10 Best free CRM tools you can’t afford to miss

Customer relationship management (CRM) software bridges gaps between customer service, sales, and marketing departments to help businesses foster better relationships with customers. Free CRM plans are often available as a jumping-off point for small businesses that are getting started with their sales process. They’re also good for solopreneurs who need fewer features but still want to track customer journeys. 

The best free CRM services offer the basics of a full-fledged CRM system, such as contact and lead management, lead generation forms, free email sends, and built-in dialers to call leads directly from the app. We compared the best free CRM plans for small businesses that scale well into paid plans.

10 best free CRM services of 2024

*Reduced rates with annual subscription
**Includes five users
+Three-user minimum

Zoho CRM: Best for Automations

Zoho is a suite of work management programs, which includes CRM, email marketing, support software, and bookkeeping tools, to name a few. Zoho employs more than 15,000 people around the world and it was founded in 1996 under the business name AdventNet. According to the company, it serves more than 100 million users.

Zoho CRM

Why we like it

Zoho CRM is a great place to start for any individual or small team (up to three users) that needs a CRM to organize and manage customer relationships. The standout feature of Zoho CRM’s free plan is its workflow automation option, which is uncommon in free CRM software. You’re limited to 2,500 workflow rules (only 2,000 can be active at once), but this is generous. Where it limits you in the free plan is how many rules you can have per module and how many can be active at once; on the free plan, it’s 10 rules total and only five active at a time.

Learn more: read our Zoho CRM review.

Zoho CRM pricing and plans

If you outgrow Zoho CRM’s free plan, there are multiple tiers of upgrades available to scale with your business.

Freshsales: Best for Built-in Communication Tools

Freshworks, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) suite of tools was formed in 2010 by a pair of former employees of Zoho. The company started with helpdesk software and built it out from there to include CRM, marketing automation, chatbot, and information technology (IT) service management apps. Freshworks has more than 67,000 customers and it’s a publicly traded company (NASDAQ: FRSH).

Freshsales

Why we like it

Aside from the basics you get from Freshsales, such as lead and account management, you also get a native dialer and a chatbot you can add to your website. It’s already rare to see CRM with built-in telephony in its app (and not just for mobile), so it’s a surprising feature to see in the Freshsales free plan. Of course, you’ll need to pay for credits, but that’s often the case with native telephony options. The chatbot builder lets you load it with topics to help direct web leads to the right person to talk to and you can train your artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot to detect intent, route conversations, and answer customer questions.

Learn more: read our Freshsales review.

Freshsales pricing and plans

In addition to its free plan, Freshsales features three paid tiers designed to support businesses of different sizes and demands.

Agile CRM: Best for Email Marketing

Agile CRM started in 2013 and has since racked up its customer base to more than 20,000. It’s a privately owned company with no backing from venture capitalists and it earned more than $2 million in revenue by 2016.

Agile CRM

Why we like it

Email marketing goes hand in hand with CRM, but we’ve never seen more allowance for emails in a free plan than what you get with Agile CRM. Create, send, and track email campaigns for up to 5,000 sends at no cost (and this refreshes monthly). If you need to send more, you’ll have to pay  4/10ths of a cent per email up to 100,000. We also like that Agile CRM allows you to add up to 10 users on the free plan, so this can work well for a medium-sized team that’s getting started. Once you grow out of the free option, upgrading to the Starter plan is affordable at only $9.99 per user, per month.

Learn more: read our Agile CRM review.

Agile CRM pricing and plans

Once you’ve outgrown the free plan, Agile CRM offers three tiered plans to help businesses expand and evolve.

HubSpot: Best for Inbound Marketing

HubSpot is known for being an inbound marketing-centric CRM. It was founded in 2006 and grew quickly. In 2023, it reported $581.9 million in revenue in the fourth quarter. 

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HubSpot

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Supports up to one million sales products and 5,000 documents
• Live chat and Facebook Messenger integration
• Up to 5,000 email templates

Cons

• Limited to one shared inbox
• Limited to one HubSpot-provided phone number
• Lacks automated sequences or workflows until higher-priced plans

Additional features

“HubSpot has many workflows we can set up, which ensures no lead falls through the cracks,” says Ultan O’Callaghan, CEO at Thooja. “For example, if someone contacts us through our website, we can easily set up a workflow to ensure they are contacted by sales rep.”

