6 Best Personal CRMs for Single Users 2020

Personal customer relationship management (CRM) software gives individuals and solo entrepreneurs the ability to organize, track, and automate outreach for a large volume of personal and professional contacts. We compared a variety of personal CRM systems that are intuitive, easy to use, and affordable to identify the top six and the best overall.

Top 6 Best Personal CRMs for Single Users 2020

How We Evaluated the Best Personal CRMs for Single Users

Since team features are not a concern for individuals, we focused solely on the features solopreneurs and freelancers actually need from this type of CRM. The features we looked for include free or affordable pricing plans, ease of use, and CRM features or integrations that include sales pipelines, call and email tracking, marketing features, and a mobile app for individuals on the go.

Here is a closer look at the criteria we used to evaluate the CRM software for single users:

• Pricing model: A good personal CRM doesn’t have to be expensive.
• Ease of use: CRMs for single users should be easy to set up and use.
• Available integrations: These CRM solutions should work easily with other business apps.
• Customer support: A great CRM has timely, multichannel customer support.
• Mobile app: Mobile apps are crucial for many of today’s solopreneurs.
• Call tracking and logging: The best CRMs include the ability to easily track and log calls for every sales opportunity.
• Customization: Since individual users have different needs, customization options weighed heavily in our choices.

HubSpot: Best Overall Personal CRM for Single Users

HubSpot was our pick to be the best overall personal CRM for single users who want a CRM that’s powerful, free, and intuitive. It offers the most features at the free tier, extensive customization options, and has a simple, easy-to-learn interface. Users can also add paid marketing, sales, and service hubs for an additional cost.

HubSpot Pricing

• HubSpot’s free CRM includes marketing tools like email marketing, live chat, conversational bots, ad management, and team email.
• HubSpot also has a ton of upgrades starting at $40 per month (paid annually) that include landing pages, more sophisticated options for calling, website tracking, live chat, and more.

HubSpot Features

• Contact management: One unique feature it offers that many others don’t include for free is website tracking, so you can tell which contacts have visited your website—giving you intel on who to hone in on and close more deals.
• Live chat: HubSpot’s free live chat features are easy to set up while giving you several channel options for communicating with prospects within the CRM. Users can choose business hours and elect to display their typical response time.
• Integrations: HubSpot integrates seamlessly with over 300 popular business applications to improve productivity.
• Mobile app: The HubSpot CRM mobile app is quick to install and shows your contacts, deals, tasks, and a comprehensive activity feed. You also manage your live chat and conversations, and scan in business cards to associate them with a deal instantly.

HubSpot live chat. Image courtesy of HubSpot

To learn more about HubSpot, check out our HubSpot reviews page.

Freshsales: Best Personal CRM for Phone-based Sales & Outreach

Freshsales, which tops our list of the best CRMs for small business, has a robust integrated calling system and lead scoring ability included in their free-forever startup plan. They also offer four other plans with advanced customization features starting at $12 per user, per month.

Freshsales CRM Pricing

• Freshsales’ free plan is for unlimited users.
• Paid plans are offered from $19 to $65 per user, per month, billed monthly, or $12 to $49 billed annually.
• Each plan offers in-app calling for $1 per line, per month with rates from 1.6 cents per minute.

Freshsales Features

• Great core features: Freshsales has robust core CRM features like lead, contact, account, and deal management, keeping track of tasks and appointments, and a mobile app even at the free tier.
• Email management: While the Freshsales free plan doesn’t offer any email management features, the entry-level $12 plan includes two-way email sync email forwarding and a response prioritization tool.
• In-app calling: Freshsales offers good inbound and outbound calling features with all paid service plans. It includes a dedicated local or toll-free phone number, automatic call tracking and recording, and notes.
• Robust mobile app: The most useful of Freshsales functions, such as in-app calling, lead management, and sales activity tracking, are also available in the mobile app.

Freshsales’ calling tool. Image courtesy of Freshsales

To learn more about Freshsales, take a look at our Freshsales reviews page.

Streak: Best Personal CRM With Built-in Gmail Inbox Integration

Streak is a CRM that is built right into a user’s Gmail inbox. It gives you the ability to manage deals, sales pipeline, contacts, and emails in your Gmail inbox, so you can truly see everything in one place. Advanced features with paid service plans include reporting and email filters. This makes it a great option for individuals who want to manage leads without ever leaving their inbox.

Streak Pricing

• Streak has a free personal version and a Professional version.
• The Professional version starts at $49 per user, per month; it includes the ability to add advanced reports and offers basic API access with over 900 Zapier integrations.

Streak Features

• Native Gmail integration: In both versions, Streak downloads as a Chrome extension and then integrates into your Gmail inbox. You can set up multiple custom pipelines for different use cases such as sales, support, partnerships, and so on.
• Free, unlimited pipelines: Streak offers solopreneurs unlimited private pipelines that support unlimited rows of data. Shared pipelines support 50 rows of data.
• Email management tools: Email features with Streak’s free plan include tracking, mail merge, send later, and email templates. Paid plans include filters for adding email addresses to the pipeline.
• Permission controls: Streak’s paid service plans include permission controls that allow users to choose who has view and edit access within the system.

