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parikh.financial · May 28, 2026
A complete CRM migration for Citylitics — 20 GTM users, ~30K contacts, tens of thousands of emails — plus the ongoing Slack-based admin support your AEs and BDRs need to actually adopt the new system.
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You're not just switching tools — you're upgrading how Citylitics sees, segments, and serves its accounts. We'll make sure the migration preserves what matters (email history, pipeline state, team workflow) and that the rollout is smooth enough that adoption isn't a fight.
We'll handle the migration end-to-end: discovery, Salesforce configuration, data + email history migration, a 4–6 week parallel operating period, training, and cutover — followed by Slack-based admin support for your AEs and BDRs.
Fixed fee for migration: $12,500. Ongoing support starts at $1,500/mo retainer (≤15 hrs, ~$100/hr effective), transitioning to ad-hoc at $150/hr after month 3.
Year-one total under $25K — vs. ~$85K to hire a Salesforce admin in-house, or $35–50K from a typical consultancy.
Every item below is included in the fixed-fee project. Anything not listed — or marked as TBD — gets scoped separately so there are no surprises.
| Item | From HubSpot | To Salesforce | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| GTM Users | HubSpot seats | Salesforce Pro Suite | 20 seats · see Edition section |
| Contacts | 134K total | Salesforce Contacts | Top 25–30K, filtered together |
| Companies | HubSpot Companies | Salesforce Accounts | 1:1 mapping |
| Open Deals | HubSpot Deals | Salesforce Opportunities | All open pipeline at cutover |
| Email History | HubSpot Engagements | Notes attached to Account records | Per account · searchable · Pro Suite OK |
| Custom Fields | TBD (Phase 1) | Salesforce custom fields | Locked in discovery |
| Views | — | Account · CS · Pipeline | Built from scratch |
| Slack Integration | — | Support channel | For ongoing AE/BDR support |
Most Salesforce shops won't tell you this clearly because they don't want to scare you off — but the tier you pick determines what's possible. Here's the real comparison, including which editions support Salesforce's new Headless 360 + MCP capabilities (TDX, April 2026) that let agents like Claude Code operate Salesforce directly.
Pro Suite is sufficient for Citylitics' day-one needs — Account/CS/Pipeline views, Slack-native support, 30K contacts. The constraint isn't features; it's the email-migration approach (see next section). If you decide later that you want full Headless 360 / agentic operations on Salesforce, upgrading to Pro Edition + API add-on or Enterprise is a clean path. We'd rather start you on Pro Suite at $24K/yr and let you opt in to more, than over-buy on day one.
You said the most important part of this migration is preserving "tens of thousands" of emails by account. We agree — and we want to walk you through how we'll do it, because it's the section of any CRM proposal that should get the most scrutiny.
HubSpot stores emails as engagement records — structured rows in a database, each one linked to a contact and a deal. Salesforce stores emails differently: either as Task records (the legacy approach) or as EmailMessage records (the modern approach). To migrate 50,000+ emails into those structured objects, you need Bulk API access — and Salesforce only enables Bulk API by default on Enterprise edition and above. Going that route forces Citylitics into $40K/yr in licenses just to support the migration approach, not the actual GTM workflow.
Salesforce has a standard object called ContentNote — that's the "Notes" feature you see on every Account, Contact, and Opportunity record. Notes support up to 1.7MB of rich text content per note, are fully searchable in Salesforce's global search, render natively in the Account UI, and — critically — work on every edition including Pro Suite via the standard REST API. No Bulk API, no Enterprise tier, no $40K/yr license bill.
This means we can preserve the full email history inside Salesforce, attached to the right accounts, fully searchable — without forcing a tier upgrade. The trick is structuring the data right on the way in.
Per account, we dump the full chronological email history into Salesforce as one or more Notes attached to the Account record. Full email bodies, headers, dates — all preserved, all searchable in Salesforce global search.
Skip the email migration entirely. Keep HubSpot on its cheapest read-only tier as the historical archive; Salesforce captures everything going forward via Gmail/Outlook sync.
Every email loaded as a Salesforce Task or EmailMessage record — fully indexed, reportable, individual record per email.
Most Salesforce shops will pitch you Option C because it sounds thorough — and then Citylitics pays $16K/yr forever for reporting capabilities they never use. The truth: your AEs don't run analytics on email volume. They open an account and want to find what was said to a prospect last quarter. Option A puts the full email history inside Salesforce, attached to the right Account, searchable via global search — and works on Pro Suite. You preserve every email, you skip the tier upgrade, and you save $16K/yr in licenses forever. This is the kind of approach only a shop that actually understands Salesforce primitives would architect — and it's why we lead with it.
Each phase has a defined entry/exit gate. You'll see working software by Week 4 and start the parallel period at Week 6.
After cutover: Phase 5 ongoing Slack-based support begins (Month 3+ optional). 30 days of post-cutover hypercare are bundled into the project fee.
Every CRM migration has these — we'd rather talk about them in the proposal than in week 6.
