# Setup & Deployment

> How Seedly deploys - what you get, how Sprout walks you through it, where it runs, and what you need.

This is the plain-English overview of how you get from buying Seedly to a live CRM running on infrastructure you control. It is not an exhaustive runbook; the full step-by-step lives in the setup guide that ships inside the product.

## What you get when you buy

The moment you purchase, you receive two things by email:

1. **A license key** - your proof of purchase and the key that unlocks the developer guide.
2. **The full source code** - the complete application, yours to keep, modify, and deploy.

From there, the path is: download the source, run the guided setup, and deploy. Most people who are comfortable following technical instructions get to a working deployment in an afternoon.

## Two ways to set it up

You do not have to wire this together from memory. There are two supported paths, and you can mix them:

- **Sprout, the built-in setup guide.** Sprout walks you through the whole deployment in plain English, one step at a time, and waits for you at each step. It is designed for an operator, not just an engineer.
- **Point Claude Code at the repo.** If you use [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code) or a similar coding tool, you can open the project and ask it to set everything up. It reads the included instructions and does the configuration with you.

Either way, the included documentation covers each account you create and each value you need to set.

## Where it runs

Seedly is a modern web app: a frontend deployed on **Vercel** and a backend running on **Convex**.

- **Convex Cloud is the default backend.** It runs your database, the server-side logic, and authentication as one managed service, so backups, scaling, and uptime are handled for you. Authentication is built in, so there is no separate auth service to configure.
- **You own the source either way.** Convex also offers a self-hosted, open-source runtime if you want to run that layer on your own servers. That path is more work, and it is optional.

This is the honest version of "self-hosted": you own and control the source and your data, and you choose where it is deployed. The default path leans on Convex Cloud so you are not running database servers by hand.

## What you need

A realistic checklist before you start:

1. **A Convex account** - the backend and database. The free tier comfortably covers a small agency.
2. **A Vercel account** - where the frontend is hosted. The free tier is plenty to start.
3. **Your own domain** - pointed at your deployment so the CRM lives on your brand.
4. **An email service** - Resend, Postmark, or similar, for transactional email (confirmations, reminders, notifications).
5. **Optional provider accounts** - add these when you need them: a voice and SMS provider (Twilio or Telnyx) for the dialer and texting, and Stripe if you want to bill clients. None are required to get a core CRM running first.

### What it costs to run

For most agencies, hosting runs somewhere between **$25 and $200 a month** depending on how hard you push it. A small operation often starts on free tiers. The usage-based services you connect (email, texting, AI) are billed by their providers at their own rates, and you can rebill that usage to your clients at your own markup.

## Roughly how long

Plan for **a couple of hours** the first time, mostly spent creating accounts and pasting in credentials. The setup itself is guided; the time goes into the one-time configuration tasks (connecting providers, verifying your sending domain) that you do once and never touch again.

## After it is live

- Read the [Architecture](/docs/architecture) page if you want to understand the stack and how data is kept separate per client.
- Browse the [Help Center](/docs/help) for how each module works day to day.
- Check the [changelog](/docs/changelog) to see what has shipped and how often.

You buy once, you own the code, and you decide when to update. Nothing changes on your build unless you pull it in.

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Source: https://seedlycrm.com/docs/setup