CRM and sales decision
Dubsado
A competent developer can build a useful subset (client CRM + invoices + scheduling + basic workflows) in a few months, but reproducing Dubsado's scale, payments infrastructure, polished apps, and support ecosystem is costly—keep paying for the full product if you need those at-scale features.
Visit website↗$27.92/mo
$335/yr
Per seat. Read off the official pricing page.
$100one-off80 h to build
$0/mo12 h/mo upkeep
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 1 seat.
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 Dubsado alternatives, with the arithmetic →
What a replacement has to do
- Manage clients and projects, send branded invoices (Stripe/Pay provider), collect signed contracts/forms, schedule appointments with calendar sync, and automate simple workflows (triggered emails and task creation).
What it still won’t have
- Mobile apps and polished UX (apps and cross-platform polish)
- Large-scale payments & instant-payout infrastructure and risk handling
- Proprietary integrations and bookkeeping connectors
- World-class customer care and onboarding resources
- Established brand trust and marketplace of certified specialists
What remains hard
- Brand trust
Trusted by 120,000+ creatives over the last 10 years
- Infrastructure at scale
$4+ billion In payments processed
First-year cost
Keep paying
Paying is—cheaper in year one.
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 1 seat.
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 self-hosted client management MVP using PostgreSQL, a Node.js + Express backend, and a React frontend. Implement: (1) user auth and single-brand account; (2) client/contact and project CRUD with dashboard and project status; (3) invoice creation and Stripe payment integration including webhooks and basic reporting; (4) a form/contract builder that stores filled forms and captures e-signature (PDF export); (5) booking flow with Google Calendar OAuth sync; (6) a rule-based workflow runner to send templated emails and create tasks. Out of scope: multi-brand billing, mobile apps, advanced bookkeeping integrations, PCI-level managed payouts. Include error handling, input validation, tests for core APIs, and Docker compose for local dev and deployment.
How we checked
How the score was reached
- Partly verdict base52
- An open-source build was found+5
- 5 cited sources+3
- Price verified on pricing page+3
- 3/3 assessment runs agreed+4
- Hard moats found in the evidence-3
- Evidence score64
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 · 5
Every page the run actually retrieved.
- official productDubsado — product
- official pricingDubsado — pricing
- official productDubsado — feature overview
- open sourceoroinc/crm-application
- open sourceDolibarr/dolibarr
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.
