Best CRM Software for Startups – Which Is Best for Your New Business?

The best CRM for startups is Freshsales Suite, offering low prices and plenty of features in an easy-to-use yet customizable platform that covers both sales and marketing functionality. The platform also offers some particularly helpful tools for startups, like a huge selection of onboarding resources and simple data import and export features.

As a startup, getting set up with business software is a double-edged sword. Yes, these platforms can streamline operations and organize data, but CRMs still cost money, which can cut into your budget, and your small team of employees might not be entirely up for the task of learning a new software.

That’s why we’ve collected some affordable, intuitive CRM for startups that can get you started at a low cost with a platform that your team will actually use. Plus, you can always check out our CRM comparison page to learn more about your options. Below, we’ve showcased some of the best plans for startups from top CRM across the industry:

In This Guide:

• Top CRM Software for Startups
• What Is the Best Free CRM for Startups?
• Key Considerations When Choosing a CRM for Startups
• How Did We Find the Best CRM for Startups?
• Verdict: What Is the Best CRM for Startups

Top CRM Software for Startups Compared

Now that you’re getting started with CRM, it’s time to learn as much as possible about your options. For more information about the best CRM for startups, click the links below to be taken to full, in-depth reviews of each provider.

1. Freshsales Suite – Best CRM for startups
2. Hubspot Free – Best free option for startups
3. Bigin by Zoho CRM – Best value CRM for startups
4. Zoho CRM – Best CRM for small businesses
5. monday CRM – Best for customization

Freshsales Suite – Best CRM for Startups

We’ve done the research and found that Freshsales Suite is definitely the best CRM for startups for a number of reasons. For starters, it offers low cost pricing plans, starting at only $9 per user, per month, so we were able to get started without a big financial commitment. Even better, you can get access to that plan completely free for three or fewer users, a very attainable limit for the average startup.

On top of that, Freshsales Suite is the easiest CRM to use according to our research, offering a simple, intuitive interface that was easy to navigate for even our most novice of users. All that, combined with lots of customizability and plenty of sales and marketing features, like contact management, automated lead scoring, and marketing drip campaigns, makes Freshsales the clear choice for businesses that are just starting out.

Freshsales provided us with a lot of options when it came to importing company data. Source: Tech.co testing

Freshsales Suite features for startups

For startups that want to get set up quickly, offers helpful data import features, allowing you to get all your company information into the system from an Excel spreadsheet or other CSV file. On top of that, Freshsales Suite allows you to import data from other CRMs, like Salesforce and Zoho, if you’re switching over instead of just starting up. All this is functionality is available with the free plan, so you won’t have to pay anything to get started in a meaningful way.

The real benefit of Freshsales Suite as a startups-focused CRM platform, though, is that it combines sales and marketing functionality into one platform, rather than making you pay for both the Freshsales and Freshmarketer platforms. In addition to being more affordable, this tandem functionality made the integration of the two systems seamless for us, which can be hugely helpful for smaller startup teams.

Freshsales Suite pricing

Freshsales offers three different pricing plans: Growth, Pro, and Enterprise. The Growth plan will cost you $9 per user, per month, the Pro plan will cost you $39 per user, per month, and the Enterprise plan will cost you $59 per user, per month.

As we mentioned, Freshsales Suite doesn’t have an actual free plan, but instead, you can use the Growth plan features and functionality at no charge, as long as you have three or fewer users. This is a great way for startups to give the platform a try and get started before branching out to other users.

HubSpot – Best Free CRM for Startups

While Freshsales does offer a great free option, HubSpot’s free plan is hard to beat for startups, particularly if they’re in need of marketing features more than sales or customer service. Yes, only two users are allows, compared to Freshsales’ three, but you get an unprecedented number of features for a free plan, including robust contact management options, marketing drip campaigns, website visitor tracking, and customizable analytics.

Perhaps the only downside of HubSpot is that it isn’t nearly as easy to use as Freshsales Suite. Because the platform is built for enterprise-level organizations at the paid level, the interface can be a bit complicated. Still, the free plan is easily the best on this list, beating out other free plans from Zoho CRM, Freshsales Suite, and monday CRM in features and functionality, so if you have no budget for CRM software right now, we can’t recommend any provider on this list more than HubSpot.

