The open source Salesforce alternative

Why do teams look for a Salesforce alternative?

Teams look for a Salesforce alternative when the cost of running it outgrows the value. Salesforce charges per user. Many useful features are paid add-ons. Most firms also need an admin or a consultant to keep it in shape. For a small or mid-sized team, that adds up fast.

Salesforce is the default CRM for large firms, and for good reason. It is flexible, it scales to huge teams, and it has a vast app store. The same things make it heavy for smaller teams:

• Per-user prices that climb with each edition.
• Add-ons for AI, sales insights and marketing.
• Admin time. Fields, flows and reports need someone to own them.
• Lock-in. Custom work built on Salesforce is hard to move.

Then there is your data. A CRM holds personal data about every lead and client. Under the GDPR, fines can reach 4% of yearly global turnover, so where that data lives matters. With an open source CRM, you can keep it on your own servers.

How much does Salesforce cost?

Salesforce Sales Cloud costs $25 (Starter Suite), $100 (Pro Suite), $195 (Core), $395 (Advanced) or $550 (Max) per user per month, according to the Salesforce pricing page. Pro Suite and up are billed yearly. We compared every edition on 26 September 2026.

Add-ons cost more. The AI add-on, Agentforce for Sales, starts at $125 per user per month on Pro Suite, Core and Advanced. Revenue Intelligence starts at $220 per user per month. So a team of ten on Pro Suite pays $1,000 a month, or $12,000 a year, before any add-on.

MagpieCRM has no per-user fees. On Magpie Cloud you pay a flat plan, then £0.009 per prospect found, £0.002 per verified email and £0.15 per 1,000 emails. Each plan includes £10 of usage:

• 500 prospects found, 500 verified email reveals and 10,000 emails sent a month comes to £10.00 on Magpie Cloud, for the whole team.
• 1,000 prospects found, 1,000 verified email reveals and 50,000 emails sent a month comes to £18.50 on Magpie Cloud, for the whole team.

You can also self-host MagpieCRM for free. Then you pay only for your own server.

MagpieCRM vs Salesforce: feature comparison

We built MagpieCRM to give small and mid-sized teams most of what they use in Salesforce. The table puts the two side by side. Salesforce details come from the Salesforce pricing page.

The main difference is weight. Salesforce can do almost anything, if you pay for it and build it. MagpieCRM does the common jobs out of the box: track deals, find leads, send email and report on it all. Everything sits in one Postgres database that you own.

What do Salesforce users get with MagpieCRM?

Salesforce users get a flexible CRM without the licence bill or the admin load. MagpieCRM keeps the parts most teams use every day, and adds the tools they often buy on the side. You can set it up in an afternoon.

• A flexible data model. Add custom fields and objects to accounts, contacts and deals. No admin course needed.
• Reports without a consultant. Get dashboards, weighted forecasts, win rates and cycle times. Schedule reports by email.
• Direct access to your data. It is your Postgres database. Write SQL, or give your BI tool read-only access.
• Sales and marketing in one place. Prospecting, sequences and campaigns share the same records.
• No lock-in. The code is open, and every record exports in open formats.

Where is Salesforce stronger than MagpieCRM?

Salesforce is stronger for large, complex firms. It has thousands of apps in its AppExchange store, deep rules for who can see what, quoting tools, and a big pool of certified admins to hire. Few CRMs match it at that scale.

Salesforce may be the better fit if:

• You have thousands of users across many regions and teams.
• You rely on complex approval steps or strict audit rules.
• You have years of custom work and integrations built on Salesforce.

MagpieCRM is aimed at teams that want most of that power without the bill and the overhead. If you are not sure, move one team first. Then compare the two for a full sales cycle.

How do you migrate from Salesforce to MagpieCRM?

You migrate from Salesforce by exporting your records to CSV, then importing them into MagpieCRM. Salesforce has a built-in Data Export service for this. Plan the custom objects first, then move the data, then rebuild your key reports.

1. Use the Salesforce Data Export service to export accounts, contacts, deals, notes and tasks.
2. Set up the custom objects and fields you rely on in MagpieCRM.
3. Import each CSV with the import wizard, and map each Salesforce field to a MagpieCRM field.
4. Rebuild your pipelines and key reports.
5. Run both systems side by side for one sales cycle, then switch over.

Moving personal data between systems is a good time to review how you handle it. The UK government's data protection guide is a clear place to start.