7 Best Free CRM Software to Streamline Your Business 2024

Sales teams can manage their customer interactions using customer relationship management (CRM) software. It enables salespeople to keep track of all communications with clients, such as contact details, calls, emails, and meetings. CRMs also have tools for managing opportunities and deals, and although it may seem pricey, there is a variety of reasonably priced options and even free choices accessible.

In this article, we’ll be exploring the best options for those on a budget or who don’t want to spend a penny, as well as having a look at some of the more premium paid plans out there, so you can understand what the best option for your business is.

The Best Free CRM Software

Below is a look at the best free CRM software at a glance for those who might be in a hurry. We’ve picked HubSpot as our top choice, an incredibly popular provider that has helped thousands of businesses around the world already. Read on for our detailed reviews of each provider and to find out why HubSpot is our number one.

1. HubSpot – We rank this as the best free CRM on the market, with a huge range of marketing and sales features, access for unlimited users, and excellent customer support
2. Monday Sales – An excellent and highly customizable CRM provider that’s ideal for first-time users
3. Zoho CRM – This free CRM is perfect for a growing business and can scale up alongside you
4. Freshsales – With an included phone system, this CRM is the perfect option for sales and marketing teams who rely on calling customers
5. Salesforce – Top choice for established businesses thanks to its powerful set of features and host of third-party integrations
6. Pipedrive – A highly customizable CRM that provides detailed reports and analytics for sales teams
7. Maximizer CRM – This user-friendly CRM offers a simple-to-use dashboard and a host of useful features like call recording

 Best Free CRM Software Reviews

Let’s take a deeper look at the top free CRM software in 2024, with HubSpot leading the way for businesses around the world, no matter what size or scale. We’ll review the key features, including cost, scalability, and much more. Read on for the full list of reviews.

1. HubSpot – Best Overall Free CRM With a Ton of Integration Options

For small and midsize organizations wishing to combine their sales, marketing, and customer care capabilities, Hubspot CRM offers a potent platform that’s both simple to use and intuitive, solidifying its place on our list of the best CRM software.

HubSpot is an ideal option for companies looking for robust, simple-to-use CRM software, and the platform is accessible to smaller or more start-up companies thanks to the lightweight but very functional free-forever plan.

Through a number of complimentary CRM, marketing, sales, and customer support tools from HubSpot, this free package offers a useful platform for managing and maintaining new leads. These can be accessed through a straightforward and user-friendly interface and include dashboard reporting, deal tracking, and pipeline management.

The number of features included in the free plan is an element that distinguishes HubSpot from its rivals. For instance, the team as a whole has easier access to customer communication thanks to the shared inbox function, which collects all incoming email and live chat correspondence in one location.

It doesn’t take long to create and send email templates either, as you can quickly import contacts from outside mail providers and then design your email using one of five templates, freeing up time for other chores.

A support form and tracking code can be added to your website as part of the free plan so you can monitor visitor activity, save their information in your database, and monitor interactions with them over time.

It’s important to keep in mind that the free plan has a restricted number of customer service options, so you won’t have access to in-app chat or phone help. Additionally, even though HubSpot customers can integrate their accounts with hundreds of third-party applications, some of them do necessitate upgrading to a paying plan.

There are several alternatives available if you want to upgrade with each of the five HubSpot hubs; Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, CMS, and Operations. All offer a Starter, Professional, or Enterprise paid plan and are divided into their own set of tools. Alternatively, you can combine components from each Hub with the CRM Suite upgrade bundle, which starts at $30 per month.

Pricing

HubSpot features a surprisingly generous free version, unlike the majority of CRMs that just provide a free trial. The one-user account restriction and lack of sophisticated functionality (teams, document storage, and website integration at the low end, and automation and analytics at the high end) are really the only cons to be seen. Below is the other list of plans and prices.

HubSpot can be pretty expensive if you opt for the more premium packages, but it’s important to remember that they offer a full sales and marketing suite alongside the CRM, and for large businesses who want all the cutting edge-features like detailed user analytics and sales forecasting, it’s a no brainer.

2. Monday Sales – An Excellent and Highly Customizable CRM Provider

One of the best customizable customer relationship management (CRM) systems is Monday. The most noteworthy feature of Monday is its vast customizability options, which let the team and sales managers personalize the program.

Monday is an excellent choice for businesses with particular sales processes and close-knit departmental contacts, offering personalized labels and items in addition to fully customizable dashboards, templates, workflows, forms, quotes, and widgets.

