5 Simplest CRM Systems: Best Easy CRMs Ranked for 2024

Let’s cut to the chase: the best simple CRM is Freshsales Suite because the setup process is really quick and simple, while the interface itself is more intuitive than the other providers we’ve tested. However, it’s top for more than just that – despite being relatively cheap, it allows users to utilize sales and marketing features within the same platform.

However, it’s not the only easy CRM system out there — Zoho CRM also scored very highly for usability thanks to its workflows and onboarding tools. We crowned Zoho the best CRM for small businesses overall in our latest round of testing and research.

Based on our first-hand testing, here are five super-easy-to-use CRMs that will help you optimize every stage of the customer journey and avoid unneeded hours of tinkering with customizations or leafing through menus just to get yourself up and running.

Simple CRM Providers Compared

Below are some further details on the best simple CRM systems’ key features and pricing, and under the table, you’ll find more in-depth reviews for each provider.

In this guide:

• Reviewing 5 Simple CRM Systems
• Best Free and Simple CRM
• How Did We Research the Simplest CRM Systems?
• Choosing a Simple CRM Software Solution
• Verdict: What is the Best Simple CRM?

All info on this page cites Tech.co’s own independent research, based on hundreds of hours of testing across a range of services relevant to CRM users. Jump to our methodology section to find out more about how we research CRM software.

Reviewing 5 Simple CRM Systems

A simple CRM system may seem basic, but just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s not powerful. These tools can supercharge your productivity, analytical power and connectivity for boosted sales, marketing and customer service. Ultimately, an easy CRM system could transform your business’s growth.

Tech.co has independently researched and tested all the market-leading CRM software so you can trust that these really are the simplest CRM systems to use. Don’t believe us? You can always start with a free trial to see for yourself, risk-free. Below are the best simple CRM systems for easy set up and ongoing use from day one.

The best simple CRM Systems are:

1. Freshsales Suite – Most simple CRM to use
2. Zoho CRM – Best CRM for simple onboarding
3. Pipedrive – Best for easy setup process
4. monday CRM – Best for simple analytics
5. HubSpot CRM – Best for growing businesses

Freshsales Suite – Best for Ease of Use

Pricing From: $9 per user, per month

Freshsales Suite was built to be a CRM for small businesses, and it’s got our top spot for all the ease of use that comes along with that goal. With it, you’ll get speedy uploads and a clean interface, plus a fast setup and great marketing tools to keep your business growing. It all adds up: Our researchers gave Freshsales a high 4.7/5 usability score on our last round of testing, matching or beating every other CRM we tested.

Freshsales Suite overview

Freshales Suite will guide you through the entire setup process including importing data, email connections, and adding users. Freshsales’s clear signposting means the process is incredibly easy.

There are also a number of time-saving aspects to Freshsales’ offering, including a vast library of ready-made dashboards that you can use if you don’t want to build your own. Integrating with email apps such as Gmail during the setup process is also straightforward.

The ease of use does come with some limitations, though. Our research found that some specific functionality for particular businesses, like gyms, is a bit restricted. But overall, ease of use is more than worth it if you can’t customize a lot, particularly when there are options such as monday CRM that are bit more catered to flexibility.

Who should use Freshsales Suite

Many CRMs provide either sales, marketing, or customer service functionality, with it costing extra to branch out to more than one at a time. Freshsales Suite, on the other hand, is a dedicated sales and marketing platform, so you can utilize both without it costing too much.

Subsequently, Freshsales Suite is ideal for businesses that need both sales and marketing features all rolled into one. You get marketing tools such as landing pages, visual email builders, and conversion rate optimization help, as well as sales features such as contact lifecycle status, automated sales notifications, and automatically assigned leads. In fact, it’s one of the best sales management software options, according to our research.

Beyond that, Freshsales Suite was the easiest CRM to use in our research, so the best time to use it is when you’re a newbie to CRM software who still needs sales and marketing tools to help your business.

