CRM migration

Migrate from karmaCRM to Twenty CRM

Field-level mapping, validation, and rollback between karmaCRM and Twenty CRM. We move data and schema; workflows are rebuilt natively in Twenty CRM.

karmaCRM logo

karmaCRM

Source

Twenty CRM

Destination

Twenty CRM logo

Compatibility

75%

9 of 12

objects map 1:1 between karmaCRM and Twenty CRM.

Complexity

BStandard

Timeline

3-5 weeks

Rollback included Accuracy guarantee Field-level validation

Overview

What this migration involves

Moving from karmaCRM to Twenty CRM is a structural migration that reflects the gap between a lightweight small-business CRM and a developer-first open-source platform. karmaCRM stores Contacts with inline company associations and Deals with pipeline stage values; Twenty CRM splits People and Companies into two first-class objects with a linked relationship, requiring a pre-migration company extraction from karmaCRM contact records. We handle the People-Company split by querying karmaCRM's company field on each Contact during export, creating Company records in Twenty first, then linking People records to the resolved Company ID at import time. Tasks and Events from karmaCRM map to Twenty's Activity system, preserving due dates, status, and linked record associations. karmaCRM's email campaigns, role-based export permissions, and integration tokens do not transfer; we deliver a written inventory of active integrations, email campaign metadata, and webhook definitions for the customer's admin to rebuild in Twenty or external tools.

Field-level fidelity

Every standard and custom field arrives verified.

Schema-aware mapping

AI proposes the map; you confirm before any record moves.

Relationships preserved

Parent–child, lookups, and ownership stay linked.

Full activity history

Calls, emails, meetings — with original timestamps.

Attachments & notes

Documents, uploads, and inline notes move with the record.

Why teams make this switch

Two sides of the same decision

Leaving

karmaCRM logo

karmaCRM

What's pushing teams away

  • Support response times are slow and broken features reportedly never get fixed despite ongoing product updates, per Software Advice reviews.
  • Small business teams outgrow the platform's object model depth — limited pipeline customization, no native automation beyond basic email campaigns.
  • No public roadmap transparency creates uncertainty about long-term platform investment, prompting teams to migrate to better-funded alternatives.
  • Business card scanning is capped at 20/month on Pro and 50/month on Premium, frustrating teams with high lead volume.

Choosing

Twenty CRM logo

Twenty CRM

What's pulling them in

  • Top open-source CRM on GitHub with 40.6K stars, giving teams full source code access and infrastructure ownership without per-feature licensing surprises.
  • Free self-hosting under AGPL-3.0 means unlimited users and custom objects for the cost of cloud infrastructure alone, typically $20–100/month.
  • Pricing page explicitly mocks competitors for charging add-on fees for API access, webhooks, and workflows — transparency that resonates with RevOps teams burned by Salesforce.
  • Unlimited custom objects and fields with no price impact, letting teams shape the data model to their business rather than forcing business into rigid schemas.
  • Modern TypeScript/React/PostgreSQL stack means developer-led teams can extend, self-host, or integrate without fighting legacy architecture.

Object mapping

How karmaCRM objects map to Twenty CRM

Each row shows how a karmaCRM object lands in Twenty CRM, including any object-level transformations, lookup resolution, or schema-design dependencies.

Typical mapping — final map is confirmed during the sample migration step.

karmaCRM

Contact

maps to

Twenty CRM

People

1:1
Fully supported

karmaCRM Contacts map to Twenty CRM People. The mapping requires resolving the karmaCRM company association before People import because Twenty uses separate People and Company objects. We extract the company_name or company_id from each karmaCRM Contact during export, hold it in a staging lookup, then link each People record to the resolved Company record in Twenty via the PersonCompany relationship. Email, phone, address, and any custom field values transfer as typed field values against the People object.

karmaCRM

Company

maps to

Twenty CRM

Company

1:1
Fully supported

karmaCRM Companies map directly to Twenty CRM Companies. The company name, domain, address fields, and custom field values transfer as written. Twenty requires Companies to exist before People are imported if linking is required, so we sequence Company records first in the migration run order. The domain field from karmaCRM becomes the Company domain in Twenty for deduplication and enrichment.

karmaCRM

Contact.company link

maps to

Twenty CRM

People.PersonCompany relationship

1:1
Fully supported

karmaCRM's inline company association on a Contact record becomes a lookup in Twenty CRM. We perform a two-pass extraction: first pass exports all karmaCRM Companies and creates Twenty Companies, second pass re-queries karmaCRM Contacts with their company association and links each to the newly created Twenty Company ID via PersonCompany. Records where the karmaCRM company field is empty create People with no Company link, which is valid in Twenty.