Customer Support

HubSpot’s Sales Hub Starter Plan offers email support and a comprehensive knowledge base, HubSpot Academy to learn about its rich feature set, and HubSpot Community to learn from other users. Professional Plan users gain access to phone support.

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Why we like it

HubSpot’s free CRM software has a marketing-first focus and it’s great for inbound marketing. It lets you create forms to collect information, and you can create segmented lists for your audiences (up to 10 active lists but 1,000 static). Also, you can integrate your Facebook messenger, Slack, Gmail, and Outlook. The integration allowance is rare for most free CRM plans. Also, you can add up to a whopping 1 million contacts to your free HubSpot account. 

Aside from integrations, we’re impressed with how many features you get on the free plan, although most of them are basic features and the plan only allows up to five users. This also is tempered by the limitations. For example, you get email marketing, but you’re limited to 2,000 sends per month (and it includes HubSpot branding). And while email automation is included, you only get one address. 

Learn more: read our HubSpot CRM review.

HubSpot pricing and plans

The free plan offers a great start, but growing companies can benefit from the expanded CRM features of the Sales Hub Starter platform.

Bitrix24: Best for Featured-packed Free Plan

Bitrix24 started as an online collaboration tool and eventually added CRM to the platform. The company released its product in 2012. According to Bitrix24’s website, the private company provides services to more than 15 million organizations around the world.

Bitrix24

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Unlimited built-in phone calls, including video calls
• Competitive pricing for small teams
• Store an unlimited number of deals

Cons

• Basic plan only supports up to five users
• Only 24GB of storage for the organization
• Lacks custom fields in tasks and projects

Additional features

Customer Support

Bitrix24 offers excellent customer support for all paid plan subscribers. Support avenues include online training via built-in tooltips throughout the platform, video tutorials, webinars, and live chat. However, phone support is not available.

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Why we like it

Bitrix24 is a good mix of task management, CRM, and collaboration software, and it’s one of the best free CRM options for large teams thanks to the unlimited user allowance. The main reason we added Bitrix24 to this list is that it offers many features in its free plan alone, from calendar integrations and an internal knowledge base to built-in messaging and video calls. The CRM features include unlimited contacts and deals, a product catalog (with 100 allowed for publishing on your site), an automatic dialer, one pipeline, custom fields, 100 lead capture forms, and social media integrations.

Although there are no marketing features on the free plan, you can track customer journeys and create up to five sales automations. It’s also worth mentioning that Bitrix24 includes a free online store, integrations with payment processors, the ability to create and accept coupons, and no limits on your revenue.

Learn more: read our Bitrix24 review.

Bitrix24 pricing and plans

Bitrix24’s monthly rate might appear steep, but its plans include extensive tools and ample storage for growing businesses.

Insightly: Best for Solopreneurs

Insightly got its start in 2009 and was incorporated in 2011. The company raised $38 million from venture capitalists over three rounds of funding. As of 2023, Insightly reported having more than 1.5 million users.

Insightly CRM

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Integrates with hundreds of apps, such as Google Workspace, Slack, and Amazon apps
• You can automate workflows, emails, tasks and reports (may vary by tier)
• Lets you send 2,500 bulk emails or more, starting with Plus plan

Cons

• No phone support for the free plan
• May lack some customization options needed by larger enterprises
• Can be expensive, especially at higher tiers

Who is Insightly CRM good for?

Insightly CRM is ideal for small to midsized businesses (SMBs) that want to streamline their CRM, sales, and marketing. With Insightly, you can streamline data analysis, reporting, and workflow automation alongside customer management. Because the system is easy to use and customize, it can adapt to the needs of a growing business. It also provides robust project management features, helping teams get more done. If you need native email, you can use Insightly to send up to 50 bulk emails simultaneously.

Who shouldn’t use Insightly CRM?

If your budget is limited and you need a free CRM, Insightly may be too limiting for your needs. Its free plan is limited to two users and 10 daily emails. In addition, there is no phone support for the free plan. Some reviewers say Insightly is lacking in customization options. They also say that learning all of Insightly’s features can be overwhelming. If you can’t dedicate a lot of time to learning all its features, a more intuitive CRM might be a better choice.

