Sales pipeline CRM · United States

Nutshell vs SugarCRM (Sugar Sell): the cost per seat, not the headline

At ten seats over three years, Nutshell costs $7.00 per seat per month and the other costs $88.50 — a difference of $29,340 across the term for a ten-seat team.

The published figures are $7.00 and $59.00, the same order as the three-year figures.

Side by side

Both columns use the cheapest plan each provider publishes for this market, on the billing basis the provider advertises.

Cheapest published plan on each side, United States pricing. Sources: Nutshell checked 2026-08-25 and SugarCRM (Sugar Sell) checked 2026-08-25.
	Nutshell	SugarCRM (Sugar Sell)
Cheapest published plan	Foundation	Standard
Published price	$7.00	$59.00
On	annual billing	annual billing
Monthly billing	$13.00	none offered
Minimum seats	none stated	15
Mandatory onboarding fee	none stated	none stated
Effective / seat at 1 seat	$7.00	$885.00
Effective / seat at 3 seats	$7.00	$295.00
Effective / seat at 5 seats	$7.00	$177.00
Effective / seat at 10 seats	$7.00	$88.50
Effective / seat at 25 seats	$7.00	$59.00
Effective / seat at 50 seats	$7.00	$59.00
Three-year cost at 10 seats	$2,520	$31,860
Owner	not confirmed	not confirmed

How that is worked out

seats billed = max(seats you have, minimum seats the plan requires) plan per month = published seat price x seats billed three-year cost = plan per month x 36 + mandatory onboarding fee effective per seat = three-year cost / (36 x seats you have) monthly-billing gap = monthly-billing price / annual-billing price

Nothing else is added. Paid add-ons, extra contact capacity, sales tax and VAT are not in any figure on this site, because they depend on choices the pricing page does not price for you. Where a provider makes an onboarding fee mandatory and publishes the amount, it is added once. Every figure here is a floor. The full method is at Method.

Where does the answer change?

The ranking above holds only under the conditions listed here.

Size does not change the ranking here. Nutshell is cheaper per seat at every size we compute, so the question is not how big you are.
Only one of these publishes a monthly-billing rate. Nutshell does; SugarCRM (Sugar Sell) does not, so what monthly billing costs there is not knowable from its page.
Do not decide yet if $29,340 over three years is less than what moving your records would cost you, which neither provider publishes; paid add-ons and contact capacity are not in either figure and could change the order.

Who this is not for

This compares published prices and nothing else. It is not a judgment about features, integrations or support, and neither product has been used by us. If the two prices are close, this page will not decide it for you and should not.

Sources

Nutshell pricing page. checked 2026-08-25
SugarCRM (Sugar Sell) pricing page. checked 2026-08-25

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.