6 Best Free CRM Software Options for 2018

Free CRM software helps businesses manage relationships with customers and prospects, but typically includes limits on users or available features compared to paid options. We examined more than a dozen programs offering free plans with no time restrictions to identify the six best CRM options for startups and small businesses and the overall best.

Top 6 Free CRM Software Options for 2018

How We Evaluated the Best Free CRM Software Options

CRM software helps manage customer and prospect relationships by helping establish sales stages, organize sales initiatives, and manage customer activities in one place. When considering the best free CRM for small businesses and startups, we looked for solutions that are easy to set up and use, save time, have affordable upgrade options, and make it easier to build relationships.

Here are the specific criteria we used to identify the top six free CRM options:

• Ease of Use – We compared how easy the features are to set up and maintain.
• Automation Tools & Productivity Tools – We included automation and productivity tools in our criteria, looking at the level of sales productivity that can be achieved with the free tools.
• Mobile Access – We looked at how easy it is to access information from mobile devices, as many salespeople and business owners perform their jobs on road.
• Lead & Contact Management Features – We evaluated the robustness of lead and contact management features to ensure they allowed small business owners to organize their contacts and leads and make them easily accessible.
• Sales Activity Management and Tracking – We looked at how each option helped sales professionals and business owners perform essential sales tasks like sending emails and tracking results.
• Metrics and Reporting Tools – We looked at the metrics and reporting capabilities that help small businesses track the effectiveness of their sales efforts.
• Affordability of Upgrades & Paid Plans – We considered the price ranges of paid plans or upgrades to help ensure a smooth transition for when small businesses are ready for more sophisticated features or more users.
• Customer Support – We also looked at the level of support you receive with both free and paid versions for now and when you’re ready to upgrade.

Based on this criteria, we have determined Freshsales to be the overall best free CRM for small business. It’s easy to use, offers the free version for an unlimited number of users, has robust CRM features like a built-in phone and lead scoring. It also has a great mobile app, making it an excellent option for sales teams that spend a lot of time in the field.

Best Overall Free CRM Software for Small Business: Freshsales

Freshsales’ free version of their powerful CRM includes a built-in phone, a great mobile app, and supports an unlimited users and contacts. What makes its free plan unique is its lead scoring capability and generous 24 x 5 level of support by phone and email. It is a good option for sales organizations with a telephone-based outreach strategy and lots of contacts and prospects that want a high level of customer support.

Ease of Use

Freshsales customers find it easy to use with few complaints of features that are notably difficult. The features are intuitive and require point, click, and drag-and-drop user interactions, making it a great option for option teams that don’t spend a lot of time in front of a computer. Setup is simple and is made even easier with email and phone support.

Core Features

Freshsales free CRM offers key features to keep your contacts and deals organized. Key features include a built-in phone, lead scoring, and unlimited users and contacts. It also includes a mobile app that earned Freshsales our number one spot for best mobile CRM. What makes Freshsales different from the other free platforms covered here is its 24 x 5 email and phone levels of support.

Freshsales key features, as they compare to other free programs, are as follows:

Lead & Contact Management

The Sprout Plan, the free CRM version, offers a way to organize leads and contact details with the ability to filter by segment or to search for specific results. Unlike other free plans, Freshsales does not place a limit on the number of users or the number of contact records you can add. It also includes basic lead management functionality, like lead scoring, which helps sales professionals focus and act upon the best leads and web-to-lead forms.

Sales & Marketing Activity Tracking

The free plan also offers sales activity features that include basic email and a built-in phone. Basic email allows sales professionals to BCC (blind copy) a Freshsales email address to link emails to customers and prospects. The built-in phone allows salespeople to make calls without leaving the CRM. You can also buy national and local phone numbers and even assign them to teams. It also allows you to record calls and link them to contacts and customers.

Opportunity Management & Reporting

Unfortunately, the free version does not include reporting features like sales forecasting or the ability to create a lead score based on email or web activity. Nor does it include territory management functionality or the more robust sales pipeline management found in its paid version. However, deal management features are available with the free plan, which allow you to create and track deals within the CRM.

Customer Support

The generous customer support is one of the things that sets Freshsales’ free version apart from the rest. They offer 24 x 5 email and phone support for their free and paid customers. Other providers covered in this article offer more robust support for their paid customers, like HubSpot, which offers phone and email support to their paid clients. Low-touch support options are reserved for customers on the free plan.

