15 Best FREE CRM for Startups (2023)

Building and managing great customer relationships and connections is crucial if you want to succeed as a startup. However, staying on top of your customer’s needs and maintaining a profitable relationship with them is difficult. The best approach to address the challenge is with the right CRM system.

CRM for start-ups caters to the needs of companies that are in their early stages of growth. Such CRM helps employees of a startup to onboard with minimal training.

Following is a handpicked list of Best CRM Software for Startup, with their popular features, pros & cons, key statistics, and website links. The list contains both Open Source (Free) and Commercial (Paid) CRM software: Read more…

Best CRM for Startups

Name	Monday	Pipedrive	Zoho	Salesforce
Free Trial	Basic free version	30 Day Free Trial (No Credit Card Required)	15 Day Free Trial (No credit card required)	30 Day Free Trial (No Credit Card Required)
Integrations	Microsoft Teams, Dropbox, Slack, Zapier, Google Drive, etc.	Zapier, Automate.io, Apiway, Microsoft Flow, Xplenty,etc.	Google, Zapier, GitHub, Dropbox.	ActiveCampaign, Zapier, and Docusign.
Supported Platforms	Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, and web.	Windows, Android, iPhone, Mac, Web-Based, etc.	Web, iOS, and Android	Android, Windows, Android, iPhone, Mac, Web-Based, etc.
Link	Learn More	Learn More	Learn More	Learn More

1) Monday – Best for All-in-one Project Management Tools and CRM software

Monday is one of the best CRM for small businesses that helps you manage all your sales processes in one place. This CRM also streamlines your entire sales process with a colorful and visual interface. It’s a versatile CRM platform that allows the entire team to manage projects. You can easily see which tasks get completed, automate workflows, and collaborate on documents.

Features:

• It allows you to import all your customer data in just a few clicks.
• Automatically schedules notifications and reminders.
• Monday is a lead management software that helps you integrate with other tools to accelerate response time.
• You can collaborate with your team using one shared workspace.
• It helps you to bring your team together, anywhere and anytime.

👍 Pros	👎 Cons
Very versatile and customizable	Does not offer any free trial plan.
Offer plenty of integrations	You can easily toggle between the views on the project is complex.
Easy integration with email.

Key Specs:

• Free Trial: Basic free version.
• Integration: Microsoft Teams, Dropbox, Slack, Zapier, Google Drive, etc.
• Supported platforms: Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, and web
• Deployment Type: Cloud-based and Open API.

Visit Monday >>

30 Days Free Trial

---

2) Pipedrive – Best for start-ups that need to schedule a lot of sales meetings

Pipedrive is a customer relationship management software for start-ups that integrates seamlessly with other marketing automation tools to keep your workflow streamlined. You can customize data fields and workflows according to your distinct business processes as they evolve. Pipedrive provides built-in tools for scheduling and managing appointments with sales contacts to help start-ups makes great first impressions.

Features:

• Marketing and sales automation
• Reporting and analytics
• You can integrate CRM for easy contact management across your organization
• Offer email marketing campaigns with click-to-call and direct mail tools.
• Blog and website integration
• Social media marketing analytics
• Customizable sales pipeline reports with automated alerts

👍 Pros	👎 Cons
Offers unlimited custom fields to collect any piece of customer information.	The automation feature can’t create customized reports.
It helps you track custom reports and have revenue estimates and recurring revenue.	Extra features like email, phones, etc., are not available in the standard version.
Provide an activity reports feature that helps you track individual sales calls, demos, and events.

Key Specs:

• Free Trial: 30 Day Free Trial (No Credit Card Required)
• Deployment Type: Cloud-based.
• Support: 24/7 email and chat
• Integrations: Zapier, Automate.io, Apiway, Microsoft Flow, Xplenty, etc.
• Supported platforms: Windows, Android, iPhone, Mac, Web-Based, etc.

Visit Pipedrive >>

30 Day Free Trial (No Credit Card Required)

---

3) Zoho – Best for start-ups looking to use social media as a marketing tool.

Zoho is CRM software that helps you organize contacts, tasks, and deals in one place. It helps you maintain your customers’ address book from your sales team member’s access to a centralized location. It is one of the best CRM for start-ups that helps you to keep tabs on your key performance metrics, pipeline, and targets for the month.