Pro Suite covers the three views you described and 50 custom objects — sufficient for day one. It does not include Headless 360 / MCP tools, structured email-as-Task migration via Bulk API, or unlimited custom flows. If Citylitics ever wants the full agentic Salesforce stack, we'll need to plan an upgrade to Pro Edition + API add-on or Enterprise.
Originally a hard problem — covered in detail in the Email Approach section. Short version: we use Salesforce Notes (ContentNote) attached to each Account to preserve the full email history, searchable in Salesforce, without forcing a tier upgrade. The thing most consultants flag as the highest-risk part of the project, we're solving with a Pro-Suite-compatible approach.
You mentioned the field list is in-progress. Phase 1 includes a working session to lock it. Until that's done, we can't finalize migration scripts. If field mapping slips a week, the whole project slips a week — we'll flag it loudly the moment it's at risk.
You confirmed your team already operates in Leads vs. Deals — that makes cutover materially cleaner. We'll still walk every rep through the specific Salesforce conversion flow during Phase 4 training so muscle memory carries over without losing data on the way through.
One fixed fee for the migration, and a flexible support model after cutover. You choose between retainer and ad-hoc based on what your team actually needs.
Year-one cost to Citylitics for our services + ongoing support. Salesforce license fees (paid to Salesforce, not us) sit on top of all three columns.
Pro Suite is the right tier on day one. But license costs scale with seats, and the day Citylitics needs full Headless 360 / MCP capabilities — or just wants out of the Salesforce pricing model — you'll have three real paths. We'll tell you which makes sense based on actual usage, not pressure from a license rep.
Account/CS/Pipeline views, 50 custom objects, and Slack-based support cover what Citylitics needs. No reason to pay more.
You want Headless 360 + MCP tools running natively, full Bulk API, custom flows, opportunity teams, and structured email-in-Salesforce.
At $40K/yr in Enterprise licenses + $24K/yr in support, a one-time custom build pays back in ~18 months. Year 3+ the gap widens fast.
If your Salesforce bill is on track to exceed what a custom build would cost over 2 years, we'll surface it in a quarterly review — not bury it because it's inconvenient. The point is to give you leverage over your CRM costs, not lock you into anyone's licensing model.
Starter is genuinely limited in ways that break this engagement: no custom objects (your Customer Success view needs them), monthly API call cap (not daily — about 15K total per month), and no path to Bulk API. The Customer Success view Ahmed asked for would have to be faked with workarounds that get expensive to maintain. Pro Suite unlocks the headroom for ~$18K/yr extra and is the cleanest fit. The Edition section above lays out all four tiers honestly so you can override our recommendation.
Yes — and we recommend it. Drop HubSpot to its cheapest read-only tier and keep it accessible for at least 6 months. Reps stop writing there at cutover, but anyone can still go look up the historical email thread they need. The Looker Studio backup is your second safety net.
We stand up a shared channel (Slack Connect between your workspace and ours). Your AEs and BDRs post questions, screenshots, or "this report is broken" requests in there. We triage same business day. Anything that's a quick fix gets done in-channel; anything that needs a build session gets scheduled. Retainer hours track in a simple weekly summary.
Option A (Notes-as-Archive, recommended): Each account record gets one or more Notes containing the full chronological email archive — sender, recipients, subject, date, full body. Attached to the Account, viewable in the Salesforce UI, searchable via global search. Works on Pro Suite.
Option B (Hybrid + Read-Only HubSpot): Salesforce captures forward-going emails via Gmail/Outlook sync. HubSpot stays accessible (~$50/mo) for historical thread lookup. Looker Studio dashboard ships as third backup. No migration of historical emails into SF — they live in HubSpot read-only.
Option C (Full Structured): Each email becomes a queryable Task or EmailMessage record with structured fields. ~85–95% fidelity — cc/bcc and some attachments may not survive. Requires Enterprise tier (+$16K/yr in licenses).
The fixed fee is fixed — slippage on our side doesn't change your invoice. Slippage from your side (e.g., field mapping delays, training availability) might shift the calendar but not the price. We surface schedule risk weekly so there are no surprises at week 7.
Two triggers, both economic. One: Salesforce pushes Citylitics to Enterprise and the annual license bill crosses ~$40K — at that point a one-time $60–95K custom build plus ~$1–1.5K/mo in hosting and light retainer pays back in roughly 18 months and you stop renting. Two: Citylitics' workflow becomes specific enough that you're paying for Salesforce features you'll never use, or fighting Salesforce conventions to model your data.
We've built CRMs from scratch using Claude + Lovable + Supabase. The AI-assisted stack has compressed what used to be a 6-month engineering project into roughly 6–10 weeks of build. The ongoing monthly covers hosting (Vercel/Render), database (Supabase), monitoring, and a light support retainer from us — much cheaper than Salesforce license fees, but not zero. We don't push this option — we surface it when the math says it's right.
Three steps to kickoff. We can be in discovery within a week of signature.
Reply with a "let's go" or DocuSign — whichever is faster for Citylitics legal.
20× Starter Suite ($500/mo total) directly through Salesforce. We can advise on the order.
Confirm Phase 1 discovery dates, stakeholder list, and decision-making cadence.
Reply to this proposal or grab time on the calendar. Either way, the next conversation is short — we already know the scope.