I built a CRM as a single Excel file. Sold 5 copies at PLN 450 before launching.
Everyone's building SaaS CRMs. I built one inside Microsoft Excel — and I sell it for $60 once, forever.
For the past few years I've watched solo operators — insurance agents, freelancers, real estate brokers, financial advisors — cycle through expensive CRMs they barely use. They sign up for HubSpot or Pipedrive, configure 5% of the features, and either quietly cancel after three months or keep paying because canceling feels like admitting defeat.
What most of them actually need isn't a CRM. It's a way to not forget who called yesterday and who's waiting for a follow-up.
So I built CRM in Excel.
### What it is
A working CRM system inside a single .xlsm file. Two databases (cold leads up to 5,000 contacts, acquired leads with full activity history), pipeline tracking, follow-up reminders, SMS and email templates that auto-fill with contact details, and an incoming-call lookup that identifies who's calling before you pick up. Runs on any Windows machine with Excel 2016+. No installation. No cloud. No subscription.
### What's different
You pay $60 once. Lifetime license. Your data lives on your computer, not on a vendor's servers. If you stop paying me, nothing changes — because you weren't paying me.
### Tech stack (the part IH might find interesting)
- VBA for all logic and UI
- 423,000+ formulas across 32 worksheets
- HMAC-SHA256 license validation via a Cloudflare Worker
- Make.com webhook listening on Shopify order_paid events
- License key delivery automated through MS365 SMTP
- Sheet protection with SHA-512 in VBA, license table set to xlSheetVeryHidden
The licensing flow took me longer than the CRM itself.
### What's worked so far
Before launching publicly, I sold 5 copies privately at PLN 450 each to people who found me through a Facebook group. That validated I wasn't just building for myself.
V6.0 went live on June 21, 2026. I'm running a free promo through end of June (code FIRST100) to seed early users and gather feedback. Paid tier kicks in July 1 at PLN 249 / ~$60.
### What's next
Long-term I'd like to get to $20–50K/month in revenue. I know that sounds delusional for a one-time-purchase business with no team and no ad budget, but the math works if I can hit ~350 sales/month at the paid tier. The plan is organic SEO + directory listings + community presence in the spaces where my target audience actually hangs out (Reddit, niche Facebook groups, insurance and real estate forums).
### Ask
If you've built a one-time-purchase product — template, plugin, asset pack, anything that isn't a subscription — I'd love to hear how you handled the support burden as volume grew. That's the part I'm least sure about. Solo founders especially: at what point did it stop scaling, and what did you do?
Link in profile.
