Replace a CRM built for everybody with one built for your business.
For sales-led and service-led businesses whose real process lives in spreadsheets, inboxes and people's heads because the CRM doesn't fit. We build a CRM around your pipeline stages, account structure, quoting rules and service history, then add AI that handles the data entry. Your team spends its time selling and serving, and leadership gets a pipeline it can rely on.
Signs you need this
If two or more of these sound familiar, there's likely time and money to recover.
Quotes are built in spreadsheets
Pricing rules, discounts and product options live in a workbook only two people understand. Quotes are slow, inconsistent and hard to follow up.
The CRM is a reporting chore
Staff update records after the fact so the Monday report looks right. The pipeline reflects what people remembered to type, not what is actually happening.
Your structure doesn't fit the software
Distributors, parent and child accounts, sites or service agreements are squeezed into fields designed for a simple sales funnel. Workarounds multiply and reports stop adding up.
History leaves with your people
Conversations, promises and pricing history sit in personal inboxes. When an account manager moves on, the relationship knowledge goes with them.
What changes for the business
Consistent, faster quoting
Your price books, margin rules and approval thresholds are built into a quoting module, so a standard quote is assembled from approved data rather than rebuilt each time. Margin stops depending on who happened to build the spreadsheet.
A pipeline you can forecast from
Stages match your real sales process, with entry and exit criteria instead of gut feel. Forecasts and resourcing decisions rest on records that stay current because updating them is easy.
AI does the data entry
Emails, call notes and attachments are read and summarised into the record, with suggested updates to contacts, stages and next steps. Staff confirm with a click instead of typing, so records stay complete.
Next actions, drafted
The CRM proposes a next-best action for each account, such as chasing an open quote or booking a service visit, and drafts the message. A person edits and sends it, so nothing goes out unchecked.
Full account memory
Every quote, order, service visit, complaint and conversation sits on one timeline. New staff get up to speed quickly and customers don't have to repeat themselves.
No per-seat penalty for growth
Adding a salesperson, a service coordinator or a read-only executive doesn't add a licence fee. You can give everyone the access they need instead of rationing seats.
What we build
Data model and account structure
Accounts, contacts, sites, distributors, products and contracts modelled the way your business trades, including parent and child relationships.
Pipelines and stage rules
Separate pipelines for new business, renewals or projects, each with stage criteria, required fields and automatic tasks.
Quoting and proposal module
Price books, options, discounts, margin checks and approval rules that produce branded quotes and track them through to acceptance.
Service and account history
One timeline of orders, jobs, service visits, tickets and communications, linked to the account and the people involved.
AI assistance in the record
Email and call summaries, details extracted from inbound emails and attachments, and drafted follow-ups, each reviewed by a person before it is saved or sent.
Integrations and reporting
Connections to Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, Xero, website forms and job systems, plus dashboards for pipeline, conversion and margin.
Technology we work with
- TypeScript
- Node.js
- PostgreSQL
- Cloudflare
- Microsoft 365 and Outlook
- Google Workspace and Gmail
- Xero
- Stripe
- Anthropic Claude API
- REST APIs and webhooks
How it runs
Timings are indicative and depend on your systems, data and approvals.
Discovery
We sit with sales, service and finance to map how deals are won, quoted and delivered, and what your current CRM and spreadsheets hold. You get a requirements map and a build, buy or improve recommendation.
2 to 3 weeks (indicative)
Design and prototype
The data model, screens and quoting logic are prototyped and tested with the people who will use them every day.
2 to 4 weeks (indicative)
Build
A staged build on our reusable modules, with working releases every one to two weeks and early access for a pilot group.
8 to 14 weeks (indicative)
Migrate and launch
Accounts, contacts, open opportunities and history are cleaned and migrated in rehearsals, then the team is trained by role.
2 to 4 weeks (indicative)
Adopt and improve
We track usage and data completeness, fix friction quickly and add features in planned releases under a care plan.
Ongoing
Worked example
Engineering manufacturer: faster quotes and a CRM built around distributors
An illustrative $25M engineering manufacturer relies on two senior estimators for every quote, keeps distributor relationships in inboxes and spreadsheets, and pays for CRM seats nobody uses. The system captures RFQs in a structured way, uses AI to turn them into quote-ready briefs, prices routine work with encoded rules, and puts accounts, quotes and margin in one CRM connected to the ERP.
