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The best CRMs
Every CRM in this directory in one order, scored by hand on value, setup, pipeline depth, integrations and how far each one stretches.
Contact management CRMs
For work that is a relationship rather than a deal: CRMs built around people and companies, where the pipeline is optional instead of the whole point.
By team size
Best CRMs for freelancers
The CRMs a single person can buy and run without paying for seats they will never fill, ranked on what the first tier actually gives you.
Best CRMs for small business
CRMs sized for a handful of people: what the entry tier includes, where the seat minimums bite, and which capabilities wait for an upgrade.
Best CRMs for growing teams
At this size the questions change from price to permissions, record ceilings and whether the reporting can carry a real forecast.
Best CRMs for mid-sized teams
Past thirty seats the questions become permissions, record ceilings and admin overhead — these are the CRMs that answer them without an implementation partner.
Price and setup
The best free CRMs
Which CRMs cost nothing indefinitely, what each free tier actually includes, and where the ceiling sits before you have to pay.
CRMs with a free trial
Fourteen CRMs here give you the whole product for a fixed window rather than a smaller one forever. What each trial includes, and what it costs after.
The cheapest CRMs
Ranked on what the cheapest paid seat actually costs per month once the billing period is accounted for, rather than on the figure in the largest type.
The best value CRMs
Not the cheapest: the ones where what the tier includes is worth what the tier costs, at the size each product is actually built for.
The CRMs that take the least setting up
Ranked on what stands between signing up and a working pipeline: self-serve access, migration tooling and whether onboarding costs money.
What it does
CRMs that work inside Gmail and Outlook
CRMs with a real mailbox add-in, so a record updates from the message you are already reading rather than from a second tab you forget to open.
CRMs with workflow automation
CRMs that can move a deal, assign an owner or send a follow-up without anybody clicking, and honest about which tier the automation starts on.
CRMs with calling built in
CRMs you can dial from, with the call and its outcome logged against the record automatically instead of typed in afterwards by somebody who remembers.
CRMs with email marketing built in
CRMs that send to a segment of your own contacts, so the mailing list and the customer records stay one thing instead of two that drift apart.
CRMs that send quotes
CRMs that build a priced quote from the deal record and send it, so the proposal and the pipeline stop being two documents that disagree.
CRMs with sales forecasting
CRMs that turn a pipeline into a number somebody will defend in a board meeting, rather than a chart showing how many deals happen to be open.
The best CRMs with a mobile app
CRMs that ship a real iOS and Android application rather than a shrunk-down web page, ranked on what the first paid tier gives you for the money.
CRMs with an open API
CRMs that publish documented endpoints you can build against, ranked on how well each one already connects to everything else you run.
CRMs with single sign-on
CRMs that accept your identity provider, ranked on headroom — because SSO is usually the line where a CRM starts being priced as software for a company.
Data and hosting
The best open-source CRMs
CRMs whose source you can read and whose data you can keep on your own machines, compared on licence, hosting and what the cloud tier costs.
CRMs that process your data in the EU
The CRMs that document European processing or let you pick the region, and what the rest of this directory turns out to say about where your records live.
CRMs you can export your data from
Which CRMs document a complete export, which can run on your own machines, and how hard each one would be to walk away from.
Alternatives
Pipedrive Alternatives
Pipedrive has no free plan and its trial ends after fourteen days. These are the CRMs worth moving to, ranked on value and ease of setup.
HubSpot Sales Hub Alternatives
HubSpot's Professional tier costs roughly thirteen times Starter and adds a required $1,500 onboarding fee. These are the CRMs to look at instead.
Salesforce Starter Alternatives
Everything above Salesforce Starter is a sales-led purchase, and transaction fees sit on top of the seat price. These are the alternatives.
monday CRM Alternatives
monday CRM has a three-seat minimum, so the entry price is really $54 a month, and its top tier is quoted rather than published.
Zoho Bigin Alternatives
Zoho Bigin is deliberately shallow, and outgrowing it means moving to a different product rather than a higher tier. These are the CRMs to move to.
Close Alternatives
Close bills calling on usage on top of the seat price and has no free plan. These are the CRMs worth comparing, ranked on value and pipeline depth.
Attio Alternatives
Attio's top tier is quoted rather than published and Plus sits above the middle of the field. These are the CRMs worth weighing against it.
folk Alternatives
folk has no free plan, starts at $24 a member, and holds API access and custom objects for the $48 tier. These are the alternatives.
Freshsales Alternatives
Freshsales meters AI sessions and branded documents apart from the seat price, and Growth to Pro is more than a fourfold jump. These are the options.
Odoo CRM Alternatives
Odoo's free plan stops the moment you want a second app, and a suite's configuration burden arrives with its capability. These are the alternatives.
Twenty Alternatives
Twenty holds row-level permissions and SSO for its $19 tier, and its top tier starts at $50,000 and is sold rather than published.
EspoCRM Alternatives
EspoCRM's cheapest hosted tier needs three users and its top tier needs ten, which makes it a poor answer for anyone working alone.