Free CRM software is the most suitable tool for managing customer relationship because it’s free. But not all free crm system were developed in a smart way so you have to be very careful when picking the right one for your business. These software come with great features that will surely help manage your business.
I’m sure you’re aware that the money you’ll save with free CRM software like OpenSource CRM can help your small business grow. But which free CRM is the best for your specific business needs?
Insightly (Web, iOS, Android)
I’ve used Insightly in two different roles over the years: sales and project management. For both, the platform performed well, and I knew I was just chipping the surface of what it could do. And that’s true even with their free plan, which allows two users. So if you and a partner need to manage both relationships and projects, Insightly provides lots of potential to start and to grow.
If you provide services, you can create pipelines and the accompanying stages to manage each one as a separate project and link it to a company, contact(s), and other projects. All of these relationships show up in the various records, so you always have a complete picture of what’s going on. So if I’m talking to a client about another project, I can easily see the progress of their other outstanding projects.
One feature of Insightly that’s not found in a lot of CRMs, especially free plans, is the ability to track your leads using a Kanban board. Similar to creating opportunities and project pipelines, you can create all the steps in your qualification process (e.g., “first call attempt,” “contacted,” and “disqualified”), and move them along the board by dragging and dropping into the next status. Leads can be created from any screen with the quick add button, from contacts, and by importing them.
To get a handle on how Insightly is organized, start with the items on the left-side navigation bar. These—contacts, leads, opportunities, emails, and others—are called objects and comprise the records you can create. A record lives in an object with fields to be filled out, such as name, phone, email, or any data you want to track. And you can create new fields, make them required, and customize the layout of fields on the page.
Once a record is created, you can perform actions for, say, a contact, such as changing them to a lead or adding a task, project, or activity set. An activity set is a group of automated tasks and events. For example, if you have a standard process for starting projects, you can create tasks for your colleague to email a new client within three days of closing the sale, another to set up a first meeting in five days, and so on. Activity sets can also be triggered during the different stages of a project.
Something to keep in mind is the 2,500-record limit with the free plan (records include contacts, leads, orgs, projects, tasks, emails, notes, reports, and comments). If you have a lot of moving pieces for sales and projects, this can add up quickly. You can check your records usage in the billing and account section under your profile image.
To get the most out of Insightly, you can connect it to Zapier, which can automatically add or update records based on form submissions, calendar events, or other triggers in your favorite apps.
Insightly Price: Free for 2 users; paid plan from $29/user/month
Best free CRM software for ease of use
Capsule (Web, iOS, Android)
Most CRMs do more than just managing contacts and deals, adding major functions such as marketing and helpdesk to their platforms. So far, Capsule has mostly resisted this trend, which is nice if you want to keep relationship management straightforward.
Using Capsule is a breath of fresh air if you’ve ever worked in anything more involved than an email inbox. The user interface is uncomplicated and, in fact, provides little in the way of customization—you can change the color scheme and add a logo, but that’s it. Six small icons on the left provide access to the main features with account settings on the far right. On every screen is a dropdown to add people, organizations, opportunities, and cases. This means lots of white space in between.
Capsule provides customization options for the fields for people, organizations, and opportunities, which is handy to tailor data capture to your business. In several minutes, I created a decision-maker checkbox field and a dropdown menu for customer types such as vendor, supplier, VAR, and end-user for people and opportunities.
Another nice feature is called Tracks. This lets you create a repeatable set of activity reminders for opportunities. For example, a standard process for a new inbound lead might have five steps for follow-up, spread over two weeks, using a combination of emails and calls. Tracks applied to these leads automatically populate the opportunity record as a list of to-dos to be checked off.
If you’re a Gmail or Outlook user, be sure to download Capsule’s email add-on. This lets you add contacts, opportunities, and tasks right from your inbox with a few clicks. It will also automatically save (unless you disable) all ongoing email threads into that contact’s record. Missing, however, is the ability to send emails directly from a contact’s record. This is a feature available in all of the other free CRMs reviewed here.
Zapier opens up more opportunities to use Capsule with other apps, such as posting won opportunities in Slack and creating new sales opportunities in Capsule when they’re entered in a spreadsheet.Post won Capsule CRM opportunities to SlackUse this ZapImport sales opportunities from Google Sheets into Capsule CRMUse this ZapSee more Capsule CRM integrations powered by
Finally, if you’re coming into Capsule with hundreds of contacts, you’ll either need to do some scrubbing (usually a good idea) or look elsewhere because the free plan only allows 250. Upgrading to the first paid tier ($18/mo/user) bumps the contact limit to 50,000.
