A client called me last month excited about switching CRMs. “The new platform is $200/month cheaper! That’s $2,400 a year!”

Three months later, after factoring in migration costs, lost productivity, and retraining, they’d spent about $15,000 making the switch.

It took them 18 months to break even on the savings.

Why We Underestimate Switching Costs

Software vendors quote subscription prices. That’s the number we compare. “Platform A costs $50/user, Platform B costs $30/user.”

But subscription price is maybe 30% of what you’ll actually spend. The other 70% is hidden in places nobody talks about during the sales process.

The Complete Cost Picture

Data Migration

Moving your data from one system to another sounds simple. It almost never is.

Export difficulties: Getting your data out of the old system requires technical work. Some platforms make this easy. Others are deliberately awkward (they don’t want you to leave).

Data cleanup: The migration is an excellent time to realize your old data is messy. Duplicate contacts. Incomplete records. Outdated information. Someone has to clean this up.

Import mapping: Fields don’t match perfectly between systems. Someone has to decide where everything goes.

Lost data: Some things don’t transfer. Custom fields, attachment links, historical metadata. You’ll lose something.

Real cost: $2,000-20,000 depending on complexity. Often requires technical help.

Integration Reconfiguration

Your software doesn’t exist alone. It connects to other tools.

Every integration needs to be rebuilt:

• The connection between your CRM and email marketing
• The link from your website forms to your database
• The sync with your accounting software
• Zapier automations and workflows

Each integration is hours of work to recreate and test.

Real cost: $500-5,000 depending on how connected your current system is.

Training and Adoption

Your team knows the old system. They don’t know the new one.

Formal training: Someone needs to learn the new platform deeply enough to teach others. Then everyone needs training sessions.

Learning curve: Even after training, people are slower in a new system. Expect 20-40% productivity loss for 4-8 weeks.

Resistance: Some people won’t want to change. Managing that takes time and energy.

New mistakes: New system means new error patterns. Issues that never happened before will happen.

Real cost: Training is maybe $1,000-5,000. Lost productivity is harder to quantify but often larger.

Parallel Running

You can’t just switch off the old system on Friday and start the new one on Monday. There’s a transition period.

During parallel running:

• You’re paying for both systems
• Staff might enter data in both places
• Nothing quite matches between them
• Someone is constantly reconciling differences

Real cost: Double subscription costs for 1-3 months, plus reconciliation time.

Opportunity Cost

While everyone is focused on the migration, they’re not focused on their actual jobs.

• Sales people learning new CRM instead of selling
• Marketing people rebuilding automations instead of running campaigns
• Operations people troubleshooting instead of operating

Real cost: Hard to measure, easy to underestimate.

A Realistic Migration Budget

For a 30-person company switching CRM:

Item	Low Estimate	High Estimate
Data migration (internal time)	$2,000	$8,000
External migration help	$0	$5,000
Integration rebuilding	$1,000	$4,000
Training (time + materials)	$1,500	$5,000
Lost productivity (6 weeks)	$5,000	$15,000
Parallel running costs	$500	$2,000
Unexpected issues	$2,000	$5,000
Total	$12,000	$44,000

And that’s just for CRM. Enterprise systems like ERP are dramatically more expensive to switch.

When Switching Still Makes Sense

Despite these costs, switching is sometimes the right call.

The current system is genuinely broken. If your current platform can’t do something business-critical, the cost of not switching is higher.

You’re being forced to switch. Vendor going out of business, prices increasing dramatically, platform being discontinued.

The pain is ongoing. If the current system costs you time and frustration every single day, those costs compound. Sometimes it’s worth the short-term pain.

You’re small enough to move quickly. A 5-person company can switch tools in a weekend. The calculus is different than a 50-person company with years of data.

When to Stay

Often the answer is to stay put and optimize what you have.

The new tool is slightly better. “Slightly” doesn’t justify switching costs.

You haven’t fully used your current tool. Many frustrations come from not knowing the platform, not from the platform itself. Training on current tools is cheaper than switching.

Your pain is feature-specific. Sometimes you can add a point solution rather than replace the whole platform.

You’re switching for switching’s sake. “We’ve had this for three years, time for something new” is not a good reason.

The Right Questions

Before committing to a switch, ask:

1. What specifically can we not do with our current tool?
2. Have we fully explored workarounds or add-ons?
3. What’s the realistic total cost of switching?
4. How long until we break even on savings?
5. What’s our risk if the migration goes badly?
6. Do we have the internal capacity to manage this transition?

If the break-even is longer than two years, be very skeptical.

Making the Decision

Calculate the true switching cost. Compare it to true staying cost (including ongoing frustration and workarounds).

If switching cost is $20,000 and annual savings is $5,000, you need four years to break even. That’s probably not worth it.

If switching cost is $20,000 and you’re saving $20,000/year in productivity, that’s a different story.

Do the math. Be honest about all the costs. Then decide.

Reducing Switching Costs

If you do decide to switch:

Plan extensively. Document everything about your current system. Map data fields. List integrations. The more you plan, the fewer surprises.

Clean data before migrating. Don’t move garbage to a new home.

Phase the migration. Start with a subset of users or one department. Learn lessons before rolling out broadly.

Keep the old system accessible. Historical data and reference access will be needed.

Budget for overruns. Whatever you estimate, add 50%.

The Bottom Line

Switching software is like moving house. The new place might be better, but the move itself is exhausting and expensive.

Sometimes you should move. Often you should stay put and make your current place work better.

Either way, make the decision with clear eyes about what switching actually costs.