Mobile App

You have access to the mobile app with the free plan. The mobile app allows you to make and log calls on the go. It also allows you to schedule follow-up activities and add them to your calendar. You can even locate nearby contacts and even arrange a ride with Uber to their location.

What Freshsales Is Missing

Freshsales’ free plan does not include the more advanced lead scoring and reporting functionality found in its paid version or the ability to integrate with Freshchat, the company’s chatbot functionality. It is missing project management tools to help you engage with new customers once deals are closed. If these features are important to your business, consider tools like HubSpot for chat or Insightly.

What Users Think About Freshsales

Freshsales users love the software because they find it easy to use, get great support, and it includes basic email features and built-in phone integration. Any dislikes fall under the category of minor glitches or that the system can sometimes be slow.

Where to Find Freshsales

Sales teams that depend on outbound calling and need call recording features should try the Freshsales free CRM. Visit Freshsales today to try these tools yourself by signing up for the free version here.

Visit Freshsales

Best Free CRM Software for Integrated Sales and Chat: HubSpot

HubSpot offers a robust, free CRM for sales teams with tools that include contact management, live chat, conversational bots, and social media lead ads while also supporting an unlimited number of users. HubSpot also gives users the option to build on its core free features with paid versions of additional products focused on marketing, sales and service. HubSpot is a good option if you want a free CRM with built-in conversational chat bots.

Ease of Use

Users find HubSpot easy to use. Its user interface looks and functions much like Gmail. There is also no technical setup and the pipeline has drag-and-drop features that make updates simple. In addition, HubSpot also offers several tutorials in their online knowledge base (the HubSpot Academy) to help users make the most out of the product.

Core Features

HubSpot free CRM core features include lead and contact management, a visual drag-and-drop pipeline, and marketing features designed to support acquiring leads and developing relationships such as conversational chatbots. Other specific features include call integration, lead scoring, a mobile app, and automatic contact enrichment.

Below are highlights of a few of HubSpot CRM’s key features:

Lead & Contact Management

The free CRM includes automatic contact enrichment. HubSpot has a database of over 20 million businesses and uses this information to enrich or add contact information automatically to users’ contacts. This saves time from manual research and data entry. Like Freshsales, it also offers lead scoring, which allows salespeople to focus on the most important leads. These features are similar to other providers, but HubSpot uses its own data to enrich contacts.

Sales & Marketing Activity Tracking

HubSpot’s free CRM includes key sales features, such as phone integration, email functionality, and communication tools like live chat and bots. Phone integration allows you to connect a VoIP or a desk phone to the CRM to make and log calls. However, the phone is not as robust as Freshsales’ built-in phone, which offers the ability to purchase and assign numbers and receive inbound calls.

Opportunity Management & Reporting

HubSpot’s free CRM offers visual, drag-and-drop pipeline management and, unlike Freshsales, offers basic reporting and forecasting using standard reports shown on a single dashboard. However, HubSpot only allows users to add up to five documents per account, which requires users to store critical documents related to opportunities, such as quotes, in a separate location or pay for the sales hub upgrade.

Customer Support

Phone and email support are reserved for members of the products, while support through the HubSpot community is available for free CRM customers. Compared to Freshsales, HubSpot customer support for the free CRM is not as comprehensive, as Freshsales offers phone and email support to its free CRM customers. If high-touch customer support is important for your business, Freshsales may be a better option.

Mobile App

The HubSpot mobile app is feature-rich, offering access to contacts, reporting, and analytics. It also offers access to email tracking features, which can give valuable insights if you need to respond to contacts and prospects in the field.

What HubSpot Is Missing

HubSpot is missing key phone functionality like being able to receive and log inbound calls. If this is important to your call strategy, Freshsales may be a better option or add an integration with a provider like Aircall to include this functionality. It is also missing direct customer support via phone or email and the ability to add landing pages (unless you upgrade to one of its paid plans).

What Users Think About HubSpot

HubSpot users like the software and find it easy to use. Dislikes include changes to site navigation and a relatively expensive transition to paid plans or upgrades to access advanced features.

Where to Find HubSpot CRM

HubSpot’s built-in conversational chatbots make it a great option for sales teams that want the ability to engage with leads visiting their website as quickly as possible. HubSpot’s pricing structure also makes it easy to add on specific functionality later as your business grows. You can get started using HubSpot CRM for free by visiting their website and signing up for your free account.

