Real estate CRM options in India compared: Excel, generic CRMs and TRET

Sheets and WhatsApp, a general-purpose CRM or one built for real estate: what each handles well, where each falls short, and how to choose for your projects.

Most builders do not choose a CRM in one go. They start with a sheet and a WhatsApp group, try a general-purpose tool when the sheet breaks, and then look for something built for real estate. This post compares those three options honestly, so you can pick the one that fits the size and shape of your sales today.

What are the three real estate CRM options in India?

1. 1Excel or Google Sheets plus WhatsApp. One sheet of leads, maybe one per project, with follow-ups and site visits handled in WhatsApp groups and on calls. It costs nothing extra and everyone already knows how to use it.
2. 2Generic CRMs. General-purpose CRMs built for contacts and deals. They are flexible and widely used across industries, but they think in terms of a contact moving through deal stages, not a buyer looking at a unit in a tower.
3. 3A real estate CRM like TRET. Software built around how Indian builders sell: leads from portals, ads and WhatsApp, site visits, live inventory, channel partners, cost sheets with GST and stamp duty, and the payment schedule after the booking.

How do the three options compare?

Here is how each option handles the work a builder's sales team does every week. "Possible with effort" means you can get there, but someone has to build and maintain it.

When is Excel and WhatsApp enough?

Be honest about this one. If you have one project, two or three salespeople and a modest number of enquiries a month, a well-kept Google Sheet and a WhatsApp group can work. Everyone can open it, there is nothing to learn and nothing to pay.

The trouble starts with volume and people. Leads arrive from several portals and ad forms, so someone spends the morning copying them in. The same buyer comes in twice and two executives call him. Follow-ups depend on memory. "Is A-204 still available?" gets three different answers. A channel partner says the buyer was his, and nobody can prove otherwise. When these start happening every week, the sheet is costing you bookings.

When does a generic CRM make sense?

A general-purpose CRM is a reasonable step up when your process looks like a standard sales pipeline: a contact, a few conversations and a deal. Some builders with a strong in-house admin or IT person do make one work by adding custom fields, stages and integrations.

The gap shows in the parts that are specific to real estate. A generic CRM tracks contacts and deals. A builder also needs projects, towers, floors and units, site visits, channel partners, cost sheets with GST and stamp duty, and the payment schedule after the booking. You can build some of this yourself, but someone has to own that setup and keep it working as projects change.

What does a real estate CRM like TRET do differently?

TRET starts from the unit, not the contact. Every lead lands in one de-duplicated list and is routed round-robin or by rules such as project, budget and language, with a response-time clock that starts the moment it lands. Follow-ups, calls and WhatsApp messages sit on one timeline, and WhatsApp messages go from the salesperson's own WhatsApp and are logged on the lead.

Inventory is live by project, tower, floor and unit, so the whole team sees the same status at the same moment. A unit can be held for a buyer with an expiry, and a unit held for one buyer cannot be booked for another. When the buyer books, the lead converts in one click, the unit is marked sold everywhere, and the payment schedule, demand letters and receipts come from the same booking record.

Channel partners get their own link to register clients. The first registration wins, with a timestamp, and commission is calculated when the unit is booked. GST, stamp duty and RERA fields are built in.

What does each option really cost?

Excel and WhatsApp cost nothing extra in licences, but they cost time and missed follow-ups, which are harder to see. For any paid CRM, look past the per-user price: setup fees, seat minimums, lock-in, add-ons, usage charges and 18% GST all change the total. Our guide on what a real estate CRM really costs in India walks through what to check.

TRET's Growth plan is ₹1,299 per user per month, billed quarterly, plus GST, with a minimum of 2 seats and no setup fee. WhatsApp and telephony usage is billed at provider cost. Enterprise, for developers with many projects across cities, is priced on request. Every workspace starts with a 7-day free trial with everything switched on, and no card is needed. Full details are on the TRET for builders page.

Which one should you choose?

• One project, a small team, few enquiries: Excel or Google Sheets with WhatsApp is fine. Keep one sheet, one owner per lead and a fixed follow-up routine.
• Mostly a standard sales pipeline, with someone in-house to customise software: a generic CRM can work. Before you sign, check how it will handle units, site visits and channel partners, and who will maintain that setup.
• Several towers or projects, portal and ad leads, channel partners, and post-booking collections: a real estate CRM such as TRET fits the work without custom building. You can import your leads from Excel and bring your existing partners into the channel partner portal.
• Not sure yet: run a one-week trial with one project and last month's portal export. How your team works during that week will tell you more than any comparison.

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