At a glance
Choosing a real estate CRM in India starts with your sales process, not a feature list. Decide whether you need pre-sales only (enquiries, follow-ups, site visits) or post-sales too (bookings, payment demands, receipts with GST and TDS, a customer portal). Then check the Indian basics: automatic portal lead capture with duplicate handling, WhatsApp on Meta’s official platform with opt-in and approved templates, SMS on DLT-registered headers and templates, a written processing contract under the DPDP Act, and a full data export on exit. Compare total monthly cost at your real team size, and trial the product on your own project data.
Updated . As of October 2026 — platform policies and rules change; check the sources below.
Start from your sales process
The right real estate CRM depends on three facts about how you sell. Answer them before any demo.
Pre-sales only, or post-sales too?
Some CRMs end at the booking. A builder selling under-construction homes usually also needs payment demands, receipts with GST and TDS and a customer portal — unless another system already does that well.
One project, or several?
A multi-project builder needs leads, inventory and reports tagged by project — and a buyer who enquires about two projects should still be one lead.
In-house team, or channel partners too?
If brokers bring many bookings, the CRM must register referrals, stop duplicate claims and calculate commission on whatever trigger your partner agreement uses.
The checklist: what to ask every vendor
Ask for each answer to be shown on screen, not described.
| Capability | Why it matters for an Indian builder | Question to ask the vendor |
|---|---|---|
| Portal leads and duplicates | Portal leads go cold if copied in by hand, and buyers often enquire twice. | Which portals (99acres, MagicBricks, Housing.com…) push leads in automatically, and what happens to a repeat phone number? |
| Business-initiated messages need opt-in and approved templates. | Is it Meta’s official platform? Whose number sends, and who gets templates approved? | |
| SMS | Commercial SMS must use a registered header and template, or it is blocked. | Are the SMS templates DLT-registered, and under whose entity? |
| Site visits | The strongest buying signal. | Can I schedule, remind and record a visit’s outcome from a phone? |
| Cost sheet and quote | A missing charge costs margin. | Does the cost sheet hold all our charges and produce a branded quote? |
| Inventory | Two people selling the same unit is expensive. | Can a unit be held, and does a booked unit drop out of what others can offer? |
| Bookings, demands and receipts | Receipts must record GST and any TDS the buyer deducted. | Show me a demand, a part-payment with TDS, its receipt and the statement of account. |
| Customer portal | Buyers who can see dues and receipts call less. | What exactly does a buyer see after signing in? |
| Channel partners | Brokers want to see their referrals and what they are owed. | How is a referral protected, and when is commission payable? |
| Reports and marketing ROI | Cost per booking shows where to spend. | Can I record campaign spend and see cost per booking by source? |
| Mobile access | Sales staff work from site and on the road. | Does it work on Android and iPhone, with alerts for new and overdue leads? |
| Data isolation and security | Your buyer list is your business. | How is our data separated? Is there two-factor sign-in and an audit trail? |
| DPDP Act roles | The vendor is usually your Data Processor, under a contract. | Will you sign a data processing agreement that lists your sub-processors? |
| Data export on exit | Leads, bookings, payments and documents must leave with you. | Can we export everything, and what happens to our data after we leave? |
| Onboarding and import | Years of leads sit in spreadsheets. | Who maps and imports our spreadsheets, and how long until the team is live? |
The rules behind the WhatsApp, SMS and data rows
As of October 2026 — platform policies and rules change; check the sources below.
These rules are set by Meta, TRAI and Parliament. A vendor cannot waive them for you.
WhatsApp: opt-in first, then approved templates
Under the WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy, a business may message a person only after they have given their number and opted in. Outside the customer service window only approved templates can be sent, and Meta charges per delivered template message by category; utility templates sent inside an open customer service window are free. Unauthorised bulk messaging can get an account restricted or disabled.
Sources: WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy · Meta: template fundamentals · Meta: WhatsApp pricing · WhatsApp Terms of Service
SMS: DLT registration under TRAI’s TCCCPR, 2018
Under TRAI’s Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018, a business sending commercial SMS is a principal entity. It may send only on headers registered to it, with content templates registered with the operators on their DLT platforms. An SMS that does not match a registered template is not delivered.
