What a CRM actually costs a year
Per-seat pricing is one line of six. Here is the whole formula, with the items that turn a $50 seat into something considerably larger.
- The full formula
- Six line items
- No email required
The short answer
- The formula: annual cost = (seats × price × 12) + the tools the CRM cannot do + implementation + data + integration work + the annual increase. Only the first term appears on a pricing page.
- The line that surprises people is the second one. A CRM that forbids cold outbound means paying separately for a sending tool, and a CRM without a data source means paying separately for that too.
- Run the formula twice: once for the tool you are considering, once for what you pay today. The comparison is the answer, and it is often not the one the per-seat number implied.
The formula, not a widget
The formula
Annual cost = A + B + C + D + E + F
- A, subscription: number of seats × price per seat per month × 12. Use the number of people who genuinely need access, then add the ones you would exclude only to save money, because those exclusions cost you a complete record.
- B, the adjacent tools: anything you pay for because the CRM will not do it. A sending or sequencing tool, a data provider, a scheduling tool, a dialler, a reporting layer. Add each one's annual cost.
- C, implementation: setup fees plus your own hours. Count hours at a real internal rate, not zero.
- D, data: contact credits, enrichment, verification. Annualise whatever you buy monthly.
- E, integration work: connector subscriptions, automation platform plans, and any developer time to build what the connectors do not cover.
- F, the increase: the price change at renewal, and the seats you will add. Most teams underestimate both. If you have no better figure, model your seat count growing with headcount.
Worked example: a ten-person team
Two shapes of the same team, using each vendor's own published pricing where a number is stated.
| Line | Per-seat CRM plus a stack | SalesCrew |
|---|---|---|
| A, subscription | 10 seats at a mid-tier per-seat price, twelve months | $299 a month on Core, twelve months, unlimited seats: $3,588 |
| B, adjacent tools | A sending tool, a data provider and a scheduling tool, each on its own plan | Cadences, data bank and inbound bookings are in Core |
| C, implementation | Setup fee if charged, plus your hours | Your hours; the 14-day trial is the setup window |
| D, data | Contact credits and verification, billed separately | Billed separately. Apollo or your own source, and verification is yours |
| E, integration work | Connector plans plus any developer time | Webhooks, API and MCP are included; automation platform plans if you use one |
| F, the increase | Renewal uplift plus each new hire's seat | Seats do not add cost. AI usage is the meter, with a hard stop at the cap |
SalesCrew's published tiers as of September 2026: Core $299, Local $499, Outbound $699, Agency $1,200 per month, unlimited seats on all four. Competitor prices vary by tier and term; take them from the vendor's own page on the day you compare.
The three questions that change the answer most
- How many people would you give access to if seats were free? The gap between that number and your current seat count is a cost you are already paying in incomplete data.
- Does the CRM's acceptable use policy allow what you actually do? If you send cold outbound and the CRM forbids it, line B is not optional and the comparison changes completely.
- What does leaving cost? If the export is a partial extract rather than a full database, the switching cost is real and belongs in the model even though nobody puts it there.
What this formula cannot tell you
It cannot tell you whether the team will use it. That is the largest single determinant of whether a CRM was worth the money and no arithmetic reaches it. A cheaper tool nobody opens costs more than an expensive one everybody does.
It also cannot price the AI question sensibly across vendors, because everyone meters it differently. In SalesCrew, model usage is the meter rather than seats, with an allowance, a soft alert at eighty percent and a hard stop at a hundred that applies to AI only. Manual work never stops.
Run the formula on what you pay today first
The comparison is usually more surprising than the quote you were about to accept.