Free to Paid: Top CRM Options for Startups

A CRM (customer relationship management) system is essential for the sales efforts of startups and growing companies. Although you may be tempted use to simply use Excel or a spreadsheet for your CRM to keep it simple, using a real CRM system has many benefits. A CRM can help you create workflows, trigger reminders/notifications and keep detailed notes on all the interactions with your customers or prospects.

Studies show that a CRM pays back $8.71 for every $1 spent, so there’s little reason not to use a CRM especially since there are a number of free or low-cost options available.

Here is a round-up of 7 CRM options for startups and small businesses.

1. Insightly – Free and Up

Insightly is a fremium CRM geared to small businesses. The dashboard and interface is laid-out in an intuitive fashion, and a number of intergrations are available including to MailChimp, Dropbox and Zapier. The free plan includes up two users and 2,500 contacts, and is a good starter plan for startups or new businesses.
insightly

2. Hubspot CRM – Free and Up

Hubspot CRM is a newer CRM from Hubspot, the well-known marketing automation platform. It’s not as robust as other CRMs, but has all the basic features you need such as contact management and a visual dashboard of what stages deals are in. Hubspot CRM can also be integrated with Gmail so that emails are automatically logged in the CRM.
hubspot

3. CapsuleCRM – Free and Up

CapsuleCRM is a basic CRM that lets you manage contacts, opportunities, and tasks. It can also integrate with other apps such as MailChimp, Gravity Forms, Google Apps and Freshbooks. The free version allows up to 2 users and 250 contacts.
capsulecrm

4. Zoho – Free and Up

The free version of Zoho CRM comes with a decent list of features. In addition to the basics of viewing leads, contacts and opportunities, it also has integrations with Twitter and allows for workflow rules and tasks. Compared to other free CRMs, Zoho has slightly more features and more options for paid plans if you decide to upgrade.
zoho

5. pipedrive – $12/user/month

pipedrive is a CRM targeted to small businesses. It’s one of the lowest priced services, but comes with a large range of useful features like sales forecasting, mobile apps, email logging and multiple currencies. A free 30-day trial is available.
pipedrive

6. Base – $25/user/month and Up

Base CRM is an option for growing and larger sales teams. In addition to the CRM basics, they also have advanced features such as lead scoring, sales forecasting, email automation and managing rep performance. Plans start at $25/user/month up to 5 users, and then increases to $75/user/month and $125/user/month for more users and more features.
base

7. Salesforce – $25/User/Month and Up

Salesforce is one of the best known CRM platforms, as it was one of the first CRM platforms available on the cloud. It’s now used by both small companies and enterprises and it’s available in a range of plans and feature set. Although the interface is more dated compared to the newer CRMs, Salesforce gives users and developers more ability to create custom functionality. Salesforce pricing plans start $25/user/month. Plans are billed annually, but come with a free 30-day trial.
salesforce

CRMs are an essential tool for growing companies to manage their sales activities and sales teams. Using a CRM from the start will save you a lot of time headaches when your list of sales activities starts to grow. What other CRM options should be added to this list?

Free to Paid: Top CRM Options for Startups