Best 3 Free CRM Tools For Solo Entrepreneurs
Solo Entrepreneur? These three CRM tools will help you keep track of your customers and are free to use, forever.
As a solo entrepreneur, it can be tough to keep track of all your customers. You have to juggle sales, marketing, customer service, and more – all on your own! This is where a CRM tool comes in handy.
Go here to watch the video on YouTube instead.
What even is a CRM?
A CRM (customer relationship management) tool helps you manage all your customer data in one place. This can include contact information, purchase history, support tickets, and more. In this blog post, we will discuss the best free CRM tools for solo entrepreneurs. All of these options are based on the “freemium” versions – not free trials. You can use the “freemium” version forever, not just a trial period.
There are a few things to look for when choosing a CRM tool. First, it should be easy to use and understand. You don’t want to spend hours trying to figure out how to use the tool! Second, it should be affordable (or free!). As a solo entrepreneur, you likely don’t have a huge budget for business expenses. And lastly, it should have all the features you need to manage your customers effectively.
Now that you know what to look for in a CRM tool, let’s take a look at some of the best free options:
My top 3 highly recommended CRM Tools
Now let’s dig into the details ⤵
1: HubSpot CRM
HubSpot CRM is my favorite go-to o great option for solo entrepreneurs. It cost absolutely nothing and gives you a small taste of all HubSpot’s suite of platforms in addition to the CRM, like Marketing Hub, Support Hub and Sales Hub. It’s my go-to because when ever you may need to add a freelancer or employee to your team and into your CRM as a user, it’s completely free.
Freemium Limitations: Unlimited free users, up to 1,000,000 contacts. The price per user can get a bit pricing if you upgrade. Marketing Hub will limit to 1,000 contacts and email marketing to 2,000 per day.
Price if you upgrade: Starting at $50/month per user. This will include 2 users and the price will go up depending on how many more marketing contacts you have and what additional CRM features on what features you need. You can create your own bundle to see the pricing here. Which I love!
Keep in mind, even after you upgrade, you can still have free users in your account. Hubspot doesn’t require that all users be paid.
2: Agile CRM
Agile CRM is another great free option for solo entrepreneurs. It includes features such as contact management, Lead capture, deal tracking, and more.
Freemium Limitations: 10 free users and up to 50,000 contacts and companies.
Price if you upgrade: Their starter packages start at $8.99/month per user and includes most of the marketing features you would need and up to 5,000 marketing emails. Once you’ve reached this limit of 5,000, you’ll need to pay per email based on their tiered pricing structure.
3: EngageBay
EngageBay touts being an all-in-one CRM. It offers all the essential features you need to manage your customers, such as contact management, sales automation, task management, and more.
Freemium Limitations: Up to 15 users and 500 contacts.
Price if you upgrade: Their all-in-one basic subscription starts at $11.99/month per user and includes their basic features for up to 1,000 contacts. Once you have more than 1,000 contacts, the price jumps up to $39.99 with a contact limitation of 10,000 but also includes a lot more features like workflows and automation.
Final Thoughts...
These are just a few of the best free CRM tools for solo entrepreneurs. There are plenty more out there and you can certainly go down a rabbit hole searching for the best one.
Here are a few I would avoid, and reasons why. Also note that I’ve actually tried both of these:
Bigin (By Zoho): I actually recommend ZohoOne for specific businesses with complex structures and large teams because it’s a great all-in-one platform. I don’t have the same love for Zoho’s Bigin freemium CRM program. It might work fine and a great option if you’ll eventually want to upgrade into the ZohoOne network of apps, but I’ll tell you, the usability and their customer service is straight up awful. Do not expect a solid onboarding experience or any customer service.
FreshSales CRM: FreshSales now offers a free CRM version. Similar to Zoho, their customer service and onboarding process leaves a lot to desire.
Here’s the reality, there isn’t a perfect CRM. Unfortunately, they’ll all have drawbacks, but you know what they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. So, it will come down to which platform you prefer and which will meet your needs.
Do you already use a CRM tool in your business? Let us know in the comments below!
I wanted to thank you for this fantastic read!! I certainly enjoyed every little bit of it. I have got you saved as a favorite to check out new stuff you post
Excellent write-up. I certainly appreciate this website. Continue the good work!
Thanks for your blog, nice to read. Do not stop.
Good article.