How often do CRMs back up data?
Reputable CRMs back up data daily at minimum, with many doing continuous replication. Backups are typically retained for 30-90 days, with longer retention available on enterprise plans. The vendor's backup protects against infrastructure failures — but you should keep your own export for protection against everything else.
How vendor backups actually work
Modern CRMs run on cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, Azure) that already provides built-in redundancy — your data is replicated across multiple availability zones in real time. On top of that, the CRM vendor takes scheduled backups — typically daily snapshots of the database. Those snapshots are stored in a separate, encrypted location and retained for 30-90 days. Some vendors offer extended retention (up to a year) on enterprise plans. The combination of replication and scheduled backups means accidental loss from the vendor side is extremely rare.
What vendor backups protect against
Two failure modes. Infrastructure failure: a data center catches fire, a hard drive fails, a network outage. Replication and backups make these invisible to you — the CRM stays up or restores within hours. Vendor-side mistakes: a botched software update corrupts data, an engineer drops the wrong table. Backups let the vendor roll back. These risks are real but well-handled by reputable vendors. You don't need to do anything to be protected from them.
What vendor backups don't protect against
Three failure modes vendor backups don't help with. Your team deletes important records by mistake — the vendor still has the data, but you have to file a support ticket and prove you need it restored, often with a fee. Your account gets compromised and an attacker wipes data — same problem, depends on vendor support. The vendor goes out of business or has a catastrophic failure — their backups are gone too. For all three, your own export is the only real protection.
What contractors should do themselves
Two habits cover the gap. Quarterly export: every three months, download a full export of your CRM data and stash it on a hard drive or cloud storage you control. CSVs for the structured data, plus attachments where the CRM allows. If anything ever goes wrong, you have an offline copy. Self-service restore: if your CRM allows self-service undo for accidental deletes, learn how to use it before you need to. Most vendors offer a recycle bin or 30-day undo for deletes — knowing the limits ahead of time prevents the 'I deleted the wrong thing' panic.
Bottom line
Reputable CRMs back up daily and your data is well-protected from vendor-side problems. Quarterly export your own copy to cover the failure modes the vendor's backups don't.