Free CRM plans compared: 1 to 3 users, 250 to 50,000 records, and $252 to $1,764 in year one when a team of 3 outgrows them
Last updated 2026-10-03. Seven vendors' pricing pages and Zoho's pricing data file were read that day; Capsule's prices are drawn by script and its monthly price could not be read, so that cell is empty.
Free-plan limits and the first paid plan (alphabetical; a limits table, not a ranking)
| Vendor | Free users | Records or contacts | Other stated cap | First paid plan | Per seat per month, annual / monthly | 3 people, year one, annual / monthly billing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attio | up to 3 seats | 50,000 records | up to 3 objects; 200 emails a month; 50 GB | Plus (capped at 10 seats) | $35 / $44 | $1,260 / $1,584 |
| Bigin by Zoho | 1 user | 500 records | single pipeline | Express | $7 / $9 | $252 / $324 |
| Capsule | 2 users | 250 contacts | 1 sales pipeline; 5 custom fields | Starter | $18 / not read | $648 / not computed |
| Freshsales | up to 3 users | not stated | not stated | Growth | $9 / $11 | $324 / $396 |
| HubSpot | 2 users | 1,000 contacts | HubSpot branding on the free plan | Starter | $7 / $20 | $252 / $720 |
| Salesforce Free Suite | 2 user licenses | not stated | log in at least once every 60 days; 100 emails a month | Starter Suite | $25 / $25 | $900 / $900 |
| Streak | free plan, user cap not stated | no pipelines (email tools only) | mail merge 50 a day | Pro | $49 / $59 | $1,764 / $2,124 |
| Zoho CRM | 3 users | 5,000 records | 1 GB storage; automation for up to 5 tasks | Standard | $14 / $20 | $504 / $720 |
Scroll sideways on a phone.
Table note: prices are per seat per month as advertised on the vendor's page, "annual" meaning billed annually. The last column is 3 seats x price x 12, with all three people on the first paid plan; no add-ons, tax or onboarding are inside it, so every figure is a floor. Salesforce shows one figure for "billed monthly or annually". Records and contacts are different units and are not counted alike.
See HubSpot pricing See Zoho CRM pricing See Bigin pricing See Freshsales pricing See Salesforce pricing See Capsule pricing See Attio pricing
Short version
- User caps: Zoho CRM (3), Freshsales (up to three) and Attio (up to 3 seats) fit a team of three on day one. HubSpot, Salesforce and Capsule stop at 2, Bigin at 1.
- Record caps run from 250 contacts (Capsule) through 500 (Bigin), 1,000 (HubSpot) and 5,000 (Zoho) to 50,000 (Attio). Freshsales and Salesforce state none on the pages we read.
- The first paid seat costs $7 a month billed annually at HubSpot Starter and Bigin Express, and $49 at Streak Pro.
- Monthly billing moves the HubSpot figure most: $20 against $7 is 2.86 times. Salesforce is the only one with no gap.
- Arithmetic, once: Attio Plus, 3 seats x $35 x 12 = $1,260 billed annually; 3 x $44 x 12 = $1,584 billed monthly.
Which free plans seat a team of three?
Only the Zoho, Freshsales and Attio plans do. A three-person team on HubSpot's free tools or Salesforce's Free Suite is already over the cap by one license, and the Bigin plan is a single login. For HubSpot, Salesforce, Capsule and Bigin the year-one column is therefore a day-one cost for a team of three; for Zoho, Freshsales and Attio it applies once a record cap or a feature is outgrown.
Two limits are conditions rather than counts. Salesforce keeps its free suite "completely free with no expiration date, as long as you log in at least once every 60 days". Streak's free plan is email tooling, and the page says it "does not include CRM pipelines", so it is in the table as the price of the paid tier, not as a free CRM. How user and record caps work in practice is covered in article-18, and whether a ten-person company needs to pay at all in article-17. HubSpot's branding on the free plan (removed from Starter) is described there and not repeated here.
What does the first paid seat cost?
The paid-seat prices are copied from each page. HubSpot Starter is $7 billed annually and $20 billed monthly; Zoho Standard $14 and $20 (Zoho's page opened in rupees, so the dollar figures come from the data file the page itself loads); Bigin Express $7 and $9; Freshsales Growth $9 and $11; Salesforce Starter Suite $25 either way; Attio Plus $35 and $44; Streak Pro $49 and $59. Capsule Starter is $18 billed annually, and no monthly figure could be read.
Two plan edges matter for the year-one column. Attio Plus allows up to 10 seats, so an eleventh seat means Pro at $79 billed annually or $99 billed monthly. Zoho and Bigin state that local taxes (VAT, GST and similar) are charged on top of the listed prices. For why monthly and annual prices differ by up to 2.86 times across the market, see article-06.
What do these pages not say?
- Freshsales: the free page says "up to three users" and gives no record limit.
- Salesforce Free Suite: 2 user licenses and 100 emails a month are stated; a record limit is not.
- Streak: the free plan's user cap is not stated.
- Minimum seats on the first paid plan: not stated by any of the eight vendors.
- HubSpot's "Starts at $7" does not say whether it is a promotional rate.
- Capsule: the monthly price was not readable on 2026-10-03.
Odoo is left out: none of the pages and data files behind this article state an Odoo free plan. For the cheapest published options by team size, see best/us-sales-crm-1-4; for solo use, article-44; to enter your own seat count, use the calculator.
Continue with the calculator or a comparison using the same published-price method.
Calculate your team costCompare published plans for this team sizeRead the related pricing guideSources
- https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/sales
- https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/crm
- https://www.hubspot.com/products/crm
- https://www.zoho.com/crm/free-crm.html
- https://www.zoho.com/crm/zohocrm-pricing.html
- https://www.zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/json/pricing/crm-pricing-val.json
- https://www.bigin.com/pricing.html
- https://www.freshworks.com/crm/pricing/
- https://www.freshworks.com/crm/software/free/
- https://www.salesforce.com/sales/pricing/
- https://www.salesforce.com/crm/free-crm/
- https://capsulecrm.com/pricing/
- https://attio.com/pricing
- https://www.streak.com/pricing
Written by Kaz (pen name). Figures are copied from the vendors' published pricing pages on the dates shown. We have not used these products. Affiliate disclosure: vendor links on this site are currently untracked; see the disclosure page.
Written by Kaz (pen name). Published September 27, 2026. The figures above come from the vendor and review-site pages listed under Sources. We have not used these products. Corrections: contact form.