, a spreadsheet of renewals and an inbox, someone is retyping them. Every retype is time, and every retype is a chance for the versions to drift apart.

3. Are you paying for seats and add-ons and still working around the gaps?

This is the clearest signal. If you've bought the higher tier, added two integrations and still keep a side spreadsheet for renewals or compliance, the tool is costing you twice.

How to read your answers. No to all three: stay where you are. Yes to one: try configuring what you have, or a single integration, before building anything. Yes to two or three: it's worth pricing a build. When we price, we start from what the problem costs the business each year and aim for the first year's saving to be about ten times the build fee. If the numbers don't get there, we suggest a smaller build or not building at all. More on that at how we price.

What about integrations and data ownership?

Two questions matter more than the feature list.

Where does your data live, and can you get all of it out? With any hosted CRM, your client records sit on the vendor's platform under the vendor's terms. Before you sign up, or before you build, ask how you would export everything: records, notes, documents and history, in a format another system can read. Ask it now, while it's easy, not when you're leaving.

What does it connect to? A CRM that doesn't talk to your email, calendar, accounting software and practice platform becomes one more place to type things. Check the specific connections you need, not the vendor's logo wall. Sometimes the right answer isn't replacing the practice platform but building the missing piece beside it and connecting the two.

What does a custom CRM for a practice usually include?

Every build is scoped to the practice, but most include the same parts:

• Client records. Clients, policies and history in one record anyone on the team can find.
• Documents. Files stored against the client they belong to, not in a shared drive folder.
• Notes and follow-ups. Meeting notes captured once, with tasks and reminders so nothing relies on memory.
• AI drafting, checked by an adviser. The system drafts emails, file notes and documents from the client's own record. A person checks and sends. Our post on AI for file notes and Statements of Advice covers the rules that apply.
• Integrations. Connected to email and calendar (Microsoft 365, Outlook or Gmail), accounting software such as Xero or MYOB, and other tools with an API, so data is entered once.
• A "what needs attention" view. A home screen showing today's follow-ups, renewals and open work.

For an example, see the CRM we built for a financial services practice: client records, policies, documents and communication in one workspace, with AI-assisted drafting that an adviser checks before anything goes out.

How do you start small?

Don't start with "replace everything". Start with the one process that costs the most.

1. Pick one painful process. Renewals, file notes, review scheduling or document chasing. Whichever eats the most hours or carries the most risk.
2. Build that, connected to what you already use. Your existing CRM or practice platform can keep running while the new piece proves itself.
3. Extend only when it's earning its keep. Add the next process once the first one is in daily use.

Focused builds we've quoted have run two to six weeks. Scope, fixed price and date are agreed in writing before any code is written, and you see working screens during the build, not only at the end. If you're new to this, our post on the three-hour rule for a first build explains why small and specific beats ambitious. You can read more about how we approach custom CRM development.

Who owns a custom CRM, and what happens if you leave?

Ask any builder these questions before you sign, and get the answers in writing:

• Who owns the client data and anything the system produces?
• Can you keep using the software if you stop paying for support?
• What happens if the builder stops trading?
• What are the ongoing costs, and are they marked up?

Here is how our Project Terms answer them. You own your data, your configuration and everything the system produces. You get a perpetual licence to use the software in your business, and that licence continues if support ends. We keep ownership of the underlying platform. If we stop trading, you get the source code of your instance so someone else can maintain it. If you want to own the software itself, we can quote that before the build starts. On request when an engagement ends, we export your data and outputs in a standard machine-readable format.

On cost: the build is a fixed price after scoping, paid in milestones. Hosting, AI usage and services like SMS are passed through at cost with no markup. Ongoing support is a monthly fee agreed with the build, and defects in what we built are fixed free for 30 days after handover. We're not registered for GST, so no GST is added.

Frequently asked questions

Is a custom CRM cheaper than HubSpot or Salesforce? Not always, and for a small team that only needs a pipeline it usually isn't. Compare a few years of seat licences, add-ons and workaround time against a build fee plus hosting and support. The build only wins when the workarounds are expensive.

Can a custom CRM replace Xplan? Usually it shouldn't try. Practice software covers modelling, research and advice production that would be costly to rebuild. A custom build tends to make more sense for the work around it, such as renewals, follow-ups and documents, connected to the platform you already have.

How long does a custom CRM take to build? It depends on the scope. Focused builds we've quoted have run two to six weeks, and the date is written into the scope before work starts.

What happens to our data if we stop working with you? You own it. On request we export your data and outputs in a standard machine-readable format, and your licence to use the software continues for everything you've paid for.

If you're weighing up a custom CRM against what you have now, book a free 30-minute chat. Tell us how your client work runs today and we'll tell you honestly whether a build is worth it, including when the answer is no.