Features:

• Functional Cloud CRM
• Effective communication tools
• Customizable automation
• Customer support
• You can convert your live chats into leads
• You can manage your tasks and deals efficiently.

👍 Pros	👎 Cons
It enables you to access your business contacts at your fingertips.	Limited customer support
Zoho CRM tool enables you to manage your tasks and deals efficiently.	Steep Learning curve
It offers helpdesk, email & social media marketing, surveys, and analytics built around your CRM.

Key Specs:

• Free Trial: 15 Day Free Trial (No credit card required)
• Support: Live chat, telephone, and email.
• Integrations: Google, Zapier, GitHub, Dropbox.
• Supported platforms: Web, iOS, and Android.

Visit Zoho >>

15 Day Free Trial (No credit card required)

---

4) Salesforce – Best for large and medium-sized businesses

Salesforce is a Software as a service (SaaS) CRM that enables you to manage customer relationships and helps you to create a custom solution according to your business requirements. It allows you to increase customer loyalty, retention, and satisfaction. You can monitor and manage your business. This CRM solution enables you to organize your customer data, track sales, and support your customers from one centralized dashboard.

Features:

• It helps you to increase customer loyalty, retention, and satisfaction.
• You can identify new opportunities to help address any problems.
• It allows you to build more meaningful and lasting relationships.
• This CRM software helps you to monitor and manage your business.

👍 Pros	👎 Cons
You can increase customer loyalty, retention, and satisfaction.	Salesforce relies entirely on the Internet connection, so no offline access is possible.
It helps you identify new opportunities that help you address any problems.
It allows you to build more meaningful and lasting relationships.

Key Specs:

• Free Trial: Yes
• Deployment Type: Cloud-Based.
• Support: Phone and Chat
• Integration: ActiveCampaign, Zapier, and Docusign.
• Supported Operating Systems: Android, Windows, Android, iPhone, Mac, Web-Based, etc.

Visit Salesforce >>

30 Days Free Trial

---

5) HubSpot – Best for the best solution for start-up businesses wanting an easy-to-use CRM.

HubSpot offers various marketing automation, sales reps workflow automation, and CRM analytics features.

HubSpot allows you to track what works and doesn’t work for your business. It helps you generate more visitors into customers and run complete inbound marketing campaigns from one platform.

You can integrate this CRM software with other marketing and customer service tools. It is one of the best CMS for start-ups. It provides flexible pricing plans that allow you to find detailed customer purchase histories or stack them together for an all-in-one CRM solution.

Features:

• Lead management tools
• Email campaigns & Automation
• Social media integration
• Sales pipeline management
• Contact relationship management
• Collaboration tools for team
• Offers document management features, including e-signatures

👍 Pros	👎 Cons
It helps you to manage workflows for improved project management.	It offers minimal customization options, which could be an issue for niche start-ups.
Provide simple task workflow automation for recurring tasks in all paid plans.	Steeper learning curve than some other CRMs
Customizable system for data fields, reports, dashboards, and record layouts

Key Specs:

• Free Trial: Free Forever Plan
• Support: Live chat, telephone, online meeting
• Integrations: Gmail, FreshBooks, Mailchimp, CloudTalk, Aircall, etc.
• Supported Operating Systems: Windows, Android, iPhone, Mac, etc.

Visit HubSpot >>

Free Forever Plan

---

6) ClickUp – Best for handling all your CRM needs, from tasks, documents, chats, contacts, goals, etc

ClickUp is a CRM tool that makes it easy to organize and grow your customer relationships by tracking data visualizations in a single place. It helps you to analyze data for customer insights. It helps you to filter and search for a specific task with ease. This CRM for start-up also allows you to assign multiple tasks with just one mouse click.

Features:

• ClickUp helps you organize your accounts in a list, Kanban board, or tables for instant data entry.
• You can assign multiple tasks with a single mouse click.
• It allows you to plan and track tasks.

👍 Pros	👎 Cons
It helps you filter and search for a specific task with ease.	It doesn’t offer good reporting features.
It enables you to import documents from other apps automatically.
Offers a customer-centric approach.