We were able to easily import customer data into Hubspot’s free plan. Source: Tech.co testing

HubSpot features for startups

HubSpot takes its customizability to its startup features as well, with a handy tool for import customer data into the platform that ensures you’ll be able to set it up how you want it. We were able to change how the data was imported and where it went from the get-go, which made the process easier for our beginner users.

It’s worth noting, however, that HubSpot does put limits on how much information you can import from other CRM providers. The limits are pretty generous, though, with 50 imports per day and 500,000 rows per day allowed on the free plan.

HubSpot pricing

As we mentioned, HubSpot offers a robust free plan that can get you started on marketing, sales, and customer service at no cost to your business. It’s the best free plan on this list, and our research found it to be the best CRM for marketing.

If you do want to go with paid plans, you’ll likely have to pay quite a bit. The Starter plans are quite affordable at $9 per user, per month for Sales and Service Hubs, and $18 per month for the Marketing Hub. Beyond that, though, you’ll have to pay either $90 per user, per month or $120 per user, per month, which is likely outside of your budget range as a startup.

Check out our HubSpot pricing guide for more information

Bigin by Zoho CRM – Best value CRM for startups

Zoho CRM is an excellent tool for small businesses, but if you don’t need all those bells and whistles and want to save a bit of money,Bigin by Zoho CRM is the company’s dedicated smaller business platform that keeps the price down while still providing customizability across all pricing plans.

Admittedly, features are a bit light, particularly advanced options for sales, marketing, and customer service like you’ll find in Zoho CRM. However, you’ll get a lot of contact management features, like list segmentation and automated workflows, and the analytics are quite robust, offering tools like custom dashboards and customer reports. All in all, Bigin is a great value choice if you can do without all the additional features.

The Bigin interface was pretty basic, but the simple functionality made it easier for our small team to operate. Source: Tech.co testing

Bigin by Zoho CRM features for startups

Bigin is fully committed to providing users with a bit of assistance when setting up, which is huge for startups. The small business-focused CRM provides a 30-day dedicated onboarding service that can help with everything from importing your data to basic product walkthroughs.

Even better, when it comes to importing your customer data from either a spreadsheet or another CRM, Bigin provided us with a detailed history of all our imports, so we could keep track of what made it and what didnt.

Bigin by Zoho CRM pricing

Bigin by Zoho CRM offers two different pricing plans: Express and Premier. The Express plan costs only $7 per user, per month — making it the most affordable paid plan on the list — and the Premier plan costs $12 per user, per month, which is still much more affordable than most paid plans available for startups.

Like many CRM on this list, Bigin does offer a free plan, but it’s quite bare bones, even compared to the already-light paid plans available. Suffice to say, we’d treat the Bigin by Zoho CRM paid plan as an extended free trial more than a viable free option for your business.

Check out our Zoho CRM vs Bigin guide for more information

Zoho CRM – Best CRM for small business

If you’re on the verge of graduating from startup to small business, Zoho CRM might be the best fit for you. Our research found Zoho CRM to be the best CRM for small businesses, as it offers robust functionality across marketing, sales, and customer service industries, while offering flexible, low-cost pricing plans that can fit virtually any team’s needs.

The only reason Zoho CRM isn’t higher on this list is because a lot of that functionality is locked in the more expensive paid plans, which obviously isn’t ideal for startups. For example, you don’t get access to any customer service plans until the $23 per user, per month Professional plan, and advanced sales features like creating quotes and invoices aren’t available until then either.

All that to say, Zoho CRM is excellent if you can afford it, but other options on this list are a bit more cost-friendly to startups.

Zoho CRM let us build dashboards displaying all of our deal progress data. Source: Tech.co

Zoho CRM features for startups

Getting used to a new platform like Zoho CRM can be intimidating for startups, but luckily the company offers a huge selection of resources that can help with the onboarding process. Zoho CRM even has an ebook, Voice of the Customer in Zoho CRM, that can provide you with some helpful tips to get the most out of the platform.

Like HubSpot, Zoho CRM does put a limit on how much data you can import into the system, though. The free plan, for example, only allows 1,000 contacts per batch. However, once you get to the paid plans, you’re allows at least 10,000 per batch, so unless you’re dealing with huge datasets of information on a daily basis, you should be fine.

Zoho CRM pricing

Zoho CRM offers five different pricing plans: Standard, Professional, Enterprise, Ultimate, and Plus. The Standard plan costs $14 per user, per month, the Professional plan costs $23 per user, per month, the Enterprise plan costs $40 per user, per month, the Ultimate plan costs $52 per user, per month, and the Plus plan costs $57 per user, per month.