Monday gives sales teams and managers the ability to customize nearly every aspect of the CRM in addition to providing core features like sales pipeline and contact management, workflow automation, and email sync. This allows them to make sure the CRM meets their company’s specific requirements while also connecting to a variety of integrations and the native API.

Unlike some CRMs that have a predefined list of automation, Monday enables sales managers to build unique workflows using formulae that can be changed to lessen administrative work, foster teamwork, and make client communication easier.

Making sure the software is simple to use, regardless of the user’s technical prowess or prior CRM expertise, is one of the cornerstones of a successful CRM installation. Monday does that in abundance right out of the gate, as customer information is neatly sorted into folders that can symbolize various departments or stages of the sales process.

There’s also a decent free forever plan available that allows you to create basic boards, but it is really aimed at small businesses or for one or two users maximum. It offers three boards, a Kanban view, an activity log for up to one week, and a few more basic features.

Ultimately, it’s worth a shot whilst your business is scaling, but you will need to upgrade to a paid plan when you have more than 4/5 employees.

Pricing

The free plan gives up to two users access to online forms for lead collecting, up to 1,000 contacts, 500MB of file storage, Kanban view, and one dashboard for data visualization are all included in this package

Paid plans start from $30/month for the Basic option, with several more tiers following this. You can pick between monthly or annual billing, and plan prices vary depending on the number of users (minimum of three) and the plan tier. To get a feel for the software, join up for a 14-day free trial. Below is the full list of plans in detail.

• Free: Up to two users, online forms for lead capture, up to 1,000 contacts, 500MB of file storage, Kanban view, and one data visualization dashboard are all included in the free plan.
• Basic: This subscription costs $30 a month and offers 5GB of file storage in addition to unlimited read-only viewers, contacts, and configurable pipelines.
• Standard: For $42 per month, this plan offers everything in basic along with Gmail and Outlook two-way email sync, quotes and invoices, Gantt, timeline, and calendar data views, guest access, and up to 250 automations and 250 integrations per month. It also offers 20GB of file storage.
• Pro: This plan offers everything in Standard for $72 per month in addition to private boards, sales forecasting and CRM data, time tracking, chart and workload views, email monitoring, up to 25,000 automations and 25,000 integrations per month, and 100GB of file storage.
• Enterprise: You must contact for an estimate for this plan, which adds enterprise-grade security, extensive CRM reporting, lead scoring, team quotas, up to 250,000 automations and 250,000 integrations per month, and 1TB of file storage to everything in Pro.

3. Zoho CRM – Best Free CRM Software For Scaling Your Business

The outstanding entry-level CRM platform Zoho CRM grows with your small business. The company’s free CRM package is well-liked among startups searching for a simple, cost-free approach to tracking leads and managing contacts.

Users can always switch to a subscription plan for more sophisticated capabilities, which will unlock a number of services like automating marketing chores and tracking client and contact information. Additionally, Zoho CRM offers seamless interfaces with additional Zoho tools and any other third-party applications you may currently be using, including MailChimp, Google Analytics, and QuickBooks.

Even on its free plan, Zoho CRM is a more potent tool than just a straightforward CRM for keeping track of contacts and leads. Through forms on your website, social media, and email, the sales automation technologies assist you in generating leads that are immediately added as contacts in your CRM.

Lead scoring makes sure contacts are routed to the appropriate teams, preventing time and effort wastage. Each of your leads is given a tag that informs you whether a contact has been made, whether further action is required, or whether the lead has been lost.

The excellent free plan allows up to 3 users and includes important features such as Lead Management, Deal and Account Management, 10GB of storage, and up to 5000 records. Whilst it might not hit the dizzying heights of HubSpots excellent free plan, there is more than enough here to make this a valuable free tool.

You can build up basic leads, accounts, and deal management with the free plan. Additionally, you can set up task reminders, generate and store documents, and connect via feeds. The social tabs for Facebook and Twitter are not available, unfortunately, and you are unable to accept calendar bookings from your website into your CRM.

Pricing

Below are four main paid plans that can be used if you need to upgrade or scale your business away from the free offering. Plus, there’s a generous 45-day money-back guarantee for those who signup for a paid plan. The other plans are as follows.

Zoho CRM has a host of plans to fit all business needs, and when the time comes for your business to grow, they’ve got you covered. The more premium plans include useful features like Google Suite integrations, lead scoring and sales signals that will give your e-commerce platform more room to grow and scale up.

4. Freshsales – Wallet-friendly CRM, Ideal For Small Businesses on a Budget

Freshsales is a cloud-based CRM platform that forms part of Freshworks, a bigger collection of tools that all function together fluidly. Freshsales is one of the best CRMs for small businesses, as has a highly functional forever-free plan and reasonably priced premium options.

