8 Best Simple CRM Systems for 2023
Jess served on the founding team of a successful B2B startup and has used a wide range of sales and marketing tools over the course of her 15-year career. She uses her industry knowledge to deliver the best answers to your questions about sales tools and sales management.
Bianca is a staff writer at Fit Small Business who specializes in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.
This article is part of a larger series on CRM.
Simple customer relationship management (CRM) systems provide a clean interface, logical navigation menu, and intuitive features essential to a sales operation, including a contact database and workflow automation. We evaluated dozens of simple CRM products that let small businesses manage customers with ease and narrowed it down to our top seven options:
- Best simple CRM (Overall): Freshsales
- Top solution for data visualization: Pipedrive
- Ideal CRM system for project management: monday sales CRM
- Excellent simple automation design tools: HubSpot CRM
- Great basic contact management features: Really Simple Systems
- Solid features for managing tasks: OnePageCRM
- Best option for a simple customer experience: Less Annoying CRM
- Most intuitive lead management tool: noCRM.io
Best Simple CRM Software Compared
Provider | Starting Monthly Price per User* | Free Plan? | Our CRM Rating Out of 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
 | $15 | ✓ | 4.63 |
 | $14.90 | ✕ | 4.43 |
 | $10 (three-seat minimum requirement) | ✕ | 4.39 |
 | $30 (up to two users) | ✓ | 4.35 |
 | $17 | ✓ | 4.33 |
 | $9.95 | ✕ | 4.28 |
 | $15 | ✕ | 4.23 |
 | $12 | ✕ | 4.11 |
*Based on annual billing; monthly billing is also available for slightly higher rates.
Freshsales: Most Simple & Easy to Use Platform (Overall)
Overall Score:
4.63 / 5
Pros
- Basic plan includes unlimited users, account management, and a built-in phone system
- Scalable, low-priced paid plans
- Built-in artificial intelligence (AI) tools for analytics and automated conversions
Cons
- Price, quotes, invoices, and onboarding documents management requires paid add-on
- Automated profile enrichment gets expensive
- Two-way email sync not included on free plan
- You sell business-to-business (B2B) products and services: Freshsales includes built-in account and deal management modules that are particularly useful when selling to other organizations. It also has a built-in phone system that lets you centralize account management and cold calling activities in one platform.
- You want to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) for task automation: Freshsales offers the Freddy AI tool that lets teams do more with less. They can auto-engage prospects through live chat, deduplicate CRM data records, and discover insights into deals and forecasts using AI.
- You need an easy CRM that’s free and scalable: Freshsales has a well-designed interface that makes it easy for startups and new users to navigate. It also has a free-forever plan available for unlimited users, and cost-friendly paid plans that grow nicely with your small business as your features and data capacity requirements change.
- You want to manage many parts of your business with one provider: Freshsales is just one of many products sold by the provider Freshworks. Users can also adopt and integrate with other native products of Freshworks to oversee functions like marketing, customer support, IT, and contact center operations.
- You need low-cost features for auto-updating contact data: Freshsales has an automated profile enrichment feature. But it is not available until the Enterprise plan for $69 per user, per month.
- Alternative: OnePageCRM offers automated contact data enrichment on its Professional plan for just $9.95 per user, per month.
- You want to use your email in your CRM for free: While it has a free plan, Freshsales does not allow users to connect their Gmail or Outlook systems until the Growth plan, where they can keep email data in sync and send messages through the CRM.
- Alternative: HubSpot allows email sync and email marketing campaign management on its free-forever plan.
- You need project management tools in your CRM: Though great for lead and deal management activities and engaging with customers through various channels, Freshsales does not have any built-in project management tool to handle side sales projects or client service projects.
- Alternative: monday sales CRM has work and project management templates that can be tailored to any operational needs—allowing users to manage leads and projects in one interface.
Freshsales Pricing Plan & Overview*
Freshsales offers a 21-day free trial to test the paid plans. There are optional add-ons users can purchase with their plans. One is the Configure, Price, Quote add-on, which is $19 per user, monthly, for quote document templates, invoicing, and document activity tracking features. Another is for obtaining additional bot sessions, which is $75 per month for 1,000 extra live chat sessions to automate lead generation and customer support.
