01
Custom CRM
Customer records that match how your company thinks about customers — not how a software vendor decided to model them.
Operava LLC · Custom software development
Custom software for landscaping companies that have outgrown generic tools.
We build systems around your workflows, crews, customers, estimating, scheduling, integrations and automation — instead of forcing your business into somebody else’s CRM.
Custom builds starting at $6,000. Hosting, maintenance and support from $200/month.
Lead to paid
one system
- Lead intakePhone, web, referral
- EstimateYour pricing rules
- ScheduleCrews, routes, recurring
- Field workCrew view, job status
- Invoice & paymentQuickBooks, Stripe
- ReportingThe numbers you run on
Or just the two or three stages that are actually costing you money — connected properly to the tools you keep.
- Built for
- Multi-crew operations
- Connects
- Jobber, QuickBooks, Stripe, Twilio
- Scope
- Fixed price, defined upfront
- After launch
- We host, monitor and support it
The problem
Your software should fit your business. Not the other way around.
Nobody outgrows their software all at once. It happens one workaround at a time, until the system everyone complains about is held together by spreadsheets and people who just know.
The CRM almost works
It handles the easy 80%. Your team keeps spreadsheets for the part that actually matters.
Scheduling falls apart at scale
One crew and one service line is fine. Six crews, recurring maintenance and project work is not.
Estimating depends on rules the software has never heard of
So your best estimator becomes the bottleneck, and pricing changes depending on who built the quote.
The office retypes the same information
Out of one system, into another. Every day. Nobody calls it data entry, but that is what it is.
Customers call to ask things the portal should answer
When was I serviced. What did I approve. What do I owe. Every one of those is a staffed phone call.
Reporting never quite matches reality
The numbers are close enough to look right and wrong enough that you do not make decisions on them.
Your team built workarounds
A shared sheet, a naming convention, a person who just knows. That is unpaid software development.
You pay for five tools that do not talk
Each one is fine on its own. No single workflow runs cleanly from lead to paid invoice.
If your software works for 80% of your company and your team manually patches the other 20%, that 20% is the part we build.
The approach
Keep the tools that work. Replace the workflows that don’t.
Your operation is already custom. Your software can be too. We build the specific parts generic products handle badly, and connect them to the systems you already depend on.
Not a template
Real development against your actual workflows.
Not a rip-out
Working systems get integrated, not replaced.
Not open-ended
Fixed scope and fixed price before we start.
What we build
The systems a growing landscaping company actually runs on.
This is capability, not a package. Most projects use two or three of these. The discovery call is where we work out which ones are worth your money.
02
Scheduling & Crew Operations
Recurring maintenance, one-off projects and multiple crews on the same board — without a spreadsheet holding it together.
03
Estimating & Quoting
Your pricing rules encoded properly, so estimates stop depending on who is building them.
04
Customer Portals
A place customers can answer their own questions, so the office stops answering the same five calls.
05
Integrations
Keep the systems that already work. We connect them instead of replacing them for the sake of it.
06
Automation
The repetitive admin your staff does because the software will not. Encoded once, then it just happens.
07
AI Tools
Applied where it removes real work. Not bolted on so we can put the word on a slide.
08
Reporting & Dashboards
The numbers you actually run the company on — not a generic CRM dashboard nobody opens.
See what each system includes
No project includes all eight. Scope is decided before development starts.
Who this is for
Built for established landscaping companies.
Custom software is worth it at a specific stage: when your operation has become specific enough that generic products cost you more than they save.
Usually a strong fit
- Multiple crews running at the same time
- Residential and commercial work under one roof
- Recurring maintenance alongside project work
- More than one service line or department
- Office staff who coordinate the work
- Enough lead volume that intake matters
- A software stack that has quietly fragmented
- Workflows no off-the-shelf product supports properly
Usually not worth it yet
A brand new solo operator
Off-the-shelf tools will serve you well for a while. Spend the money on trucks.
Someone who needs a website
We build operating software. A good web designer is a better use of your budget.
Basic invoicing only
If invoicing is the whole problem, existing products already solve it for far less.
A franchise with corporate-mandated software
If you cannot choose your own systems, custom software cannot help you.
We would rather tell you on the call than six weeks into a project.
How it works
Four steps, and you know the price before the third one.
Discovery is not a sales call with a different name. It is the part where we learn how your company runs, because that determines whether there is anything worth building.
Step 01
Discovery
We learn how your company actually operates.
Step 02
Scope
We decide what should be built — and what should be left alone.
Step 03
Build
We build in milestones you can see and react to.
Step 04
Launch & Support
Deployment, training, and someone who answers when it breaks.
Platform experience
What we’ve already built.
Systems and platform work we have shipped and run in production. These are capabilities, not client case studies — we are not going to show you logos and quotes we have not earned.