Key Specs:

• Free Trial: Free Forever Plan
• Integrations: Google drive, GitHub, Bitbucket, Cloud, etc.
• Supported platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, etc.

Visit ClickUp >>

Free Forever Plan

---

7) Zendesk

Zendesk is a Sales CRM to enhance sales teams’ productivity, processes, and pipeline visibility. This tool lets you keep track of every interaction with every customer and turn that data into a report. It allows you to make calls, send emails, schedule meetings.

Features:

• It offers sales and marketing tools built for salespeople.
• It enables you to make calls, send emails, schedule meetings, view deal history all from one place.
• You can keep your team focused on the highest value leads.
• It allows you to conduct your marketing campaigns.
• It helps you to manage your sales efficiently
• It helps you to build your own apps using the Zendesk Apps framework.
• Dive deeper into your sales data with pre-built dashboards

👍 Pros	👎 Cons
This customer acquisition management tool allows you to track leads from the moment they enter the sales funnel until they are converted to customers.	Automated Actions.
It helps you to track a lead’s engagement with your business with the help of Activity tracking.
It helps you implement data-driven solutions with comprehensive and accurate reports and analytics.
You can integrate seamlessly with several existing business apps to make lead generation.
It helps you capture important information about the lead, such as contact details, behaviour, and other important details

Key Specs:

• Free Trial: 14 Day Free Trial (No Credit Card Required)
• Supported platforms: Android and iOS
• Deployment Type: Cloud-based and Open API.
• Support: Chat, Support Ticket, Call, and email

Visit Zendesk >>

14 Day Free Trial (No Credit Card Required)

---

8) Act! CRM

An ACT is an all-in-one CRM for sales and marketing tool which allows you to generate repeated clients. It is one of the best Lead Management software for small businesses that allows you to perform advanced contact management and email marketing features.

Features:

• It helps you to keep all your contact & customer details
• Act offers customizable dashboards integrations with Outlook, Gmail, Zoom, and DocuSign.
• You can unlock the full potential of Act! with Custom Tables! Manage detailed
• Optimize methods you and your team communicate with prospects and customers
• It helps you to generate repeat clients and build even stronger relationships.
• Supported platforms: Android and iOS apps

👍 Pros	👎 Cons
WYSIWYG email editor	Steep learning curve
Email deliverability reporting	Many routine tasks present significant difficulties
Eady Data quality management
Marketing Automation Integration
Highly customizable and versatile

Visit Act! CRM >>

14 Days Free Trial

---

9) Keap – Best for sales and marketing automation platform for beginners

Keap is an ideal option for young entrepreneurs looking to spend their time running their business instead of managing customer data in a highly comprehensive but quite complex CRM system. It allows you to trigger your email marketing campaigns based on customer behavior. It also allows you to set up any number of marketing campaigns for new and old customers, with tailored email marketing messages.

Features:

• Offers marketing and sales automation suite that is intuitive and easy to use
• Offers CMS with powerful segmentation, tags, filters & custom views
• Provide a wide range of lead generation tools, including lead scoring, contact forms, and intelligent search
• Engagement CRM tools to nurture leads through the sales funnel, using automated drip emails feature
• Customer data management with email integration and customizable notes

👍 Pros	👎 Cons
Offers marketing and sales automation suite that is intuitive and easy to use	It enables you to access client information from any device.
Offers CMS with powerful segmentation, tags, filters & custom views	This is one of the best CRM for start-ups which offers smart forms to collect client data.
Provide a wide range of lead generation tools, including lead scoring, contact forms, and intelligent search	You can connect the Keap app with Outlook or Gmail.
Engagement CRM tools to nurture leads through the sales funnel, using automated drip emails feature	Easy integration with the programs like PayPal.
Customer data management with email integration and customizable notes

Key Specs:

• Free Trial: 14 days
• Deployment Type: Cloud-based.
• Integrations: Gmail, JotForm, Outlook, WordPress, Zapier, etc.
• Supported platforms: Web-based, Android, and iOS.

Visit Keap >>

14 Days Free Trial

---

10) Streak – Best for start-ups using Google Workspace applications

Streak is a popular CRM system for any startup business. This CRM tool helps you manage the sales pipeline inside Gmail and maintain your business relationship and partners. You can use all of your different data points to filter all the information in your pipeline. It also allows you to automatically share emails, notes, and call logs with your team.