Capsule Price: Free for 2 users; paid plans from $18/month/user
Agile CRM
Agile CRM is built for SMBs as well as freelancers. It’s one of the CRM leaders in terms of ease of use. Agile CRM developers have optimized the usability to deliver a logical, easily navigable layout.
Most all major features are just a click away at any time. These features include streamlined customer data intake, lead tracking, appointment scheduling, email tracking, and call-tracking tools to make and record calls directly in the platform.
Agile CRM provides all your CRM needs for free. (via the Blueprint)
If you ever need to graduate from the free option, Agile CRM offers three affordable pricing options. The Starter tier is $15/month per user and adds more marketing levers.
The Regular tier is $50/month per user and builds in help desk tools and reporting capabilities. The final option is their Enterprise tier at $80/month per user and includes extensive integrations and even more reporting capabilities.
HubSpot CRM
HubSpot is the free software stalwart for CRM and marketing software. The free HubSpot option is a combination of HubSpot’s CRM, marketing, sales, and services tools.
It’s as well suited for sales teams in need of CRM, as it is suited for marketers to automate communications. Key features include contact management, deal tracking, form builder, email and ad management, live chat with site visitors, ticketing support for customer service, and more.
Build workflows that automate communications based on lead behavior. (via the Blueprint)
If you decide to graduate from HubSpot’s free CRM to one of their hubs, you’re looking at a baseline price of $50 per month for two users. The marketing hub goes up from there to $800 per month then $3,200 per month.
The sales hub is similar at $500 per month and $1,200 per month. There is an option to bundle paid plans, similar to the free CRM bundle. But you can see that it’s a huge commitment to go from the free option to a middle or top tier for one of the paid hub plans.
There’s no doubt these are powerful tools, but it will likely be some time before you need to graduate to all the features, users, and more that are offered with those expensive options.
Best free CRM with inexpensive upgrade options
Vtiger (Web, iOS, Android)
As a free CRM, Vtiger is loaded with features many small businesses will find appealing: contact/deal management, support ticketing, email marketing, and a nice selection of reporting options, to name a few. It includes room for 10 users and up to 3,000 records. When you add the inexpensive upgrade paths—sales starting at $10/user or all-in-one starting at $30/user—Vtiger becomes a real bargain. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights of the free version and what you can expect when you upgrade.
The navigation is a little different from other CRMs. To access any of the app’s main functions, which Vtiger calls Modules, click on the hamburger at the top left. This displays a menu of all your apps with favorites at the top and the apps such as sales, marketing, and help desk underneath on the left side. If you hover over an app, all of its functions will display to the right for access. For example, for sales, you’ll see deals, email sequences, leaderboard, and others. Just click and go. It took me a bit to get used to it, but once I did, it made getting anywhere in the app speedy.
For contact records, you can calculate a Profile Score, which helps determine if a person falls within your ideal buyer profile. Under settings, you can assign numerical values for title, lead source, size of company, revenue, and industry. As long as these values are picked when creating a contact and company (e.g., using the title CEO gets 10 points), you’ll get a rating based on five stars appearing prominently at the top of a record. It gives your team some idea whether a contact is a good potential fit—but not how engaged they are like traditional lead scoring. In Vtiger’s paid plans, there’s another scoring system called Engagement Score, which tracks a contact’s engagement level with your email campaigns.
With the marketing module, you can build custom landing pages to capture contacts, segment those contacts into lists, and then send one-time emails. You get 1,000 email credits (one email = one credit) a month and can purchase additional send credits (e.g., 50,000 emails is $100) as needed.
I created a test campaign, and it was pretty smooth. You create your send list; set conditions for the list such as lead source, last contacted date, idle leads, and dozens more; and create your email using the email campaigns feature (which offers dozens of templates). Once you’re done, preview the email for desktop and mobile and then send yourself a test email before sending it to your list. Each campaign provides data for opens, clicks, bounces, and other metrics. Upgrading to paid plans provides significantly more email credits, campaign scheduling, and autoresponder campaigns that send emails based on triggers.
To get more out of Vtiger, connect it with Zapier to do things like sending Facebook leads automatically to Vtiger or creating Vtiger leads whenever someone’s added to your email list.
Conclusion
Every startup needs a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. Why? Well, for one thing it’s just an organizational tool that can help you keep track of your leads and customers – and we all know how important this is. But also because it’s a great way to develop a relationship with your new and existing customers and provide them with the kind of service they expect and deserve.