How we score switching effort
Distance on the map equals effort. Effort is our judgment from what vendors publish; it is not a measured project time and it will be wrong for your company in specific ways.
The five factors (1 = easy, 5 = hard)
| Factor | What we look at | 1 means | 5 means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Export | Can the old tool export your full history? Who must switch it on, and does it cost extra? | Self-serve, full history, standard formats | Not available, or paid add-on, or must be requested |
| Import | Does the new vendor document a first-party importer for this specific source? | Official one-step tool for the whole data set | Scripting required, or partner only |
| Permissions | Users, roles and groups must be recreated and mapped | Automatic | Fully manual, many roles |
| Integrations | Email routing, forms, plugins and API keys to re-point | Few, vendor connectors documented | Many custom |
| Training | How different the data model and terms are | Same concepts | New concepts |
From score to days
Total = sum of the five scores (5 to 25). Days range = total × 0.4 to total × 0.9, rounded, for up to 15 seats; multiply by 1.5 for 16–50 seats and 2 above. The multipliers are assumptions we chose; they are not fitted to data.
What is not scored
Custom code, data cleaning, legal review, contract end dates, and your team's availability. Moves without a hand-checked page show "effort not scored" instead of a guess.
Scores so far
| Move | Export | Import | Perms | Integr. | Train | Total | Days (≤15 seats) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zendesk → Freshdesk | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 13 | 5–12 |
| Zendesk → Help Scout | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 14 | 6–13 |
| Zendesk → Intercom | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 15 | 6–14 |
| Zendesk → Front | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 14 | 6–13 |
| HubSpot → Pipedrive | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 12 | 5–11 |
| QuickBooks Online → Xero | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 11 | 4–10 |
| DocuSign → Dropbox Sign | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 12 | 5–11 |
| Trello → Asana | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 11 | 4–10 |
| Asana → ClickUp | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 10 | 4–9 |
| Mailchimp → Brevo | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 9 | 4–8 |
| Pipedrive → HubSpot | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 12 | 5–11 |
Disagree with a score? Send the doc that supports a different one via Submit; corrections are free and logged on the change log.