Zoho CRM also has a free plan, but like Bigin by Zoho CRM, it’s a bit too limited to be a viable, long-term solution for your business. We’d recommend simply using it to test out the software before option for a paid plan that fits your needs.

Check out our Zoho CRM pricing guide for more information

monday CRM – Best for customization

It can be hard to find a business software that fits your particular needs as a startup, which is why customizability was considered a valuable feature in our research. That’s why monday CRM made the list, as it offers an unmatched level of customizability, including custom dashboards, objects, and task types across every single paid plan available.

The downside of monday CRM is that it only offers sales features, as its considered a full-on sales CRM. The only marketing feature you’ll get is web forms, and you’ll get access to no customer service features, no matter how much you pay. Still, if sales is all you need and customizability is important to you, monday CRM is the CRM for you.

Using advanced filters within monday.com made it easy for us to organize tasks and projects. Source: Tech.co testing

monday CRM features for startups

One of monday CRM’s real draws for startups is the ease of use. The platform is decidedly simple to navigate thanks to the intuitive, color-based interface. There are also some great features for getting set up, helping users to recognize and merge duplicate data across all of its low-cost paid plans.

monday CRM is great when it comes to support, though, with 24/7 coverage for all its paid plans, not just the expensive ones, and you’ll also have access to the massive knowledge library and daily live webinars, which means your smaller team can get all the help it needs figuring out the platform quickly and efficiently.

monday CRM pricing

Like other options, monday CRM offers three pricing plans: Basic, Standard, and Pro. The Basic plan costs $10 per user, per month, the Standard plan costs $14 per user, per month, and the Pro plan costs $24 per user, per month.

It’s important to note that monday CRM requires a minimum of three users for each plan, so costs will be higher than the per user costs above. For example, the Basic plan is only $10 per user, per month, but you’ll be required to have at least three users, so the minimum cost would be $30 per month.

In addition to that, monday CRM offers a free forever plan, but it’s quite limited, although you still get all the sales features from the paid plans.

Check out our monday CRM review for more information

What Is the Best Free CRM for Startups?

The good news for startups in the market for CRM software is that there is a wide range of providers that offer free forever plans. These options, while quite limited, can get you started at absolutely no charge, so you can continue to keep costs low while building your base. In fact, Zoho CRM, Freshsales Suite, and monday CRM all offer some kind of free plan that offers enough functionality to manage some of your business needs.

However, our research has found that HubSpot offers the best free plan, as it offers by far the most features at no cost. You’ll get sales features like contact management and visual sales pipelines, marketing features like web forms and chatbots, and customer service features like case management and support tickets.

Obviously, the HubSpot free plan lags in some meaningful ways, like poor help and support options and limited customizability, but for a free plan, you could do a lot worse.

We were able to manage customer service tickets, even with the HubSpot free plan. Source: Tech.co testing

Key Considerations when Choosing a CRM for Startups

Now that you know what to expect when it comes to the providers of CRM software for startups, it’s time to narrow down your scope of comparison with an in-depth look at key considerations for choose a particular option. Here are a few metrics to weigh before making your decision:

• Cost-effectiveness – As a startup, price is more important than other businesses, which is why understanding how affordable a particular software can be is vital to your decision.
• Customization – Startups in niche industries may need custom fields and objects for a CRM to be effective, which is why you’ll need to know how flexible the platform is before you buy.
• Integrations – If your goal is to integrate your CRM with other business software, make sure your desired choice has plenty of third-party integrations to make it happen.
• Ease of use – Employees at startups are working hard enough, and adding a hard to use platform will only make it worse, so make sure usability is a top priority when picking a CRM for your team.
• Onboarding – Some CRM will offer full-on hand-holding help to get started, while others just offer resources you’ll have to read yourself, which could make a big difference for a startup that’s new to CRM software.
• Data import – If you’re a startup that is just starting up with CRM software too, you probably have some customer or other business data that will need to be imported, so you’ll want to be sure your chosen platform can do that.

The key is to understand exactly what you need a CRM for. The options listed above can serve very different purposes in the long run, so make sure you’ve nailed down your own strategy before you commit to a platform.

Many CRM like monday can integrate with a variety of third party apps for a more complete solution. Source: Tech.co testing

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