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Why we like it

For entrepreneurs just starting their business, a free CRM is a great choice, and we suggest Insightly for a simple platform that lets you connect with a handful of customers every day. Insightly’s free CRM plan allows two users on one account, and you can add up to 2,500 records, whether they’re leads, customers, or prospects. There are five email templates from which you can choose, and you can send up to 10 emails per day. You also get two custom data fields for collecting important information that’s unique to your business. As your business grows, you can upgrade to a paid plan, but Insightly is a bit pricey compared to competitors at $29 per user per month (billed annually).

Learn more: read our Insightly review.

Insightly pricing and plans

Small teams can utilize Insightly’s forever-free plan, which accommodates up to two users. After that, there are three tiers of paid plans for larger teams.

Apptivo: Best for Integrations

Apptivo has several big-name clients that use its CRM including Sephora, Audi, and Chicago Tribune. The privately owned app launched in 2009 and has since accumulated more than 150,000 businesses that use its SaaS. 

Apptivo

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Vast library of integrations
• User-friendly mobile apps
• Multiple sales pipelines

Cons

• No free forever plan available
• Limited to 18 integrations in the Lite Plan
• Lacks e-commerce and marketing automation tools in the Lite Plan

Additional features

Customer Support

Apptivo’s Lite plan offers customer support via email, phone, live chat, knowledge base, how-to videos, webinars, and training support. On the Lite plan, phone support is available 24/5 and live chat is offered 24/7.

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Why we like it

Although Apptivo doesn’t offer a free plan for its CRM, there is a long 30-day free trial you can take advantage of to test its features. We like that it offers several features on its lowest-priced plan, including several integrations. You can connect Google Suite tools, Office 365, Dropbox, RingCentral, and custom integrations. If you need to accept payments, you’ll have to upgrade to the Premium plan, at least. 

Other than integrations, Apptivo’s low-tier plan includes basic CRM functions, such as leads and contact management, tasks, a product catalog, deals, lead capture forms, and custom fields. You can set up two-way sync for your email client and you get email templates. There are also multiple reports you can run but custom reports are limited to five per month.

Learn more: read our Apptivo review.

Apptivo pricing and plans

Apptivo allows businesses to choose between monthly and annual billing, offering flexibility for teams who aren’t sure how long they want to commit to a platform or how big their team will be. There are four tiers to choose from.

Nimble CRM: Best for Full-featured CRM

Nimble CRM was co-founded by one of the CRM and Salesforce Automation pioneers, Jon. V. Ferrara. It started in 2009 and operates as a private company. The company claims to have more than 1.5 million users.

Nimble CRM

Why we like it

Nimble CRM is different from most competitors in that it offers a single price for access to all features. Though it doesn’t offer a free plan, it does allow you to try its CRM free for 14 days. For $29.90 per user, per month, you can store up to 25,000 contacts, each user gets 2GB of storage, a data prospector for LinkedIn contacts, email and calendar integration for Google and Microsoft, and pipeline management. 

Another unique aspect of Nimble CRM is that it works within your inbox. Of course, you can always use the browser-based app or mobile apps. There’s a feature that lets you log calls and meetings from the app or your inbox, and there are reminders for follow-up calls you can create. Nimble CRM is a fairly complete CRM, but it isn’t free. Although the price is a bit steep, you won’t have to upgrade to get advanced features.
Learn more: read our Nimble CRM review.

Nimble CRM pricing and plans

Nimble’s straightforward pricing and features align with its simplicity-focused approach: there’s only one paid plan available, at a monthly rate of $29.90 per user.

Constant Contact: best for e-commerce companies

Constant Contact was founded in 1995 as a simple email marketing program. It now includes CRM, SMS, automation, social media, and AI tools. Constant Contact is a publicly traded private equity firm (NASDAQ: CTCT) that went public in 2007. It claims to have more than 600,000 users worldwide. 

Constant Contact

Why we like it

Constant Contact is an email marketing platform that also offers important CRM features, especially for e-commerce businesses. Technically, Constant Contact doesn’t offer a free plan, but you can try its marketing platform for free to send up to 100 emails. 

