What Does a CRM Cost for an Agency?

Every CRM vendor has a pricing page with a friendly entry-level rate. Big font, per month, per user. That number is almost never what you end up paying. Not because vendors lie, but because the pricing structure is built so you only find out the real cost after a few months. Anyone choosing a CRM based on the entry price is comparing the wrong numbers, whether you're choosing for an agency or as a freelancer for yourself.

Why does a CRM's entry price tell you so little?

The cheapest plan of a CRM is usually a stripped-down version. You can add deals and keep track of contacts, and that's about it. The features that actually matter to you as an agency sit one or two tiers up. Think automatic follow-up, reporting, multiple pipelines, or just decent user permissions.

That's not a coincidence. The entry price is there to get you in the door. The real price is further down the table, in a column you only look at once you already have three months of data in the system and switching has suddenly become a project.

The three mechanisms that determine the bill

Want to know what a CRM really costs? Look at these three things.

Paying per seat

Almost every CRM charges per user. That feels fair, until your agency grows. Every new colleague is a new seat, and often you also want the project manager and the designer to be able to look into the system. If you work as a freelancer, this matters less, but then you often end up paying relatively more for modules that are really priced for a whole team. Before you know it, you're paying for eight seats while only three people are actively selling. Some tools solve this with cheaper viewer accounts, others don't. Always ask.

The tier where the features live

List the features you need and look up which tier each one sits in. Chances are you'll land on the second or third plan, not the entry rate you started your calculation with. The difference per user per month looks small, but multiply it by your number of seats and twelve months and it suddenly becomes a serious line item.

Separate modules on top

Many CRM systems sell features as separate modules: a module for proposals, a module for projects, a module for reporting. Each with its own price, sometimes with its own minimum number of users. The CRM itself looks affordable, the total picture doesn't. This is exactly the pattern I described earlier in why agencies use too many separate tools: every separate module is an extra line on the invoice and an extra place where information can get stuck.

The costs that never appear on the invoice

There's another cost item no pricing page ever mentions: the work the system doesn't do. If your CRM stops at the won deal, you need a second tool for projects, and every week you're retyping deals from one system into the other. Do the math. Half an hour per won deal, a few deals every week, a whole year. That's not subscription money, but it's still a cost.

I recognize this from my time at Evertising. We worked with a collection of separate subscriptions that each didn't seem expensive on their own, but that quietly added up to quite a lot together. Only once we added it all up did we see how much it really cost.

How to make a fair comparison

Never compare entry prices with each other. Compare total pictures. Here's how:

• Write down which features you actually need, including what needs to happen after the won deal. Not sure what you need? First read what is the best CRM for agencies.
• For each tool, look up which tier those features sit in. Calculate with that tier, not the entry rate.
• Count the number of seats you'll need a year from now, not the number you need today.
• Add the separate modules you need for proposals, projects or reporting.
• Factor in the manual hours for everything the system doesn't do.

Only then do you have numbers next to each other that you can honestly compare. Often the "cheap" tool turns out not to be the cheapest at all.

How we approach this ourselves

With Wecooking, we deliberately didn't build a patchwork of modules. CRM, proposals with digital signature, projects and the client portal sit in one environment, so you don't have to buy a separate module for every piece of your work. You can read why that makes sense for an agency in combining CRM and project management.

I'm happy to be upfront about our own price: Wecooking is currently in beta and free to try. It will become a paid product later, with transparent pricing where you see upfront what you'll pay. No hidden modules, no features that suddenly turn out to sit a tier higher.

Want to feel how that works before there's a price tag attached, whether you run an agency or work as a freelancer with multiple clients? Try Wecooking for free. It costs you nothing while the beta runs, and you'll immediately see whether it fits your agency.