CRM Bills Keep Growing, Features Keep Piling Up

“The CRM will not fix this by itself, but it can make one specific thing much better: follow-up that currently happens in your head or in random DMs. A few things worth considering: Your highest-value list is past customers, not the 800-person WhatsApp groups. For a retreat business, someone who already came once is far more likely to book again or refer a friend. If the CRM does nothing else, make it answer one question: who came before, and did I personally invite them to the next retreat? Ever”

“Started using it a few months ago and I'm interested in comments from users or those considering it. I find it well suited to my solo tax practice, even though it's marketed primarily to CFPs and other financial and investment planning pros. I have no use for the tax prep bells and whistles that Canopy, Tax Dome and their competitors include, and I have no interest in reinventing the wheel using AI tools. TIA submitted by /u/prosystemfx [link] [comments]”

“It sounds like managing the leads and data is a lot of work. [re: Built my first CRM with Claude. What can I do with it?]”

“How are you using it? [re: Built my first CRM with Claude. What can I do with it?]”

“honestly the CRM is the easy bit, the daily habit is the hard part. i'd dump everything into one sheet first (name, where they came from, last contact, retreat or conference) and tag them. then every morning filter by last contact older than 2 weeks and message 5 to 10 people by hand. for the 800 person whatsapp group a broadcast for dates and early bird stuff will do way more than an AI agent imo, nomads can smell a bot reply from a mile away [re: Built my first CRM with Claude. What can I”

“Building your own CRM from scratch is bold but if your goal is sales on autopilot, you might end up maintaining the tool more than using it. Odoo has all the automation built in already, plus integrations for WhatsApp and email campaigns, so you are not spending weekends debugging your own code. The real work is not the CRM itself, its cleaning up your data. Hundreds of leads across docs, sheets, groups and DMs means you need one source of truth before any automation will feel like magic. Import”

“Your setup is a perfect storm of scattered data, and a CRM is exactly how you tie it all together. First step is importing everything, those Google sheets, Eventbrite CSVs, even just copying links to FB profiles, into the CRM as contacts with custom tags. Tags are your new best friend, you'd tag contacts by source like "WhatsApp Ad 2024" or status like "past retreat guest" or interest like "summit speaker lead" Once the data's in one place, you build a pipel”

“Hi guys, I have a business hosting co-living retreats and conferences for digital nomads in Nepal called "Nomad Basecamp." I'm a solopreneur but have local partners and volunteers. For the first few years, I filled my retreats posting in social media groups and following up in DMs Now I also host summits with dozens of international speakers, and have large lists of past customers, emails from Eventbrite events and online sessions, and huge lists of leads who contacted me on WhatsA”

“Hi guys, I have a business hosting co-living retreats and conferences for digital nomads in Nepal called "Nomad Basecamp." I'm a solopreneur but have local partners and volunteers. For the first few years, I filled my retreats posting in social media groups and following up in DMs Now I also host summits with dozens of international speakers, and have large lists of past customers, emails from Eventbrite events and online sessions, and huge lists of leads who contacted me on WhatsA”

“we are running a 3-person b2b micro saas with around 45 active trials and paid accounts. up to this point we have just tracked user signups and manual outreach in notion and stripe, but customer follow-ups and renewal reminders are getting dropped. everyone tells early-stage founders to just drop in hubspot since the free tier is accessible. but looking at their tiered plans, i keep seeing warnings that the second you need automated webhook triggers, custom user properties, or basic pipeline seq”

“Many orgs that are staring down the barrel of renewals with their CRM providers are considering ending their contracts. Curious to hear from those who have already done it. How did it go? What surprises came up along the way? Did you ever unlock any new possibilities that your old CRM was keeping you from achieving, and what were they/how long did it take to implement? Do you regret doing it or was it a good move? What were the biggest compliments and the biggest grievances people on the team pr”

“That’s a fair point. DMS and CRM tools are good at what they do, and I’m not trying to replace them. The gap I’m looking at is different: those systems manage documents inside their own system, but most teams I’ve seen have files spread across Drive, Notion, GitHub, Slack and old email, and nobody migrates all of it into one DMS. Treant doesn’t replace those tools. It sits on top of them, searches what’s already there, and answers with a link to the source. The other piece is privacy. For teams”

“You should connect Claude to your Attio's MCP Server. After that, ask Claude to replicate your CRM and see what it does. See for yourself [re: Is SaaS dead? The end of an era.]”

