Ranked for one-to-ten-person teams · prices read 24 September 2026
The best CRM for small business, priced per seat and dated
Eight CRMs a one-to-ten-person business can actually run, each with its free tier's real cap, its entry seat price, and the billing term that price belongs to — every figure read on the vendor's own page on 24 September 2026.
What is on this page
Most guides to the best CRM for small business rank features you will never switch on. A business with one to ten people buys on three things instead: how many people the free tier lets in before it stops being free, what a seat costs once it does, and how long you have to commit to get that price. This page answers those three for eight CRMs, prints the figure the vendor's own page displayed on 24 September 2026, and says which of them pay us anything.
The short answer
For most small businesses that have outgrown a spreadsheet, Zoho CRM is the sensible default: three users free forever, then $14 per user per month on the annual term. If nobody on your team has used a CRM before, HubSpot is the gentlest place to start and the free tools are genuinely free — provided you understand that its next rung is a long way up. If you want a pipeline and nothing else, Bigin does it for $7 per user per month billed yearly, and Less Annoying CRM charges one flat $15 per user per month with no tiers at all.
| CRM | Best for | Free tier, as published | Entry paid plan, per seat per month | Term that price belongs to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zoho CRM | A team of three to ten that will keep growing | 3 users | $14 (Standard) | Billed annually; $20 billed monthly |
| HubSpot | A first CRM for people who have never used one | Up to 2 users | $7 (Starter Customer Platform) | Promotional for new customers; $20 shown struck through |
| Bigin by Zoho | A pipeline, without a platform attached | Single user, 500 records | $7 (Express) | Billed yearly; $9 billed monthly |
| Capsule | Relationship-led work with long, quiet gaps | Maximum 2 users, 250 contacts | $18 (Starter) | Billed annually |
| Less Annoying CRM | Two or three people who want zero configuration | None; 30-day trial | $15 (the only plan) | One flat price, plus applicable tax |
| Pipedrive | A small sales team whose whole job is the pipeline | None; 14-day trial | $14 (Lite) | Billed annually as one payment of $168 per seat per year |
| EngageBay | Marketing email living inside the CRM | 250 contacts | $13.79 (Basic) | Billed yearly; $14.99 monthly, $12.74 on a two-year term |
| Freshsales | The cheapest entry seat with real reporting | None shown on the pricing page | $9 (Growth) | Billed annually |
Every bar is that row's per-seat figure from the table above, multiplied by 3 seats and 12 months, on the billing term the table names. Nothing is added: change a price in the table and this chart changes with it. The gold bar is the one CRM here that runs no referral programme we can join.
How this ranking was made
Nothing here is a lab test, because we did not run one. Firstclient ranks on what a vendor publishes and what that publication costs you: the seat price and the term it assumes, the ceiling on the free tier, whether there is a seat minimum, and what the next tier up asks when you cross a limit. Where a page shows one billing term by default and hides the other behind a control we could not operate, this site prints the term it showed and says so rather than doing the arithmetic for the vendor.
The ordering is a judgement about fit for a business of one to ten people, in that order: does the free tier hold a real team, is the first paid step affordable at three seats rather than one, and does the tool stop before it turns into a platform you have to administer. No score here was bought. Some of these CRMs pay Firstclient a referral share and some pay nothing at all; two of the eight — Less Annoying CRM and, on a free signup, HubSpot — earn us exactly nothing and are still in the top five.
Zoho CRM — the sensible default
Zoho CRM is the pick for most small businesses because its free edition is the only one here that puts three seats in writing. The pricing page states three users on the free edition, with contact management, follow-up reminders, workflow automation, up to ten custom email templates, standard reports, mobile apps and 5,000 API calls a day. When three seats is no longer enough, Standard is $14 per user per month billed annually and $20 billed monthly — a step up inside the same product, at a price Zoho publishes for both terms rather than one.
The reservations are real. Zoho CRM's settings are deep enough that someone has to own them, the interface assumes you will eventually want modules you do not need yet, and Zoho's referral terms require the customer to sign up in the same data centre as the affiliate, which is the sort of clause that quietly voids a referral without telling anyone. The full walk through both products is in our Zoho CRM and Bigin review.
Sponsored, nofollow. Subscribe at the far end of it and the vendor pays Firstclient a share of what you spend. The order above was fixed before any of that, and more than one tool on this site earns us nothing.
HubSpot — the easiest start, and the step after it
HubSpot is the best answer to "we have never used a CRM and need to start this week", and it is the one to be most careful with. Its pricing page describes the free tools as free for up to two users with no credit card, and they are not a trial: contacts, deals, tasks and a shared inbox keep working indefinitely. The catch is everything with a number on it. On the free tier HubSpot states up to three canned snippets, up to three email templates per account and a maximum of one personal meetings link, each stamped with HubSpot branding.
Then comes the step. Starter Customer Platform is advertised from $7 per seat per month, under a banner offering up to 65% off Starter for new customers for a limited time, with $20 per seat per month shown struck through beside it. Sales Hub Professional is a different order of money: $90 per seat per month with $100 struck through, and a footnote stating a required one-time Professional Onboarding fee of $1,500. That is the sentence that ends most small-business HubSpot stories, and it is in our HubSpot CRM review in full.
Sponsored, nofollow. Subscribe at the far end of it and the vendor pays Firstclient a share of what you spend. The order above was fixed before any of that, and more than one tool on this site earns us nothing.
Bigin — a pipeline, not a platform
Bigin is Zoho's small-team CRM and the cheapest seat on this page that is not a promotion. Its free plan states a single user, 500 records and one pipeline; Express is $7 per user per month billed yearly and $9 billed monthly, and adds three team pipelines and 50,000 records. If your business is one or two people who need to know what stage each deal is at and when to chase it, Bigin does that and declines to do much else, which is the point.
