We rank the best free CRMs, which go beyond deal management, and include marketing campaigns and automated workflows at no charge.
The best CRM software supports sales and marketing teams in managing customer relationships efficiently, and closing more deals. Features such as managing deal status via drag and drop, automatically logging customer calls and emails, and streamlining basic tasks can make sales activities more productive, which is particularly powerful for small- and medium-sized businesses. For example, a CRM tool can enable you to import a contact list, create sales opportunities, assign calls and emails to sales reps, generate new leads from website forms, and acquire a broad view of CRM activities via reports and dashboards. Here, we’ve focused on the best free CRM software providers: their key features, what makes them competitive, and what kind of teams they’re suited to. Read on to find out what solution best fits your needs. If you’re looking for a paid option, then we have guides for the best CRMs for small business and best CRMs for real estate. The five best free CRM products listed in this guide offer an attractive set of features that most non-enterprise businesses on a budget can work with effectively. Freshworks CRM features basic contact and deal management functionality, but remains competitive with in-built calling, webform lead generation, and allowing unlimited users. Zoho CRM features workflow automation, and can work with Zoho Campaigns to send up to 12,000 bulk emails a month. Hubspot CRM is another top pick, with contact storage of up to 1 million records, custom data fields, Kanban deal management, website marketing, and up to 2,000 bulk emails a month. Insightly has advanced project management tools, including post-deal tracking, as well as customized reporting and bulk email marketing. Finally, Agile CRM includes customizable data fields, one workflow automation, and bulk email marketing. Freshworks CRM packs a competitive feature set in its free plan, the highlights being in-built calls, unlimited users, and a generous support package. The core CRM functionality includes contact management, call and email logging, deal status, and customer-facing chat functionality. The ability to add unlimited users is a rare feature; but with no workflow automation, a growing team would perform increasing manual work. For example, you can set tasks and reminders linked to a deal, but can’t trigger them to happen when the deal status changes. Managing contacts and deals is intuitive, as the software prompts you to import new data and update deals. Although advanced features like custom fields aren’t available, small teams can still benefit from the in-built phone, plus the call and email logging function. Lead generation is limited, but Freshworks can pull leads from webforms: this is valuable if you have substantial website traffic. Read our Freshworks review, and learn more about Freshworks’ various CRMs in our reviews of Freshsales, Freshdesk, Freshmarketer, and Freshservice. Zoho CRM is a great choice due to its integration with the Zoho suite—which includes Zoho Campaigns for email marketing—and its workflow rules, which automate tasks. It also covers the basics well: you can import and manage contacts, update deals and tasks, log calls and emails, and even customize what pages look like.
