So let’s take a look at the best CRMs available today.
What is CRM software?
A CRM or Customer Relationship Management software is a software that helps businesses better manage their interactions and relationships with prospects and customers. It helps identify sales opportunities, store customer contact details, manage marketing campaigns, record service issues, and track customer interactions in a cloud-based CRM.
More advanced systems also collect data from your company’s various communication channels, especially your website, phone number, live chat, emails, and social media.
To be more specific, customer relationship management software is used to:
- Lead tracking
- Project and contact management
- Task management and business opportunities
- Business performance analysis
- Marketing automation
- Business process automation
- Customer service and support
What are the best CRM software currently?
1) Hubspot, the best free CRM option in 2024 for most
I’ll start with Hubspot, the free CRM option that, in my opinion, is the right one for most people or for those who are undecided .
Or at least for those who don’t want to spend a lot of time trying.
Why do I set this as the default option?
Hubspot is a marketing giant and therefore one of the standards, so if we use other applications alongside the CRM (such as Gmail, Trello, etc.), integration with them will be easier.
If this integration is not direct, we can connect Hubspot with other apps through Zapier.
Their free plan is generous and includes many features such as:
- Unlimited contacts , where you can see the history of actions, add notes, schedule tasks…
- Plugin for Google Chrome and integration with Gmail , to schedule emails and use the CRM from there.
- CRM apps for mobile .
- Opportunity management, curious conversational bots and much more…
On top of that, the CRM software speaks Spanish , which has improved a lot since I started using it. It was a few years ago and it served me well. Revisiting it, I still think it is the option that best suits many in 2024. Is it the one I personally use? No, we will see what that option is, but my personal case cannot be extrapolated to a majority.
If you want to play it safe, not waste time and probably have more features than with other options, Hubspot is the choice that will not fail and the first to consider .
2) monday.com, the customer management platform
to accelerate your sales processes
Do you need a simple and effective CRM software to have a complete overview of your business opportunities? monday.com is a tool that allows you to manage and track the entire process from contact to sale and quote.
Thanks to a very intuitive and colorful interface, you can follow the sales pipeline whether you are alone or in a team. Put your repetitive tasks on autopilot and let CRM automation work for you. Set up automatic reminders, notifications due, and assign new customer management tasks to all your team members. This collaborative CRM offers a completely free 14-day trial, so try it without further delay!
3) Pipedrive, the all-in-one sales platform
Pipedrive is a CRM that aims to boost the productivity of SMB sales teams by helping them accelerate sales.
With nearly 230,000 users, Pipedrive is the preferred CRM for small businesses thanks to its efficiency, simplicity, and affordability.
Pipedrive organizes leads so you always have a complete view of your company or department’s entire sales funnel. So you can quickly focus on the leads that are most likely to close. Pipedrive provides a quick and easy interface that brings all relevant lead information together in one view.
Additionally, Pipedrive CRM keeps a history of every customer interaction by prioritizing next steps in a task tracker. The entire tool is designed to help sales teams close more deals and focus on what sales reps do best: selling.
4) noCRM.io: The best option for small sales teams
NoCRM offers a 15-day free trial and plans starting at €25 per month.
noCRM is everything an efficient sales CRM should be. Combined with its ease of use and quick setup, it becomes the best choice for small sales teams.
Why choose noCRM.io?
- Focus on sales : noCRM.io removes the distractions of standard CRMs and allows users to focus on what’s essential: converting prospects into customers. Forget about endless data entry and concentrate on closing deals.
- Ease of Use (Get Started in 5 Min) – This software is simple and intuitive, you won’t need hours of training to get started. In just 5 minutes, you can start creating opportunities and customizing your sales funnel.
- Effective follow-up tool : With noCRM.io , you will never miss a sales opportunity or a follow-up. You will always know what the next step is, keeping your team aligned and your sales on track.
