CRM and sales decision
aerie
A capable developer can build a focused AI-assisted CRM workflow (lead import → AI enrichment → outreach) in about a week, but reproducing the full SaaS (integrations, polish, support, and scale) is more work; use open-source CRMs as starting points.
Visit website↗Not priced
No pricing page we fetched carried a figure, so there is nothing to compare against. The build side is still real.
$100one-off40 h to build
$50/mo3 h/mo upkeep
No published price to break even against.
Open-source builds that already do this
Every project below is open source and already does this job today. Fork one, self-host it, or take the parts you need - the build prompt further down assumes an empty file, and this is the shortcut past that. Licences differ; check the one on each card before you ship. All aerie alternatives, with the arithmetic →
What a replacement has to do
- Import leads, enrich with LLM-driven insights, store leads, send outreach via email/SMS provider, and view basic pipeline dashboard.
What it still won’t have
- polished UX and product polish
- enterprise integrations and connectors
- vendor-hosted uptime SLAs and support
- any proprietary training data or models the vendor may use
What remains hard
- Product polish and ongoing maintenance
First-year cost
No published price
aerie does not publish a price we could read, so there is nothing to compare against. What building costs is below.
Money you would actually spend
Time you would spend
—
What you would spend
What we assumed
The verdict above measures whether you could build it. This one is only about money.
Runnable build prompt
Build a minimal AI-assisted GTM CRM using Node.js (Express) + Postgres + React. Core features in scope: CSV lead import and validation; REST API to CRUD leads and pipeline stages; background job to call an external LLM for per-lead summary and outreach copy; integration to SendGrid (or SMTP) to send templated emails; a React dashboard to view leads, AI insights, and send actions. Out of scope: enterprise SSO, billing, multi-tenant billing, and advanced analytics. Include error handling, retries for provider calls, input validation, tests for API endpoints, and a README with deployment steps (Docker + managed Postgres).
How we checked
How the score was reached
- Partly verdict base52
- An open-source build was found+5
- 3 cited sources+3
- Evidence score60
The base comes from the verdict. Everything under it is a check that either happened or did not, and each one is a fact frozen in this record rather than a judgement made at render time - so the same evidence always produces the same number.
How scoring works →Cited sources · 3
Every page the run actually retrieved.
- official productaerie | AI-native GTM engineering for revenue teams
- open sourcekrayin/laravel-crm
- open sourceArnasDon/wacrm
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.