Visit HubSpot

Best Free CRM for All-in-One Customer Management: Agile CRM

Agile CRM offers an all-in-one platform for managing customer relationships. It allows you to manage sales, marketing, and help desk activities within the platform. It’s free for up to 10 users and includes 1,000 contacts. It allows you to perform diverse tasks, creating landing pages and help desk tasks all in one place. This bundle of features makes it particularly well-suited for software or service companies looking to do everything in one platform.

Ease of Use

Agile CRM is easy to use with a consumer-grade user interface. It also does not require time-consuming technical setup. It includes integrations with Google and other productivity tools commonly used by small businesses, making it easy to sync email communications and calendar functions.

Core Features

Core features in the free version include contact management, email tracking, reporting, web analytics, and social media features. Also included are marketing and sales automation and activity management. You also get one plug-in or integration with a business productivity tool like QuickBooks. This plan covers you for up to 1,000 contacts.

Agile’s features, as compared to the other products we considered, are as follows:

Lead & Contact Management

Agile’s lead and contact management features include the ability to easily add and update contacts with features like web-to-lead forms, where you can convert website visitors into leads. You have a comprehensive view of your contacts when you access their records with information like lead scores, conversation history, and social profile updates. You’re also able to prioritize leads with scoring. These features are comparable to other providers featured.

Sales & Marketing Activity Tracking

The free version includes lead generation and engagement tools like email campaigns and a landing page builder. It also includes the ability to build email templates. Being able to build landing pages, especially in a free CRM, sets Agile apart from the other providers, like HubSpot, which offers landing pages, but in their paid plans.

Opportunity Management

The free plan offers customizable deal stages or milestones that you can set for how your opportunities progress until they close. Agile makes it easy to move your deals along with a drag-and-drop kanban-style pipeline. It also offers sales automation features that allow you to schedule and automate tasks that keep deals moving forward. An unlimited number of deals also comes with the free plan.

Customer Support

Agile provides direct customer support through email. Customer support is more direct than what is provided by HubSpot, and is comparable to the support offered by Insightly. If you’re looking for more direct customer support, Freshsales, which offers email and phone support, may be a great option, or Apptivo, which offers comparable email support and 24/7 live chat support.

Mobile App

The mobile app offers a variety of contact management functions, including updating lead scores, adding deal and contact notes, and updating associated tasks. You can also easily schedule appointments on the go with Google 2-way calendar sync.

What Agile CRM Is Missing

Agile CRM is missing a built-in phone system. It does include phone features, but only at the more advanced tiers. The free version of this CRM is missing phone support, which is offered with the paid plans. Email support is available with the free plan.

What Users Think About Agile CRM

Agile CRM users like that it’s easy to use and also like the number of integrations available. The negative reviews for this product were around glitches or features that users felt could have been built out more. Users also feel that the mobile app could use more updates and wish it were compatible with the Samsung Galaxy S8.

Where to Find Agile CRM

Startups looking to consolidate sales, marketing, and customer services into a single platform using a single free CRM should consider Agile. Its custom deal milestones, unlimited email tracking, landing pages, and help desk integration make it easy for teams of up to ten users to manage their pre- and post-sale customer relationships from a single location. You can learn more by visiting their website and signing up for your free account.

Visit Agile CRM

Best Free CRM Software with Workflow Rules: Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM allows teams of up to three to create workflow rules, attach files to activity feeds, and integrate with social media for free. It also works seamlessly with Zoho’s other office productivity products such as Zoho Projects, Zoho SalesIQ, and Zoho Desk. Therefore, it is best for small teams or solopreneurs who are active on social media and want to standardize their sales activities or those who use other Zoho products.

Ease of Use

Zoho CRM users say that it is easy to use with intuitive features. You can begin using it right away without needing technical skills. Users also find it simple to add to and use other Zoho productivity products with the CRM.

Core Features

The core features in Zoho CRM’s free plan include contact management, sales and marketing activities and management, and opportunity management. Specific features include team collaboration and sharing, as well as the ability to set workflow rules and integrate with social media as well as other Zoho branded products.

Below are a few key highlights of Zoho CRM’s core features:

Lead & Contact Management

The Free plan offers basic lead management features, comparable with other featured providers, such as being able to organize and store leads and accounts. It also offers a streamlined way to capture leads from your website with its web-to-lead forms and gives you the ability to set basic follow-up rules as part of your prospect interaction strategy.

Sales & Marketing Activity Tracking

The sales and activity management features include the ability to set up basic workflow rules and capture social media interactions, which are uncommon features for free plans, as well as the ability to track events and log call notes. However, unlike some of the other free plans we compared, Zoho CRM emails have to be manually logged rather than be automatically added to contacts and leads with a simple BCC address.