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per user, per month breakdown. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost.
Freshsales tracking account deal progress (Source: Freshsales)
Our Expert Opinion
Freshsales does well in a range of categories and is the best simple CRM overall. It has sophisticated yet simple features and a user-friendly interface sales reps can navigate easily, even with less familiarity with a CRM system. Freddy AI, for instance, supports a sales team by keeping its data clean and offering valuable insights on deal and forecast trends. It is also easy to set up and operate, much like the other tools. Freshsales’ simplicity also pairs nicely with its cost-effective plans, making it perfect for startups and small businesses.
Get the full details and see if Freshsales is the right solution for your business in our comprehensive Freshsales review.
Pipedrive: Best for Data Visualization
Overall Score:
4.43 / 5
Pros
- Affordable premium plans
- 24/7 multilingual live chat and email support
- Email and document tracking
Cons
- Lacks a free plan
- Phone support limited to Enterprise plan
- Lead generation and web tracking tools cost extra
- Your sales team uses Slack to collaborate on deals: Pipedrive is or No. 2 pick for CRMs that integrate with Slack. It features a Dealbot that notifies users via Slack whenever there are updates or changes on deals in their CRM.
- Your use Microsoft Outlook for emailing and managing your work calendar: Pipedrive ranks No. 2 among our choices for CRMs that integrate with Outlook. It has a two-way integration for email, contacts, and calendar with Outlook, which keeps your data consistent between the two systems.
- Your sales agents need robust sales automation tools: This platform is one of our top recommended sales automation software. It lets you automatically assign or create sales tasks, update CRM records, and even send emails to prospects. Its smart Sales Assistant tool analyzes CRM data to provide suggestions on how you can prioritize deals and improve your performance.
- You are a startup or freelancer looking for a free CRM: Unfortunately, Pipedrive does not offer a free plan.
- Alternative: Consider using HubSpot CRM or Really Simple Systems if you are looking for a free CRM that is easy to use for beginners and small businesses.
- You want a CRM with low-cost automation features: Pipedrive’s workflow automation tools are only available starting with its Advanced plan, which costs $24.90 per user, monthly.
- Alternative: Subscribe to Zoho CRM if you need a CRM that offers free Outlook integration with basic workflow automation.
Pipedrive Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per user, per month breakdown. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost.
Moving a deal through sales stages (Source: Pipedrive)
Our Expert Opinion
Compared to other types of CRMs, Pipedrive makes it easier to understand CRM data because of its visualization tools. It features Kanban-style drag-and-drop pipelines and customizable dashboards. Aside from that, this platform offers in-app calling and integration with more than 300 services and tools from its App Marketplace. Using its Smart Docs feature, you can send trackable quotes, proposals, and contracts to your clients.
Find out more about this solution’s features and capabilities by reading our comprehensive Pipedrive review.
monday sales CRM: Best for Project Management
Overall Score:
4.39 / 5
Pros
- Free-forever plan available
- Simple product to use with spreadsheet-style data entry
- Customizable to meet any sales operation or project requirements
Cons
- Misleading pricing; paid plans require a minimum number of users
- System does not have built-in email, text, or phone capabilities to communicate with customers
- Lacks AI capabilities for high-level insights and analytics
- You are a project-based business: monday sales CRM has templates that you can use for managing projects. It is recommended for businesses that provide services to customers in the form of projects, such as content developers, construction companies, business consultants, or software developers. Project-based firms can use the software to manage lead and deal progress, as well as oversee client deliverables after the sale is finalized.
- You prefer data spreadsheets: One of the things that make monday sales CRM easy to use is that it utilizes a familiar spreadsheet-style format for data entry and management. Once the contact information, project stage, deal status, or anything else you want to track is added, you can view the work and sales progress. Choose from multiple options like Kanban, timeline, calendar, map, chart, and workload capacity views.
- You need complete system customization: monday sales CRM uses a system of boards and items to represent data records and processes. Those can be customized to meet any type of business need, including sales, marketing, service, projects, finance, and human resources management. Additionally, monday sales CRM offers hundreds of prebuilt templates for users to quickly convert their board into a work management system.