Features:

• You can link together the communication of separate teams
• You can easily maintain data control by using the assign permission roles feature
• Track all your contacts in a pipeline
• Use mail merge to send mass emails
• Easy integration with 900+ platforms

👍 Pros	👎 Cons
Allows deal management directly from Gmail inbox	Lacks reporting features on low-priced plans
Easy Integration with Google Workspace apps	Does not offer phone customer support
You can use mobile apps to stay connected, track calls, and take notes

Key Specs:

• Free Trial: Basic Free Version
• Support: Live chat, telephone, and email.
• Integrations: Full Integration with Gsuite and 2000+ other apps.
• Supported platforms: Android and iOS.

Visit Streak >>

Basic Free Version

---

11) Salesflare – Best for collaborating more efficiently on customer conversations

Salesflare is a CRM tool that intelligently brings the opportunities to the surface for which action is due and shows the information you need to take. It is an intelligent CRM & sales enablement platform used by thousands of small and medium-sized B2B businesses. It helps you to collaborate more efficiently on customer conversations.

Features:

• Workflow management
• Integrate your sales toolset
• Automatic logging of meetings and phone calls.
• Provides a handy document folder per customer.

👍 Pros	👎 Cons
Allows you to track when and how your customers are digitally engaging with you.	It’s a bit basic when it comes to cross-team integration
Collaborate more efficiently on customer conversations.

Key Specs:

• Free Trial: 30 Days
• Deployment Types: SaaS
• Support: Chat and Mail.
• Integration: Gmail, Office 365, iCloud, Zapier, etc.
• Supported platforms: Web, Apple iOS, Android, Mobile Web

Visit Salesflare >>

30 Days Free Trial

---

12) Close – Best for centralized lead generation and sales pipeline

Close is a CRM tool for starting up to manage your relationships with leads and customers. It offers impressive sales automation features which can help nearly any lead generation or sales process. This CRM software helps you centralize much of your lead generation and sales pipeline and organizes your entire team.

Features:

• It provides the feature for HTML customization so you can easily brand your campaigns
• It helps you to remain focused on the deals that matter most
• It allows you to schedule your emails to send when you want

👍 Pros	👎 Cons
It helps you to import your leads	A little of a steep learning curve
Intuitive and easy-to-use dashboard	Its free plans offer a minimal number of features.
Send in bulk without any tech stress
You can track your emails, so you will be able to know who opened what
Undo-send feature allows you to fix any errors

Key Specs:

• Free Trial: 14- days
• Integrations: ZapierMailchimp, Zapier, Asana, etc.
• Email Automation: Built-in
• Supported platforms: Web, Mac, and Windows.

Visit Close >>

14 Days Free Trial

---

13) Freshworks

Freshworks helps you accelerate your revenue with context-driven sales, and it helps you grow customer value with integrated sales and support. It is one of the best CRM for start-ups that bring sales and support functionalities together with the Freshdesk Integration.

Features:

• AI-powered Predictive Contact Scoring
• Easy integration with Freshdesk and Slack
• Simple set up and Clean UI
• Contact Lifecycle Stages
• This free crm for startups offers easy to use Contact and Account Management features

👍 Pros	👎 Cons
Offers AI-powered Chatbots to chat with visitors in real-time.	Offers limited dashboard customization capabilities on the free plan.
It enables you to improve seller effectiveness by streamlining your sales process.	Sorting and filtering tasks is less intuitive
It helps you to reduce IT complexity & cost with a comprehensive solution
Allows you to capture visitor information with customizable WebForms

Key Specs:

• Free Trial:21 Days
• Support: Live chat, telephone, and email.
• Integrations:  Gmail, PayPal, Slack, Zapier, Outlook, etc
• Supported platforms: Web, iPhone, and Android.

Visit Freshworks >>

21 Days Free Trial

---

14) Insightly – Best for start-ups that want project management tools within their CRM

Insightly is one of the best CRM for start-ups, which helps you keep all your current and prospective customer data to optimize your productivity. It enables the sales team to establish a relationship with the client, and it allows you to track relevant lead information is possible. This CRM provides a more comprehensive range of marketing tools within your system.