The limit to watch is the record count rather than the seat count: 500 records on free includes contacts, companies and deals together, so a busy month can finish the free plan on its own.
Sponsored, nofollow. Subscribe at the far end of it and the vendor pays Firstclient a share of what you spend. The order above was fixed before any of that, and more than one tool on this site earns us nothing.
Capsule — for work with long, quiet gaps
Capsule suits businesses where the relationship matters more than the pipeline stage — consultancies, studios, trades with repeat customers. Its free plan states a maximum of two users, 250 contacts, five custom fields and one sales pipeline. Starter is $18 per user per month billed annually with 30,000 contacts, email templates and a shared mailbox; Growth is $36 and adds workflow automations and multiple pipelines. Capsule advertises up to 14% off for paying annually, and the annual figure is the one its page shows by default.
Capsule is a UK company, which shows in the tone and in the integrations it leads with. It is the tidiest CRM in this list to hand to someone who is not a salesperson, and the detail is in our Capsule CRM review.
Sponsored, nofollow. Subscribe at the far end of it and the vendor pays Firstclient a share of what you spend. The order above was fixed before any of that, and more than one tool on this site earns us nothing.
Less Annoying CRM — one price, and no commission for us
Less Annoying CRM charges $15 per user per month, plus applicable tax, for everything it has: no tiers, no features held back for an upgrade, unlimited pipelines and custom fields, 25GB of file storage per user, and a 30-day trial that does not ask for a card. Its own FAQ suggests staying below 50,000 contacts and companies in total rather than imposing a hard cap.
We cannot find a working affiliate programme for it, so a reader who signs up earns Firstclient nothing. It is still the recommendation for a two- or three-person business that wants to be finished configuring a CRM by lunchtime, because that is what the product is for.
Pipedrive — when the pipeline is the whole job
Pipedrive has no free plan, only a 14-day trial, so it is a deliberate purchase rather than something you drift into. Lite is $14 per seat per month billed annually, which its page also states as one payment of $168 per seat per year; Growth is $24 ($288 a year) and adds full email sync, automations and sequences. Pipedrive advertises up to 26% off for annual billing, so a month-to-month seat costs more than the figures above.
It earns its place for small sales teams who live in a deal board all day and will use the forecast. For a business where selling is one of six jobs the owner does, it is more machinery than the work needs.
Sponsored, nofollow. Subscribe at the far end of it and the vendor pays Firstclient a share of what you spend. The order above was fixed before any of that, and more than one tool on this site earns us nothing.
EngageBay — the CRM with the mailing list attached
EngageBay is the answer when you would otherwise buy a CRM and an email tool. Its free plan states 250 contacts with email marketing, autoresponders, landing pages, live chat and a helpdesk included. The All-in-One Basic plan is $14.99 per user per month month-to-month, $13.79 on the yearly term and $12.74 on a two-year term, with 500 contacts; Growth is $64.99, $59.79 and $55.24 with 5000 contacts. The same page also offers a narrower CRM & Sales Bay track starting at $11.04 per user per month.
Two things to weigh: the cheapest number needs a two-year commitment, which is a long time for a small business to promise anything, and the contact ceilings are low enough that the plan you start on is rarely the plan you stay on. Our EngageBay review walks the ladder.
Sponsored, nofollow. Subscribe at the far end of it and the vendor pays Firstclient a share of what you spend. The order above was fixed before any of that, and more than one tool on this site earns us nothing.
Freshsales — cheap to enter, with no floor under it
Freshsales' entry seat is among the cheapest here and has nothing underneath it: Growth is $9 per user per month billed annually, with Pro at $39 and Enterprise at $59, and Freshworks advertises 20% off for annual billing. There is no free plan shown on the pricing page, so the $9 seat is the floor rather than a step up from one.
Add-ons are priced separately and add up quickly — branded documents are listed at $19 per user per month and the Freddy AI agent at $49 per 100 sessions — so price the plan you will actually run rather than the headline.
Sponsored, nofollow. Subscribe at the far end of it and the vendor pays Firstclient a share of what you spend. The order above was fixed before any of that, and more than one tool on this site earns us nothing.
What to check before you pay for any of them
Four checks catch almost every unpleasant surprise in this category, and all four take a few minutes on the vendor's own page.
- Multiply by your real seat count and your real term. A $14 seat is $504 for three seats over a year; a $18 seat is $648 for the same three. The seat price is the small number and the bill is the big one.
- Find the cap that will bite first. It is rarely the seat count: Capsule's free plan stops at 250 contacts, Bigin's at 500 records, EngageBay's Basic at 500 contacts.
- Read the term next to the price. Zoho's Standard is $14 annually and $20 monthly; EngageBay's cheapest Basic figure assumes a two-year commitment.
- Look for the one-time fees. HubSpot's Professional tier carries a required one-time onboarding fee of $1,500, which no per-seat comparison will show you.
If you are still deciding whether you need one of these at all, start with what a CRM actually is or the honest case for staying on a spreadsheet a while longer. If budget is the whole question, the free CRM page takes the free tiers one cap at a time.
Questions about choosing a small-business CRM
What is the best CRM for a small business in 2026?
How much should a small business expect to pay for a CRM?
Which small-business CRM has the most useful free plan?
Do I have to commit to a year to get the advertised price?
Are there CRM costs that do not appear in the per-seat price?
Prices change without a press release. How Firstclient reads a pricing page explains what we do when a vendor shows one term by default, or shows nothing at all.