I had coffee last week with a mate who runs a trades business. Fifteen employees, solid revenue, growing nicely. He’d just signed a Salesforce contract. The yearly cost? More than his receptionist’s salary.

“The demo looked incredible,” he said. “All those dashboards and automations.”

Six months later, his team uses about 4% of the features. They still track half their leads in a spreadsheet because the CRM felt “too complicated.”

This happens constantly. And it’s not your fault.

The Enterprise Sales Machine

Enterprise software companies have a problem: they’ve saturated the big end of town. Every major bank, telco, and retailer already uses their products. So where do they find growth? They look down the food chain.

That means you.

The pitch is always the same. “You’ll grow into it.” “Better to have capacity than need it later.” “The per-user cost is actually lower at this tier.”

None of that matters if your team won’t use the thing.

What 20-Person Companies Actually Need

Let me be blunt about what most SMBs need from a CRM:

• Contact management that’s searchable
• Basic pipeline tracking
• Email integration
• Maybe some simple reporting

That’s it. You don’t need AI-powered lead scoring. You don’t need multi-touch attribution models. You don’t need integration with enterprise systems you’ll never buy.

HubSpot’s free tier does everything on that list. So does Pipedrive at $15 per user. Freshsales, Zoho CRM, even a well-structured Notion database.

The Hidden Costs Nobody Mentions

When vendors quote you a per-seat price, that’s the start of the spending, not the end.

Implementation: Enterprise CRMs need configuration. That means consultants. At $200-400 per hour, a “simple” setup runs $10,000-30,000 easily.

Training: Your team needs to learn the system. That’s either paid training or lost productivity while they figure it out.

Customization: Want that workflow to work the way your business actually operates? That’s more consulting hours.

Integration: Connecting to your other tools often requires middleware or custom development.

Ongoing maintenance: Someone needs to manage users, update fields, fix broken automations.

A $50/user/month CRM becomes $200/user/month when you factor in the real costs.

Right-Sizing Your CRM Decision

Here’s my framework for picking the right tool:

Under 10 employees: Use a free or very cheap tool. HubSpot Free, Notion, or even a well-organized spreadsheet. You don’t have enough complexity to justify anything more.

10-30 employees: Mid-market tools shine here. Pipedrive, Copper, Freshsales, or HubSpot Starter. Easy to set up, easy to use, adequate reporting.

30-100 employees: Now you might need something more. But even here, think carefully. Salesforce Essentials or HubSpot Professional, maybe. Not Enterprise.

100+ employees: Only now should you genuinely consider enterprise platforms. And even then, question whether you need every module.

The “We’ll Grow Into It” Trap

This is the most dangerous justification I hear. “We’re growing fast. Better to have the right platform now than migrate later.”

Here’s the reality: migration is never as painful as vendors claim. Modern tools have import/export features. Data transfers in hours, not months. Yes, you’ll lose some historical metadata. That metadata wasn’t doing anything useful anyway.

Meanwhile, you’ve paid enterprise prices for years while using 5% of the features. That money could’ve funded another salesperson. Or marketing. Or product development.

What Right-Sizing Actually Looks Like

I worked with a 35-person professional services firm last year. They were evaluating Dynamics 365 vs their current spreadsheet chaos. The Dynamics quote came in at $40,000 first-year cost (including implementation).

We mapped their actual requirements. Deal tracking, client communication history, simple reporting, calendar integration.

They went with Pipedrive at $59/user/month. Total first-year cost: $8,100. Setup took a weekend. Their team was fully productive in two weeks.

The money they saved? They hired a business development person.

Questions to Ask Before Signing

Before you commit to any platform, especially an enterprise one, ask yourself:

1. What specific problems am I solving?
2. What’s the simplest tool that solves those problems?
3. What features in this quote will my team actually use?
4. What’s the total cost including implementation and training?
5. What happens if we outgrow this in three years?

The answer to number five is usually “we migrate.” That’s fine. Migration is manageable. Overpaying for three years isn’t.

The Vendor Relationship Reality

Enterprise software vendors have quotas. Their salespeople earn commission on deal size. They’re not incentivized to sell you the smallest adequate solution.

This isn’t evil, it’s just business. But it means you need to be your own advocate. Push back on features you don’t need. Ask for proof that similar-sized companies use those capabilities. Request references from businesses your size, not their largest customers.

Making the Call

Look at your team honestly. How tech-savvy are they? How much change can they absorb? What’s your actual budget, not the number you think sounds professional?

Then pick the tool that fits today, with maybe 20% room for growth. Not 200% room. Not “just in case” capacity.

Your business needs cash for the things that actually make money: people, marketing, product. Not software features nobody uses.

The right size isn’t the biggest. It’s the one that works.