- Customizable and adaptable: Capture leads from any source – a business card, prospecting file, email, websites, or other applications. Customize your sales process to your needs and watch noCRM.io adapt and grow with you.
- Great value for money : With plans starting at just €25 per month/user, you get a robust, easy-to-use sales tool without breaking your budget.
If you are looking for a CRM that really helps you sell more and better, look no further, noCRM.io is the tool you need .
5) Zoho CRM online, the second best option for most
Zoho CRM Free is the first CRM I used, straight out of the box, many years ago. I guess the first one always has a special place, but in this case, it deserves its place for many.
Why? Their free version is very generous and is based on the fact that up to 3 users, there is no cost.
If for whatever reason, Hubspot doesn’t convince us and the team that will manage the CRM is 3 people or less, Zoho CRM should be the next option for a large majority.
In favor:
- Contact Management, Companies, etc.
- Deal Management (that’s what they call opportunities).
- Mobile CRM apps for iOS and Android.
- Managing how prospects came to us. This is interesting and allows us to see in the CRM what works and what doesn’t in our marketing.
Zoho CRM Free also speaks Spanish , although sometimes it uses that peculiar terminology (like “Deals”).
6) Streak, the best free CRM option for solopreneurs who use Gmail a lot
If Gmail is the communications hub for your business (it is for me), you may want to consider Streak , a free online CRM that integrates with your Google email, so you never have to leave your home and can manage everything from within your email.
Jumping between applications and copying information is cumbersome and unproductive.
Personally, I used it for the last big campaign that brought me many of the clients I still work with at the moment. Since the campaign was using Outbound Cold Email Marketing , it did its job well.
If Gmail isn’t your communication hub, you’re better off using another option. But if you spend more time on Google Mail than anywhere else, Streak CRM Free has good features, although it’s very basic in its free version.
In favor:
- Suitable for solo entrepreneurs.
- Visual sales funnel with the phases that you define according to your process.
- Generous limit of 500 “boxes,” which is what they call CRM elements. If you’re like me and manage a small number of clients at a time, this may be enough.
- Track actions with prospects, seeing who contacted whom and when.
- Mobile apps, etc.
As weak points, it is only in English and at first it is a bit complex to understand, since it uses a process and a bit of special terminology. But, if you follow the tutorials, in a few minutes you will understand the logic of how it works. However, remember, if the CRM is managed by a team, it is better to use another option .
7) Bitrix, the free CRM for those who want to have all the company management in one place
Bitrix ‘s greatest strength for some may be its greatest weakness for others. If you’re looking for something simple and uncomplicated, just to manage customer relationships, it’s better to look elsewhere. Because Bitrix is a CRM and much more, a complete Intranet for your business , with its own cloud (its Drive section ), general task management, etc.
In favor:
- Their free plan is very generous . 5GB of storage, 1000 leads, contacts, products, etc.
- It’s more than just a CRM, with tons of apps and integrations that add more and more functionality.
- It’s in Spanish.
Personally, I found it interesting, but a bit overwhelming. I didn’t need the other features at the time, because I already cover them with other applications or specialized solutions.
I also thought that its design contributed to that feeling of being a little overwhelmed, but this is totally personal because I prefer something more sober and I know that others love it.
For anyone who wants a tool that is more than just a CRM , or has a larger team, this is the option, as you can integrate all of that into the free Bitrix CRM plan.
Wiwink is a very interesting Spanish option for free CRM, ERP and sales software . The customer relationship management and billing part of the application is free with unlimited contacts and tasks (although with a maximum of 100 records per entity), which makes it a very interesting option. You can also keep track of opportunities, tasks, meetings and much more.
So what’s the catch? Actually, there’s no catch. It’s an app that uses a freemium business model , a classic one. This way, they offer you the CRM and invoicing for free, and if you like it, they hope you’ll take a look at other paid options, such as digital signature of documents, or expand to paid options when things are going really well and the free option becomes too small.
In favor:
- The free CRM is very generous .
