A vendor’s pricing calculator gives you a quick number. This worksheet gives you a complete one, built line by line so you can see exactly what’s driving your total — and adjust any assumption without starting over.

Section 1: Seats and Subscription

Line item	Your number	Notes
Full-access seats needed		People who create and edit records
Light/viewer seats needed		People who only need visibility
Price per full seat (monthly)		Confirm current quote, not list price
Price per light seat (monthly)		If offered separately
Billing term		Monthly vs. annual — note the difference
Monthly subscription subtotal		Full seats + light seats

Multiply the monthly subtotal by 12 for your annual subscription cost.

Section 2: Implementation

Line item	Your estimate	Notes
Paid onboarding package (if any)		Vendor-quoted, if applicable
Internal configuration hours		Pipelines, fields, permissions
Loaded hourly cost for internal time		Salary-based estimate or contractor rate
Implementation subtotal		Onboarding fee + (hours × hourly cost)

Section 3: Data Migration

Line item	Your estimate	Notes
Estimated cleanup/migration hours		Scales with data messiness, not record count
Vendor migration assistance fee (if any)
Migration subtotal

Section 4: Training

Line item	Your estimate	Notes
Initial rollout training hours × people
Expected new-hire training sessions (year one)		Based on hiring plans
Loaded hourly cost		Same rate as above for consistency
Training subtotal

Section 5: Add-Ons and Overages

Line item	Your estimate	Notes
Required add-ons not in base tier		Automation, advanced reporting, etc.
Estimated storage/API overage		Only if usage-based pricing applies
Add-on subtotal

Section 6: Ongoing Administration

Line item	Your estimate	Notes
Weekly admin hours		Maintaining fields, permissions, automations
Loaded hourly cost
Annual admin subtotal		Weekly hours × hourly cost × 52

Putting the Worksheet Together

Add Sections 1 through 6 for your year-one total. For years two and three, drop Sections 2 and 3 (implementation and migration are one-time) and keep Sections 1, 4, 5, and 6, adjusting Section 1 for any planned headcount growth.

Year	Subscription	Implementation	Migration	Training	Add-ons	Admin	Total
Year 1
Year 2		—	—
Year 3		—	—

A Worked Example of a Filled-In Section

To make the worksheet concrete, here’s how Section 1 might look for an illustrative 12-person sales team: 10 full-access seats at an assumed $45/month each, plus 2 light/viewer seats at an assumed $15/month each for a sales manager’s assistant and a finance team member who only needs to view deal status. That’s a monthly subscription subtotal of $480 ($450 + $30), or $5,760 annualized on a monthly billing term. Switching to annual billing at an illustrative 15% discount brings that down to roughly $4,900 — a concrete example of why Section 1’s “billing term” row isn’t a minor detail; it’s often a four-figure difference on its own for a team this size.

Carrying that same level of specificity through Sections 2 through 6 — rather than leaving rows blank because “we’ll figure it out later” — is what separates a worksheet that produces a usable number from one that just looks thorough.

Tips for Filling This Out Accurately

Use real quotes, not list prices, wherever you have them. If you haven’t gotten a quote yet, use the published price as a placeholder and flag it as unconfirmed.

Be honest about internal time. It’s tempting to assume configuration and admin work will happen “in the gaps” of someone’s existing role for free. It still costs something — that person’s time isn’t infinite, and underestimating it is how budgets end up surprised later.

Round up on migration complexity. Data cleanup almost always takes longer than initially estimated, especially the first time someone on your team has done it.

Revisit the worksheet after month three. Once you’re live, compare actual spend to your estimate and adjust assumptions for year two. This is the single most useful step for making next year’s budget more accurate than this year’s.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to fill out every section for a very simple CRM rollout? No — if you’re a five-person team using a straightforward free or entry-tier CRM with minimal customization, Sections 2 and 3 may be close to zero. Still worth including as rows so you’re not assuming they’re zero without checking.

Should this worksheet include the cost of CRM integrations with other tools? Yes, if you’re connecting tools like email marketing platforms or support software. Add it as its own line under Section 5 if it’s a recurring cost, or Section 2 if it’s a one-time setup cost.

How accurate is this worksheet likely to be? As accurate as your inputs. The structure itself won’t drift, but hourly-cost assumptions and hour estimates are where most of the uncertainty lives — which is exactly why revisiting it after a few months of real usage matters.

Who within the organization should fill this out? It’s most accurate as a joint effort — whoever owns the CRM budget conversation (finance or operations) pairing with whoever will actually administer the system day to day. Budget owners tend to be more accurate on subscription and vendor-quoted numbers; the person who’ll be doing the configuration and ongoing maintenance has a much better sense of how many hours that work will realistically take than someone estimating from the outside.

Next Step

Copy this structure into a spreadsheet and fill in Section 1 first, since it’s the easiest to estimate accurately. Build out the remaining sections over the course of your vendor evaluation, updating numbers as you get firmer quotes.