US small businesses spark a Salesforce “unsubscribe wave,” using AI to build their own software and drastically cut costs

Many small businesses in the United States are leveraging AI programming tools to abandon traditional enterprise software like Salesforce, saving tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars annually and intensifying investors’ concerns about the long-term growth logic of the SaaS industry.

Recently, The Information reported that, in the past six months, at least five startups and small companies with staff sizes ranging from 20 to 70 have terminated contracts with Salesforce or HubSpot and switched to developing replacement applications using AI tools such as Anthropic, Lovable, and Replit, achieving significant cost reduction. Although this trend is currently limited to small customers, it has already sparked doubts in the market about whether traditional enterprise software providers can sustain their high-growth trajectory of the past decade.

Enterprise software giants such as Salesforce and ServiceNow are adopting defensive postures: on one hand, they emphasize that customer renewal rates remain steady, while on the other, they focus on strengthening their positioning as an “indispensable middle layer” between enterprises and AI large models.

However, AI-native companies like Anthropic and Palantir have demonstrated growth rates that significantly exceed those of traditional software vendors, further fueling ongoing discussions in the market about the “SaaSpocalypse.”

Small Business "Escape" Cases: Million-Dollar Costs Compressed to the Thousands

Several specific cases highlight the scale and speed of this trend.

Greenleaf Management, a real estate investment management firm in Atlanta with about 55 employees, previously paid subscription fees to Salesforce and hired both a full-time employee and an external consultant to maintain its Salesforce account.

Partner Dave Codrea said that the company developed custom applications using Replit and Claude Code to replace Salesforce’s CRM functionality and exited contracts with real estate software providers Entrata and Yardi, saving about $100,000 per year, with new application maintenance costs only around $300 per month.

Adrian Balfour, owner of the Seattle professional rugby team Seawolves, said that four engineers from the team’s 70-person staff developed an app with Claude Code in four months to replace both the Salesforce CRM and ticketing system AXS, reducing software expenses by about $100,000, and revenue has grown about 25% year-on-year since the season began in March.

South Carolina medical software company Hank AI (24 full-time employees) did not renew the $40,000 annual Salesforce contract this January and instead built its own app with Claude Code, with expected annual costs of about $500. Utah startup Atonom (45 staff) similarly abandoned a $40,000 annual Salesforce contract in January, switched to Lovable for a custom CRM, with estimated annual operating costs of just $1,200.

Large Enterprises Are Experimenting Too, But Face Bigger Obstacles

The trend is not entirely limited to small businesses; some large companies are also exploring similar paths but face more complex challenges.

French biopharmaceutical giant Sanofi, with around 75,000 employees, Chief Digital Officer Emmanuel Frenehard said the company is reducing its use of ServiceNow and instead building AI agents with Claude Code and Cursor, integrating software from Utah-based startup Elementum and Snowflake-stored data to process equipment fault reports and similar tasks.

Sanofi aims to shift at least 80% of the workload currently handled by ServiceNow, other software, and outsourcing companies, saving at least $10 million a year. Frenehard admitted that this transformation has “encountered considerable resistance” within his team.

IT consulting company Loka CEO Bobby Mukherjee said, a few clients have reduced annual software costs by 40% to 80% through self-built AI replacement solutions, but he usually advises clients to retain their current SaaS applications because the replacement process is slow and “pulls engineering resources away from things that truly drive business differentiation.”

He said, “The smarter approach is usually to build on top of existing systems,” and stressed that “no serious person is predicting the death of HubSpot or Salesforce.”

SaaS Giants Respond: Enterprise-Grade Reliability Cannot Be Replaced by 'Vibe Coding'

Faced with external skepticism, traditional software vendors like Salesforce are actively defending their business models, citing renewal data as support.

Salesforce President Srini Tallapragada said in a fall investor call last year that enterprise customers “have all tried to do it themselves, but realized you cannot achieve enterprise-grade reliability and security by vibe coding.” ServiceNow stated that most customers are “expanding their use of ServiceNow, not leaving,” and cited a 97% contract renewal rate in the first quarter as evidence, with stability over recent quarters.

However, market confidence in this narrative is shaky. The Information previously reported that OpenAI executives, in investor demonstrations earlier this year, said the company’s future products are expected to replace the software of companies such as Salesforce, Workday, Adobe, and Atlassian.

Meanwhile, some large enterprises are increasing their budgets for AI vendors like Anthropic, while shortening contract durations or demanding more favorable terms from traditional enterprise software providers.

True Cost of Replacement: Data Migration Remains the Biggest Barrier

Although cases of replacement by small businesses are eye-catching, analysts point out that large-scale migration faces considerable technical and organizational challenges.

Bobby Mukherjee noted that the “true total cost of ownership” for enterprise software is usually four times the sticker price, but “full replacement is the last resort.” The core stickiness of platforms like Salesforce is the years of accumulated custom code for workflow. These workflows track everything from product catalogs to pricing to customer commitments, and many large enterprises have dedicated teams to maintain these workflows, further increasing migration costs.

Demetri Salvaggio, an executive at business travel management app Engine, said that his company, with about 1,000 employees, has been a Salesforce client for nearly ten years. He estimates that migration would take at least a year and currently has no plans to leave.

For investors, the key question now is: will improvements in AI programming tools expand this trend from small businesses to medium and large customers? If AI continues to advance in programming and handling large databases, SaaS providers’ influence over big clients faces the risk of erosion.

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