The Freshsales interface has a customizable dashboard dedicated to tracking your contacts. Image: Tech.co’s testing process

Freshsales has an AI feature called “Freddy AI”, which will analyze your contact list and provide you with useful insights, as well as automated lead scores (as shown above). This is quite a unique feature and certainly sets Freshsales apart from some of the other providers featured in this article.

Check out our guide to using AI with CRM to learn more

Freshsales Suite pricing

Freshsales has three pricing plans. All of the plans’ user limits are based on the number of licenses you obtain, but there’s no limit on the number of contacts you can have in your database. Freshsales will, however, limit the number of marketing actions you can perform every month.

Zoho CRM – Best for easy CRM onboarding

Pricing From: $14 per user, per month

Zoho CRM manages to offer plans at cheaper price points than its closest competitors, while at the same time providing a more user-friendly and feature-rich experience. Plus, it’ll integrate with Zoho’s suite of other useful business products, which is great news if you already use them. For instance, if you’re interested in unlocking the benefits of CRM and VoIP, Zoho users can integrate with Zoho Phonebridge.

Zoho CRM overview

Zoho CRM has great usability – even if it is slightly lower than Freshsales’ usability due to longer upload times and fewer onboarding details – and it comes with a larger feature catalog than you’ll find with Freshsales, as well.

Zoho CRM provides an onboarding tour, which gives you a great indication of where you currently are in the process. However, it isn’t as detailed or extensive as Freshsales Suite, and it took slightly longer to upload data (although it was much quicker than providers such as HubSpot). There are some other nice touches, too, such as social media workflows, within which you can automatically add a lead to a database based on their interaction with your social media account.

Who should use Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM was pretty close to taking the top spot for the easiest CRM to use, and our research actually found that it’s the best option for small businesses, given its low price and large feature catalog. Plus, it has a great free plan, which is always a boon for any small business on a budget.

As for who should use it, it’s important to know that Zoho CRM is exclusively focused on sales, so if you’re a small business that’s trying to sell and nothing else, Zoho CRM is a no-brainer.

However, Zoho CRM doesn’t offer customer service or marketing features. For those, you’ll have to sign up for either Zoho Desk, Zoho Campaigns, or Zoho Social, depending on your particular needs.

Zoho CRM gives users an intro to setting up their sales pipeline. Image: Tech.co’s testing process.

Zoho CRM is great for customer service-focused CRM teams, too, with a simple, intuitive way of filtering cases, and you can quite easily split up and distinguish between complicated and easier cases. In fact, there’s quite a wide degree of customization across Zoho’s whole CRM offering – there’s a lot of different data this program can hold. 

Zoho CRM pricing

Zoho’s plans are some of the most reasonably priced in the game, especially when compared to enterprise providers such as Salesforce.

However, the provider offers generally less storage, limits the size of your database, and onboarding assistance comes at an additional cost. That being said, it’s still a fantastic option for businesses on a budget.

Check out our Zoho CRM pricing guide for more information

Pipedrive – Best for simple setup process

Pricing From: $14 per user, per month

Pipedrive is certainly the ‘Premium’ offering on this list, providing a primarily sales-focused CRM that teams can use to hunt down and close leads with ease. And with a great ease of use and plenty of features, you could do a lot worse, even for the high cost. It might be a bit pricier than some other providers, but it definitely has the functionality to back up the cost, including top-notch security.

Pipedrive overview

On the whole, Pipedrive offers the functionality you’ll need to do this successfully, and aside from Freshsales and Zoho CRM, was the provider we found the easiest to use. The setup, in particular, was incredibly easy, providing a simple form-based process that took care of all the nitty gritty details for you.

Pipedrive excels when it comes to security features – it had the best range of options to secure the data you keep inside the system out of the providers we tested. This makes Pipedrive a serious option for anyone who puts data security at the top of their priorities – and with data breaches now so common, why wouldn’t you?