Features:

• Project management capabilities
• Built-in event management tools
• Offers mobile app with business card scanner, data sync, and voice notes
• Allows you to manage projects like these through milestone and task tracking
• It offers the ability to convert opportunities into projects and sync them with your calendar.

👍 Pros	👎 Cons
It enables you to create a multi-step business process with Insightly.	Doesn’t offer live chat support and on-premises deployment.
Allows you to build custom applications for your business.
It enables you to design the dashboard according to your need.

Key Specs:

• Free Trial: Yes
• Support: Email (Phone support costs extra)
• Integrations: Amazon EC2, Ansible, Asana, Bitbucket, Capsule CRM, Cisco, Gmail, Google workspace, HubSpot, etc.
• Supported platforms: Android and iOS.

Visit Insightly >>

Lifetime Free Basic Plan

---

15) Agile CRM – Best for New businesses that want a range of free sales tools

Agile CRM is best for new businesses that want a range of free sales tools. This CRM for start-ups focuses more on lead management and marketing automation. You can manage contacts, track deals, automate calls and voice mails, and much more. It enables you to close more deals through its contact and nurturing analytics. It also includes email and campaign tracking and templates for marketing channels.

Features:

• It lets you view contact data from the client conversation, call, etc.
• It allows you to sync Agile CRM data with Google calendar to help you get instant notifications about upcoming meetings.
• This workflow automation tool helps you track the buyer’s history.
• It allows you to maintain insights with reports and advanced analytics.

👍 Pros	👎 Cons
Use email templates to create attractive emails	Doesn’t provide on-premises deployment.
Add pop-ups and push notifications through web rules	Customer supports only in the English language.
It supports up to 50,000 contacts and companies
You can customize data fields according to the needs of your business

Key Specs:

• Free Trial: Free Basic Version for 10 Users
• Support: Chat and Email.
• Integrations: Shopify, Magneto, Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, Zapier, etc.
• Supported platforms: Web, Android, and iOS.

Visit Agile CRM >>

Free Basic Version for 10 Users

---

16) Copper – Best for robust revenue analytics that offers more visibility

Copper is a CRM tool that captures all your contact details and emails so that you can use them whenever you like. It allows you to add leads, update deals, and create Google Calendar events. It allows you to manage your contact by customizing contact types of categories of business relationships. You can deliver robust revenue analytics that gives you visibility.

Features:

• It allows you to pull data and customer interactions from anywhere
• Automatically in Copper when you begin.
• Offers real-time currency conversions.
• You can access the sales funnel in real time.
• Email Sequences & Drip Campaigns.
• This best crm for startups helps you to build to work seamlessly with G Suite.
• It provides many templates that help you to send emails in bulk.

👍 Pros	👎 Cons
It helps you to integrate it with Google Calendar, Gmail Contacts, Google Docs, and more.	Best suited CRM for you, only if, you are willing to use Google tools full time.
Support for real-time currency conversions.
You can manage your contact by customizing contact types to categories of business relationships.
It provides many templates to send emails in bulk.

Key Specs:

• Free Trial: 14 Day
• Email Automation: Built-in
• Integrations: HubSpot, Mailchimp, Docusign, Quickbooks, Mailchimp, Zendesk, Zapier, Wix, and more.
• Supported platforms: Web, Android, and iOS.

Visit Copper >>

14 Days Free Trial

FAQ:

Best CRM for Startup

Name	Monday	Pipedrive	Zoho	Salesforce
Free Trial	Basic free version	30 Day Free Trial (No Credit Card Required)	15 Day Free Trial (No credit card required)	30 Day Free Trial (No Credit Card Required)
Integrations	Microsoft Teams, Dropbox, Slack, Zapier, Google Drive, etc.	Zapier, Automate.io, Apiway, Microsoft Flow, Xplenty,etc.	Google, Zapier, GitHub, Dropbox.	ActiveCampaign, Zapier, and Docusign.
Supported Platforms	Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, and web.	Windows, Android, iPhone, Mac, Web-Based, etc.	Web, iOS, and Android	Android, Windows, Android, iPhone, Mac, Web-Based, etc.
Link	Learn More	Learn More	Learn More	Learn More