Deliverability, payments, consent.
The CRM is a commodity store that the agents mostly stopped using. What's left is the stuff an agent can't be: the sender reputation that gets email into the inbox, the payments license, the consent and GDPR layer a regulator will ask about. Gross margin 80%, because there's almost no product left. Headcount down 55%. Three analysts cover you.
Every small-business agent in the world calls you to send the email and take the card. None of them say your name to the customer.
Plumbing survives because it is standing, not software. You kept the sender reputation and the license and let the CRM go. The thesis says this layer exists and is thinner than you'd think. It was.
One path that gets here
A · HubSpot Credits. Price the agents as credits, on top of seatsB · Reverse. Open the record to every agent and stop fighting for the screenA · Accept it. Keep the parts that are standing: email deliverability, payments, consent and compliance. Price like a utility