How to Set Up EspoCRM on Saplo: Your Own CRM With No Per-User Fees

A Pipedrive plan that can support your entire sales team costs around $41per user per month, or $498per year, with each additional team member coming with another separate monthly charge. EspoCRM on Saplo is an open-source CRM with contacts, sales opportunities (pipeline), email campaigns, and customer support requests in one dashboard, with no user limit and no charge for additional accounts. The only cost is the Box on which the app runs. Below is a step-by-step guide to setting up EspoCRM on Saplo.

Why EspoCRM instead of Pipedrive

Pipedrive and similar paid CRMs share one feature that becomes increasingly painful as your team grows:

• price calculated per user per month, so costs grow linearly with every new person in sales or customer service, regardless of whether Box already has spare resources,
• email campaigns and customer requests are often separate, additionally paid modules or separate tools alongside the CRM itself,
• customer data and contact history are kept by an external provider, outside the company's own infrastructure.

EspoCRM on Saplo is the official Docker image espocrm/espocrm, complemented by a separate container for background tasks (queue, cron, reminders, email notifications), with both running on your Box. No one counts users, contacts, or sales opportunities, and the total cost is simply the cost of the Box itself.

Requirements

To set up EspoCRM on Saplo, you need:

• a Box with Docker running (the engine enables it automatically when installing from the directory),
• at least 1 GB of free RAM on the Box and 3 GB of disk space, so the cheapest plan that can handle this is Box S for $29 per year,
• a domain or subdomain *.saploapp.pl included with every plan, where the EspoCRM panel will run,
• you do NOT need your own database, as EspoCRM uses Saplo's shared MySQL database, which the engine sets up automatically during installation.

You can find a full description of the application and its place in the directory on the EspoCRM on Saplo page.

Installation step by step

1. In the Saplo panel, go to Application Catalog and select EspoCRM.
2. Select a Box with at least 1 GB of free RAM and 3 GB of free disk space, as well as a domain or subdomain for the panel.
3. Approve the installation. The engine creates a shared MySQL database, sets up two containers from the espocrm/espocrm, app (panel on port 80) and daemon (queue, cron, reminders, email notifications) images on a shared data volume, and generates a random administrator password.
4. The first run creates the database schema and administrator account, so it may take longer than the usual dozen seconds or so. The engine waits until the container is actually running before marking the installation as complete.
5. The administrator login details (username, password) are saved in the ESPOCRM-SETUP.txt file in the application directory.

First use

1. Read the login and password from ESPOCRM-SETUP.txt in the application directory (the login defaults to admin, and the password is generated randomly during installation).
2. Log in at the application's domain address and change the password (Administration -> Users).
3. Add team members, with no limit and no additional fee for each additional account.
4. Configure the sales funnel (opportunities), fields, and roles to match the company's sales process.
5. Connect mailing campaigns and customer inquiries. The daemon container handles sending and background processing.

EspoCRM on Saplo vs Pipedrive

Frequently asked questions

Do you have to pay for every additional user? No, the number of EspoCRM accounts on Saplo is not limited and there is no additional charge. The cost is only the Box price.

Does EspoCRM require its own database? No, it uses Saplo's shared MySQL database, which the engine creates automatically during installation, with the access credentials injected into the container.

Does new data in the panel appear live, without refreshing? Not entirely. EspoCRM on Saplo runs without an optional websocket container, so notifications in the interface appear after you refresh the page. The background queue, cron and email notifications work normally through the daemon container, regardless of this limitation.

Can the administrator password be changed? Yes, in the EspoCRM panel (Administration -> Users) after your first login.

If you currently pay per user on Pipedrive or a similar CRM, contact us and we will help you migrate your entire team to EspoCRM on Saplo.