karmaCRM

Deal

maps to

Twenty CRM

Opportunity

1:1
Fully supported

karmaCRM Deals map to Twenty CRM Opportunities. The deal name becomes Opportunity name, deal value maps to the amount field, and deal stage maps to Opportunity stage with a customer-supplied stage value mapping document. The karmaCRM deal owner (assigned user) resolves to the matching Twenty User by email during owner reconciliation. Closed-won and closed-lost statuses carry over with their original timestamps preserved as Activity records.

karmaCRM

Task

maps to

Twenty CRM

Task

1:1
Fully supported

karmaCRM Tasks map to Twenty CRM Tasks with due date, status, priority, and linked contact or company associations preserved. The linked record reference (contact_id or company_id) resolves to the equivalent Twenty People or Company ID after the lookup pass completes. Task body and description transfer as rich text. Completed status maps directly; open tasks carry over as pending with their original due dates.

karmaCRM

Event

maps to

Twenty CRM

Activity (with EventRelation)

1:many
Fully supported

karmaCRM Events map to Twenty CRM Activity records with type=Event. Each event record generates one Activity entry plus one EventRelation record per attendee. The event title, start and end timestamps, location, and description transfer directly. If karmaCRM attendees include external contacts, we create People records for them first before creating the EventRelation entries. Duration is computed from start and end timestamps at migration time.

karmaCRM

User and Team Member

maps to

Twenty CRM

User

1:1
Fully supported

karmaCRM Users and team members map to Twenty CRM Users. We extract user name, email, and role from karmaCRM and create matching User records in Twenty before any other object migration begins because OwnerId references on Deals, Tasks, and Events require a valid User to exist at import time. The karmaCRM role label maps to a Twenty workspace Role with the closest permission equivalent; the customer reviews and adjusts role permissions in Twenty Settings after migration.

karmaCRM

Custom Field

maps to

Twenty CRM

Custom Field

lossy
Fully supported

karmaCRM supports fully customizable fields across screens and object types. Custom field definitions and values from karmaCRM migrate as freeform name-value pairs. Twenty CRM requires custom fields to be created in Settings Data Model before any CSV import because the CSV import creates records only, not fields. We extract the full custom field schema from karmaCRM, create matching custom fields in Twenty for each object, then migrate values as field data during the record import pass. Field types are approximated to the closest Twenty native type (text, number, date, select).

karmaCRM

Attachment

maps to

Twenty CRM

Attachment (manual re-upload)

1:1
Fully supported

karmaCRM stores files and attachments linked to contacts, companies, and deals, but the platform backup and API documentation do not describe a programmatic attachment export path. We cannot migrate attachments via API or CSV. We produce a written inventory of all karmaCRM attachments with their parent record reference and suggested re-upload path in Twenty. The customer re-uploads attachments post-migration using Twenty's built-in file upload on each record.

karmaCRM

Tag

maps to

Twenty CRM

Custom Multi-Select Field

lossy
Fully supported

karmaCRM tags applied to Contacts and Companies migrate as a custom multi-select text field in Twenty CRM. We extract the full tag vocabulary from karmaCRM, create a multi-select field on the People and Company objects in Twenty's data model settings, then map tag associations as comma-separated values in the custom field. The customer chooses whether tags on People and Company use a shared field or separate fields during scoping.

karmaCRM

Email Campaign (Pro/Premium)

maps to

Twenty CRM

Campaign metadata only (no campaign engine)

1:1
Fully supported

karmaCRM email campaign records on Pro and Premium tiers include audience lists, subject lines, send dates, and open or click statistics. We import campaign metadata as a written inventory document rather than as records in Twenty because Twenty does not have a native email campaign or engagement studio engine. Subject lines and send dates are preserved for reference; the customer rebuilds campaign logic in an external email tool or waits for Twenty's campaign features to reach feature parity.

karmaCRM

Integration configuration

maps to

Twenty CRM

Integration documentation

1:1
Fully supported

karmaCRM integrates with Google Calendar, Google Contacts, and MailChimp via OAuth tokens and embedded iframe configurations that do not transfer between platforms. We document which integrations are active in karmaCRM during discovery and deliver a written integration map listing each tool, the authentication method used, and the recommended reconnection path in Twenty or an equivalent external tool. No OAuth tokens, connected account states, or API key configurations migrate.

