Startup Replaces $40,000 Salesforce Contract With $1,200 CRM Built With Lovable

Lovable, the AI-powered app-building platform, revealed in a blog post that startup Atonom replaced a $40,000 Salesforce contract by building its own CRM internally using Lovable’s tools.

According to the company’s blog, the shift began when Atonom’s leadership questioned the value of its Salesforce spending relative to its needs. 

Atonom’s Chief Revenue Officer, Gabe Larsen said the pricing no longer made sense for a small team. “It was 40 grand a year for 25 or 30 people. We were just like, this is crazy for the functionality we need,” Larsen said in the blog post.

Atonom, which develops AI “cloud employees” that handle sales development, customer support and operational workflows across communication channels, began evaluating other CRM options. 

However, the company said alternatives such as HubSpot and Pipedrive offered similar complexity and cost structures that did not align with the startup’s operational scale.

Lovable said the eventual solution emerged internally when Atonom’s Head of Finance and Legal, Jason, began experimenting with the platform. 

Larsen initially dismissed the idea that an internal tool could replace Salesforce, but Jason proceeded to build a working CRM prototype within hours. “I'm going to build you a CRM,” Jason told Larsen, according to the blog post.

The system was quickly adopted by Atonom’s sales team. 

Lovable said the startup ultimately replaced Salesforce entirely with the internally built system. The company claims the new CRM reduced annual software costs from $40,000 to roughly $1,200, including hosting, while eliminating the need for a dedicated CRM administrator.

The custom CRM now handles lead capture, pipeline tracking, account and opportunity creation, ARR and MRR tracking, dashboards, and reporting for the company’s weekly sales meetings. Larsen said the team relies heavily on the tool for deal tracking and pipeline discussions. “This is where we spend 80% of our time. What deals, which ones are hot, what are we going to close this week,” he said.

Lovable also said that Atonom integrated the CRM with its own AI sales development agent, Zoey. When new leads submit forms, the CRM automatically creates records and triggers outreach actions. “Zoey's now fully integrated with Lovable. The lead jumps into Lovable, and then it triggers these actions,” Larsen said.

Atonom has since expanded its use of Lovable to internal finance dashboards, revenue modelling, forecasting tools, and other operational software built by different teams within the company.