- RFQ address, web form and distributor uploads
- AI extraction into a quote-ready brief
- Person checks the brief
- Quoting tool with pricing rules
- Estimator approval where required
- CRM record for the account or distributor
- ERP job, costing and invoice
- Pipeline and margin dashboard
Guardrails, fit and measurement
Guardrails we apply
- AI suggestions are drafts. A person approves every customer-facing message and every change to pricing or financial records, and AI features are designed with reference to the National AI Centre's Guidance for AI Adoption.
- Role-based permissions backed by PostgreSQL row security policies, so each person sees only the accounts and data their role requires.
- Every change is written to an audit log showing who changed what, and when.
- Consent and unsubscribe status live on the contact record and are respected by every system that sends email, because the Spam Act requires unsubscribe requests to be honoured within 5 working days.
- Your customer data stays yours: exportable at any time in open formats and held in accounts in your organisation's name.
Not the right fit if
- Teams with a simple, linear sales process that a well-configured HubSpot or similar product already handles. Improving that setup will cost less.
- Businesses without a senior owner for the CRM. Without a product owner and leaders who use it, any CRM, custom or not, becomes a reporting chore.
- Organisations that need a CRM live within a month. A custom CRM is staged over several months, so a configured product may be the better short-term move.
What we measure
- Median quote turnaround, from request to sent
- Quote-to-order conversion rate and average margin
- Share of open opportunities with a next step and close date
- Time each salesperson spends on CRM data entry per week
- Weekly active users by role
- Software licence spend, before and after
Pricing
Custom CRM work is scoped individually, usually after an Altitude Diagnostic or a fixed-scope discovery, and we don't quote until we understand your process and your data.
Questions, answered.
When does a custom CRM make more sense than Salesforce or HubSpot?
When your commercial model is distinctive (complex quoting, distributor networks, service contracts), when you pay for many seats and add-ons you only partly use, or when the team already works around the CRM. If your process is standard, a well-configured product is usually the better buy. Our build-or-buy CRM guide sets out the licence maths as a formula you can run on your own numbers.
How much does a custom CRM cost, and how is it scoped?
We scope each CRM individually, usually after a Diagnostic or a fixed-scope discovery. The main cost drivers are the number of pipelines and workflows, the complexity of your quoting rules, how many systems it connects to, and the volume and quality of data to migrate. You receive a staged estimate, and the first release is limited to the workflows that return the most value.
Who owns the CRM, the code and the customer data?
Your data is yours outright and can be exported at any time in open formats. The code written for you is yours, and the reusable modules underneath it, such as sign-in, permissions and audit logging, come with a permanent licence for use in your system. Repositories and hosting sit in accounts in your organisation's name.
Can you migrate our data from our current CRM?
Yes. We map every field and relationship, clean out duplicates and dead records, and run rehearsal migrations so you can check the results before cutover. Some things don't migrate cleanly, such as automation logic and certain activity histories, and we tell you which before you commit.
What happens if Altitude Creative is no longer around?
The CRM is documented so another competent developer could support it: architecture, data dictionary, deployment steps and runbooks. The code and hosting are in your accounts and built on mainstream technology (TypeScript, Node.js and PostgreSQL). Source-code escrow can be added to the agreement if you want a further safeguard.
Related services
- Platform replacementThinking of leaving Salesforce, HubSpot or GoHighLevel? Compare 3 to 5 year cost of ownership, then migrate in stages with parallel running and training.
- System integrationsConnect your CRM, Xero, job system and email so nobody re-keys data. APIs, webhooks and sync rules, plus monitoring that alerts you to failures first.
- Reporting & dashboardsOne source of truth for finance, sales, marketing and operations: agreed definitions, automated data pipelines and AI commentary that explains the numbers.
- AI assistants & knowledge systemsRole-specific AI assistants that answer from your own documents, cite the source and respect permissions. Built on Microsoft 365, Google or a custom stack.
Where this matters most
Map your sales process before you replace your CRM
A fixed-scope discovery shows whether to build, buy or improve, and what each would take.
Sources
Third-party facts on this page, checked 14 October 2026.
- PostgreSQL 14 Documentation: Row Security Policies, The PostgreSQL Global Development Group. www.postgresql.org/docs/14/ddl-rowsecurity.html
- Avoid sending spam, Australian Communications and Media Authority. www.acma.gov.au/avoid-sending-spam
- Guidance for AI Adoption, Department of Industry, Science and Resources (National AI Centre). www.industry.gov.au/publications/guidance-ai-adoption