What a Salesforce implementation costs in 2026, with our prices
Most "Salesforce implementation cost" articles give a range from $5,000 to $500,000 and stop. Here is the shape of the number, three real examples, and ours.
Bohdan PyrihCEO, AdvirixWhat the price depends on
Four things move the number more than anything else: how many orgs and systems are involved, whether a managed package sits in the middle, how clean the data is, and whether anyone on your side owns the process. Hours follow from those four; the hourly rate is the smallest part of the bill, and the part most people negotiate hardest.
A second lender org that has to stay in sync with the first one is not "a bit more work". It is a second set of objects, a transfer that runs every night, and a release process that has to keep both sides consistent. A managed package such as Salentica or a vertical accelerator means that part of the org cannot be changed, so anything the package does not do has to be built around it. Dirty data means every automation you build will fire on duplicates and empty fields until someone cleans them. And if nobody on your side owns the process, the consultant ends up owning it, which is the expensive version of every project.
The ranges we see in the market
| Work | Typical market range | Advirix |
|---|---|---|
| Diagnostic / audit | Free "discovery" to $10,000 | $1,500, credited in full |
| One fix, one process | $3,000–15,000 | $5,500 fixed |
| Backlog delivery | $8,000–40,000 a month | from $9,000 a month |
| Building around a managed package | $15,000–100,000+ | from $15,000 |
| Data migration and cleanup | $3,000–30,000 | from $4,500 |
| Monthly support | $50–200 an hour | $65–80 an hour in blocks of 20, 40, 80 |
Market ranges are what we hear on calls and read in public price pages; they are not a benchmark study. Our prices are fixed after scoping and published on the pricing page.
Three real numbers
Viedoc, a clinical-trials platform in Sweden, $31,680. A large partner had launched Salesforce for 52 users and left. We took it over as a Run engagement: a full review and the first fixes in week one, the HubSpot integration repaired, the account lifecycle automated. From first contact to signature took 39 days, most of it the legal and security review, which we passed with documents rather than promises.
Alterra Advisors, a wealth-management firm, payback in 2.7 months. The number that matters here is not what the project cost but what the data was already holding: $40,100 a year of recoverable revenue and $53,000 a year of manual work, found by counting what the firm's own base contained. The project paid for itself before the first quarter ended.
GoodLeap, a lender, work that used to take 6–12 months now ships in weeks. Here the cost question was never "how much per hour". It was how many months of an internal backlog could be turned into governed two-week releases. Thirteen changes to the live lending system; none caused an incident.
Licences are not in these numbers
Salesforce licences are a separate line, paid to Salesforce, and they usually dwarf consulting in year two and after. A Sales Cloud or Financial Services Cloud seat is priced per user per month; Agentforce, Data Cloud and most add-ons are priced on top. A consultancy that bundles licences into its quote is either reselling, which is fine if they say so, or hiding where the money goes. We do not resell licences. We tell you which ones you need before you sign, and which ones you do not.
How to budget the first year
- Diagnostic. $1,500 for a Health Check, or $4,500–9,000 for a Current State Review across several orgs. Credited in full against the fix.
- First fix. One named result in two weeks, $5,500. If the report says the first fix is bigger than that, it says so with a price next to it.
- Backlog, if there is one. Managed Delivery from $9,000 a month, with a result every two weeks and the same named team.
- Keeping it alive. Run, from $1,600 a month for 20 hours. The hourly rate falls with volume: $80 at 20 hours, $65 at 80.
For a mid-market firm with one org and a clear backlog, that puts year one between $30,000 and $80,000 of consulting, with the diagnostic and the first fix inside the first month. For a multi-org lender with integrations, it is a different scale, and the Current State Review is what tells you which.
Why "free discovery" costs more
A free discovery phase is paid for by the project that follows it, and it is sized to make that project large. A paid diagnostic with the fee credited back changes the incentive: the report has to be useful on its own, because you can take it anywhere. Some of our clients have handed the report to the partner they already had. That is the point.
Onshore, offshore, and the number in between
From above, onshore providers quote a US pilot at around $200,000 against roughly $75,000 for the same scope with us. From below, offshore benches quote $20–25 an hour. The price alone wins neither comparison. What decides it is risk: whether the people quoted are the people who show up, and whether changes reach production with a rollback path.
How to read any quote
- Ask who exactly will do the work, by name. If the senior person on the sales call is not on the project, ask who is.
- Ask what is in their hours that is not in the cheaper quote: test environments, user acceptance testing, rollback, documentation. Those hours are the difference between a Friday change and a Monday incident.
- Ask what you keep if you leave: the documentation, the report, an org another partner can read.
- Ask whether the price is fixed or an estimate, and what moves it. "Depends on scope" is where projects stall for three weeks.
Every Advirix quote answers those four questions on page one. The packages and the credit rules are on the pricing page; the diagnostic is the Health Check.