Beyond the basics of an email marketing program, you also get AI-assisted content recommendations, some automation capabilities, inbound marketing forms, and the ability to sell products or services. For an added cost, you can create short message service (SMS) campaigns. If you need more features, you’d have to upgrade to the Standard plan starting at $35 per month. The full-fledged lead gen & CRM platform is a more customized experience and requires getting a demo to learn more about the needs of your business before signing up.

Learn more: read our Constant Contact review.

Constant Contact pricing and plans

Email marketing plans start at $12 per month, but your actual cost may vary because it’s based on the number of contacts you have. For example, if you have 501 to 1,000 contacts, you’d have to pay $30 per month for the Lite plan.

monday.com: Best for Flexibility

In 2014, three founders launched Dapulse, a cloud-based project management app, which is now known as monday.com. By 2021, the software company raised millions of dollars and went public (NASDAQ: MNDY). It has grown from a project management PM tool to a choose-your-own-adventure work management app with CRM, task management, and developer tools. According to monday.com, it serves more than 225,000 users.

monday.com

Why we like it

One of the best reasons to use monday.com as your CRM is if you need a unified work management app for all your departments. The flexibility of monday.com is its best feature and it offers a forever-free plan that includes features to help you manage tasks, projects, people, and various workflows. The free version is good for two people, so it’s limited to individuals and partners. You get lots of templates, unlimited documents, a collaborative whiteboard, and a form builder. 

There is an upcoming free CRM plan from monday.com, which will allow you up to 1,000 contacts and lead capture web forms. In the meantime, you can try monday.com CRM through a free 14-day trial, so you can test the advanced CRM features.

Learn more: read our monday.com review.

monday.com pricing and plans

There are four paid CRM plans offered by monday.com, including an enterprise level.

What is a CRM?

A CRM is a tool or a set of features to nurture or manage relationships with leads and customers. It starts with lead capture via web forms, landing pages, and outreach to potential customers. It can continue with SMS or email campaigns. Nurturing happens throughout a sales and marketing process to turn an interested party into a paying customer or client. 

The best CRM software helps sales and marketing teams work together to track communication history and plan outreach to strike when the irons are hot. For example, you should be able to set up automated email campaigns to launch when a lead visits a specific page but doesn’t purchase. This allows you to offer a discount to land a customer.

What should you expect from a free CRM?

Free CRM software is a great way to get to know your target audience and evaluate your sales process. Most free CRMs include the basic features to manage contacts, build email campaigns, and track sales. However, every CRM in the industry is using a CRM for you, so keep in mind that the features you get, and the limitations imposed are designed to get you to upgrade to a paid plan. Here is what you can typically expect from free CRM: 

• Contact management: This is standard in every free CRM; only the number of contacts you can have stored in your account may vary between CRM companies.
• Lead management: A lead differs from a contact in that you have at least one touch point with a lead, and they have the potential of becoming a customer. The allowance of leads vs. contacts is usually lower.
• Deal management: Free CRM plans may or may not limit the number of active deals you have going. This is just one stage in the pipeline.
• Pipeline management: Most CRMs limit the number of pipelines you can have at one time. If and when you upgrade, this limit is lifted so you can create different pipelines for different audiences or processes.
• Standard reports: The most common reports that come free with a no-cost CRM are sales and revenue. To get the most helpful reports such as forecasted sales, campaign performance, and win-loss reports, you’d need to upgrade to a paid plan.
• Email: You should be able to send at least five to 10 emails per day on a free plan, but some free CRMs offer monthly limits of thousands that refresh each month. Paid plans may not limit your email sends at all or require you to pay for additional emails over a specific high threshold.
• Inventory management: While this feature is more important for businesses that sell products, it can still be useful for events or services. It isn’t typically included as a free feature, but there are a few CRM companies that allow inventory or product management. There may be limits on how many active products or services you can have on a free plan.
• File storage: Whether you need to upload documents, images, PDFs, or other media, there’s usually a low cap on how much you can store in your cloud-based CRM account. For example, Zoho CRM limits you to 1 GB across the account.
• Data storage: This may be listed as records and could refer to customer profiles, deals, projects, emails, and opportunities. Even if the total seems high, you may rack up thousands of records quickly. Also, this number doesn’t refresh typically and it counts across the account.
• Form builder: Inbound marketing is a big part of CRM and one of the best ways to capture leads is through forms. Many free CRM plans include form templates and the ability to create a form for your website. You may be limited to a few forms, or you have to accept that your forms will be branded with the CRM you’re using.
• Integrations: It’s rare to find a free CRM plan that includes a lot of integrations because it would extend the life of a free account. There are a handful that allow you to integrate your Gmail or Outlook for free; HubSpot allows you to integrate Slack on its free plan. 
• Support: Most CRMs will give you access to its knowledge base and email support, but live chat and phone support aren’t typically available to nonpaying customers.