Opportunity Management & Reporting

Zoho CRM gives users the ability to create and manage tasks, events, call logs, and notes and link them to your opportunities. Users can attach documents, see file versions, and share folders, which can make it easier to manage documents related to opportunities than that offered by other products we compared. Zoho also offers a marketplace of apps and add-ons, like Zoho SalesIQ and Zoho Reports, to make the free version of its CRM even more robust.

Customer Support

Customer support is included with the free CRM version, but is limited compared to what is included in Zoho’s paid versions or what comes included as part of Freshsales’ free plan. For example, with the free plan, technical support is only offered between the business hours of eight and five, and email responses to incident reports can take as long as two days to be addressed.

Mobile App

Zoho CRM offers a mobile app with features that include accessing customer emails and locating nearby customers and contacts with geolocation and Google maps. Functionality also includes the ability to manually log calls and add voice notes to deals and contacts. You can also collaborate with team members using feeds. The robustness of Zoho’s mobile app is comparable to the other providers featured here.

What Zoho CRM Is Missing

While Zoho CRM has a phone dialer integration, it is not offered as a built-in feature, as is offered by Freshsales. It also lacks the project management found in Insightly, Apptivo, and Agile, and the free version does not include Zoho’s most advanced artificial intelligence capability that can help with lead scoring and workflow automation. Therefore, Zoho CRM’s free plan is not as out-of-the-box ready as some of the other products we considered for this article.

What Users Think About Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM users like the fact that the software is very comprehensive. However, some are disappointed with having to buy add-on products to get the functionality they are looking for.

Where to Find Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM offers a number of office productivity integrations through its marketplace, which can help make its free CRM even more powerful. It also has the ability to grow with you, and features a number of artificial intelligence features and workflow automations with its paid plans. If you’d like to try Zoho’s workflow rules and social media integration features, sign up to start using Zoho CRM’s free plan today.

Visit Zoho CRM

Best Free CRM Software with Project Management: Insightly

Insightly CRM’s free version features contact, lead, and project management. It also includes helpful features such as the ability to add voice memos, add custom CRM fields, email templates, and web-to-lead forms, and can help teams of one or two organize vendors as well as customer contacts. It is, therefore, best for businesses that want to build long-term relationships with their leads beyond the initial sales cycle.

Ease of Use

Insightly works within your browser window or can be used as an add-on in Gmail, making it easy to save contacts at the touch of a button. Users of Insightly find the user interface easy to use and like how it gives them the ability to link contacts to projects as well as to opportunities.

Core Features

Insightly’s free plan offers the same core set of task, lead, and relationship features found in several other free CRMs, as well as project management functionality, which is a more unique feature. However, access to the plan is limited to two users, and there are a lot of limitations, such as a limited number of records that can be imported and the size of data storage.

Insightly’s core features, as compared to other free CRM software, are as follows:

Lead & Contact Management

Insightly gives users the ability to add contacts to the CRM with its Gmail plug-in. Once in the system, Insightly then lets users link contacts to leads and displays an activity feed that shows recent interactions. Users can also create custom fields that can then make it even easier to create segmented lists of leads and contacts. While neither of these features are unique to Insightly, they are uncommon compared to many free CRM plans, including Freshsales.

Sales & Marketing Activity Tracking

Insightly’s free plan includes the ability to send bulk emails as well as view the sales pipeline at a glance, which are features not offered in many other free CRM plans. Insightly also includes task management, which can help solopreneurs or teams of two stay on top of critical follow-ups related to leads and projects.

Opportunity Management & Reporting

Insightly gives users the ability to convert leads to opportunities and continue to track tasks long after a deal has been closed using its project management capability. However, the free plan does not include the more robust reporting and dashboard functionality found in its paid plans. It also does not include the ability to add lead assignments or sync tasks with a personal calendar.

Customer Support

Insightly offers support to customers with its free product through their Help Center. More direct support via email is only offered to customers on the paid plan. This puts Insightly at a disadvantage compared to Freshsales, which offers direct support through phone and email, and where you can get your questions answered immediately while you’re using the product.

Mobile App

The Insightly mobile app gives you access to task lists on the go and keeps you up to date on items that are coming up or are overdue. You’re also able to add voice memos to deals or leads, reminding you or other team members to take action. You’re able to receive push notifications of important deal or contact information. The mobile app also allows you to create projects while you’re in the field, which is a unique feature.