- The interface is modern and pleasant to use.
- They have other sales and marketing control software modules that are interesting and also free .
9) Freshworks CRM (formerly Freshsales), the free visual and intuitive CRM
Freshworks CRM, formerly known as Freshsales, is a free and easy CRM app with an attractive free plan, a modern minimalist design and very intuitive handling .
I liked it at the time because you can set up different sales funnels that adapt to the stages of our particular process, whatever that may be. Plus, it uses a Kanban system to move opportunities through those different stages, making everything very visual. It’s not the only CRM that does this, but this one implements it very well.
Accounts, contacts, businesses… you can manage your relationship with all of them in a simple and effective way.
Added to that, it has a plugin to install on Google Chrome, which integrates it with Gmail, something important for me.
The free plan, called the Starter plan (click the link and scroll down the page until you see the image below), doesn’t have many more features apart from some useful basic reports.
If you want more, like campaigns or calendar and email synchronization, you need a paid account. But for the basics, it’s fine. Many CRMs, free and paid, get lost in a thousand things that, in the end, you don’t use and sometimes even get in the way.
In favor:
- It does the basics well and is easy to use.
- It has a Chrome plugin that integrates it with Gmail .
- Data forms and funnels are customizable , adapting to what we need to collect and our processes.
- He speaks Spanish, although here and there we can find something still to be translated.
10) SendPulse, a suite of modern marketing tools
One of the most convenient customer relationship management systems is CRM from SendPulse. This platform offers the entrepreneur a wide range of tools for multi-channel marketing. Here you can send mass emails, SMS, push notifications, create pop-ups, landing pages, your online courses, as well as chatbots for various instant messaging systems. You can automate all processes and create sales funnels using Automation 360, and you can see the results of marketing efforts in your CRM.
SendPulse CRM is suitable for small and medium-sized businesses as well as large companies. The system is available in 7 languages. In CPM, you can take orders, collect all information about the client in one place, assign a tag to him, specify additional information, filter contacts. Creating a transaction with a contact can be done in one click. A convenient dashboard allows you to view all stages of transactions and track their effectiveness. You can also make changes to the transaction, add necessary information, such as notes, tasks, upload files.
In general, you can manage all of your company’s marketing campaigns from your SendPulse account.
11) Macroges, free CRM and billing for solo entrepreneurs
Macroges CRM is another free CRM option for those entrepreneurs and professionals who work alone and want to integrate billing at the same time, not having to manage multiple applications and having important customer information gathered in one place.
As this is another Spanish initiative, this billing part is adapted to the legislation of our country and makes it easy to use. Macroges’ business model is, once again, freemium.
The CRM module is free and you can manage clients, notes, opportunities… It also has an interesting calendar-style visualization. The integrated billing part is free up to 50 invoices per year . So, if you generate a little less than one invoice per week it can be very interesting.
The interface is a bit spartan, but it works quickly and does what it says. Personally, I appreciate that speed over the cluttered design that sometimes gets in the way of what you want to do.
In favor:
- The free CRM is functional and without major limitations .
- The invoicing module is useful, and free if you don’t make many invoices throughout the year.
- It has other features, such as a treasury or a private disk for files, although the free version is limited to 100 MB.
12) AgileCRM, another free CRM for teams of up to 10 users
AgileCRM is another interesting customer relationship management app. Modern and fast in design, its free plan allows up to 10 users , so if you have to integrate a larger team than what we are seeing so far, it is an option worth considering.
It is also generous when it comes to contacts , managing up to 1,000 completely free .
It is appreciated that they no longer “hide” their free version so much, but rather it appears first on their pricing page .In favor:
- Generous free plan.
- Good design and speed .
- Plugin for Chrome / Gmail.
- You can customize processes and data .
Marketing automation, which is its main difference from most, requires paid plans.