How to choose the best free CRM service

Although not every CRM software offers a free plan, there are several from which to choose. Picking the right CRM for your business requires you to answer a few questions about your current and future needs. Consider these points before you sign up for a free CRM: 

• Consider your current needs: Businesses starting won’t need all the bells and whistles of a full sales or marketing CRM. However, any business needs a way to communicate with leads, prospects, and customers. Look at what your current tech stack is. Maybe you already have an email marketing program or a project management system, in which case you may only need a free CRM that offers lead generation forms for inbound marketing. Chances are you want to start with a CRM that allows sales and marketing to work together to bring in leads and nurture them through a pipeline.
• Calculate when you need more: Eventually, you may want to upgrade your free CRM plan to a paid plan to gain access to more advanced features or more allowances. The best indicator of when this is depends on the limitations of your free plan and whether you’re hitting a wall without specific features. For example, 100 emails per month isn’t sustainable. At some point, you’re going to want more than one sales pipeline when you have different audiences or you want to try new sales processes.
• Check available integrations: It’s rare to find free CRM plans that include more than a couple of integrations, and there’s a good reason for this. If you’re already paying for email marketing software that you can integrate with a CRM, you’d have little need to upgrade. Also, you’ll need to upgrade at some point, so it’s a good idea to figure out which tools you want to use along with your CRM.
• Talk to your team: If you have seasoned marketing and sales team members, it’s worth tapping into their expertise. There’s a good chance that this isn’t their first rodeo and they may have suggestions on CRM they’re already comfortable with. It’s possible that your business is much smaller and new to CRM. In that case, you should choose an easy-to-use option that will ensure quick adoption amongst your team.

Decide on your budget: The average cost of entry-level CRM plans is around $20 per user, per month. You’ll have to decide whether you need a CRM for all members of your company or sales and marketing, but it comes down to cost. There are some cost-saving measures you can take such as paying upfront for the year, which could save you 20% overall. Look for plans that include multiple users for a per-month fee. High-tier plans with AI tools, forecasting, and prospecting, may cost much more; the average cost of pro-level plans is about $50 per user, per month.

The takeaway 

The best free CRM software is the one that works for right now but scales up to a plan you can afford and includes the integrations, allowances, and advanced features you will need in the future. There’s free CRM software on this list that caters to ultrasmall businesses that may not need a lot of seats but do need generous allowances on email sends, such as Insightly with its free two-seat plan with 2,500 email sends. Zoho CRM gives you advanced features, such as automated workflows on its free plan. HubSpot allows more integrations on the free plan than most of its competitors. And there’s Agile CRM, which lets you have up to 10 users on its free plan and up to 5,000 email sends per month. 

To choose the best free CRM software for your company, consider each offering’s limitations, allowances, and your growth plan. It’s much easier to scale if you can stick with the CRM you start with. That’s why it’s important to consider what integrates with your CRM, what you can afford, and how easily your teams will adopt the technology.

Frequently asked questions

Does Google have a free CRM?

No, Google has not developed an official CRM. Google Workspace offers tools that can help you create a makeshift CRM with Gmail, Calendar, and Sheets to manage contacts, email, and events. It requires more manual maintenance, though.

Why do businesses need CRM?

A CRM can help manage and segment customer data for businesses, which makes it much easier to develop a sales process that works. Additionally, CRM helps you keep track of customer journeys and interactions so everyone on various teams knows how best to proceed for customer retention.

What’s the most important feature of a CRM?

Salespeople need to keep track of customer data and where they are in the pipeline. A CRM helps you log, track, and follow up as needed. Some would say contact management is the most important feature while others would say logging data is more vital, but it’s all about the same thing: managing data efficiently.

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