The Best Free CRM for a Small Business
Free CRM tiers are not more or less generous than each other. They are capped on different axes, and the right one is whichever caps the thing you have least of.
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Free CRM plans are usually compared as if one is more generous than another. They are not — they are capped on different axes. One limits how many people can use it, another how many records you can store, another how much the product will do.
So the right free CRM is not the biggest-sounding one. It is the one whose ceiling you are furthest from.
The ceilings, side by side
| Free plan | Users | Records | Notable |
|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot | Up to 2 | 1,000 contacts | Deal pipelines, email tracking, meetings, quotes, forms, landing pages |
| Zoho Bigin | 1 | 500 records | One pipeline, 3 automations, built-in phone, dashboard |
| Capsule | 2 | 250 contacts | Contact and opportunity management |
| Less Annoying CRM | No free plan — 30-day trial | $15 / user / month, one tier | |
| Pipedrive | No free plan — 14-day trial | From $14 / seat / month annually | |
Vendor-published limits, checked on 26 August 2026 and linked at the foot of this page.
Work out your own ceiling first
Before comparing anything, answer three questions about your business. They take two minutes and they decide this almost entirely.
How many people need to open it? Not "have an opinion about it" — open it. If the answer is one, Bigin's single-user free plan is not a limitation. If it is two, Bigin is out and HubSpot or Capsule are in. If it is three, every free tier here is out and you are choosing between paid plans.
How many records do you actually need? This is where people badly overestimate. A CRM holds relationships you are managing, not everyone who has ever emailed you. A consultancy with forty live clients and a hundred past ones is nowhere near any of these limits. A business importing a 4,000-address mailing list is over all of them on day one — and probably importing the wrong thing.
What do you need it to do beyond remembering? If the honest answer is "remember who I spoke to and what I promised", every option here covers it and capability is not your deciding factor.
HubSpot free — most product, most surface area
HubSpot describes its free CRM as "100% free with no expiration date", covering up to two users and 1,000 contacts. Inside that: contact management, deal pipelines, CRM import, a reporting dashboard, email tracking, meeting scheduling, live chat, quotes, forms, landing pages and email marketing.
On capability per pound, nothing else here is close. If you want a free CRM that will not run out of features before it runs out of contacts, this is it.
The trade-off is the one that runs through this whole category for a business with no admin: more product means more to leave half-configured. HubSpot is built to grow into a large platform, and its paid tiers sit well above the $7–$15 range the others occupy. If your business has a pattern of accumulating tools that are 30% set up, the size of this one works against you.
Zoho Bigin free — smallest, and deliberately so
One user, 500 records, one pipeline, plus contacts, products and activities, three automations, built-in phone, a standard dashboard and a no-code form.
Read the constraints as the point rather than the compromise. One pipeline means there is no pipeline architecture to design. Five hundred records means you cannot dump a mailing list in and call it a CRM. Both are structural nudges toward using it properly.
If it works, Express is $7 per user per month billed annually ($9 monthly), lifting you to three pipelines, 50,000 records and 30 automations — a small enough step that the upgrade decision is easy when the ceiling arrives.
Capsule free — check the 250 first
Two users, 250 contacts, with contact and opportunity management. Two users at no cost is genuinely useful, and 250 contacts is the lowest ceiling on this page.
Count your live contacts before signing up, because this is the free tier most likely to run out mid-year. Paid plans move in large steps — 30,000 contacts at Starter, 60,000 at Growth, with automation and dashboards arriving at Growth — and Capsule did not display per-seat prices on the page we checked, so get that figure from them directly.
Why "no free plan" is not disqualifying
Less Annoying CRM and Pipedrive have trials rather than free tiers, and it is worth saying why that can be the better deal.
A free plan makes it cheap to start and equally cheap to abandon. Nothing about it forces the habit, and a CRM only pays back when it is current. Paying $15 a user creates a small amount of the pressure that makes people actually use the thing — which is, uncomfortably, part of why paid CRMs have better retention than free ones.
Less Annoying CRM's 30-day trial with no card is also longer than most free plans give you to form a habit, and its single tier means there is no upgrade decision waiting.
What we would do
One person, unsure it will help: Bigin free. Nothing to lose and very little to configure.
Two people, want capability: HubSpot free. Use the contacts and deals, ignore the rest, and revisit if you find yourself in the marketing tools.
Two people, small contact list, want the least product: Capsule free — after checking 250 covers you.
Want it decided and supported: pay the $15. What you are buying is not features, it is the absence of a decision and a support desk that answers — covered in the best CRM for a small business with nobody to manage it.
Whatever you pick, the ceiling is not the thing that will end it. Neglect is. Before committing, read what a CRM really costs beyond the subscription — free plans have most of those costs too.
Questions people ask
What is the best free CRM for a small business?
HubSpot, if you want the most capability at no cost - up to two users and 1,000 contacts, with deal pipelines, email tracking, meeting scheduling, quotes and forms. Zoho Bigin, if a single user is enough and you would rather have a smaller product with less to maintain.
Are free CRMs actually free, or a trial?
The three here are genuinely free rather than time-limited. HubSpot describes its free CRM as having no expiration date. Bigin and Capsule both run permanent free tiers with usage caps. Pipedrive is the exception - it offers a 14-day trial and no free plan.
When should I upgrade from a free CRM?
When you hit a ceiling that is actually costing you something: a third person needing access, records you cannot add, or a pipeline you cannot separate. Upgrading because a paid tier lists a feature you have never missed is how small businesses acquire software nobody uses.
What is the catch with free CRM software?
Usually that the free tier is the entrance to a larger paid platform, which is a fair trade if you go in aware of it. The practical catch is different: free plans make it cheap to start and equally cheap to abandon, so nothing forces the habit that makes a CRM useful.
Where this information comes from
Product details change often. Each item below links to the primary source we checked, so you can confirm anything that matters to your decision.
Spotted something out of date or incorrect? Tell us and we will fix it.