“What CRM do you use? I use Pipedrive [re: Is SaaS dead? The end of an era.]”

“my first freelance crm in notion had like 25 properties and i stopped updating it after two weeks. this is the stripped down version that actually stuck, in case it helps anyone setting one up. 3 databases, all related to each other: clients : name, status, email, source (referral, cold, etc), next follow up (date) projects : name, relation to client, status, quoted amount (number), due date touchpoints : date, relation to client, type (call, email, meeting), one line note status on clients uses”

“I've been thinking about how businesses approach software as they grow. A company starts with a CRM, adds a project management tool, an inventory system, a reporting platform, and a few automation services. Initially, everything works reasonably well. But over time, employees start exporting data between systems, maintaining spreadsheets to fill gaps, and manually handling processes that the software was supposed to simplify. Eventually, the business is paying for multiple subscriptions whil”

“A generic CRM like go high level can go a long way when it’s customized to one’s needs, goals And schedules. [re: One thing I underestimated when starting a business: the work behind the scenes]”

“We are a small IT company. About 25 business clients, monthly agreements, and the odd project. A normal CRM wants a pipeline. Most of our “leads” are a referral who already signed, then a year of tickets, add-ons, and a renewal nobody logged. Contacts live in the PSA. Notes live in email. The renewal date lives in someone’s head. We started keeping the money side in flexpoint so the invoice and the late reminder are not another tab, but the client record is still split. What are you using as the”

“I don’t think think this is duct tape. I think this is the inkling of the next step in the evolution of business data science/organization. Current CRMs feel very constrained and confining to me as a business owner. “Agentic First” CRMs are the hint of what I and, I would guess, most business owners want. They don’t want to fumble around lists of menus and modules for the report they hope is there, but might not be. They want to ask for a report or data set and get it. They want their data and a”

“if you can grab a few weeks of customer messages or sales call notes i'd build a triage that tags intent, urgency and churn-risk, then a reply-suggester that drafts short responses the rep can edit. no training-heavy model needed, just heuristics + an LLM for drafts. if you don't have message data, i'd pull CRM company names and enrich them with free firmographics and recent news to auto-fill lead scores and segment lists for outreach. [re: What are some AI automations that businesse”

“I’d start with one narrow decision rather than “help teams choose software.” For example: the best CRM for a five-person B2B agency migrating from spreadsheets. Interview both the daily user and the person approving the budget, then publish comparisons around the exact objections they mention. SEO can work here, but only if the pages help someone make a real decision instead of repeating feature lists. [re: Launched a SaaS comparison side project, how do I get people to actually use it?]”

“I’d start by focusing on one type of user first instead of trying to cover every tool. Maybe find people on reddit who are already asking for CRM or project management recommendations and share your site when it is relevant. You will get a better idea of what people are struggling with and what would actually make them try your tool. I wouldn’t rely on SEO alone at the beginning. [re: Launched a SaaS comparison side project, how do I get people to actually use it?]”

“Not at all. I ended up on TidyWise CRM. The main reason was the flat rate, so the whole team could have logins without the bill changing every time someone joined. Tell your friend to check two things before committing to anything though. Make sure they can export their client list any time, and make sure every cleaner will actually get their own login from day one. The tool matters less than breaking the shared login habit. [re: The per seat pricing model punishes you for growing your team]”

“I own a business and need a CRM, but not super robust one. Track memberships, send some emails, have a record for a few dozen people. Anyone tried something so ambitious? submitted by /u/highpercentage [link] [comments]”

“most sales teams still route leads like it's 2005, a simple workflow that checks company size and industry against your crm before a human even looks at it would save a ton of wasted calls [re: What are some AI automations that businesses actually need?]”

