CRM for small business: free, paid or custom?

In plenty of small businesses, customer records live in a spreadsheet, the owner's inbox and the salesperson's WhatsApp. That works until someone goes on holiday, a customer calls back and nobody knows what was promised, or a quote goes out and nobody follows up. A CRM fixes exactly that. Below is how to choose between a free one, a paid one and one built for you, with prices as of October 2026.

What a CRM is

CRM stands for customer relationship management: the software where you keep track of who your customers are, what they asked for, which quote they got, when to call them back and what they bought. It usually has:

• a record for each customer, with contact details and full history;
• a deal pipeline (enquiries, quotes, negotiations) in stages, like a board with columns;
• tasks and reminders: "call X on Thursday";
• email integration, so messages show up on the customer's record;
• reports: how many quotes, how many won, where customers come from.

When you need one

The usual signs:

• several people deal with the same customers and pass details around by text;
• quotes go out and nobody follows up;
• you don't know which channel customers come from (website, referrals, Google);
• a returning customer calls and nobody can find what was discussed;
• customer data lives on employees' personal phones.

For one person with a few dozen customers, a well-kept spreadsheet can do. Once two or three people are selling, or several quotes go out each week, a CRM makes the difference.

Free CRMs

Free plans are a good way to find out whether your team will actually use a CRM. The limits show up in automations, reporting and the number of users.

Paid CRMs: what they cost

Per user per month, billed annually, before tax, checked on 18 October 2026:

Pipedrive and Zoho cost more on monthly billing, and prices vary by currency. HubSpot Starter starts at $20 per seat per month, with temporary discounts for new customers.

Setup (importing data, configuring stages, connecting email and your website, training) is extra if someone else does it.

A custom CRM

A CRM built for you is a web app: it runs in the browser, each person has an account, and it has exactly the fields and stages you need. It makes sense when:

• your process doesn't fit a standard tool: quotes with dozens of options, jobs in stages, recurring orders;
• you already pay for several tools that don't connect: CRM, quoting, scheduling, invoicing;
• your headcount makes per-user pricing expensive;
• you want the data in your hands, with no per-user fee.

It costs more upfront. One April 2026 guide puts a simple internal tool at $12,000–$30,000, and the price grows with user roles, integrations and reports. The ranges, with sources, are in How much does a web app cost.

There's a lot of talk about building your own CRM "with AI". AI coding tools can produce a prototype fast, and that's useful for working out what you want. A CRM your team relies on daily, holding customer data, still needs someone responsible for security, backups, privacy rules and changes after launch.

What any CRM should have

1. Import and export in an open format (CSV, Excel), so you're never locked in.
2. Email integration and, ideally, a connection to your website form.
3. A mobile app or pages that work on a phone.
4. Roles: who sees what, especially prices and customer data.
5. Follow-up reminders, so no quote goes unanswered.
6. Privacy: a lawful basis for each contact, correction and deletion on request, a data processing agreement with the vendor, and data storage that fits the laws your customers live under.

How to choose

• One to three people, standard needs: Zoho Free or HubSpot's free CRM. See whether the team uses it.
• A sales team of 3⁠–⁠15: Pipedrive or Zoho on a paid plan; do the three-year maths.
• A process unlike anyone else's, or many tools that don't connect: a custom CRM. How to compare the two over three years is in custom software vs off-the-shelf.
• Leads coming from your website: any of the above, connected to the form so no enquiry gets lost. What that looks like: AI automation examples for small business.

We build CRMs as web apps around the way you work, and connect website forms to the CRM you already use. After the first conversation you get in writing what it would include, what it costs and how long it takes, before any work starts. Details on our web development page.