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What the seat price leaves out

The per-seat price on a CRM pricing page is a floor. Contact limits, add-ons, and tax are stated in the fine print or not at all, so this site adds only the fees a vendor calls required and prints everything else as a condition.

Why is the seat price only a floor?

Because the vendors say so in their own footnotes. Copper's page reads "Prices are in USD and don't include taxes and fees where applicable" (checked 2026-08-25). Less Annoying CRM lists "$15 per user per month" plus applicable tax (checked 2026-08-25). The page served for monday CRM's UK row states "Prices do not include tax" (checked 2026-08-25). None of these pages puts a number on the tax, so neither do I.

The same applies to the things a seat does not include. A seat is a login. Whether that login can hold 10,000 records or 250,000, and whether the AI features cost extra, is written somewhere else on the page. The figures in the provider list are built from the seat price and the fees a vendor labels required, and nothing more. What a CRM costs explains the formula; this article covers what the formula leaves out on purpose.

What contact limits do the vendors state?

Several vendors tie the seat price to a cap on contacts or records, and the wording differs from page to page. The table shows the wording as it appears in the notes I recorded, quoted without interpretation.

ProviderPlanLimit as stated on the vendor's page
NimbleNimble"25,000 contact records"
CapsuleStarter / Growth / Advanced"30,000 Contacts" / "60,000 Contacts" / "120,000 Contacts"
monday CRMBasic / Standard / Pro"1,000 active contacts & deals" / "10,000 active contacts & deals" / "100,000 active contacts & deals"
InsightlyPlus / Professional / EnterpriseRecords "100,000" / "250,000" / "500,000"
KeapKeap"Enter your desired number of contacts at the top of the page to see specific prices"

^ Source: each vendor's own pricing page as listed in Sources, checked 2026-08-25. monday CRM's caps are the wording on the page served for the UK row; the US row records no cap. Capsule's seat prices are drawn by script and were read in a browser; the contact tiers are in the page text.

Four of these are simple caps. Keap's is different in kind. Keap publishes "$299/mo" with 2 users included and "$39/month per user" beyond that, but the page asks you to enter a contact count before it shows a specific price (checked 2026-08-25). That means the figure on Keap's page is a starting point for the smallest contact band, and a team with a larger list will see a different number on the vendor's own page.

Bigin by Zoho states "500 records" on its free plan (checked 2026-08-25). Its paid plans state "50,000", "100,000", and "1,000,000" records for Express, Premier, and Bigin 360 (checked 2026-08-25), so a list above 50,000 moves you off the $7 plan. Close Solo lists "10,000 leads" and Nutshell Foundation lists "100 open leads" (checked 2026-08-25). I did not put these two in the table because a lead and a contact are not the same object, and I cannot confirm from the pages how each vendor counts them.

Which add-ons are mentioned but not priced?

Most are not priced. Salesforce's US page says "AI can be added to Enterprise and above" without a figure next to it (checked 2026-08-25). Keap lists implementation services as required but gives no amount in the note I recorded, and adds "Ask us about current promotional offers". Workbooks lists two implementation options, "SelfStart: £2100" and "JumpStart for Sales: £3675", and does not state whether either one is mandatory (checked 2026-08-25).

An add-on with a stated price but no stated obligation gets the same treatment as one with no price. It goes into the conditions on the provider's page, and it stays out of the three-year figure. Insightly is the clearest case. Its page lists "Guided product onboarding –required: $1,500", but only for the All-in-One bundle; the standalone CRM plans list no onboarding fee (checked 2026-08-25). So the $1,500 does not touch the Plus, Professional, or Enterprise figures in the table.

How does a required fee get in when an add-on stays out?

The rule is one line: a fee is added when the vendor's page calls it required and states the amount. HubSpot Sales Hub Professional meets both tests. Its page says "Cost shown does not include the required, one-time Professional Onboarding for a fee of $1,500" (checked 2026-08-25). The seat price is $90 per month on annual billing.

$90 × 10 seats × 36 months = $32,400 $32,400 + $1,500 required onboarding = $33,900 $33,900 ÷ (10 seats × 36 months) = $94.17 per seat per month

The three-year cost for ten seats is $33,900. Compare Salesforce Enterprise at $175 per user per month, billed annually (checked 2026-08-25). Its page mentions AI as an addition but prices nothing, so the figure stays at $175 × 10 × 36 = $63,000 with no add-on line. If you want AI on that plan, the vendor's own page is the only place the number exists. The calculator lets you enter your own seat count and any add-on you have been quoted, and shows the arithmetic the same way.

The distinction matters more than it looks. Article 01 covers why the annual price is the one on the card and what a minimum seat count does to a small team. Both are mandatory conditions with a stated number, so both are inside the figure. An optional add-on with a stated number is outside it. An unpriced add-on is outside it and unknowable from the page.

What about tax on US and UK pages?

Two US pages, Copper and Less Annoying CRM, say in a footnote that tax is extra; the rest say nothing about tax either way (checked 2026-08-25). UK pages are a separate problem, because several readable ones state a VAT basis without a GBP price. Pipedrive's en-gb page shows US dollar figures with the line "Prices are VAT exclusive" (checked 2026-08-25). OnePageCRM's page, read from a UK address, shows "$9.95" per user per month on annual billing and states "Our prices do not include VAT" (checked 2026-08-25).

Zoho's global page, which our checker received in place of the UK URL, states "Local taxes (VAT, GST, etc.) will be charged in addition to the prices mentioned" (checked 2026-08-25). Bigin's global page carries the same sentence. The only UK row with a GBP seat price to our checker was Salesforce UK, at "£ 20 GBP/User/Month" for Starter Suite and up to "£ 440 GBP/User/Month" for Agentforce 1 Sales (checked 2026-08-25). Whether those are VAT inclusive or exclusive is not stated on the provider's published page (checked 2026-08-25), and the row says so.

Why print a floor instead of an estimate?

Because an estimate needs a number I do not have. A guess at your tax rate, your contact count, or your add-on bill would have to be invented, and this site prints nothing that is not on a dated vendor page. The Method page gives the formula in full. A floor with its conditions listed is a figure you can check; an estimate is a figure you have to trust.

Sites that rank CRMs show the seat price on its own, which is the same floor without the conditions. Article 06 goes through the monthly-billing surcharge, the other condition that sits outside the card price.

Where the answer changes

Who this article is not for

If you already have a written quote from a vendor with tax, contacts, and add-ons itemized, this article will not help you. That quote is more specific than any published page, and the published page is all this site reads. Check the quote against the required-fee wording on the vendor's page and stop there.

Sources

How this article was made. Written by Kaz, an independent publisher with no commercial relationship with the companies named unless listed on the Disclosure page. All figures come from the companies' own published documentation or regulator publications; each figure carries the date it was last checked. I have not used these products, and nothing here is a personal test result. The arithmetic is shown so you can recalculate with your own numbers. Found an error? Use the contact form; corrections are logged on the Editorial policy page.

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Written by Kaz (pen name). Figures are copied from providers' published pricing pages on the dates shown. We have not used these products. Corrections: contact form.