Streak’s native Gmail integration. Image courtesy of Streak

For more information about Streak, read our Streak reviews page.

Zoho CRM: Best Personal CRM for Advanced Social Media Features

Zoho CRM offers a variety of modules (like invoicing so you don’t have to use a separate program like QuickBooks to manage your invoices), with free plans to enterprise versions. It also has social media integrations, letting you create custom lead generation filters based on comments, mentions, and engagements. This makes it a great option for social media-savvy professionals looking to better manage engagements.

Zoho CRM Pricing

• Zoho CRM offers a free plan for up to three users that includes mobile apps and email templates.
• The paid versions offer additional functionality such as social media integrations, sales forecasting, custom fields, reporting, and dashboards, ranging from $12 to $35 per user, per month.

Zoho CRM Features

• Social media integration: Zoho CRM enhances social media strategies with in-app integrations with Twitter and Facebook.
• Email insights: Email tools allow users to check email status and monitor the performance of email campaigns.
• Automation tools: Free and paid service plans include sales automation tools for logging calls, managing deals, and more.
• Advanced sales dashboard: Zoho’s top-tier plan includes its SalesSignal feature, which automates lead scoring when prospects respond to surveys, open emails, or mention your business on social media.

Zoho CRM’s sales dashboard. Image courtesy of Zoho.com

For more information about this solution, check out our Zoho CRM reviews page.

Pipedrive: Best Personal CRM With a Visual Pipeline & AI Features

Pipedrive is a user-friendly CRM that offers a highly visual, customizable pipeline allowing you to see all your deals at a glance. It also has an artificial intelligence (AI) sales assistant that helps you uncover information about deals and advanced reporting that makes it easy to run reports by product. Pipedrive is therefore a great option for individuals who want to easily visualize the status of potential opportunities.

Pipedrive Pricing

• Pipedrive’s entry-level Essential plan includes contact management, custom pipeline stages, and AI tools for $12.50 per user, per month.
• Advanced tiers include email integration, email templates, and contact field auto-population with plans starting at $24.90 per user, per month.

Pipedrive Core Features

• Customizable pipelines: Pipedrive’s unlimited pipelines are completely customizable to help users get the most out of their sales process.
• Artificial intelligence sales assistant: This tool analyzes your past performance to make recommendations on where to focus efforts and how to improve.
• Product catalog: A customizable product catalog includes space for pricing, notes, and more.
• Advanced mobile app features: Pipedrive’s mobile app offers a unique “nearby” feature that shows the addresses of nearby contacts while you’re on the go.

Pipedrive’s deal dashboard. Image courtesy of Pipedrive

For more information on how Pipedrive can help your business, read our Pipedrive reviews page.

Salesflare: Best Personal CRM With Advanced Customer Insights

Salesflare is an intuitive CRM with time-saving features like automatic gathering of contact details and suggesting contacts you know at businesses to reach out to. It has one straightforward pricing plan so you know exactly what features and functionality you get when you sign up. This makes Salesflare a particularly great option for data-driven solopreneurs who value pricing transparency and extra customer insights.

Salesflare Pricing

• They have one straightforward plan at $35 per user, per month (billed annually), but do not have a free plan.
• While you can’t customize a plan to fully suit your business needs, it’s straightforward and you know exactly what you’re getting when you sign up.

Salesflare Features

• Contact management: When you store a new contact in Salesflare, it automatically populates information about the lead from their email signature, social profiles, and more. From the contact page, you can send and track emails, make phone calls, store documents, and link people to specific opportunities.
• Mobile app: The Salesflare app lets you know what your tasks and upcoming meetings are for the day. The mobile app offers a seamless user experience that allows you to do anything you’d do on a computer while you’re one the go.
• Email tracking: Salesflare works with Gmail, Office 365, and Exchange to bring all your communications into one place. You receive notifications when prospects open emails, click a link, or open attachments.
• Advanced reporting: Salesflare offers robust sales insights with its reporting dashboard. You can see total revenue, your average sales cycle, the average value of a deal, your expected revenue versus your revenue goal, and more.

Salesflare accounts dashboard. Image courtesy of Salesflare

To learn more about Salesflare, check out our Salesflare reviews page.

Bottom Line

Solopreneurs need software to manage their sales opportunities just as much as larger businesses with more team members. There’s no shortage of options available—the best CRM software for your company will depend on your budget and specific needs, such as email automation, live chat, and contact management features.

We recommend HubSpot as the best personal CRM for a single user due to its free-forever plan, broad range of capabilities, customer support, and ease of use. Its free live chat widget, email tracking, templates, and robust mobile app make it an excellent choice for business owners who need one platform that can do it all.

Visit HubSpot