Looking for a simple CRM? Here’s your list of the top 10 simple and affordable CRM systems perfect for startups and solo entrepreneurs.
The Top 10 Simple CRM Systems for Startups & Solopreneurs of 2024
Your name is Joe.
Congratulations, Joe, you’ve started your own company. You’re a one-person sales team, customer support team, and hr/accounting/billing/IT department.
You’re a solopreneur — and you wear a lot of hats.
You need sales, so you create a spreadsheet with family and friends to contact. You ask yourself: “Do I need a CRM system?” You think: “I don’t have time, and money is tight.”
You start networking and develop a pipeline of leads, sales, and customers. Your book of business grows, and so does your spreadsheet.
You hire your brother, Jim. On his first day, he incorrectly saves your spreadsheet. You start missing opportunities to convert leads and upsell customers. You think, “Okay, I need a simple CRM system that’s affordable and easy to set up.”
“I need a simple CRM that’s affordable and easy to set up”
Every entrepreneur
Jim’s not good with Excel, but he’s a mean Googler. After some research, he sends you a list of the simplest CRM systems on the market, perfect for your needs and budget. Business improves. You give Jim a raise.
Here is Jim’s list of simple CRM systems:
1. Less Annoying CRM
Less Annoying CRM is your customer relationship management system when you know what you’re doing and understand what you need. If you’re a busy entrepreneur who doesn’t have time for bells and whistles, Less Annoying CRM is the right choice. It’s lean, mean, and has the features needed to get more customers quickly.
Why it’s awesome:
- Customize Without the Hassle: Get the power to customize your CRM easily, without needing to be a tech wizard. And if you need help, just call us – setting up is a breeze!
- All-in-One Contact Management: Store and access all contact details, tasks, and notes on one screen with a simple search feature.
- Integrated Calendar and Tasks: Streamline work with an in-built calendar and tasks module, shareable with team members and syncable with Google Calendar.
- Lead Tracking Made Simple: Keep a current list of all leads, including their status, contact info, and recent interactions for effective follow-up.
- Team Collaboration Tools: Add team members easily at a low cost, with customizable access and individual logins for seamless teamwork.
- User-Friendly Customization: Customize the CRM effortlessly, with a straightforward setup and readily available support for any queries.
How much does it cost?
Their pricing is like their CRM, simple and less annoying. Unlimited contacts, no commitment. Just $15/user per month.
2. Nimble
Awarded PC Magazine’s “Editors’ Choice,” Nimble is a simple, web-based platform that combines your communication, calendar, contacts, collaboration, and more to build easy-to-navigate functionality for your business. Nimble is designed to help you build stronger customer relationships by providing better customer insights and actionable data.
Why it’s awesome
- Nimble Relationship Building: Nimble combines contacts, calendars, and emails for relationship building, compatible with Gmail, Outlook, or LinkedIn with a customizable dashboard.
- Personalized Scale Communications: Grow your business with Nimble’s custom web forms and group messaging, streamlining processes with easy-to-use workflows and automations.
- Google Workspace & Microsoft 365: Seamlessly integrate your contacts, emails, and calendars with Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 into Nimble’s smart CRM.
- Speeds Up Sales: Quickly qualify leads and manage sales with Nimble’s easy lead qualification, customizable pipelines, and in-depth sales reporting.
How much does it cost?
Pricing is $29.90/user per month.
3. Pipeline
Pipeline makes your sales pipeline pop onscreen. It gives you easy-to-manage data, provides a daily snapshot, and lets you micromanage every deal the way you want. It even provides real-time status updates and information for each deal, making your life easier and your business more successful.
Why it’s awesome
- Better Pipeline Management: Access every detail of your sales pipelines easily, with visibility when needed and discretion when not.
- Customizable Deal List: View all deals in a single, customizable list with filters to find exactly what you need quickly.
- Quick Start Deal Management: Set up in just 2 minutes, with deal profiles to streamline project tracking and team collaboration.
- Centralized Decision-Maker Info: Find all conversations and tasks related to a deal in one convenient location.
How much does it cost?
Pipeline starts at just $29/user per month.
