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The best CRM for a small business, priced honestly

22 platforms, priced at your own user count with the add-ons included. I have used 1 of them on camera and the verdicts are on their pages, with the timestamp for every claim. 22 publish a price, every one of them.

Build your shortlist 7 questions · about a minute · four honest picks
★ My Pick

GoHighLevel

Has everything you need all in one system.

I run this in my own business.

GoHighLevel pays this site a commission (40% recurring) when someone signs up through the Try button. I have picked it anyway. The pick is stored in a different place from the affiliate link, and it has never been moved for a commission.

Read the full GoHighLevel write-up

Every platform

checked 22 Oct 2026 · 8 need checking by hand

Sales CRMs: a pipeline for leads and deals, priced per user

Zoho CRM

A growing sales team that wants a deep, configurable CRM with built-in calling, mass email, quoting and AI, at a per-user price well under the big...

from $20per user, per month

Bigin by Zoho CRM

A small business moving off spreadsheets that wants a pipeline, email, calling and booking pages running in an afternoon for the lowest per-user...

from $9per user, per month

Capsule CRM

A small business that wants a tidy contacts-and-pipeline CRM it can start on for nothing and grow into without a sales call.

from $22per user, per month

OnePageCRM

A one-person or small sales team that wants the cheapest per-user pipeline with a next-action habit built in, unlimited contacts, and no setup...

from $9.95per user, per month

Freshsales

A phone-and-email sales team that wants built-in calling, chat and email on every plan and AI scoring, sequences and insights from the middle tier.

from $11per user, per month

monday CRM

A sales team of three or more that wants a board-style, highly customisable pipeline with quotes, invoices, mass email and client projects in the...

from $12per user, per month

Less Annoying CRM

A small team that wants contacts, pipelines and tasks at one flat seat price with nothing to configure and nothing locked behind an upgrade.

from $15per user, per month

Close

Outbound sales teams that live on the phone and want calling, SMS, email and workflows inside one CRM rather than bolted on.

from $19per user, per month

Pipedrive

A sales team that lives in a visual deal pipeline and wants automation, email sync, scheduling and e-signature contracts added one plan at a time.

from $24per user, per month

Salesforce Starter Suite

A small business that wants sales, service, marketing email and a storefront in one Salesforce subscription from day one, with a path onto the...

from $25per user, per month

Copper CRM

Teams that run on Google Workspace and want the CRM inside Gmail and Google Calendar, with project pipelines for the work after the sale.

from $29per user, per month

Salesflare

A small B2B sales team that lives in Gmail, Outlook and LinkedIn and wants the CRM to fill itself in rather than be typed into.

from $39per user, per month

Streak

A Gmail or Google Workspace team that wants its pipeline, contacts and tasks inside the inbox rather than in a separate tab.

from $59per user, per month

Make CRMs for small service businesses? If yours is missing from this list, ask to be shortlisted. Listings are free and cannot be bought.

Head to head

57 pairs, taken from what people really search

Each one prices both platforms at the same four sizes off their own pages, and says what each does that the other does not.

Questions

What is the best CRM for a small business?

It depends on what the CRM is for. If it is a pipeline for leads and deals, the per-user sales CRMs (Pipedrive, Zoho, Freshsales, Capsule, Close) are the field. If it is running clients from proposal to invoice, HoneyBook and Dubsado are a different kind of tool. If you want the email marketing and automation in the same place, HubSpot, GoHighLevel, Keap and EngageBay are all-in-ones. The quiz asks what you need it for first, then compares prices at your own team size.

How much does a CRM cost for a small team?

From nothing (HubSpot, Zoho, Bigin, EngageBay and Freshsales all publish a free tier) to roughly $15 to $60 per user a month on the plans a small business actually buys. Nearly every CRM charges per user, so three people on a $25 plan is $75 a month, and a flat-priced tool overtakes the per-user ones once a few people share it. Every price here is quoted at the number of users you give.

Which CRMs charge per user, and which are flat?

Pipedrive, Zoho, Freshsales, Close, Capsule, Copper, Attio, folk, monday CRM, Salesforce, Nutshell, OnePageCRM, Salesflare, Streak, Less Annoying CRM and EngageBay charge per user. Dubsado and HoneyBook are flat (HoneyBook caps users on its cheaper plans). GoHighLevel, Keap and ActiveCampaign are priced by contacts, with users included or unlimited. Each product page says which.

Do I need a CRM or an all-in-one?

A CRM holds the pipeline. An all-in-one also sends the email, runs the automations, hosts the booking calendar and often the invoicing, at a higher flat price. If you already pay for an email tool and a scheduler, a per-user CRM is usually the cheaper combination; if you are starting from scratch, an all-in-one can replace three subscriptions. The quiz routes on that choice before it compares prices.

Do these platforms offer a free trial?

Less Annoying CRM, Salesforce Starter Suite, Salesflare and HoneyBook give you 30 days, in most cases with no card required. Pipedrive, Zoho CRM, Bigin by Zoho CRM, Freshsales, Close, Capsule CRM, Copper CRM, Attio, folk, monday CRM, OnePageCRM, Dubsado, Streak, GoHighLevel, Keap and ActiveCampaign give you 14. The rest are demo-led with neither, which is worth knowing before you get attached to one.

Are these affiliate links?

Some of them, and it is marked clearly on every recommendation. It does not change what the quiz returns. Where two platforms score within a few points of each other the cheaper one wins, and several of the platforms recommended here pay nothing at all.

Who is behind this?

Dave Crawford. He builds operations and automation systems for small service businesses, which means he has spent a lot of time inside tools like these with real clients rather than reading their marketing pages. The prices here are checked against each company's own pricing page and rechecked weekly.