Why switch
The honest comparison, trade-offs included.
Salesforce is a capable platform. For most mid-sized teams it is also priced for a company ten times their size. Here is the arithmetic, the feature parity, and the two places Salesforce genuinely still wins.
What you're spending
What Salesforce costs you, compounding.
Enterprise list price at $165 per user per month. This is recurring spend — it does not buy you an asset, and it renews for as long as you use the product.
| Team size | Per year | Over 3 years | Over 5 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 users | $19,800 | $59,400 | $99,000 |
| 25 users | $49,500 | $148,500 | $247,500 |
| 40 users | $79,200 | $237,600 | $396,000 |
| 75 users | $148,500 | $445,500 | $742,500 |
| 150 users | $297,000 | $891,000 | $1,485,000 |
These figures exclude add-on products, storage overages, administrator salary, and consulting — which in practice is where most of the real spend hides. A SwitchSave build is quoted once against your actual scope, and after handover your recurring cost to us is zero. You still pay to run the servers — typically $2,000–$5,000 a year billed directly by your cloud provider. Set that against the column on the right and it is roughly a rounding error.
Side by side
Where each one actually wins.
| Salesforce | SwitchSave | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per user, per month, forever | One project fee, then nothing |
| Who owns the software | Salesforce — you hold a license | You do, with the source code |
| Who owns the servers and data | Salesforce hosts it on their infrastructure | Your account, your billing, your control |
| Cost of hiring 10 more people | $19,800 / year | $0 |
| Administrator required | Usually a dedicated hire or retainer | Optional support, scoped to need |
| Document generation + e-sign | Third-party app, priced separately | Built in as part of the project |
| Sandbox / test environment | Limited by edition, extra for full copy | Yours to spin up, no edition limits |
| Data export | Supported, proprietary schema | It is already your database |
| Feature parity with what you use today | The system you already run | Rebuilt 1:1 and verified before cutover |
| Installing prebuilt add-ons | Thousands, ready in an afternoon (AppExchange) | Built to spec instead — no extra subscription |
| Hiring people who know it already | Large talent pool | Training required, but a smaller surface |
| Time to first change request | Ticket, backlog, release window | Direct to the team that built it |
| Ongoing cost after year one | $79,200 / year at 40 seats | $2,000–$5,000 / year hosting, paid to your cloud provider |
| Annual price increases | Historically routine | Nothing to increase |
| If the vendor disappears | Not a realistic concern | You still hold the code and the servers |
Objections
What people push back on.
Is this cheaper because it does less?
No. Everything your team actually works in gets rebuilt and verified against your current system before cutover — the same objects, automation, documents, reports, and permissions. Functional parity is the baseline, not the goal. The cost gap comes from the pricing model: you buy an asset once instead of renting access indefinitely, and you stop paying by headcount for a platform built for companies ten times your size.
What about the AppExchange ecosystem?
Capability is not the issue — what a marketplace app does for you gets built into your system, and it stops being a separate subscription once it is. What you give up is the convenience of installing something in an afternoon. If you lean on several specialized apps, replacing them is scoped work, and we price it honestly during the mapping week rather than discovering it later.
Our data is regulated. Can you handle that?
Depends on the regime, and ownership helps here. Because the system runs in your own infrastructure under your own account, data residency and access control are yours to define rather than a vendor setting you have to accept. We build in encryption at rest and in transit and audit logging as standard. If you need a specific certification we cannot support, we will say so rather than take the contract.
What happens when our Salesforce contract auto-renews?
That is the deadline that matters, so we plan backwards from it. Most Salesforce agreements require written non-renewal notice 30 to 60 days out. Tell us the date early and we will build the schedule around it.
How do we know you will still be here in five years?
It genuinely does not matter, which is the strongest thing about this model. You own the servers, the data, and the source code, with documentation. If we vanished tomorrow your CRM would keep running and any competent developer could pick it up. You are not betting on our longevity — that is the whole point of not renting.
Get the number for your team.
Send your seat count, edition, and renewal date. We'll come back with a real savings figure and a migration schedule.