Most business software is priced per user, per month, and that is the number on the pricing page. It is rarely what the first year actually costs.

What “implementation” means

Before software does any work, someone has to set it up for how your company runs, move the records you already have into it, connect it to the systems it needs, and show your people how to use it. On a quote, that work has a name: implementation. Many vendors and their partners bill it separately from the subscription.

What it typically costs

  • Setup and configuration. For a small business, published guides put CRM implementation at roughly one to three times the first year's subscription — commonly $3,000 to $20,000.
  • Moving your data. Typically $1,500 to $10,000 for a small business, and the line most often underestimated. Cleaning the data up first is frequently a separate job.
  • Training. A trainer runs around $1,240 a day, plus travel.
  • ERP systems. Implementation commonly runs one to two times the annual license — for a small business, $25,000 to $75,000.

These are 2026 published estimates from software vendors and implementation partners. Your own quote will differ; treat them as a sense of scale.

The data is where it gets expensive

Records in a clean database move easily. Records on paper, in scanned PDFs, in five versions of the same spreadsheet or in somebody's handwriting do not. That is the part many migrations leave out — and the part that decides whether anyone actually uses the new system.

How to compare quotes

  • Ask what is included: setup, your data, training, and who looks after it afterwards.
  • Ask whether cleaning up your data is included, or only importing what is already clean.
  • Add up the subscription and the implementation over three years, and compare that — not the monthly fee.

How we price it

Our price for a job includes the implementation. We set it up, clean up and load the data you already have, paper included, test it on your own documents, and train your people. There is no separate implementation fee and no per-user fee, and the system and the code are yours.

Before any of that, you see a working demo of the job, built on your own examples. You hear the rough size on the first call, and we agree a fixed price only once you think it's worth it. See how pricing works.