# Dynamics 365 isn't a small-business CRM

> Why Dynamics 365 Sales suits mid-size and enterprise organisations with complex customer processes, and what a small business should use instead.

Source: https://ali.id.au/blog/dynamics-365-is-not-a-small-business-crm/ (last edited 2026-10-16)

Dynamics 365 Sales starts to make sense around 50 staff if you're replacing an older system, or 100 if you're starting from scratch.

## What you're buying

Dynamics 365 Sales isn't an out-of-the-box solution. It's made for consultants to configure.

**Licences are the small part.** [Microsoft's Australian price list](https://web.archive.org/web/20241114183614/https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/dynamics-365/products/sales) has Sales Professional at AU$97.30 a user a month and Sales Enterprise at AU$157.10, both ex GST. Ten salespeople on Enterprise is about AU$18,900 a year before GST.

**Consulting is the big part.** Don't start on any Dynamics product without a good partner or an in-house Power Platform specialist, and assume you'll spend at least $50K on consulting, often several times that. Dynamics consultants are some of the most expensive in the industry.

A good Dynamics partner will often send a small business back to HubSpot. Microsoft doesn't have a product for that end of the market yet.

## Who it suits

Mid-size and enterprise organisations, where it competes with Salesforce. If you have a lot of customer contact and complex customer processes, such as a government department or a utility, Dynamics works and HubSpot doesn't. It also sits well beside Dynamics 365 Finance.

## What to use instead

* **HubSpot** for most small businesses, especially marketing-led ones. The Starter Customer Platform does the job out of the box, well and cheaply: [US$15 a seat a month](https://web.archive.org/web/20250214114850/https://www.hubspot.com/products/crm/starter) paid yearly, or US$20 month to month. That's a few hundred bucks a year for a small team, and HubSpot holds your hand more than most.
* **Pipedrive, Zoho or Freshsales** if HubSpot doesn't fit. HubSpot is the default pick at this size, but it needs careful management.
* **Odoo** if you really want one all-in-one system. Be cautious: there's such a thing as too integrated, too broad, and not every module is the same quality. For some businesses it's great.
* **Business Central plus HubSpot** if you already run Business Central for finance. Business Central with Microsoft 365 shouldn't be slept on, and moving from it to Odoo is almost never worth it. HubSpot builds a [Business Central connector](https://ecosystem.hubspot.com/marketplace/listing/msdynamicsbusinesscentral-data-sync) that syncs customers, items, opportunities and sales orders both ways. Customers land as HubSpot contacts, not companies. Custom field mappings need a paid Operations Hub plan. The listing's reviews are poor, so test it with your own data first.

## Make it the source of truth

Whatever you pick, a CRM only gets used if management relies on its reports. Don't let people route around it with Excel, or you negate the entire purpose.