Pipedrive plans are, admittedly, a lot more expensive on the whole than Zoho CRM and Freshsales, and you’ll need to pay for some additional features, such as the lead-booster add-on ($32.50 per month on top of your Pipedrive subscription).

That being said, being both easy to use and highly functional is not a given by any means in this space — and Pipedrive can do both. You can always take a look at some Pipedrive CRM alternatives, though, if it doesn’t seem like the right fit for your business.

Who should use Pipedrive

As another sales-exclusive CRM, Pipedrive is best if you only need sales functionality for your CRM. More specifically, though, Pipedrive should be viewed as a premium option for your business, costing a bit extra compared to other options.

Yes, the starting price is comparable at only $14 per user, per month, but with add-ons costing more and the most expensive plan costing $99 per user, per month, with a minimum of 10 users, you’ll need to be sure your financials are prepared for this kind of investment.

On top of that, Pipedrive offers the best security features we researched, offering a full-on security center to manage all aspects of your business’ privacy concerns. This means that if you’re dealing with sensitive information, this CRM might be your best option.

The Pipedrive marketplace offers a range of third-party integrations for ease of use. Image: Tech.co’s testing process.

Pipedrive pricing

Pipedrive puts no limit on the size of your contact base, supports 22 languages, and has an online help center for all of its pricing plans, which makes it a great option for businesses with ever-expanding sales operations.

You can integrate with QuickBooks, Shopify, and Xero on every Pipedrive package, and take advantage of 41 communications integrations as well.

Unlike Zoho CRM and Freshsales, Pipedrive has no file storage on any of its plans, however, so you’ll have to find another platform or app to do this on if you’re going to be sharing data and information in file form.

All of Pipedrive’s available marketing tools cost an extra monthly fee too, including a website visitor tracker and a Lead-booster.

Check out our Pipedrive pricing guide for more information

monday CRM – Best for Customization

Pricing From: $12 per user, per month

Once just a productivity app, now a full-fledged sales CRM, monday CRM still provides an easy-to-use experience will offer more functionality across the board. It may not have all the bells and whistles associated with some other CRM products like Freshsales, but we found that it has its advantages over them too, including the low price.

In general, monday CRM does fair in our research, with above-average usability thanks in part to robust customization potential. That customizability bleeds into the analytics as well, allowing you to create different dashboards for different metrics, so it’s easy to see exactly what you want and when.

Check out our monday CRM review for more information

monday CRM overview

From an ease-of-use standpoint, monday CRM is an excellent choice for beginners. We found the interface to be decidedly intuitive, utilizing white space to create a decluttered experience for users. That, combined with the simple, color-coded organization of labels and other markets, made monday CRM simple to use for our team in the testing and analysis process.

Beyond the general experience, monday CRM was also easy to set up, providing speedy data imports that allow you to get all the information input with ease. We were also able to create useful automations in just a few steps, providing a flexible system that allowed our team to save some serious time.

If you’re having trouble, customer support was helpful and responsive with monday CRM. We were able to easily get in contact with a representative via the live chat function, who provided video walkthroughs to solve the issues we were having.

Who should use monday CRM

If you’re a business with unique needs that might not fit in the average CRM, monday CRM is likely your best bet. Thanks to its robust customization functionality, you can tailor the platform to your particular needs.

In fact, monday CRM is easily the most customizable option in our research, checking off every single box across all plans, from custom dashboard and custom objects to custom sales pipelines and custom task types.

On top of that, monday CRM is quite affordable, with not only a free forever plan but also one of the most affordable starter plans on this list at only $12 per user, per month. So, if you need customizability and affordability, monday CRM has what you need.

The monday CRM interface lets users create their own charts. Image: Tech.co’s testing process.