- You want to manage marketing campaigns: While monday sales CRM has work management templates for marketing, it does not have built-in tools for designing and deploying marketing campaigns. It relies on third-party integration with creative apps for ad management.
- Alternative: HubSpot offers an intuitive CRM and complete marketing platform equipped with tools for email and ads campaigns and managing content.
- You need free data workflow automation: monday sales CRM does not offer a free plan. Also, users who want to edit data, add records, or assign items to other users based on automated triggers cannot do so unless they are subscribed to its Standard plan.
- Alternative: While it didn’t make our list for the best easy-to-use CRM, Zoho CRM offers free, basic workflow features for data management tasks.
monday sales CRM Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a monthly per-user breakdown. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. There is also a 14-day free trial.
Our Expert Opinion
monday sales CRM is one of the simplest CRM software with productivity tools available on the market. Its spreadsheet-style format and easy customization enable any user to extract value from the platform quickly. The main issue that keeps monday sales CRM from scoring higher is its lack of built-in tools and features that sales teams typically expect. These include communication features, artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and proposal management.
Check out our monday.com review to get the full scope of the platform’s features, integrations, and best-for circumstances.
HubSpot CRM: Intuitive Automation Tools
Overall Score:
4.35 / 5
Pros
- Free plan for unlimited users
- CRM Suite includes sales, marketing, and service in one bundle
- The interface design uses a calm color scheme and simple layout that makes it easy to navigate for a great user experience
Cons
- Paid plans get expensive
- Social media tools not available until Professional plans
- Payment processing not available for free
- You want to put marketing campaigns on auto-pilot: One of the top easy CRM tools for HubSpot is the email automation features. Many of the email features are free, and the automation uses a no-code format. This lets users at all skill levels deploy mass emails that automatically send or resend depending on contact segments or engagement activity, like opens and clicks.
- You function in a revenue operations structure: The HubSpot CRM Suite is a bundled product comprised of sales, marketing, content management, and customer service modules which is great for overseeing revenue teams. Each product has a free option and excellent paid features to manage data, communications, and reporting for all those functions.
- You want to process payments with your CRM: HubSpot is one of the few CRMs on the market that can process payments in the system. Users can either integrate the platform with Stripe for credit card payments or use the automated clearing house (ACH) capabilities offered by HubSpot.
- You are a startup: HubSpot isn’t only free for unlimited users, but many of the sales and marketing features that help a new business obtain customers are included in those free plans. Some of these features include email campaigns, ads, list segmentation, deal management, contact management, and prospects that identify companies visiting your website.
- You need scalable paid plans: Though it has excellent free tools, all of the paid plans, whether you bundle them or purchase them individually, are expensive and not cost-effective for fast-growing businesses.
- Alternative: Freshsales and Really Simple Systems offer easy-to-use CRM features and cost-friendly paid plans that start at $15 and $14 per user, respectively.
- You want free calling features: Through integration, HubSpot allows users to place calls in the CRM. However, that feature isn’t available until the Starter plan, which limits your business to 500 total minutes.
- Alternative: Freshsales includes its built-in telephone system on the free plan.
HubSpot CRM Pricing Plan & Overview*
HubSpot CRM offers a free plan that supports an unlimited number of users and four paid suites of sales, marketing, service, content management, and operations tools that start at $30 per month for two users. Each tier has different limits for custom properties, reports and dashboards, shared inboxes, deal pipelines, various email templates, and sales automations.
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-month breakdown. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. Each plan offers a 14-day free trial.
**CRM Suite includes sales, marketing, customer service, content management system (CMS), and operations software. Individual modules can be purchased for lower monthly costs.
HubSpot CRM marketing automation designer (Source: RiseFuel)
Our Expert Opinion
On the surface, HubSpot CRM seems too good to be true. It has a robust free plan with end-to-end solutions, which is why HubSpot is also our pick for the best CRM for small business. HubSpot has two primary attributes in terms of being a CRM with minimal learning requirements. One is how easy it is to create automations for sending marketing emails. It’s a no-code, drag-and-drop system that lets users quickly configure if/then branches. The other is how intuitive the platform is to navigate through its modern color scheme and minimal CRM menu buttons.
