Custom CRM and software work for Des Moines businesses
CRM integration for businesses that already have a CRM — connecting it to your website, and building the custom software workflows in between. Quoted from a written scope.
Since 2011 · Integration, not enterprise · You own the code · Veteran-owned
When your website and your CRM do not talk to each other
The cost is invisible because it is spread across somebody’s whole week.
It lands in the website’s inbox and someone copies it into the CRM. Two minutes each, forty times a week, and it stops entirely on the day that person is off.
A transposed digit in a phone number, an email with a missing letter, a form field that got abbreviated. Nobody finds out until a follow-up bounces and a lead quietly disappears.
By the time it reaches the other system the source has been lost, so the honest answer to “is the website working” is a shrug — and you keep paying for whichever channel shouts loudest.
They know which inquiries go to which queue, what gets flagged and what gets ignored. That is not a system, it is an arrangement, and it leaves when they do.
CRM integration: connecting your website to the CRM you already use
Almost always cheaper and better than replacing what you have.
- Website inquiries pushed straight in as properly formed records, not raw email
- Source, campaign and page captured with the record, so attribution survives the handover
- Routing rules — the right inquiry to the right person or queue, automatically
- Two-way sync where it earns its keep, so a change in one place is not lost in the other
- Custom fields mapped properly rather than everything dumped into a notes box
- Admin screens inside your website for the parts of the process that live there
- Scheduled jobs — imports, exports and reports that run without anyone remembering
- Error handling and alerting, so a failed sync is noticed rather than silently dropped
- Written documentation of what connects to what, handed over with the credentials
Custom workflows and admin tools inside your website
The parts of the process that do not belong in a CRM at all.
Some of what a business does every day does not fit any product it already owns. A quoting tool that applies your real pricing rules. An intake form that branches on the answers and collects the right documents. A screen where staff can see the jobs in progress without being given access to everything. A portal where a client checks their own status instead of ringing to ask.
Those are built into the website, where the people who need them already are, and they are built around the process you actually run rather than the process a software vendor assumed. Which is the point — the alternative is usually changing how you work to suit a product you are renting.
What we do not build, and who we refer it to
Read this before deciding we are the right people. It is the load-bearing section.
We do not build CRM systems from scratch. Building a CRM is a multi-year product commitment with a roadmap, a support obligation and a security surface, and any small firm that says otherwise is quoting you version one of something you will be maintaining forever. HubSpot, Zoho, Pipedrive, Salesforce and the rest exist, they are cheap relative to building one, and connecting you to the right one is nearly always the better answer.
We also do not build native mobile apps, data warehouses or BI platforms, enterprise system implementations, or anything with a formal compliance program attached. Those need a team and specialists we do not employ, and taking one on would mean subcontracting it with your money in the middle. There are firms in Des Moines that do this properly and we will point you at them.
What we are is the layer between: your website, the software you already pay for, and the manual process sitting in the gap. That is a real service, it is unglamorous, and almost nobody describes it honestly — which is why the page says it plainly.
What custom CRM work with us does not include
The boundary, because this is where a scope creeps furthest fastest.
- Building a CRM from scratch — we connect you to one that already exists
- Native iOS or Android applications
- Data warehouses, business-intelligence platforms or analytics engineering
- Enterprise implementations — ERP, or anything with a compliance program attached
- License or subscription fees for the software we connect to, which stay yours
- Support contracts for third-party software — that relationship stays between you and them
- Work on a system we cannot see. We will not quote blind on somebody else's codebase
Every site is built by Elisabeth Samuels and the Salterra team — a company building websites since 2011. Not a reseller, not an offshore queue. The same person who scopes your project writes the pages and hands over the logins.
Tell us what you run and what gets copied between them. We will tell you whether it is worth connecting, and say so plainly when it is not.
Why custom CRM and software work is quoted individually
Not evasion. An estimate given before the questions are asked is a guess.
Custom work is a functionality scope driver, which means it is never a tier item and the $499 website tiers do not apply. Two integrations that sound identical can be a fortnight apart depending on whether the other system has a documented interface and how much the failure cases matter.
So it is scoped first and quoted second, and the scoping conversation is free. You describe what you run and what gets copied between systems, we ask the questions that change the answer, and you get a written scope with a fixed figure. If the work would cost more than the problem is worth — and for something that happens twice a month, it usually does — we will tell you that instead of quoting it.
What moves the number
- Whether the other system has a documented API — a modern one is straightforward, an old system without one can double the work or rule it out entirely
- How many systems have to agree — one website and one CRM is small; four systems in a chain is a different project
- How much the failure cases matter — something that can safely wait until morning is cheaper than something that must never lose a record
- Whether existing data has to be migrated and cleaned first, which is routinely the largest single part of the job
Frequently asked questions about custom CRM and integration work in Des Moines
Can you connect my website to my CRM?
Usually yes — CRM integration is the bulk of what we do here, and it works wherever the CRM has an API — and the mainstream ones all do. Inquiries arrive as properly formed records with the source and page attached, routed to the right person, with the fields mapped rather than dumped into a notes box.
Which CRMs do you work with?
Any with a documented API. HubSpot, Zoho, Pipedrive, Salesforce, Monday, Airtable and Copper are the ones that come up most. We do not have a partner arrangement with any of them, which means we have no reason to steer you toward one — tell us what you already pay for and we will work with that.
Do you build CRM systems from scratch?
No. A CRM is a multi-year product commitment with a roadmap, a support obligation and a security surface, and a small firm that says otherwise is quoting you version one of something you will maintain forever. The products that exist are cheap relative to building one. Connecting you to the right one is nearly always the better answer, and if you genuinely do need something built, you want a software company rather than us.
What does custom software work cost?
It is quoted from a written scope, never from a page count, so the website tiers do not apply. The scoping conversation is free. If the work would cost more than the problem is worth, we will say so — which happens most often with a process that only runs a couple of times a month.
Who owns the code you write?
You do. The code, the credentials and written documentation of how it works are handed over at the end, which is what makes the work portable — any competent developer can pick it up. You are not tied to us by being kept ignorant of your own system, and that matters more with custom code than with anything else we build.
Tell us what you sell. Get your number.
Send us what your business does and roughly how many pages you think you need. You will get the number and a timeline in writing.
Takes about a minute. No call, no obligation.
We reply to everything within one business day.