CRM and sales decision
Pipedrive
A small team can build a narrow CRM covering pipelines, contacts, imports, automations and basic reports, but reproducing Pipedrive’s integrations, AI features, polished mobile apps, scale, and enterprise security is not realistic for a DIY replacement.
Visit website↗$14/mo
$168/yr
Per seat. Read off the official pricing page.
$100one-off80 h to build
$0/mo8 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 Pipedrive alternatives, with the arithmetic →
What a replacement has to do
- Store contacts and deals, visualize deals in a pipeline/kanban, record activities, run simple automations (e.g. assign lead on create, send templated email), and produce basic sales reports.
What it still won’t have
- 500+ marketplace integrations and app ecosystem
- Built-in AI features and AI Sales Assistant
- Enterprise-grade SOC 2, hosted scale (Rackspace/AWS) and hardened security defaults
- Mobile apps and polished UX across platforms
- Vendor support, uptime guarantees, and sandbox/testing accounts
What remains hard
- Product polish and ongoing maintenance
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 minimal self-hosted sales CRM using: Postgres, FastAPI (Python) backend, React + TypeScript frontend, Redis for background jobs, and Docker. In scope: REST API for Contacts/Organizations/Deals/Activities/Users; Postgres schema and migrations; Kanban pipeline UI with drag-and-drop; CSV import with field mapping and background worker; simple rule engine to trigger actions (assign owner, send templated email via SendGrid SMTP/API); basic Insights page (counts by stage, conversion funnel); authentication (JWT) and role-based access. Out of scope: mobile native apps, a 500+ app marketplace, advanced AI features, SOC2 compliance. Include logging, input validation, error handling, a test suite (unit tests for API and integration tests for import and automation), and Docker Compose to run the stack locally.
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
- Evidence score67
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 productPipedrive home
- official pricingPipedrive Pricing
- official docsPipedrive Product Updates
- open sourcefrappe/crm
- open sourcekrayin/laravel-crm
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.