Gotchas + challenges

What specifically takes care here

Platform-specific issues from each side, plus the pair-specific challenges that don't show up on either platform's page on its own.

karmaCRM logo

karmaCRM gotchas

High

Role-based export permission gate is invisible in scoping

High

Free tier hard-caps at 100 contacts, 100 companies, 10 deals

Medium

Activating trial before expiry immediately triggers billing

Medium

API token-based auth has no documented rate limits

Twenty CRM logo

Twenty CRM gotchas

High

Import order is enforced and critical

High

Export limited to 20,000 records and visible columns only

Medium

Soft-deleted records count toward uniqueness and trigger restores

Medium

API rate limits cap at 200 req/min on Organization tier

Low

No native email sequences — follow-up cadences require external tools

Pair-specific challenges

  • Twenty CRM requires separate People and Company objects with a link table

    karmaCRM stores company data as an inline field on the Contact record. Twenty CRM uses two separate objects, People and Company, linked by a PersonCompany relationship table. This means Contacts with a karmaCRM company association must be extracted in two passes: first create all karmaCRM Companies as Twenty Companies, then re-query the karmaCRM export to link each Contact to the correct Company ID at import time. Migrations that attempt a single-pass import create People records without Company links, losing the relationship data. We flag this as a required design decision during scoping and implement the two-pass extraction approach as standard practice.

  • Custom fields must be created in Twenty before CSV import

    Twenty CRM's CSV import creates records, not fields. If a karmaCRM record has custom field values but the corresponding custom field has not been created in Twenty Settings Data Model, the import silently ignores those values. karmaCRM supports per-field customization at the label and screen level across all objects, so custom field counts can be high. We extract the complete karmaCRM custom field schema during discovery, pre-create every custom field in Twenty before any record import begins, and validate field counts match after each import pass.

  • karmaCRM has no documented API rate limits forcing conservative export pacing

    karmaCRM's API uses token-based authentication with no documented rate limits, concurrent session limits, or throttle behavior. We throttle migration reads to a conservative request cadence with exponential backoff on any 429 response, which we treat as a signal to slow down rather than a hard error. If the API becomes unresponsive during migration, we pause and resume rather than risk account-level lockout. This adds latency to large export passes compared to platforms with published rate limits like Salesforce Bulk API.

  • Twenty CRM is actively developing with some stability trade-offs

    Twenty CRM's core team has publicly acknowledged in their community Discord that the product has prioritized feature delivery over stability during its growth phase, with recent migrations from Recoil to Jotai state management and layout system changes causing view regressions for some users at scale (600+ records). Performance degradation and view configuration resets have been reported by cloud users. We validate Twenty's current version at migration time, document any known regressions relevant to the migration scope, and recommend a staging test before production cutover. The open-source nature of Twenty means regression risks are transparent but ongoing.

  • karmaCRM email campaigns and workflows do not migrate to any destination

    karmaCRM email campaigns are available on Pro and Premium tiers but have no equivalent engine in Twenty CRM. Twenty's documentation explicitly states that automations and sequences must be recreated manually after migration. We do not migrate email campaigns as functional records; we import campaign metadata as a written reference inventory so the customer can rebuild campaign logic in an external tool. Any karmaCRM automation or workflow logic requires a full rebuild in Twenty or an external automation layer such as Make or Zapier.

Migration approach

Six steps for a successful karmaCRM to Twenty CRM data migration

  1. Discovery and export permission check

    We audit the karmaCRM account for tier (Free/Basic/Pro/Premium), record counts across Contacts, Companies, Deals, Tasks, Events, and email campaigns. We verify the migrating account has export permission at the role level and confirm there are no record-count violations on the Free tier (100 contacts, 100 companies, 10 deals cap). We extract the full custom field schema, tag vocabulary, and active integration list. We also capture the karmaCRM API token for the export phase. The discovery output is a written scope document confirming record counts, tier in scope, and any records excluded due to free-tier caps.

  2. Two-pass company extraction and schema pre-creation

    We perform a two-pass extraction to resolve the People-Company relationship. First pass exports all karmaCRM Companies and creates Twenty Companies via CSV import. Second pass re-exports karmaCRM Contacts with their company association and imports them as Twenty People with the PersonCompany relationship resolved to the newly created Company IDs. In parallel with discovery, we pre-create all karmaCRM custom fields in Twenty Settings Data Model for each object (People, Company, Opportunity, Task, Activity) before any record import begins. We also create the tag vocabulary as a multi-select field in Twenty's data model.

  3. User provisioning in Twenty

    We extract all karmaCRM Users and team members with name, email, and role label. We create matching Twenty Users and invite them to the workspace before any other object import begins. OwnerId references on Deals, Tasks, and Events require a valid Twenty User to exist at import time; if a karmaCRM Owner has no matching email in Twenty, we hold those records in a reconciliation queue while the customer's admin provisions the missing User. Migration cannot proceed past this step until the User queue is resolved.

  4. Staging migration and reconciliation

    We run a full migration into the customer's Twenty workspace using production record counts. The customer reconciles record counts (People in, Companies in, Opportunities in, Tasks in, Activities in), spot-checks 25-50 records against the karmaCRM source, and confirms the People-Company relationship is intact. The karmaCRM free-tier cap is re-verified at this stage: any records over the Free-tier limit are excluded from migration unless the customer upgrades to a paid plan prior to production migration. Any mapping corrections happen in staging, not in production.