With these 8, we conclude the free CRMs that are most suitable for different situations (many or few contacts, solo entrepreneurs or teams of several people…). Next, we will see more interesting options, in case, for whatever reason, the previous ones have not convinced you.
In reality, they do not offer much more than those mentioned, but I consider them to be of sufficient quality and, in the end, the “appropriate” tool depends on each person’s personal situation and way of working. If someone has not found the best free CRM for their case among the above, perhaps they are here.
13) Capsule CRM, an interesting option for English speakers
Capsule is a good free CRM, but it is not available in Spanish and the truth is that the free version does not offer anything special that does not have the options I have already mentioned. However, its design is simple and fast .
Their free plan is also broad enough for small businesses that aren’t working with many contacts at once. It covers up to 2 users, 10 MB of storage, and 250 contacts.
Of course, the management of opportunities and cases is unlimited .
To access, go to the Capsule CRM pricing page and navigate down until you see this.
14) Espo CRM, open source software to install on your own server
I remember the Sugar CRM project many years ago, now closed in its free open source version. Actually, that was the first CRM I used, long before the cloud was a reality.
EspoCRM is a good CRM in the same sense, open source and you can install it on your company’s servers. Therefore, it does not work like the others, and if you do not master or do not know what Apache, MySQL, PHP, etc. are, do not bother . If you do not have a technical profile, it is better not to get involved.
But if you want an open source, hosted, proprietary solution that you can be sure you own the data with and can feel free to tinker with because you know how to code and would like something custom, EspoCRM is a worthy successor to Sugar CRM and probably the best open source option right now. The open source version of Espo can be downloaded here .
If you want to use it pre-installed in a cloud (like the other options and without getting complicated with the technical aspects) the plans are paid.
15) VTiger, another free open source CRMI also remember the days of VTiger CRM , when it was a fork of Sugar CRM and they actually got into a fight about these issues (as you can see, I’ve been here since the first website was launched).
I have seen that Vtiger CRM has come a long way and has been modernized. I have also seen that they continue to offer their open source version to install on our servers.
You can download it here and I say exactly the same thing as in EspoCRM, this is for those who know how to configure servers, databases and online applications. If this is not our case, another option is better.
16) What CRM do I personally use: A custom solution built with Notion
You may be wondering what CRM software I personally use now and if it is free. The truth is, it is not any of the options I have mentioned .
Because?
Because I need something tailored to my personal case and that I use often. For a long time, I have been doing almost all of my workflow management (documents, knowledge, content, etc.) with Notion , so building my CRM with it was a natural step.
If you’re new to Notion, it’s a little difficult to explain at first. In fact, when you start using it, you’ll find yourself a little confused. Is it a knowledge management app? A database app? A content creation app? The truth is that it’s a workspace that can be customized to suit your needs.
When you take an afternoon to understand how it works, watch a few videos and examples of what people do with Notion, you realize the enormous power it has, especially when it comes to adapting it to your own needs and personal workflow. One of the main disadvantages of many business applications is that you have to adapt your workflow to the way the application thinks you should work. Sometimes it fits and sometimes it doesn’t, which is why I have proposed up to 16 options here for free CRM.
Notion is a bit like a blank canvas with which you can create many things, especially since it can manage databases, such as those of clients and the actions you perform with them .
Personally, I set out to learn it and, thanks to these databases and tables, I created a CRM adapted to my needs: for a single user, with few clients at a time, but with the ability to stay on top of them and note actions, the stage of the sale we are in, the monetary valuation of opportunities… Similarly, I configured screens and workflows to adapt to what I need or what seems important to me (such as putting Opportunities at the center of everything).
So this is the option I use. And no, it’s not available, although I’ve helped entrepreneur friends create something similar for themselves. It’s something custom-made for me, but if you like to dig around, Notion is certainly a tool that can be tremendously valuable for any company in its processes, not just in the CRM part.
Similarly, the Notion mobile app allows me to manage my custom CRM easily. The only downside to Notion is that it can get a bit slow at times, but I don’t know what I would do without it and the free version is unlimited.