Freshsales stands out from its rivals thanks to its AI-powered contact and deal score tools, customization, and integrated phone features.

Freshsales is a simple-to-use CRM application that is affordable enough for tiny enterprises that must make careful financial decisions. The free plan is a fantastic starting point, and you can upgrade to one of the paid plans for greater functionality as your business develops.

The main distinction with Freshsales is that it is an all-in-one CRM platform, including chat, built-in phone, and chat and marketing capabilities. You can add as many users and support staff as you like with its powerful free plan. It works best for highly effective and expanding sales teams.

Therefore, Freshsales’ free plan gives you access to features like contact scoring, integration with Freshdesk, and more if you are a startup trying to scale your business. The best thing is that you may upgrade to a premium Freshsales plan without losing your data as your company grows.

Freshsales provides a wide range of features to help your business flourish. You may get crucial data about your contacts, accounts, and deals using Freshsales.

You can use it to collect leads from website users and gain knowledge on how to interact with more prospects. Additionally, Freshsales provides comprehensive reporting, advanced analytics, and deal-tracking features that let you forecast revenue.

Users may measure important performance indicators like conversion rates and deal phases, create thorough reports on their sales activity, and get real-time feedback on how they are doing. This enables companies to increase efficiency, optimize their sales process, and make data-driven decisions.

Pricing

Freshsales offers a free version of its popular CRM software, plus three paid plans that are tailored to fit the needs of different businesses:

Freshsales offers four affordable plans that aim to grow alongside your business depending on your needs. In the more premium Pro and Enterprise plans, you’ll get access to 24/7 customer support and a ton of useful integrations with key e-commerce apps like Shopify.

5. Salesforce – Top Choice for Established Businesses Thanks to its Powerful Set of Features

Salesforce CRM is a market-leading platform that you can use for many various types of sales automation requirements across many industries. It works best for sales teams and large or scaling enterprises that require a highly configurable solution. Sadly, there is no free plan on offer, which is why it isn’t at our number one spot, but there is a generous 30-day free trial.

It is best for established businesses that seek to consolidate numerous platforms into one CRM or streamline or improve their sales processes. The many wonderful features that Salesforce provides, such as the numerous possibilities for customization and integration, will be especially useful to a large sales team.

Salesforce provides everything from straightforward lead management to sophisticated workflows and customized sales pipelines. Although it’s not the simplest CRM to use, it may be the most intuitive, and through time and practice, it can be an essential tool for all businesses.

Salesforce’s capability to customize virtually everything in your sales process is one of its true advantages. Since many CRMs can’t be fully customized to your pipeline, they can be challenging to use.

Salesforce provides a wide range of automation options, not just the ability to allocate leads automatically as they come in. The workflows are adaptable, and a lot depends on how you can use the software to meet your goals. Salesforce provides a developer sandbox for both of these capabilities so that your tech team may work on ongoing development.

It is a fantastic option for those who need to piece together different solutions due to the sheer number of third-party integration choices available. Today, Salesforce has more than 3,000 integrations, allowing you to find alternative platforms that can improve your business operations.

Salesforce has the ability to link with the top platforms uses for the majority of objectives, from marketing automation to scheduling software. Slack, Calendly, DocuSign, QuickBooks, LinkedIn, HubSpot, and other applications are a few of the most often-used integrations.

Pricing

Salesforce would be at the top of our list of the best CRM software if it had some sort of free plan, but sadly, that isn’t the case. However, the range of features, functionality, and customization on offer here make it a more than attractive option for businesses of any scale. Below is a full list of their current plans and prices.

If your e-commerce business grows, it’s important that your CRM has the ability to grow alongside you. Salesforce has a number of upgrade options that include premium features like customer journey analytics, advanced reporting and custom code development.

6. Pipedrive – Great Option For Businesses Focusing On Improving Sales Pipelines

Pipedrive is a popular CRM system that was created by and for sales teams, and as implied by the name, this CRM is mostly focused on sales pipelines. Pipedrive is a good option for small businesses because it’s economical and simple to use, despite the absence of a free plan.

The easy style and optional field completion that Pipedrive offers are standout features that help you quickly process incoming leads. You can fully customize the platform to fit the specific workflows used by your team, and those who wish to try it out can do so with a 14-day free trial that doesn’t require a credit card.

The CRM helps sales teams track leads effectively and boost revenues by documenting crucial contacts and feedback as the sales lead progresses through the sales process. Lower-cost plans, however, have a lot of restrictions, so you’ll get the most for your money if you’re prepared to pay for a high-tier plan.

