CRM & ERP systems
CRMs & ERPs - built around your business.
Every established business already has a system of record. Usually it is a CRM that nearly fits, a spreadsheet nobody will admit owning, and one person who knows where everything really is.
Werehouse Media builds bespoke CRM and ERP systems for UK businesses, as an independent studio based in Sussex. A bespoke CRM is a system built around how one business actually works: its own records, its own processes, its own stages and its own language for all of it. An ERP is the same thing, with a wider scope. Joining the operational side of the business as well. So stock, orders, purchasing, production and fulfilment sit in one place rather than in four tools that each know a quarter of the story. Work starts with a paid process audit at £495, which establishes what should be built and, just as often, what should not. The audit is credited in full against any build over £2,000. Systems start from £4,500 for a build with its own data model and interface, against a UK agency floor that typically starts nearer £15,000, and reach five figures for multi-module, multi-site or regulated work. Every price is fixed in writing before work starts. The system runs on accounts you own, the data is yours and exportable at any time, and the code and documentation are handed over at the end, so nothing is locked to the people who built it.
The difference
CRM, ERP, or the thing that sits between them.
The two words get used loosely, and the distinction matters because it decides what the build costs. A CRM holds the people and the work: enquiries, quotes, jobs, renewals, whatever your pipeline is actually called. An ERP holds the operation: stock, purchase orders, production, despatch, and the numbers that fall out of them. Most businesses that come to us need a strong CRM and two or three ERP-shaped pieces bolted to it, not a full ERP. Saying so early is usually what keeps a project in four figures.
A CRM, when the work is the bottleneck
Enquiries arriving faster than anyone can chase them, quotes going cold because nobody knows which ones are still live, jobs tracked in a WhatsApp thread. The fix is a system that models your stages, not a generic sales pipeline borrowed from software sold to sales teams.
An ERP, when the stock is the bottleneck
Orders, stock and purchasing living in separate places, so the shop sells something the warehouse does not have, and reconciling it is somebody's Monday. The fix joins the operational records so one movement updates everything that depends on it.
Usually, one of each
A CRM with the two or three operational pieces the business genuinely runs on. That is the shape most of these builds take, and it is the reason the price band is as wide as it is: what you need decided honestly is cheaper than what a category name implies.
The honest answer first
Often you should buy the product instead.
There is a good deal of software in the world and some of it is excellent. If an off-the-shelf CRM covers what you need at £40 a seat, building one is a bad use of your money and we will say so in the audit rather than after it. The audit is paid precisely so that answer is available: it costs us the same to reach either conclusion, so there is nothing riding on which one we reach.
Buy it, if your process is ordinary
A pipeline that looks like everyone else's pipeline is well served by a product that has had ten years and a hundred engineers spent on it. We will set it up and integrate it, and that is a smaller invoice than a build.
Build it, if the process is the business
When the way you work is the reason clients choose you, bending it to fit a product costs you the thing you are actually selling. That is the case worth building for, and it is the one where seat licences stop being the cheaper option somewhere around the fifth user.
Build it, if you are paying for four tools that do not speak
At some headcount the licence stack plus the retyping between them costs more per year than a system that does the job once. We will do that arithmetic with you in the audit, with your real numbers.
Prices
Published, starting with the price of finding out.
| Process audit | £495. A written assessment of how the work runs now, what should be built, what should be bought off the shelf and what should be left alone. Credited in full against any build over £2,000. |
|---|---|
| Connected system | From £1,950. Joining two or three tools you already pay for so they stop needing a human between them. See automation integration. |
| Bespoke CRM | From £4,500. Its own data model, its own interface, its own stages. Roles and permissions, reporting, and the integrations it needs to be the single place the work lives. |
| CRM with operational modules | From £8,500. The above plus the ERP-shaped pieces: stock, purchasing, despatch or production, joined so one movement updates everything downstream. |
| Multi-module or regulated | Five figures. Multi-site, multi-currency, audit trails, retention rules, or an integration surface that has to be right rather than merely working. |
| Aftercare | From £49 a month, no contract. Hosting, backups, monitoring and changes. See care plans. |
Every figure is a starting point that becomes a fixed price in writing before any work begins. What moves it is the number of record types, how many people use it and at what permission levels, and how many other systems it has to speak to.
The reference
The first business we did this for was our own.
We own and run HOMESŌKO, a sustainable kitchenware brand, and over roughly two years built the systems it still runs on: a bespoke CRM modelled on its own orders rather than a generic sales pipeline, automated enquiry and email handling, and an order flow that runs from payment through picking and shipping to the review request without anyone retyping anything. That is not a case study we were handed. It is the reason we know what the second year of owning one of these costs, and what it feels like when a data model was decided badly in week two.
Questions
The ones people actually ask.
A focused CRM is typically four to eight weeks from the end of the audit. Add operational modules and it runs to three months or more. The audit gives you a real date before you commit, because the timeline depends on how many record types there are and how many other systems have to be spoken to, and neither is guessable from a phone call.
It gets migrated, and the migration is part of the build rather than an extra line at the end. Spreadsheets, an existing CRM export, an old database: all of it is mapped onto the new model and checked against the originals before anyone starts working in the new system. Where the old data is inconsistent, and it usually is somewhere, we show you the inconsistencies rather than quietly picking a winner.
You own it. The code, the data and the accounts are yours, and the documentation is written so another developer can pick it up. Hosting and aftercare are optional and cancellable. If you decide to take the whole thing elsewhere, nothing stops working and nobody withholds a password.
Eventually, and the crossover depends on your headcount and how many products you are stacking. A build from £4,500 against, say, four products at £35 a seat for twelve people is roughly two years to break even before you count the time lost retyping between them. We will run that arithmetic on your real numbers during the audit, including the case where it says do not build.
Yes, and that is usually the point. Accounting, email, calendars, a shop, a phone system: anything with an API can be joined, and quite a lot without one can be too. Where a tool is genuinely closed we will tell you before the build rather than during it. That work is described on the automation integration page.
Then build part of it. These systems are better grown than launched whole: one record type that earns its keep, then the next. A connected system from £1,950 that joins what you already have is often the right first move, and it is a smaller commitment than a build. If you need portals or internal tools rather than a system of record, that is bespoke software.
Start with the audit, not the build.
£495 buys a written answer about what to build, what to buy and what to leave alone. It comes off the build if you go ahead.