Like what you see? Check out our full HubSpot CRM review for more product details.
Really Simple Systems: Best Simple Contact Management
Overall Score:
4.33 / 5
Pros
- Free option and scalable paid plans
- Highly acclaimed for product simplicity and usability
- Tons of system customization options for fields, pages, layouts, reports, and dashboards
Cons
- Marketing and customer support features require paid add-on
- Email integration not available for free
- Expensive workflow automation features
- You need a simple, low-cost contact database: Really Simple Systems offers an excellent contact management system that gives you all the basics for free. Operating the database tools requires minimal effort and includes data storage, pipeline stage tracking, task, and event management. There’s also one-page customer views, document storage, and linking account records to another to indicate a related record or hierarchy relationship.
- You have a unique sales operation: One of the best attributes of Really Simple Systems is the simple, but robust customization. Businesses with a unique sales process or need to track specific lead or customer information can get behind this CRM’s customizable fields, tables, dashboards, pages, and dropdown lists.
- You want free revenue forecasting tools: Revenue forecasting isn’t typically a free feature available in CRMs. Really Simple Systems includes its forecasting tool on the free-forever plan for up to two users and lets users set weighted deal values and closing probabilities to help generate sales estimates.
- You want marketing tools included: One major issue with Really Simple Systems is the marketing tools require paid add-ons or the Enterprise plan, which only consists of the Simple Marketing add-on.
- Alternative: HubSpot is the simplest CRM and best alternative for marketing capabilities—including most of the email and ad tools on the free plan.
- You need low-cost automation: CRM automation lets you automate repetitive sales tasks like data updates, lead assignments, or routine emails. Unfortunately, these capabilities aren’t available until the Professional plan, which starts at $30 per user, monthly.
- Alternative: Freshsales provides workflow automation starting at $15 per user.
- You want to leverage AI: Really Simple Systems keeps its features and interface simple and doesn’t offer advanced tools such as AI for analytics or automation.
- Alternative: Freshsales is the best option with AI and meets the product usability ratings we require to make this list.
Really Simple Systems Pricing Plan & Overview*
Really Simple Systems lets users temporarily access the paid plans with a 14-day free trial. There are three add-ons businesses can purchase separately to give their CRM more functionality. One is the Simple Marketing add-on for $25 per month, another is the Service Desk which costs $50 per month, then there’s Advanced Marketing, which costs $50 per month. Simple Marketing and Service Desk add-ons are already included if you’re on the Enterprise plan.
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a monthly per-user breakdown. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost.
Really Simple Systems contact management (Source: Really Simple Systems)
Our Expert Opinion
Based on our evaluation and user reviews, Really Simple Systems lives up to its promise that it’s an easy CRM solution. It doesn’t come with elaborate features or require a substantial learning curve. Rather, it’s a great option for managing your data and tracking sales activity. It’s also especially easy to design and customize the interface. There are plenty of different data fields, property options, and reporting tools within the system.
Really Simple Systems offers a simple, highly customizable solution to manage sales, marketing, and customer support. Find out more about this product in our Really Simple Systems review to see if it’s right for your business.
OnePageCRM: Best for Managing Sales Tasks
Overall Score:
4.28 / 5
Pros
- Most features are available on the lower-priced plan
- Unique task management tools to keep reps focused
- Simple interface design for solid navigability
Cons
- No free plan
- Relatively limited number of CRM integrations
- Multi-pipeline management and deal velocity require Business plan
- You want a solution to keep sales reps productive: OnePageCRM has unique “focus” features most CRMs don’t offer. These tools are easy to operate and include an action-based sales tool that auto-assigns the next action for each lead. It also has a focus mode that hides notifications and distractions while using the platform, and a target widget that visually displays activity and production progress related to a sales goal.
- You need an easy way to create and send quotes: One of the easy-to-operate CRM features in OnePageCRM is the business proposal management capabilities. With built-in deal management and a products and services catalog, users can add a quote proposal to an email in one click.
