A Custom CRM That Cost Less to Build Than One Year of Salesforce
How a property developer replaced an expensive, rigid off-the-shelf CRM with a tailored Odoo platform built once, owned outright, and shaped around how their team actually works.
Technology
Odoo
Industry
Real Estate
Country
Australia
About the Client
A Melbourne-based diversified investment group, working through its property development and management arm. The group operates across Australia and internationally, with a lean in-house team managing a high volume of enquiries, leads, and ongoing client relationships across its real-estate portfolio.
Team on the platform: 20 users across sales and client-facing operations.
The Challenge
The property arm ran its sales and customer relationships on Salesforce. On paper it did the job but in practice the platform was working against the team, not for it:
- Escalating licence fees – the recurring subscription cost climbed every year, with no end in sight.
- Pay-to-change – every new field, workflow, or report meant a billable customisation — small changes carried real cost and delay.
- Rigidity – the team had to bend their processes to fit the platform, rather than the platform adapting to how they actually work.
- No ownership – years of fees bought access, never an asset they owned.
In short: a system they rented indefinitely, paid more for each year, and still couldn’t fully shape to their needs.
Our Approach
Jaarvis designed and delivered a custom CRM built on Odoo an open-source foundation that removes per-seat licensing entirely. Rather than forcing the team into a fixed product, we modelled the CRM around their real sales and enquiry workflows.
- Built to fit – a tailored platform covering contacts, leads, enquiries, and the sales pipeline — structured the way the team works.
- One-time cost – one defined build, no perpetual licence meter. Future changes are configuration, not premium change-requests.
- Owned asset – an open, extensible foundation the client owns and can grow, with no vendor lock-in.
The AI Layer – A New Capability
Beyond replacing what Salesforce did, the new CRM added something the team didn’t have before: an integrated AI layer that automatically summarises incoming enquiries and surfaces one or two genuinely useful, context-aware points for the sales team to act on.
The result is faster triage and a more responsive sales motion staff spend less time reading and sorting enquiries, and more time on the conversations that convert.
Results and Impact
- Built for 60% of one year’s licensing – delivered the entire custom platform for roughly 60% of what the client previously paid in a single year of Salesforce subscription fees.
- Near-zero ongoing cost – with no recurring licence and no per-feature fees, the build pays for itself in months and keeps saving after.
- Faster workflows – a CRM shaped around the team’s process means quicker day-to-day flows and less friction.
- New capability – AI-assisted enquiry summaries give the team a capability their previous system never offered.
- Live in 5 months – delivered end-to-end in 5 months for 20 users.
Paying to rent a system that doesn’t fit?
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