Guide
This guide is for CEOs, sales directors and finance directors in companies choosing their first CRM or looking to replace their current one. We set out 8 assessment criteria, who should be involved in the decision and how to test a system on your own examples. At the end, we compare four popular systems, with prices from the vendors’ price lists.
A CRM, or customer relationship management system, only makes sense if salespeople enter their contacts, sales opportunities and their status into it. If they do not, the company pays for licences and sales forecasts are still produced in Excel. This usually comes down to one of three mistakes made during selection.
Each of the mistakes described below can be avoided at no extra cost. All it takes is changing the order of the steps and who makes the decision.
Score each criterion on a scale of 1–5 for two to four shortlisted systems. Agree the weightings before scoring: for a company with a long sales cycle, process fit will matter more; for a company with a large field sales team, the mobile app will.
The total score helps structure the discussion, but it does not replace it. If a system wins on points but the salespeople do not want it, treat that as a warning sign.
A small selection team works best, with each person responsible for a different perspective. In a mid-sized company, 4–6 people are enough. More important than the number is that the people at the table are the ones who will use the system.
The management board makes the final decision, but on the basis of the team’s recommendation. If the board chooses differently from what the salespeople recommended, it should explain why; otherwise it is hard to expect their commitment to the rollout.
Choosing a CRM in a mid-sized company usually takes one to two months. A shorter process most often means someone skipped testing with salespeople; a longer one, that nobody is leading it. You can run the steps below yourself or with the help of an adviser.
The second step is the most important. Prepare 5–6 scenarios from your company’s everyday work and ask each vendor to demonstrate them in their system. For example: “a salesperson returns from a meeting, adds a note from their phone, creates a task for the technical department and updates the value of the opportunity”.
The best CRM is not the one with the best demo, but the one your salespeople will still be entering data into at 4 pm on a Friday.
Licences are the only cost you will find on a price list. The table below shows what the licences alone would cost for 15 salespeople over three years, based on list prices with annual payment. We chose mid-range plans that include automations and sales reports.
The plans differ in features, so the table does not tell you which system is cheaper in your case. It shows the scale: over three years, the same team could pay anything from just over ten thousand to several tens of thousands of dollars or euros for licences.
On top of the licences, add five items: configuring the system for your process, connections to email, ERP and accounting, migrating data from your current spreadsheets or system, training, and maintenance and development after launch. Then there is the time of your own people, who take part in the implementation at the expense of selling.
| System and plan | Price per seat per month | Calculation | Licences over 3 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| monday CRM Pro | EUR 28 | 15 × EUR 28 × 36 months | EUR 15,120 |
| Pipedrive Growth | about USD 39 | 15 × USD 39 × 36 months | about USD 21,060 |
| Dynamics 365 Sales Professional | USD 65 | 15 × USD 65 × 36 months | USD 35,100 |
| HubSpot Sales Hub Professional | USD 90 + USD 1,500 one-off | 15 × USD 90 × 36 months + USD 1,500 | USD 50,100 |
Mid-sized companies in Poland most often compare monday CRM, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, HubSpot Sales Hub and Pipedrive. Each has a different idea of what a CRM is. No system is best for everyone; each is simply a better or worse fit for your company.
All four vendors are developing AI features, such as call summaries, next-step suggestions and forecasts. What they include and how they are charged change often. Check the current price list to see what is included in your chosen plan and what costs extra – monday CRM, for example, offers separate plan variants with AI credits.
| Feature | monday CRM | Dynamics 365 Sales | HubSpot Sales Hub | Pipedrive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strength | Flexible configuration without coding | Connection to Outlook, Teams, Power BI and Power Automate | Sales and marketing in one system | Simplicity and a quick start |
| Weakness | Without good configuration, it is just an empty board | Needs an implementation partner and a longer rollout | Higher prices for the Professional and Enterprise plans, plus an onboarding fee | Less extensive reports and automations |
| A good fit when | The process is unusual and changes often | The company works in Microsoft 365 and needs extensive reporting | Many enquiries come in through the website and campaigns | A small sales team has a simple, short process |
| Implementation time (relative) | Medium | Longest | Medium | Shortest |
The descriptions below are a starting point for a shortlist, not a ready-made decision. Take a hypothetical distribution company with 120 employees, 15 salespeople, email in Outlook and an ERP from a Polish vendor. Such a company should compare at least Dynamics 365 Sales and monday CRM, and decide on the basis of testing with its salespeople.
Watch out for a trap with HubSpot. Sales Hub on its own is priced per seat, but if you add Marketing Hub for campaigns, its price also depends on the number of marketing contacts in your database.
Even a well-chosen system can be badly implemented. The mistakes below happen after the contract is signed, but it is worth knowing about them before you decide, because they affect the plan and the budget.
Related topics in the knowledge base
FAQ
Questions that usually come up after the first vendor demos.
About this page
About the author
Kacper Włodarczyk
CEO of ALGORCOMP
Kacper specializes in implementing Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, Power Platform (Power Automate, Power Apps, SharePoint) and AI agents for mid-sized B2B companies in Poland. He leads dozens of projects covering AI strategy, Power Platform governance, document workflow automation and sales processes. In his writing he focuses on the practical side of AI adoption in organizations — from the first proof of concept to company-wide rollout — with particular attention to data security, compliance (GDPR, NIS2, the AI Act) and return on investment.
Meet the teamIn a free consultation, we will help you describe your sales process, prepare scenarios for the demos and assess the shortlisted systems. We will prepare a detailed quote for our support after that conversation.
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Author: Kacper Włodarczyk, CEO of ALGORCOMP