  5. Production migration in dependency order

    We run production migration in record-dependency order: Companies first (from karmaCRM Companies), then People (with PersonCompany link resolved), then Opportunities, then Tasks, then Activity records (Events via Activity and EventRelation). Each phase emits a row-count reconciliation report before the next phase begins. Attachments are documented for manual re-upload post-migration. Email campaign metadata is delivered as a written reference inventory for the customer to use when rebuilding campaign logic in an external tool.

  6. Cutover, validation, and integration handoff

    We freeze karmaCRM writes during cutover, run a final delta migration of any records modified during the migration window, then mark Twenty as the system of record. We deliver the integration map listing each active karmaCRM integration (Google Calendar, Google Contacts, MailChimp) with a reconnection guide for Twenty or an equivalent replacement. We deliver the email campaign reference inventory for the customer to use in an external campaign tool. We support a five-day hypercare window for reconciliation issues. We do not rebuild karmaCRM automations or workflows in Twenty; that work is documented as a separate rebuild task for the customer's admin or a Twenty implementation partner.

Platform deep dives

Context on both ends of the pair

karmaCRM logo

karmaCRM

Source

Strengths

  • Minimalist interface that small business teams find easy to learn and adopt without formal training.
  • Per-field customization lets small businesses rename labels, adjust screens, and tailor workflows without developer involvement.
  • Unlimited contacts, companies, and deals on all paid tiers means no surprise billing limits as the team grows.
  • Built-in two-way email sync with reply tracking on Basic tier without requiring third-party email add-ons.

Weaknesses

  • No documented public API rate limits, creating uncertainty for bulk data export and migration tooling.
  • Role-based export permissions can silently block data export for non-owner accounts, complicating automated migration planning.
  • Email campaigns, lead capture forms, and business card scanning are gated behind paid tiers, limiting migration scope for free-tier accounts.
  • No native bulk/batch API endpoints documented, forcing migration tooling to rely on paginated REST calls.
Twenty CRM logo

Twenty CRM

Destination

Strengths

  • AGPL-3.0 open-source license with full source code on GitHub — no vendor lock-in, no sunset risk.
  • Unlimited users and unlimited custom objects on self-hosted, with no feature gating based on headcount.
  • REST and GraphQL APIs available on all paid tiers, not locked behind an enterprise add-on fee.
  • MCP server and webhooks shipped as standard features, not premium upgrades.
  • Modern PostgreSQL-backed data model that developer teams can query, extend, and self-host.

Weaknesses

  • Recent v1.0 release means limited production hardening compared to CRMs with multi-year operational track records.
  • No native email sequencing or sales engagement tools — follow-up cadences require a separate platform.
  • No native two-way email sync or inbox integration, requiring third-party connectors for full activity logging.
  • Self-hosting 'free' pricing hides real infrastructure and DevOps costs that stack up over time.
  • Workflow automation is functional but lacks the complexity needed for sophisticated multi-step sales motions.

Complexity grading

How hard is this migration?

Standard CRM migration. 2 of 8 objects need a mapping; the rest are 1:1.

B

Overall complexity

Standard migration

Derived from compatibility, mapping clarity, API constraints, and data volume across karmaCRM and Twenty CRM.

  • Object compatibility

    B

    2 of 8 objects need a mapping; the rest are 1:1.

  • Field mapping clarity

    C

    Field mapping is derived from defaults — final spec confirmed during the sample migration.

  • Timeline complexity

    B

    8-object category — typical timelines run 2–7 days end-to-end.

  • API constraints

    B

    karmaCRM: Not publicly documented.

  • Data volume sensitivity

    B

    karmaCRM doesn't expose a bulk API — REST + parallelization used for high-volume runs.

Estimator

Estimate your karmaCRM to Twenty CRM migration cost

Rule-based pricing — no per-record fees, no manual quotes. Migrations over 2M records are scoped individually.

Step 1

What are you migrating?

Pick a category, then your source and destination platforms.

Category

FAQ

Frequently asked questions about karmaCRM to Twenty CRM data migrations

Answers to the questions buyers ask most during karmaCRM to Twenty CRM migration scoping. Not seeing yours? Book a call.

Can't find your answer?

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Most migrations land between three and five weeks for accounts under 5,000 Contacts and 1,000 Deals with a straightforward custom field schema and no large activity history. Migrations with high record counts (over 25,000 Contacts), complex People-Company relationship structures, activity histories exceeding 100,000 Tasks and Events, or a karmaCRM Pro or Premium account with active email campaign data requiring a reference inventory move to six to ten weeks because of the two-pass relationship extraction and bulk Activity load.

Adjacent paths

Related migrations to explore

Ready when you are

Move from karmaCRM.
Land in Twenty CRM, intact.

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