Pipedrive excels as a CRM that is sales-focused, which is what makes it one of the top real estate CRM systems out there, and the features that are offered reflect this. All the way through the sales pipeline, from the initial meeting to the final transaction and beyond, contacts can be generated and tracked. Each phase of the procedure may be tailored to the requirements of specific teams, and automation assists get rid of a lot of the boring busywork that would otherwise take up employees’ time.

The customizable chatbot that businesses can install on their website to collect fresh leads that are immediately added to the sales funnel is one of the important features. This introduces a crucial method for businesses to obtain warm and hot leads that don’t slip through the gaps while customers browse the internet.

Pipedrive is a fully functional CRM out of the box, but you can add third-party apps to make it more versatile. More than 400 third-party programs, such as Leadfeeder, Zoom, Calendly, and Zapier, can be integrated with your CRM.

Pricing

Pipedrive offers one of the most budget-friendly and comprehensive CRM software solutions for businesses of all sizes. With four different plans to choose from, there’s something for everyone:

Pipedrive offers a number of different price plans should you need to upgrade to fit your e-commerce business demands. With the higher tier plans, you can get access to more advanced features like API access, custom integrations and 24/7 customer support.

7. Maximizer CRM – A Great CRM For Marketing and Sales Leads

Maximizer CRM is now the best option out there for Sales Leaders. By incorporating both leading and lagging indications, Maximizer enables you to get a head start on the competition and more accurately predict and shape future sales performance.

You get an excellent insight into sales rep activities, making it simpler to monitor and manage your sales reps in real-time as well as track and analyze critical data.

Sales management, marketing automation, customer service and support, and corporate productivity tools are all included in Maximizer CRM, which also integrates with Microsoft Office applications, including Outlook, Word, Excel, and SharePoint.

Email marketing campaigns, integrated campaign planning, and marketing analytics are all part of the solution’s marketing automation application. Users can use list management tools to search and filter customer data according to pre-defined criteria, target leads, and customers.

To learn more about your company’s success, make use of Maximizer’s robust analytics capabilities. These technologies give you the ability to keep an eye on and evaluate activity in real-time, assisting you in making quick decisions and modifying your plans as needed.

Additionally, Maximizer comes with a comprehensive set of productivity features that make it simple to track significant sales, find relevant information fast, and send automatic emails.

You can save time and assure accuracy in your messages by having the flexibility to generate both standard and customised templates.

There is no free plan on offer, but you can benefit from the 30-day free trial or 60-day money-back guarantee. The plans themselves are quite affordable, but there are definitely better options on this list for both premium and free plans.

Pricing

Pricing for Maximizer CRM is geared toward companies of all sizes. The Base Edition is a cost-effective option for companies just starting started with CRM and includes the necessary functionality to help you get going right away.

The Sales Leader Edition is a fantastic choice for more experienced customers and comes with extra features like automated lead tracking, sales analytics, and improved customer segmentation. Teams aiming to advance their sales process should use this strategy.

Comparison of the Best Free CRM Software in 2024

To help you compare the best features along with the price, integrations and much more, we've produced a useful table for you.

What is a CRM Application?

Many of you may be thinking, what exactly is a CRM? Well, Customer relationship management, or as it is also known as CRM, is a piece of technology used to control communications with current and potential clients. Organizations may increase sales, enhance customer service, and boost profitability by using a CRM system to develop customer relationships and streamline procedures.

A CRM system is a tool used for contact management, sales management, agent productivity, and other purposes, this is what we often mean when we talk about CRM. The aim of a CRM system is pretty simple, and that is to expand your business and strengthen your commercial contacts. Throughout the whole customer lifecycle and at each marketing, sales, e-commerce, and customer care interaction, CRM technologies assist you in managing customer connections.

How Does Free CRM Software Work?

CRM software enables marketers and salespeople to manage and analyze interactions with the company's real and potential clients on the most fundamental level. It makes it possible to keep track of every encounter a consumer has with the business and gathers data on them. The marketer will then constantly be aware of the customer's identity and their relationship with the business when speaking with them. This improves the interaction's personalization, raises conversion rates, and fosters consumer loyalty and trust.

CRMs have features that let you follow customer and business interactions across all relevant touchpoints, such as those from:

• Contact forms
• Search engines
• Emails
• Phone calls
• Social media

The software handles some activities; it can automate monotonous operations for marketers, make reminders for significant occasions, and show notifications when something really demands attention. Some CRMs also have analytics features, enabling you to monitor the effectiveness of different marketing initiatives to produce leads and conversions.

