The 80/20 of CRM
Tools for tracking customers and deals. The B2B SaaS category most prone to bloat.
CRM is the category where software goes to die slowly. Salesforce charges $25–300/user/month for a product that takes three months to configure, requires a dedicated admin, and is still wrong about half your company’s data. The dirty secret: most teams under 50 people don’t need a CRM — they need a shared spreadsheet with discipline, or a lightweight contact tracker that costs $12/month and takes an afternoon to set up.
The real decision is when you hit the spreadsheet ceiling, which is usually around 500 active contacts or when more than two people need to update the same record. HubSpot’s free tier buys you time; the paid tiers start at $15/month but the features that make it worth paying for start at $90/month. Use HubSpot free to delay the decision, use Pipedrive ($15/month) if your primary use case is sales pipeline, and use Salesforce only when an enterprise customer requires it.
Situational
Common questions
What are the best crm tools?
See the situational picks below — none of the tools in this category earned a core rating.
How do you pick the best crm tool?
We sort every tool into core (use unless you have a reason not to), situational (great for a specific use case), or skip. The choice usually comes down to your team size, collaboration model, and existing toolchain. See our methodology page for the full evaluation criteria.
Are there free crm tools?
Yes. Attio have a free tier or are open-source.