- You want to better understand your sales pipeline: This CRM has reporting and analytics tools. One, in particular, is for deal and pipeline analysis. There’s a deal velocity feature that evaluates the average time a deal stays in a certain stage to help identify bottlenecks.
- You need many third-party integration options: OnePageCRM only offers 23 third-party standard CRM integration connections. The rest must either be configured using Zapier or an application programming interface (API).
- Alternative: HubSpot is the best simple CRM for integrations—offering over 1,000 options.
- You want to use an omnichannel communication strategy: OnePageCRM allows users to engage with prospects and customers via email and integrated phone, but no other channel.
- Alternative: Freshsales is an easy-to-use CRM that offers a wide range of communication options for marketing and sales campaigns, including phone, email, live chat, short service message (SMS) text, and integrated apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Apple Business Chat.
- You need to manage various territories: While you can manage products and services and oversee individual and team performance, there’s no way to divide and manage activity for sales territories, such as geographic-based or product-based teams.
- Alternative: Freshsales is the best easy CRM for this use case that also takes our pick for the top territory management software.
OnePageCRM Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a monthly per-user breakdown. The annual plan includes four months free. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. Each plan offers a 21-day free trial.
OnePageCRM next action task feed (Source: Google)
Our Expert Opinion
OnePageCRM offers excellent features, including ones for managing productivity and focus that most CRMs lack. This platform also places a significant priority on convenience, as the interface doesn’t take much effort to get around. Plus, many of the tools, including the quote, lead generation, and contact enrichment features, let you complete cumbersome tasks in just one click or automatically.
Less Annoying CRM: Best for a Simple Customer Experience
Overall Score:
4.23 / 5
Pros
- Only one low-cost pricing tier for a simple buying process
- Customization tools are easy to operate
- Great features for managing tasks, contacts, and events
Cons
- No free plan
- Does not have a mobile app
- Lacks advanced AI and analytics tools
- You want a hassle-free CRM buying experience: Less Annoying CRM prides itself on a simple buying experience and offering an easy-to-operate platform. Rather than using a tier-based system or offering add-ons, users get one plan which includes all the CRM features.
- You need basic contact and task management tools: The main features of Less Annoying CRM are the data storage options to manage contacts and tasks. Within contact records, users can organize information on leads and customers, manage files, add notes, and track pipeline statuses. The system will also send a daily email agenda showing all events and tasks the user has in one day.
- You want an easy way to track sales activity: In addition to record management, Less Annoying CRM has simple reporting features that make it easy for sales managers to monitor the progress of all leads in the pipeline and see the last activity associated with them.
- You need to manage sales on-the-go: Less Annoying CRM does not have a mobile app. Instead, users must access the platform through a web browser on their mobile phone, where they can only view data records.
- Alternative: Freshsales and HubSpot are two alternatives that have great mobile capabilities, and even rank No. 1 and No. 2 on our best mobile CRM apps list.
- You want to use AI to automate tasks: The persona of an easy sales CRM with basic features causes Less Annoying CRM to miss out on complex tools, such as AI for data insights and workflow automation.
- Alternative: Freshsales with its Freddy AI tool is a great solution that can be like having another employee on staff—but without the costs.
Less Annoying CRM Pricing Plan & Overview*
Cost:
- $15 (up to 10 users)
- 30-day free trial
Key Features:
- Contact management with notes, files, tasks, and events tracking
- Lead monitoring, reporting, and prioritization
- Email and email logging
- Sales pipeline management
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per user, per month breakdown. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. Businesses with over 10 users must get custom pricing.
Less Annoying CRM lead record (Source: Less Annoying CRM)
Our Expert Opinion
Less Annoying CRM takes the word “uncomplicated” to a new level. It not only offers easy-to-use contact management, task monitoring, and customization features, but also only uses one paid plan option that includes everything. Ultimately, Less Annoying CRM is an ideal option that simplifies the user experience and the entire customer experience.