Sales and marketing teams are given a set of tools to handle the full sales and marketing funnels, from lead qualification to opportunity management, forecasting, and deal closure, thanks to CRM software and marketing automation.

Marketing automation (top of the funnel) and CRM features (bottom of the funnel) systems work together to manage the sales funnel from beginning to end. As a trend, many well-known CRM platforms are either acquiring or creating their own marketing automation systems to provide the capability. Both are provided by HubSpot, for instance, while other CRMs make it simple to integrate them with other marketing automation platforms.

Difference Between Free vs. Paid CRM Software

The majority of free CRMs give you the ability to manage marketing, sales, and customer service. While this might be all your business requires right now, bear in mind that extra capabilities, like marketing automation or sophisticated data analysis, will probably come at a cost because more complex services are typically charged. In the long run, you might find that you're paying exactly as much, if not more, as your firm expands and your demands change.

It's crucial to assess your present demands and establish a long-term strategy for your business before deploying any new solution. Consider how soon you could require these extra features and how delaying their implementation may result in greater disruption in terms of change management, configuration time, and data migration.

Because of this, choosing a free alternative might not be the best course of action in the long term because you might grow weary of its limitations and limited capabilities sooner rather than later.

Paid CRM solutions are adaptable and versatile, with a range of pricing options to suit varied requirements and price ranges. An implementation professional can assist you in understanding the various price plans and choosing the one that best suits your short- and long-term requirements.

Why Should I Use CRM Software?

Implementing CRM into your everyday business life can be hugely beneficial for both yourself and any staff you might have. It allows you to offer better customer service, improve customer retention, and much more. Below is a list of reasons why you should use CRM to streamline your business.

Improved Customer Service

All of your contacts are managed by a CRM, which also collects crucial customer data like demographics, purchase histories, and previous messages across all channels and makes it readily available to anybody in your company who needs it. This guarantees that your staff has all the information they require about the client at their fingertips and can offer a better customer experience, which usually increases client happiness.

Boost Sales

By streamlining your sales process, creating a sales pipeline, automating crucial processes, and gathering all of your sales data in one location, a CRM platform may help you boost productivity and sales. With the aid of a CRM, you can create a step-by-step sales procedure that your staff can adhere to consistently and that you can simply modify as problems emerge.

Customer Retention

It's crucial to work hard to keep customers and foster consumer loyalty once you've acquired and converted leads. Use your CRM and the information it offers about your customers to promote repeat business because a high customer churn rate can have a number of detrimental repercussions for your company, such as decreased revenue or disturbed cash flow.

The CRM will offer sentiment analysis, automatic ticketing, automated customer assistance, and tracking of user behavior to assist you in identifying issues and resolving them with your customers.

Analytics

Having a ton of consumer data is one thing, but you also need to understand what it means and how to use it. CRM software often includes analytical features that contextualize data, dividing it into useful metrics and actionable things. You may assess the performance of a marketing campaign and adjust your optimization strategies using metrics like click-through rates, bounce rates, and demographic data.

How Do I Choose the Best CRM Software?

To ensure you pick the best CRM software for your business needs, there are some important features and functionalities you should look for, like ease of use or integrations. To give you an idea, we've compiled a list of what to look out for.

• User-friendly – Your CRM system should be as simple to use as your email programme. Additionally, repeated tasks like updating contact information or keeping track of sales need to be simpler to complete.
• Lead Management –You can identify your leads and the steps they have taken in the sales cycle with the use of a lead management function. You can score your prospects through the lead management process and, if necessary, filter them off to another member of your team to convert some leads into customers.
• Analytics – Customer analytics provide an understanding of customer information. Such data is crucial since it can help you decide regarding the kinds of goods and services, marketing campaigns, and general communications you offer to your clients.
• Third-party Integrations –You may save a tonne of time and money by integrating your CRM software with other programmes you already use. The trick is finding one that is simple to apply and compatible with the software you employ. Most CRM programmes offer third-party software connectors.

Conclusion - What is the Best Free CRM to Use in 2024?

We looked at a variety of aspects when evaluating the top free CRM programs, such as functionality, customer support, usability, user experiences, and third-party integrations.

Overall, we decided that HubSpot is the best free CRM software, as it has a feature-rich free forever plan that allows for multiple third-party integrations and has a ton of premium features like Website Activity Tracking, Email Integration, Tracking, and an excellent Opportunity Pipeline feature.

It's also a great option should your business need to scale, as it offers a variety of plans that grow alongside your business.