However, where monday CRM does excel is customization. Editing things with monday CRM is a lot more intuitive than it is with most CRM programs, and you’ll find it easier to tailor the platform to what your business and staff need than you would do elsewhere.

monday CRM pricing

Three pricing plans are provided by monday CRM. Like Pipedrive, monday CRM allows you to operate with a contact database of any size, create custom fields for data, create web forms and customize your sales pipeline.

There are email insight tools available on all monday CRM plans so you can make the most out of your messages, however much you’re paying.

However, monday CRM doesn’t really have any marketing or lead generation features — there’s no capacity for social media lead gen or integration, no website visitor tracking capabilities nor a marketing email design editor (although Pipedrive doesn’t have one of these either).

It’s also worth remembering with monday CRM pricing plans that every option requires a minimum of three users, which means you will have to pay at least three times the amount shown. Still, with the per user pricing being that low, finding two other users is more than worth it.

HubSpot CRM – Best for Growing Businesses

Pricing From: Free (paid plans start from $15 per user, per month)

HubSpot is a highly customizable CRM platform that has a feature-rich free plan functioning as an all-in-one product, although more specific benefits and features for sales, marketing, and customer service teams can be derived from the provider’s paid plans, including workflow automation and advanced campaigns tools.

Our researchers rated HubSpot’s usability on par with monday CRM, though a little below the other providers in this guide: It remains easy to navigate, as it clearly marks how to get in and out of menus and processes. Tracking sales pipelines and marketing contacts can be complicated at the best of times, but HubSpot makes it relatively easy for beginners compared to competitors.

HubSpot overview

Intuitive and easy to use, HubSpot’s free plan will let you get a taste of the software without paying anything, and it gives you access to a range of sales, marketing, and CRM features. There’s enough included to help you manage a basic marketing or sales campaign and provide a way to keep track of all of your customers – so a great place to start for teams who haven’t used a CRM platform before.

However, marketing, sales, and customer service teams — especially rapidly growing ones — will get more out of HubSpot’s paid plans as they start to grow and increase their contact bases and campaign sizes. For example, marketing teams will be able to run A/B tests on different email formats and remove HubSpot branding from their correspondence. Sales teams, on the other hand, will get access to powerful forecasting tools and advanced team management features when they upgrade.

Other features reserved for paying members include social and SEO campaigns. If you want to improve your brand’s customer relationships and continue to bring in new ones simultaneously, an upgrade is worth considering. If you’d like to test these features out, you can always sign up for a 14-day free trial of HubSpot’s paid plans, all of which have a cheaper starting price per user than any of the other providers on this list.

Who should use HubSpot

HubSpot is an excellent choice for small businesses, thanks to its surprisingly robust free plan. When it comes to marketing, we believe HubSpot to be your best option, given your ability to reach new customers at no cost to your business.

However, if you plan to scale your business in the long run, it’s important to consider which industry-specific HubSpot plan will work for you. While the free plan is robust, there are key features missing that large businesses with complex sales pipelines will appreciate, as these will get overcomplicated on the more restrictive free plan.

So, if you’re a small business with big plans to scale, one of the paid plans from HubSpot is going to be the best bet in the long run, but make sure you can handle those additional charges down the line. Admittedly, cheaper options are out there, but few can be molded to a growing business quite like this one.

HubSpot’s interface supports a customer data import. Image: Tech.co’s testing process

HubSpot pricing

HubSpot Free functions as a starting tier for all of HubSpot’s CRM offerings. You can then build on top of this with HubSpot’s customer service, sales, and marketing offerings, depending on what kind of CRM software you need.

HubSpot’s Free plan does come with features that relate to all three areas, however. There are some marketing tools and features, including web forms, chatbots, and social media integration, and there’s a wide range of reporting functions to choose from. It’s still a lot more limited than any of the dedicated paid plans.

HubSpot’s sales, service, and marketing hubs start from just $9 per user, per month (minimum two users), which puts them among the cheapest starting CRM plans on the market. They include things such as call transcription and training, customer feedback surveys, and multi-channel marketing automation.