“I think narrowing down the audience will make the biggest difference here. A CRM can have solid features and still struggle if users can't immediately see how it fits into their specific workflow. I'd start by looking at one type of business and understanding how they currently manage leads, conversations, and follow-ups. Then I'd identify the one recurring task Auxelon makes noticeably easier than their current setup and build the messaging around that. One thing I'd pay attenti”

“Please some decode Salesforce all in one. That will be great. submitted by /u/Southern_Matter_3222 [link] [comments]”

“Summary Five features that would make outbound campaigns convert better and need less manual follow up. Each one can ship on its own. A suggested order is at the bottom. 1. Book meetings during a call Problem: When a contact agrees to a demo, the AI agent can't book it. Someone has to follow up by hand, and some leads go cold in the meantime. Proposal: Add a book meeting tool to the calling agent. Campaigns turn it on through the existing per campaign tools list ( src/realtime calling/call tools”

“I'm not looking for feedback on our entire app this time. Just one workflow. Call ends. SealMe identifies things like: next step deal stage agreed terms important notes timeline You review the changes. CRM gets updated. I need salespeople to tell me whether this is: A) genuinely useful B) something they'd never trust C) useful but needs a different approval process Free beta access. submitted by /u/gordanxdjuric [link] [comments]”

“Companies should choose CRMs (and similar products) based on their current size and projected growth/plans. I was looking at learning management systems, and some of them wanted me to pay based on theoretical user count. Not actual users or log-ins, people who theoretically might log in one time but probably won't. Needless to say, I didn't choose that model. [re: The per seat pricing model punishes you for growing your team]”

I'll take this in mind. It's just that Ranflo was originally made to be just a digital records repository but I figured out that it won't appeal much so I rebranded it…

“Hey, Bidhan here! We cold-called around 300 local dentists in Nepal to sell them websites. During this process, we realized that many of them needed software to manage their patient data. Most of the tools available were either too expensive or too complicated to use. So, over the past month, my team and I have been building a CRM called Mr. Dentist to help local dentists in Nepal manage their clinics more easily. It comes with several features, including: Patient Management Dental Charting Trea”

“That's not a sustainable model for the CRM. It has to run more frequently for more users so it will cost it more to use. Unless you downloaded this to your server, two things will likely happen. That flat fee for a SaaS means that it expects you to limit the use and their profits are based on your lack of use. So eventually... The monthly fees will go up because the current flat fee isn't covering your expenses anymore. or It stops growing as a company and they stop updating the CRM so i”

submitted by /u/EstablishmentNo7913 [link] [comments]

“We work with many repeat customers. Today the customer name is typed as free text in each project, so the same customer ends up spelled slightly differently from project to project (for example "Acme org" vs "ACME" vs "Acme.org"). Any statistics or reporting across projects, such as projects per customer or findings per customer over time, then needs manual cleanup to merge the variants. ( i create a lot of stats using the API for tracking) Proposed solution A customer entity managed centrally,”

“For all in one hub, Jobber or Service titan will seamlessly handle your monthly subscription, tracking, and CRM integration. To solve ur problem, I think pairing the CRM with management tools like Hubstaff or Eyetrack will provide you technicians to observe and check GPS and photo evidence timestamp of each client [re: Software stack for new business]”

“I'm not looking for feedback on our entire app this time. Just one workflow. Call ends. SealMe identifies things like: next step deal stage agreed terms important notes timeline You review the changes. CRM gets updated. I need salespeople to tell me whether this is: A) genuinely useful B) something they'd never trust C) useful but needs a different approval process Free beta access. submitted by /u/gordanxdjuric [link] [comments]”

“Where we are: ClickBook, studio software for photographers and their crews, is live with a 3-day trial. Customers: 0. Product Hunt is planned for later this month. This update is about what we left out. Galleries. Most working photographers already pay for a gallery host like Pixieset or Pic-Time, and those tools are better at it than we'd be. Building our own would also mean storage costs and asking studios to move their galleries on day one. So ClickBook keeps the gallery link on the proje”

“We use Jotform with its Salesforce integration for lead intake, and it’s been fine for normal CRM use. Now we’re getting ready to put Agentforce workflows on top of that lead data, and I’m a little nervous about whether the fields are consistent enough for AI to rely on. Are there any quirks, mapping issues, or things I should check before we build the workflows around it? submitted by /u/darbytatesat636 [link] [comments]”