Honorable mention, using Trello as a free CRM
I have used Trello a lot to manage my projects. I still use it, it is a great tool for any entrepreneur or freelancer .
I have also used Trello as a CRM , building my sales funnel and passing opportunities and contacts through it.
Its advantages are its ease of use and its visual appearance, as well as its integration with many other applications. For example, with a plugin that, from Gmail, can convert an email into a Trello card.
Not so much in its favor is the fact that it is not a CRM tool per se , so if you have a lot of contacts to manage, it is better to use one of the above solutions.
But if you’re a freelancer, or you’re handling just a few opportunities at a time, and you already feel at home with Trello, you might want to give it a try.
Fran Gallardo has a good article on how to use Trello as a CRM to manage your own clients. Trello’s blog also explains in depth how to use it as a CRM (the article is in English).
And that’s it, 16 CRM options, updated to 2024, tested in real situations with their defects and their virtues.
Nowadays, a CRM strategy and a tool to implement it are essential. With this list of free CRMs, we won’t lack alternatives and we won’t have the excuse that we don’t have the budget.
Why this great list of free CRMs
So that no one spends as much time as I do trying out the endless CRM options out there and dedicates it to what matters: the relationship with customers , which is where the sale is made.
I have been guilty of trying everything new and wasting too much time on it, I don’t want that to happen to anyone else. We must not forget that true CRM is a strategy, not a software, not a tool .
However, these are complex times. We have to manage many clients at the same time, through different channels and at different stages of the sale. CRM software is essential to implement the strategy and, above all, to properly nurture the relationship with each client.
I know how hard it is to find a CRM app that really works, especially among such a saturated offering. I also know that, especially if you’re just starting out, there’s no word more appealing than “free,” which is why I’ve focused on CRM options that are free.
What are the free CRMs on this list like?
This isn’t just any list of free CRM software compiled after a 5-minute Google search.
All CRM software on this list meets these criteria:
- It’s free, or it has a free option that’s generous enough to work with on a day-to-day basis. No limited demos or unrealistic restrictions of only 5 contacts. There are restrictions on some, of course, features you can’t access or a contact limit, but when I name a CRM that’s like that, those limits are generous and allow you to work well.
- I have personally tested and used CRM in my daily life . I have gained an idea of how each CRM software works in a real work situation . This also allows me to give advice on each one that guides each personal case, as well as the advantages and disadvantages with full knowledge of the facts .
- They are usually free CRMs in Spanish, but there are also options that are only in English . A good part of this list of free CRMs speaks Spanish or works in our language, but I have not overlooked some excellent options for free CRMs that are only in English . The reason is that handling only requires a very basic level of the language and it is valuable software.
- These are online CRMs in the cloud . That is, they are CRMs that are managed from a web browser, although some also have mobile CRM applications for iOS and Android. This means that we need to have an Internet connection, but we can also use them regardless of the operating system installed on the computer.
What is the best free CRM on the list?
There is no one free CRM that is the best for every situation, so the answer to that question is it depends . It’s a little disappointing, I know, but that’s the right answer to any important question about any important topic.
What I do know is that all the free CRMs on this list are quality .
These are not all of the ones I have tried, far from it, but they are just the CRMs that, in my opinion, have passed a demanding initial cut .
From that base, the decision of which CRM is best comes down to which one is best suited for your company’s particular situation, the users you need, and how your workflow fits with the software.
Some options will be better for those who do not manage many contacts at once, others for those who do, others for those who do not want to manage English, others for those who are alone or want to group tasks, campaigns and even billing in the same software…
Anyway, I’ve tried to get my hands dirty, sort them out in some way and make a useful list.
The description and directions I provide in each free CRM are meant to give you clues as to who might be a good candidate for . This will also save you time when testing.
And no, I have not been paid anything by any CRM company, contacted, influenced the list, or received any affiliate income of any kind.