AI receptionist and intake
Answers inbound calls, qualifies the caller, captures the details a real estimate needs, and books the appointment straight into the schedule.
- Voice
- Lead capture
- Scheduling
Recurring scheduling engine
Recurring service plans across multiple crews and service types, with reschedules, seasonal cycles and exceptions that do not corrupt the rest of the calendar.
- Scheduling
- Crew operations
Customer portals
Self-service access to service history, estimates, approvals, invoices and payments — the questions that otherwise arrive by phone.
- Portal
- Self-service
Payment and subscription infrastructure
Stripe-backed card and ACH processing, stored payment methods, recurring billing and reconciliation that survives contact with accounting.
- Stripe
- Billing
Estimating and proposal workflows
Rule-driven pricing, multi-option proposals, internal approvals and digital acceptance, built so pricing does not depend on who is quoting.
- Estimating
- Approvals
Lead pipelines and routing
Inbound leads captured, deduplicated, scored and routed by service line and territory, with follow-up that stops when a human replies.
- CRM
- Automation
Route and field workflows
Day sequencing, crew assignment and job status reported from the field, so the office knows where work stands without calling the truck.
- Routing
- Mobile
Cross-system API orchestration
Keeping several systems of record in agreement — webhooks, retries, idempotency and reconciliation, which is where most integrations quietly fail.
- APIs
- Webhooks
- Integrations
Alex ran a lawn care business before building software for the industry. We have since built and shipped scheduling, estimating, payments, payroll, customer portals and AI phone answering for home-service operations. None of that is what we are selling you — it is why we do not need to learn this industry on your budget.
Pricing
Custom projects start at $6,000.
There are no packages, because there is no such thing as a standard version of your company. What there is: a fixed price for a scope you approved before anyone wrote code.
What moves the number
- Workflow complexity
- Integrations
- Data migration
- Number of user roles
- Automation
- Custom business logic
- Mobile requirements
- Reporting depth
- External provider work
- To begin
- 50%
- At launch
- 50%
- Ongoing support
- From $200/month
You’ll know what we’re building, what it costs, and what is outside scope before development starts. Additional features are quoted separately — the number does not quietly grow.
Why Operava
We build software that has to survive a Monday morning.
We understand how service operations run
Crews, routes, recurring work, estimating rules, the office in the middle. We are not learning your industry on your budget.
We have built complex home-service software before
Scheduling engines, portals, payment infrastructure, AI intake. Shipped and running, not slideware.
We work with real APIs, payments and business logic
Webhooks, retries, reconciliation, edge cases. The unglamorous parts where most integrations quietly fail.
We care whether it works in production
Software that demos well and breaks in week three is not a delivery. It is a liability with your name on it.
We do not sell features to inflate a project
If something should stay in QuickBooks, we will say so. Scope discipline is what keeps the price honest.
More on the company and how we work is on the about page.
Questions
The things people ask before booking.
How much does custom software cost?
Most projects begin around $6,000. Larger systems are scoped based on complexity — number of workflows, integrations, user roles, data migration and how much custom business logic is involved. You get a fixed price for a defined scope before development starts, and anything added later is quoted separately.
Do you replace our current software?
Not necessarily, and usually not entirely. The best result is often integrating what already works and replacing only the parts that do not. Ripping out a working accounting system to sell a bigger project is a bad trade for you and a bad reference for us.
Can you integrate with QuickBooks, Stripe, or our current CRM?
We build API and webhook integrations wherever the service supports them. QuickBooks, Stripe and Twilio are systems we work with regularly. For anything else, we check what its API actually allows during discovery — before it becomes an assumption in a scope document.
Is this just another CRM?
No. The entire reason to build custom software is the workflows generic products handle badly: your estimating rules, your crew structure, your service lines, your reporting. If a standard CRM covered it, we would tell you to buy one.
How long does a project take?
It depends on scope. A focused system — one department, a couple of integrations — typically runs several weeks. Larger builds spanning sales, operations and accounting run longer. You get a milestone schedule during scoping, not a number designed to win the deal.
Who owns the software?
Your company owns its business data and the custom deliverables built for you. Operava retains ownership of the reusable frameworks, libraries, infrastructure and pre-existing technology used to build the system. Exact terms are defined in the project agreement, and we go through them before you sign.
What happens after launch?
Hosting, maintenance, monitoring, bug fixes and support continue through a monthly support plan starting at $200/month. New features and expanded scope are quoted separately as you need them.
Can you build mobile apps?
Yes, where the project justifies it. In practice a well-built mobile web interface handles most crew and field workflows, works on every device your team already owns, and updates without an app store. We recommend a native app when there is a real reason for one — offline requirements, device hardware, background location.
Tell us what your current software can't do.
Bring the workarounds, the spreadsheets, and the parts of the job your system has never handled properly. That is the conversation.
Custom builds start at $6,000. No obligation on the call.