The 7 Best Cheap CRM Software Systems in 2023

HubSpot's Free plan is the first on our list because you get a variety of practical functionalities cost-free. Apart from what's mentioned above, you'll also get fantastic contact management tools like data import and export and list segmentation. You’ll also get organisation features, such as reminders and meeting scheduling, to help you manage your appointments. Finally, it offers a hefty set of marketing tools, including website visitor tracking, an email design editor, and social media integrations.

But because it is free, there are certain limitations you should expect. For example, file storage is limited to five documents per person. HubSpot also doesn't offer email, chat, or phone line support, making it tricky should you experience any technical difficulties. Moreover, you will have little liberty in customising your database as there are only 10 custom fields and no custom task types and objects. If you want better customizability, monday.com provides a slew of easy-to-use and customisable options for an affordable cost.

Still, HubSpot scores a perfect 5/5 for pricing in our extensive research because it has a one million contact limit and no user limit. Not only that, it has the best email features (5/5), including the capacity to send emails from your software, auto responses, and an email inbox.

Freshsales’ Growth plan is our second pick for offering plenty of useful marketing tools, such as an email design editor, automated workflow, and visitor tracking, earning a 3.2/5 score and ranking first for marketing. Likewise, it houses efficient contact management features, including data import and export, 250 custom fields, and 50 automated workflows. Along with these, Freshsales’ AI-powered sales assistant, Freddy AI, proves to be valuable in providing insight into your contact list. Our researchers also noted how easy to use the tools were during testing, earning an outstanding 4.7/5 score for usability.

Being one of the most affordable paid plans, the Growth plan gives excellent value for money, scoring a 4.5/5 in our pricing analysis. For as low as £12 per user, per month, you’ll get no user limit and 2GB of file storage per person. Plus, it offers multiple organization tools and email features, including a calendar, reminders, email insights, and auto responses, ensuring you won’t miss a schedule or correspondence.

The only handicap is that it lacks customer service features, so you have to use another system to track and manage your customer service cases. So, if you’re looking for an affordable CRM for your customer service team, we recommend Zoho’s Professional plan because it offers features like support tickets and customer service case management.

Zendesk's Team plan ties (4.5/5) scores with Freshsales' Growth plan for pricing because it's only a few dollars higher and it also offers a 2GB storage capacity and unlimited users.

Zendesk beats Freshsales when it comes to organization and customisation. Zendesk allows you to modify fields, dashboards, task types, objects, and your sales pipeline to fit your business processes. In addition, you can fully edit contact fields or restrict fields and tag them "required only", creating data uniformity. Likewise, Zendesk's Team plan is our best cheap CRM for easy data visualization because it's equipped with plenty of data and reporting tools, including preset and custom dashboards, as well as deal, lead, and recurring revenue reports.

However, it misses out on a lot of functionalities, such as marketing features and no customer service tools. If they are a must, then look at Freshsales' Growth plan, which includes web forms, website visitor tracking, and marketing drip campaigns.

The Pro plan may be one of monday.com’s premier plans, but it comes at such an affordable price that it’s part of our best cheap CRM software. More than that, the Pro plan gives you fully customisable fields, dashboards, task types, objects, and sales pipelines, allowing you to easily tinker around your database and customize it according to your needs. All it takes is a single click from your mouse, and you can edit the fields, making it the best cheap CRM for customisation.

Even so, our researchers score it a perfect 5/5 contact management as it allows data import/export, list segmentation, custom fields, and automated workflows that help you systemise your contacts. Plus, it has outstanding (5/5) organization tools, such as reminders and meeting scheduling to help you keep track of your commitments.

However, the Pro plan falls short when it comes to marketing capabilities. While it can generate web forms, it lacks a chatbot, website visitor tracking, and social media integrations. If you want a cheap CRM for your marketing campaigns, Freshsales Suite’s Growth plan offers a comprehensive list of marketing features at an affordable price.

If your small business deals with sensitive information, we recommend Pipedrive's Advanced plan for affordable data protection. Your system will be equipped with solid security features, including user permissions, multi-factor authentication, and security email, so you can worry less about hacking and phishing attacks.

The Advanced plan also offers tools for organization and contact management, such as automated workflows and unlimited custom fields for a hassle-free process of recording data.

The catch is, Pipedrive's Advanced plan has no file storage. Not to mention, you have to activate the lead booster add-on for $32.50 per month to access Pipedrive's marketing tools. Whereas, Freshsale's Growth plan offers each user 2GB of monthly storage and various marketing tools, including web forms and drip campaigns to collect lead information. Additionally, Pipedrive doesn't have any customer service features, like support tickets, so you would have to use different software to manage your customer service cases

Zoho CRM’s Professional plan is packed with valuable sales functionalities, such as a visual sales pipeline and automated lead scoring. The system also allows you to create quotes and invoices as well as accept payments so that customers can easily purchase on your website, scoring a perfect 5/5 for sales features. In addition to this, it has a wealth of features, including a meeting scheduling (5/5 for organization), email insights (5/5 for email), support tickets (5/5 for customer service), and automated workflows (5/5 for contact management).

Zoho CRM’s Professional plan has much to offer, scoring high in usability (4.5/5) for tools like “Deals”, which lets you customise your sales pipeline to reflect your business processes. It’s also highly customisable (4.1/5), allowing you to add custom fields during the data import.

The Professional plan receives high scores across the board in our research, but what it lacks is file storage. The Professional plan only has 20MB of file storage per user and 10GB for the entire organization, which is in stark contrast to monday.com’s Pro plan, which offers 100GB of storage per user.

Salesforce’s Essential plan has the best email communication tools. With capabilities like sending emails from its system, email insights, and auto responses, having correspondence with your long list of leads and customers will be a breeze.

The Essential plan scores a perfect  5/5 organisation and contact management features. You’ll get access to meeting scheduling, reminders, and a calendar, helping you to keep track of your schedule. You can make use of its strong email functionalities, like auto responses and email insights to help manage your email marketing campaigns. Last but not least, its contact management features include custom fields and list segmentation, allowing you to organise your contacts and their information.

However, the Essential plan doesn’t include sales features, earning a small 0.4/5 in this category in our research. If this is a dealbreaker, then Zoho CRM’s Professional plan has superb tools to help you monitor and increase sales, including a visual sales pipeline and automated lead scoring.