“I'm in the early stages of building a CRM/lead tool and want to understand real workflows before I write more code. A few things I'm curious about: What do you use now (a CRM, spreadsheets, notes)? What's the most annoying part of your current setup? What do you pay for that you barely use, and what's missing that you'd pay for? Not selling anything. Just trying to build something people actually need. submitted by /u/dantr3_x [link] [comments]”

“We're a small executive search firm that has all full desk recruiters at it who take on BD, Client mgmt, recruitment, candidate mgmt, etc. We use Bullhorn for our CRM/Database but it is a bit cumbersome for our firm and we're growing more and more frustrated with it's functionality - especially it's search function which we have found to really suck without exhaustive coding of profiles. We are considering other platforms and leaning to leaner ones and preferably agentic backed.”

“Still on the fence about Twenty myself, but half the screenshots I've seen look like a snappier Notion clone and I can't decide if that's a good thing or not.”

submitted by /u/Wild_Western_2625 [link] [comments]

“The biggest time-saver is a single next-action queue: every open customer has an owner, a date, and one concrete next step. When a reply arrives, the follow-up disappears; when the date passes, it reappears. That makes the day’s work obvious instead of adding another pile of fields to maintain.”

“follow-up reminders that clear themselves when the customer replies. otherwise someone still has to check the inbox before chasing a person who already answered.”

“Problem I am exploring the MCP extension for analytical use cases, especially analyzing large amounts of CRM data such as: Customer activity history Purchase / opportunity history Lead behavior Communication frequency Customer segmentation Conversion trends Revenue by customer, market, period, campaign, etc. The current MCP features are very useful for retrieving individual records or relatively small result sets. However, for analytical workloads involving thousands or potentially hundreds of t”

“What’s one feature or automation you feel is missing in most tools, or is an absolute must-have to stop wasting workers' time? submitted by /u/Lizox-OS [link] [comments]”

submitted by /u/drpzet [link] [comments]

“Oh, this is excellent. We’re looking for a new CRM for a subsidiary.”

“New SaaS is always best because it hasn’t had time to accumulate bloated features insisted on by mega-clients. I’m old enough to remember when salesforce was new and it was amazing. Now it’s a poster child for shitty bloat but that’s my point.”

“That’s actually an important part I probably didn’t explain well. Building a blueprint shouldn’t take 40 hours. The whole idea is that the platform already provides the building blocks. A creator defines their process, configures the relevant pipelines, fields, workflows, dashboards, agents, etc. and turns that setup into a reusable blueprint. Ideally we’re talking hours, not days. Then every new customer installs it, answers a few questions, and EVORIV adapts the blueprint to their business. So”

“I'm building an AI-first CRM platform for small businesses and I'm considering a creator model before we launch. The idea: Instead of every company starting with a blank CRM, experienced RevOps people, consultants and operators can build reusable "blueprints". A blueprint could eventually include things like: pipelines and stages custom fields and data models forms and quote flows dashboards automations projects / work orders AI agents industry-specific workflows So someone who”

“My team uses Attio because it was "AI-native". i was thoroughly dissapointed. HubSpot seems stuck in 2010. But moving my team off a CRM was too much work. Instead I use withember.ai that lets me keep the CRM I have but actually makes it intelligent. It fully automates my outreach”

“The "CRMs already do this" replies give you a useful test. Can someone who abandoned CRM reminders stick with yours through a full week of calls? I'd ask a few of those people to use their real follow-ups, then watch whether they return the next morning without you prompting them. If logging the calls becomes another chore they avoid, removing deal stages hasn't fixed the problem yet.”

“The useful validation is not whether people agree that CRMs feel heavy. It is whether callers complete more promised follow-ups and will pay to keep that improvement. The criticism about CRM reminders is helpful because it tells you the category is not the differentiation. The daily workflow is. I would recruit five people who make calls every day and watch them use it for two weeks. Measure promised callbacks logged, follow-ups completed on time, conversations recovered, and how often they retu”

“Per job, from the buyer side. Per user punishes you for hiring, and field service teams grow by adding engineers. The risk with per job is a busy month nobody planned for. A cap, or a line like "you'll never pay more than X", would take that fear away On invoicing, I'd lead with "works with the Xero or QuickBooks you already have". "We don't do invoicing" makes me wonder what else is missing”