You know how ‘they’ say nobody got fired for buying IBM? Well, if/when a CRM project turns into a tunnel project, nobody would get fired for choosing well-established solutions such as Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics, right?
Well, I think this mindset is already a mistake.
I don’t want anyone to get in trouble, but what if Salesforce or MS Dynamics were actually the wrong picks to begin with?
I talk to a lot of executives about CRMs each month. From those discussions, I gather that too many assume that going with an enterprise-standard CRM is the safe choice for their organization.
It’s not.
The very same people often find themselves dealing with projects that run over budget, take too long to implement, require specialists to maintain, and end up being tools that employees hate using.
The truth about CRM’s total cost of ownership (TCO) is this: The hidden costs that don't show up in price quotes will have a significant impact on what you'll actually pay over time.
With total cost of ownership I mean a combination of:
Software subscription costs
Cost of implementation
Cost of maintenance and support
Gained efficiency benefits
Ability to use your CRM
I like to say that choosing a CRM is a lot like shopping for pants (it will make sense in a minute).
In the fitting room, everything looks promising: the perfect fit, the right style, all the features you want. But the real experience comes once you take them home and live with them:
how they feel after a full day of wear,
how they hold up to washing,
whether they work with the rest of your wardrobe.
etc.
Let's stitch together what living with your CRM choice really means for your IT budget.
Extended deployments create a triple threat.
IT teams get pulled away from innovation to manage integration headaches.
Sales teams struggle to stay productive while switching between legacy systems and incomplete new ones.
The execs make critical decisions based on fragmented information.
Every month where your CRM isn’t fully operational leaves your revenue engines running in second gear, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the best course of action: go for a platform that is up and running sooner rather than later.
Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics can take quarters to over a year due to extensive configuration needs.
For transparency, I’m not pulling this out of my hat. To quote a Microsoft Partner: The time required for CRM implementation can range from: 1-3 months for small businesses, 3-6 months for medium businesses, and 6-12 months for large businesses. And to quote a Salesforce partner, implementation time can average about 6 months, in the best case scenario.
HubSpot, on the other hand, is typically up and running in between 90 to 120 days, even for complex and large companies.
Complicated systems always call for specialized skills, which pushes organizations to a crossroads.
Either turn to external consultants or use internal resources. This decision overlooks the deeper issue – the ongoing cost of specialist dependency itself.
If a system is too arduous for business users to make even minor changes, they become overly dependent on IT.
Sales teams wait for new fields or workflow updates, while marketing campaigns stall due to delays in automation adjustments.
These bottlenecks will eventually choke your organization when the time suddenly comes to react to market changes.
Even relying on your in-house IT introduces another strategic issue: Every hour your tech heroes spend maintaining complex CRM systems is an hour lost from innovation.
Ultimately, the complexity of the CRM itself is what creates and perpetuates the problem. And so, the real question over specialist dependency is: How much access and control are you willing to grant outside your organization?
Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics typically require external consultants and specialized administrators to handle setups, integrations, and ongoing system maintenance.
HubSpot, in contrast, allows sales, marketing, and customer success teams to manage workflows, reports, and integrations independently, without needing advanced technical skills.
Behind every underperforming CRM system lies a core issue: human beings avoid difficult experiences.
Are your sales reps skipping essential data entry?
Does the marketing team retreat to spreadsheets?
Is the customer service team using inconsistent practices?
These are all predictable reactions to tools that demand too much and deliver too little.
When CRM adoption stalls, companies often pour more time and money into training, incentives, and process enforcement, often just to achieve a basic level of use.
Meanwhile, the cost of incomplete data, process inefficiencies, and poor decision-making piles up. The CRM ends up looking functional on paper but operates at a fraction of its potential, driving up costs while delivering minimal value.
Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics, while feature-rich, may present steeper learning curves, potentially hindering user adoption.
HubSpot is recognized for its intuitive interface, which can lead to higher user adoption rates and reduced training requirements. It also offers unlimited free viewer licenses and includes 24/7 support in standard licensing.
Yes, switching to Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics feels like a safe bet because they are household names in enterprise technology.
However, real security comes from a CRM that aligns with your team’s capabilities, scales without hidden costs, and delivers value as quickly as possible.
Of course, we at Advance B2B are HubSpot partners, and so one should obviously expect a certain level of bias coming from our views. And you’d be right.
But if you can question my views, you can’t question the facts:
Time-to-value significantly differentiates HubSpot from its enterprise competitors. As stated above, while Salesforce and Dynamics implementations can stretch across quarters, HubSpot deployments can be achieved within a few months. This accelerated timeline reduces implementation costs and means teams capture value months earlier.
Ease of maintenance is a second clear advantage in favor of HubSpot. Organizations using HubSpot require fewer admins, spend less on implementation partners, and free in-house developers for driving growth.
Now, of course, and despite all the above warnings, solutions like Salesforce or MS Dynamics will still be the best option for businesses needing extreme customization.
But those cases aren’t plentiful.
Last piece of advice?
Before committing to a platform, run the numbers beyond the licensing costs using our HubSpot business case calculator. It helps you compare your current system against HubSpot by factoring in time savings, admin costs, scalability, and potential revenue impact.
The smartest choice is the one that feels tailored to your business and budget from day one.