What Insightly Is Missing

Insightly is missing free phone and email support. Also missing is the call integration, like what is offered by Freshsales, where calls can be made, received, and tracked right in the software. Its free version also lacks the ability to scan business cards using the mobile app, which is a feature offered as part of its paid plan upgrades.

What Users Think About Insightly

Insightly users love the project management features. They like the fact that they can stay involved with customers even after a deal is closed and love how it helps organize contacts and track opportunities. They think Insightly can improve on training and onboarding.

Where to Find Insightly

If your business could benefit from a CRM with robust lead management and project management tools, consider Insightly. Insightly gives businesses tools to help build long-term relationships with their leads by helping them stay on top of tasks beyond the initial sale. You can sign up for the free version of Insightly here.

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Best Free CRM with Product and Quote Management: Apptivo

Apptivo’s free CRM is for up to three users needing invoicing, project management, work orders, and help desk and basic sales features. It offers a product catalog and the ability to issue quotes. You can process invoices and manage purchase orders. This makes Apptivo a great option for startups and solopreneurs who are selling products rather than services and who do not need marketing features within their CRM.

Ease of Use

Users find Apptivo easy to use and report that it does not take a lot of technical skills to get started. The interface is user-friendly, requiring point-and-click or drag-and-drop interactions, making it easy to navigate.

Core Features

The starter plan is free for up to three users. It includes basic features such as lead and contact management, opportunity management, invoicing and purchase order management, standard reporting, and activity management. However, in order to use any of its features on the mobile app, you’ll need to sign up for one of the paid plans.

The core features of Apptivo’s free plan include the following:

Lead & Contact Management

The free version gives you access to basic lead and contact management features that allow you to add and update contacts. More advanced features like web-to-lead capture are only included in the paid plans.

Sales & Marketing Activity Tracking

The free plan strictly focuses on basic contact and lead management and does not offer any sales and marketing features. The paid plans offer marketing and sales features that include bulk emails, marketing automation, and email templates. Compared to the other providers featured, Agile CRM’s free plan focuses on customer, lead and opportunity management instead of lead acquisition and customer engagement.

Opportunity Management

Apptivo offers basic opportunity or deal management features that allow you to do things like update deal status and add tasks and notes, similar to what is offered by many other free CRM plans. You can also create deals easily with just a few clicks. However, Apptivo also allows you to manage the products associated with those deals from within the user interface and process invoices and purchase orders.

Customer Support

Apptivo has great customer support, offering 8 x 5 email support, similar to Freshsales, and 24/7 live chat. They also offer videos, webinars and a knowledge base to answer commonly asked questions.

Mobile App

While Apptivo does offer an Android app, the mobile app is exclusive to users of the paid version. This puts it at a disadvantage compared to other options like Freshsales or HubSpot, which support Apple products. It is also not advantageous for sales teams that want to be able to access their CRM on an iPad.

What Apptivo Is Missing

Apptivo is missing the ability to filter data and add custom fields as part of its free plan and does not support Apple mobile products like iPhones and iPads. Therefore, salespeople who need to be able to access their CRM from the road, or those who require an unlimited number of users, may be better off either upgrading to the paid plan or considering the other alternatives in this guide.

What Users Think About Apptivo

Overall, users really like Apptivo. Most of the dislikes were due a few experiences of the system being a bit slow and occasional small bugs.

Where to Find Apptivo

Apptivo’s free CRM plan is a great option for teams of three or less that want the ability to manage their contacts, products, and orders all from a single user interface. If you have a business with no more than three users who could benefit from a CRM with basic contact, lead, project management, help desk and invoicing capabilities, check out Apptivo’s Starter plan.

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Free Open Source CRM Alternatives

Open source CRM software is another good option for budget-conscious businesses looking for software that can help manage their customer relationships. However, while often this type of software is free to download, they typically require additional monthly service fees for customer support and also require a high degree of technical skill to fully utilize. For more information and our recommendations on the best, read our article on the best open source CRM.

Bottom Line

The best free CRM is easy to use, comes with few restrictions, and has features robust enough to sustain long-term use. Whether you’re looking for a free CRM with marketing, sales, and service features, or one that is relatively simple that will keep you organized, one of the six providers featured is bound to meet your needs.

Freshsales offers a very generous free CRM that provides access to unlimited users and contacts and offers phone and email support. What makes it even better is that it is feature-rich, with a built-in phone and lead scoring. Give Freshsales a try by signing up for the free version today.

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