Just below, have a look at how HubSpot’s sales hub plans compare to each other in terms of pricing.

Check out our HubSpot pricing page for more information

Best Free and Simple CRM Software

Every single CRM on this list (except Pipedrive) offers a free forever plan that will allow you to enjoy basic features at no cost. However, these plans are often quite limited and can’t handle the load of your average business. Still, if you’re a small business that wants to get the ball rolling without worrying about your budget, there are lots of options to choose from.

According to our research, HubSpot offers the best free and simple CRM thanks to a surprisingly impressive feature list that beats out a lot of paid plans from the likes of Pipedrive and monday CRM. Admittedly, customization and help and support take a hit, but our research found that HubSpot’s free plan is likely your best bet.

HubSpot can get a bit pretty expensive, though, so if you’re looking to scale while sticking to a strict budget, Zoho CRM is our best CRM for small businesses, because it offers a free plan as well as a range of low-cost pricing plans that provide lots of functionality.

How We Ranked the Most Simple CRM Systems

Choosing a Simple CRM Software

When choosing a simple CRM software, ease of use isn’t the only factor you’re probably going to need to consider. There are plenty of other aspects of this kind of software that need to be compared and contrasted prior to purchase — and here are a few key ones to consider.

Before you do that, though, work out if you need a top CRM for sales, marketing or customer service — not all providers are going to excel in all three areas.

Pricing factors

With so many businesses still feeling the squeeze from the economic turbulence of the last few years, pricing will naturally make its way to the forefront of many companies’ decision-making processes. Importantly, it’s all about whether you’re getting bang for your buck — especially when it comes to contact database sizes, which vary widely from plan to plan but also from provider to provider.

Pipedrive, for instance, has an unlimited contact limit on all of its plans, as does monday CRM. Freshsales, on the other hand, limits how many contacts can be involved in marketing actions per month, but puts no limit on the number that can be included in your database.

If your business is rapidly expanding and you need a CRM system to keep up with your levels of growth, investing in a plan with a contact database limit you’re quickly going to outgrow will cost you more in the long run than investing in a slightly pricier plan now that has no cap.

Customer support

Customer support can make or break a provider — especially if usability is important to you. The last thing you want is to be waiting around for technical support — especially if, when you request it, it’s not very good.

There’s a surprising gulf between providers in terms of what customer support options they offer. Some providers do not offer onboarding assistance on all their plans, while others do only on enterprise packages, and providers such as Zoho only offer it if an additional fee is paid.

Customizability

Customizability is an incredibly important factor for some companies searching for the ideal CRM software, simply because a system that can adapt to your preferences is going to be eminently more useful than one you have to shoehorn yourself into. The reason monday CRM is such a highly rated CRM software is the level of customization it provides – you can make endless changes to templates and custom fields until it fits like a glove.

The manner of the customization is important too — again, another reason monday CRM excels. It’s really, really easy to sculpt the software to do what you want to do without delving into the system settings or getting lost in menus.

Features

Last but not least, naturally, choosing the right CRM software for your business will include assessing and comparing the features on offer. Some CRM software plans have better marketing features, while others focus on sales.

Take HubSpot, for example — the company offers a free CRM that functions as a starting tier, and then offers specialized paid products (Sales Hub, Service Hub, and Marketing Hub) — all with different features. There are plenty more aspects to consider, though, including integrations, security features, lead team management tools, reports, and much more.

Integrations

CRM software is admittedly a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes, but it can’t do everything. Whether you’re trying to populate your platform with data from social media or want to automate some of your day-to-day operations, you will likely need some third-party integrations to ensure your system runs as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

Luckily, for most CRMs, you’ll have access to an app library/market that will allow you to pick and choose what kind of integrations you’d like to take advantage of. Many of them will cost a bit extra to get started, but many CRMs offer free integrations that can help you turn your system into an all-in-one hub for your business.