How to Choose a CRM

Most CRM comparisons start with features, which is the wrong end. Features are the easiest thing to change your mind about and the least likely to be what you regret. What people regret is the bill they did not see coming, the seat minimum nobody advertised, and the discovery that the one capability they actually needed lives two tiers above the one they signed up for.

So work through the constraints first, in this order.

Price the tier you will land on, not the one advertised

Every CRM leads with its cheapest number, and for most buyers that number is fiction. The question is not "what does the entry plan cost" but "what does the plan containing the thing I came for cost".

That thing is usually mailbox sync. A CRM that does not have your email in it is an address book, and several products in this directory hold full sync with Gmail or Outlook until the second tier — which can nearly triple the per-seat price. Automation and anything that produces a forecast tend to sit alongside it.

Then check for one-time fees. At least one major vendor requires a four-figure onboarding purchase before its mid tier can be used at all. It is disclosed, in a footnote, and it turns a per-seat subscription into a project budget.

Check the seat minimum before anything else

This is the cheapest check on the list and the one most often skipped. Several products will not sell you fewer than three seats, and one will not sell fewer than ten at its top tier. If you are two people, a $15 seat with a three-seat minimum is a $45 bill, and the product that looked expensive at $24 for one seat is now the cheaper option.

Seat minimums are frequently absent from the pricing page and present in third-party reviews, which is a good reason to read at least one before buying.

Decide about your data early, because it is hard to reverse

There are three positions, and they are genuinely different. Most CRMs process your records wherever they process them, publish a sub-processor list and a data processing agreement, and let you export. Some let you choose a region. A few are open source and can run on hardware you own.

If your customers are in the EU, or you work in a regulated sector, or you simply have an opinion about this, decide it now. Migrating a CRM after eighteen months of history is the single most expensive thing on this page, and export quality varies more than vendors admit — check whether the export includes custom fields and attachments, not just contacts.

Only then, compare features

By this point the list is usually short. Compare what remains on the things that differ: whether custom objects exist or only custom fields, whether the API is public and documented or available on request, whether there is a real add-in inside your mailbox rather than a Zapier connection wearing a costume.

And be suspicious of catalogue numbers. "Five hundred integrations" usually means one integration with an automation platform that itself has five hundred. The useful question is whether the three tools you already run are on the list natively.

A note on free plans

A free tier is one of two things: a plan the vendor expects you to stay on, or an open-source release you host yourself. Both are real answers. A fourteen-day trial is neither — it is a sales mechanism, and when it ends you have a decision rather than a CRM.

Read the ceiling on any free plan. Two users and a few hundred contacts is a genuine answer for a very small business and a wall for anyone else, and the gap between "free" and "the tier above free" is where this category makes its money.