Is Less Annoying CRM right for your business? Find out in our Less Annoying CRM review with complete insights on features and integration capabilities.
noCRM.io: Best for Lead Management
Overall Score:
4.11 / 5
Pros
- Cost-friendly and scalable paid plans
- End-to-end lead management capabilities for generating, qualification, nurturing, and converting leads
- User-friendly interface with minimal menu options
Cons
- No free plan
- Emailing in the CRM requires highest-tiered plan
- Limited integration options on Starter Kit plan
- You need easy-to-use lead management features: noCRM.io stands out as simple yet powerful. It’s truly an end-to-end solution to generate leads and manage them for the entire sales process with its tools for tracking pipeline stages, prioritizing and tagging lead records, and engaging them through VoIP phone or email.
- You attend networking and business events often: Businesses that frequently use trade shows, lead share groups, expos, seminars, or other networking events for lead generation can get behind what noCRM.io offers. In addition to creating lead CRM records through email-to-lead or contact webforms, users can easily upload new contacts through business card scanning and spreadsheet imports.
- You want to monitor sales team performance and activity: Users who choose the higher-tiered Dream Team plan get access to robust team management capabilities. These include team creation, goal setting and tracking, lead and prospect assignment to reps, and team reporting for activity and sales production.
- You need project management features: While this platform has post-sales features like task assignment and checklists for customer onboarding activities, there are no project management features to oversee deliverables.
- Alternative: The best basic CRM option for project management is monday sales CRM, which includes it on the free-forever plan.
- You want a low-cost solution to send emails in your CRM: noCRM.io does not allow users to send and receive emails from the CRM until the Dream Team plan.
- Alternative: HubSpot and Freshsales are the best alternatives for email management in the CRM.
- You need free contact management: While the paid plans are cost-friendly and can scale nicely with your sales management needs, noCRM.io does not offer a free-forever option.
- Alternative: HubSpot and Freshsales are free for unlimited users and made our list as some of the top free CRM systems.
noCRM.io Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a monthly per-user basis. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. Any business over 30 users requires custom pricing. Each plan offers a 15-day free trial.
noCRM.io lead pipeline (Source: Google)
Our Expert Opinion
The noCRM.io platform is a top easy CRM pick primarily for its navigability. The menu consists of five main page options, including cold prospects, leads, clients, the reporting icon, and settings. This makes accessing all of the modules a breeze. Other elements we like include the cost-friendly paid plans and robust lead management features. Sales reps can use noCRM.io for the entire sales process while overseeing all lead management activities.
How We Evaluated the Top Easy CRM Solutions
To determine the best simple CRM, we only considered easy CRM products known to have an intuitive interface and require a minimal learning curve to operate. The basic products we chose offer a clean layout with modern color schemes and simple button placement for navigability and a solid user experience. Additionally, we looked at other essential product attributes, such as features, pricing, and customer support availability.
The tabs below offer insight into our evaluation process for the easiest CRM to use:
35%
Pricing
30%
General Features
20%
Help & Support
15%
Expert Score
35% of Overall Score
Other than ease of use, pricing was the top criterion evaluated for each product. We considered free plan availability and various scalable pricing options businesses could afford as they grow. We also looked at the availability for a subscriber to either pay monthly or save by paying annually.
30% of Overall Score
20% of Overall Score
15% of Overall Score
*Percentages of overall score
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
The easiest CRM depends on the user’s specific preferences. For example, while we rated Freshsales as the best CRM for its easy-to-operate phone and account management system, some users might prioritize other usability aspects. For instance, the spreadsheet-style format of monday sales CRM or the highly intuitive automation design features of HubSpot CRM could classify those products as the easiest CRM to use.
Really Simple Systems offers the most cost-effective CRM product that’s also easy to navigate and operate. It offers a free-forever plan and has the lowest starting paid price that begins at just $17 per user, per month. In terms of value, however, Freshsales provides better features, like omnichannel communication and AI capabilities. Its paid plans start at just $15 per user, monthly.
Bottom Line
Simple CRM software is built so users at any technical level can navigate the interface and operate the features. These products tend to use minimal button menu options, clean layouts, and calming color schemes that don’t overwhelm the user and impact their experience with the product. While Freshsales was our pick for the best overall CRM solution, other products could be a better fit depending on feature preferences and ease of use.