Sources: TRAI press release 47/2023
Data: the builder is the Data Fiduciary
Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, the Data Fiduciary — for buyer data in a CRM, normally the builder — decides the purpose and means of processing. It may engage a Data Processor, such as the CRM vendor, only under a valid contract, and stays responsible for its processing, including security safeguards. The DPDP Rules, 2025 were notified on 14 November 2025 with eighteen months for phased compliance.
Sources: DPDP Act, 2023 (India Code) · DPDP Bill as passed (PRS India) · PIB: DPDP Rules, 2025
Pricing models, explained
Real estate CRMs are usually sold in one of three ways. None is cheapest in every case; it depends on how many people log in.
Per user
A fixed amount per login per month. Cheap for small teams; the bill grows with every hire.
Flat per workspace
One amount for the company, in tiers with seat limits. Adding someone within a tier costs nothing.
Quote-based
Negotiated, often with a setup fee and annual contract. Ask for licence, setup and usage separately.
A worked example with hypothetical round numbers, not any vendor’s prices: a per-user plan at ₹1,000 per user per month, and a flat plan at ₹8,000 a month for up to 15 users or ₹15,000 for up to 50.
| Team size | Per user (illustrative) | Flat (illustrative) | Lower monthly cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 people | ₹3,000 | ₹8,000 | Per user, by ₹5,000 |
| 10 people | ₹10,000 | ₹8,000 | Flat, by ₹2,000 |
| 30 people | ₹30,000 | ₹15,000 | Flat, by ₹15,000 |
What usually costs extra
- Messaging: WhatsApp and SMS are charged per message — ask whether the CRM passes them on at cost, marks them up or caps them.
- Telephony, AI features and one-time setup or import fees.
- Modules such as channel partners or online payments, often on higher tiers only.
Red flags when choosing a real estate CRM
No full data export
If the vendor cannot show an export of leads, bookings, payments and documents before you sign, assume leaving will be hard.
Unofficial WhatsApp tools
Bulk-sending from an ordinary WhatsApp number works against WhatsApp’s terms. The number that gets restricted is yours — often the one your buyers already know.
Hidden per-message costs
A low licence price with messaging billed later at an unstated rate. Get the per-message rate in writing.
No Indian tax handling
If a demand cannot carry GST, or a receipt cannot record the TDS a buyer deducted, your accounts team reconciles by hand.
Long lock-in before you have used it
A multi-year prepaid contract after one demo puts the risk on you. Prefer a trial or a short first term, and read the exit terms.
How to run a CRM trial or demo
A vendor’s demo follows its smoothest path through its own sample data. Yours should follow these five steps.
Use your own project
Load one real project — a price list, some units and your actual charges.
Walk a lead from enquiry to booking
Push in a test lead, send the same number again, schedule a visit, send a quote and book a unit.
Test the post-booking flow
Raise a demand, record a part-payment with TDS, issue the receipt, then sign in as the buyer.
Test a channel partner
Register a broker referral, claim the same buyer twice, and check the commission against your payout rule.
Check the exit before the entry
Export what you created. If it cannot leave during the trial, it will not leave at contract end.
Where ZevroCRM fits
This section is about our own product. The rest of this guide applies to any CRM.
What it is
- A real estate CRM for Indian builders, from enquiry to construction-linked payments and handover.
- Flat per workspace, not per user: Starter ₹4,999 (10 staff seats), Growth ₹12,999 (30 staff seats), Enterprise ₹24,999 (unlimited staff) a month, exclusive of GST.
- A free 1-week trial on request, no card — a sandbox on sample data. No free plan.
- Leads pushed in from 99acres, MagicBricks, Housing.com and JustDial once each portal registers the workspace’s push URL, and pulled from IndiaMART; deduplicated by phone; WhatsApp through the Meta WhatsApp Cloud API; SMS through MSG91 with DLT-registered templates.
- Receipts with GST and TDS and a customer portal in every plan.
- A database per workspace; ZevroCRM acts as a Processor under the DPDP Act, with a published data processing agreement.
Who it is not for
- Teams wanting procurement, BOQ or accounting — it deliberately does nothing behind the site gate.
- Teams that need an app-store app: it installs from the browser on Android, iPhone and desktop.
- Teams that need a general-purpose public REST API: there is a lead-ingest API and outbound webhooks, not an API for every record.
- Two- or three-person teams on a tight budget: at ₹4,999 a month, a per-user product may cost less.