4. Zoho
Zoho CRM helps businesses improve existing customer relationships and acquire new customers faster. It combines your sales, marketing, and customer support activities and streamlines your process, procedures, and people in one easy-to-use platform.
Why it’s awesome
- Better Customer Relationships: Engage with customers using omni-channel communication, segmentation, and predictive intelligence for personalized experiences that foster loyalty.
- Maximized Productivity: Break the data entry myth and automate workflows, processes, and campaigns for a more relationship-focused, efficient work experience.
- Data-Driven: Utilize Zoho CRM’s advanced analytics for informed decision-making, with custom reports, real-time operation tracking, and AI-powered predictions.
- Customizable & Scalable: Easily manage, customize, and scale Zoho CRM with a user-friendly admin panel, advanced customization options, and an extendable developer platform.
How much does it cost?
Zoho starts at just $20/user per month.
5. Insightly
If your customers feel poorly treated, they’ll leave you. And that’s where Insightly comes in. It gives you everything you need to build a complete view of your customers across the entire buying experience and deliver precisely what they want — from the first “hello” and beyond.
Why it’s awesome
- Modern CRM: Insightly CRM offers powerful, affordable cloud-based features perfect for fast-growing companies.
- Better Value: Enjoy modern CRM capabilities without the high costs associated with enterprise-level solutions.
- Easily Scalable: Designed to scale with your business, ensuring you’ll never outgrow its capabilities.
- User-Friendly: Simple to adopt and use daily, making it a CRM solution your teams will love.
- Sales Pipeline Centric: Convert leads to opportunities and actively manage each stage from opportunity to close, accelerating business growth.
- Sales Pipeline & Lead Management: Act on leads efficiently, prioritize effectively with your team, and maintain a real-time view of each deal’s status.
- Better Lead Tracking: Drive your sales process with efficient deal tracking and management, gaining insights to propel your business forward in customizable pipelines.
- Increased Productivity: Support your teams with intuitive, automated, scalable processes to close deals and deliver services more efficiently.
How much does it cost?
Pricing starts at $29/user per month.
6. Close
Close is the best CRM for small business owners who want to close more deals. And if you’re a remote team that needs to scale without overpaying for complicated enterprise sales software, you’ve found the right tool. What makes Close different? It’s a powerful CRM simplified.
Why it’s awesome
- Fast & Easy Setup: Get started with Close in minutes, offering a quick, hassle-free onboarding process ideal for small teams or solo entrepreneurs.
- All-in-One Selling: Integrates essential tools like calling, SMS, Zoom, email, and calendar into one application, eliminating the need for multiple apps and simplifying daily tasks.
- Calling & SMS Features: Built-in VoIP and SMS, along with automation tools like Power Dialer and Predictive Dialer, streamline outreach, making it easier to connect with leads and customers.
- Email & Calendar Sync: Sync your email and calendar directly with Close, allowing you to manage all your communications and scheduling in one centralized place.
- Reporting & Insights: Gain valuable insights into your sales process with customizable reports and dashboards, helping you make informed decisions and grow your business effectively.
How much does it cost?
Pricing starts at $59/user per month.
7. Salesflare
Keeping track of all your customers’ details can be a headache. No need to stress over remembering phone numbers, email addresses, or where they live. And forget about hunting down their LinkedIn profiles. Salesflare makes it easy for you. It collects all this info from emails, email signatures, social media, and more. The best part? It all magically shows up in your address book without you having to lift a finger. It’s that simple.
Why It’s Awesome:
- Automated Address Book: Turn your email inbox and calendar into a super-smart address book that automatically knows everyone you’re dealing with.
- Data Enrichment: Your contacts get an instant upgrade with extra info pulled from public sources and their email signatures, all by itself!
- Email, Meeting & Call Sync: Keep track of your chats, meetings, and calls with leads on easy timelines, helping you follow up like a pro.
- Account & Contact Suggestions: Get handy hints about who to add to your contacts, so you don’t have to keep it all in your head.
- Email Sequences: Reach out to your leads and customers in a friendly way, at scale, and never miss a beat until you connect.
How Much Does It Cost?
Pricing starts at $35/user per month.
8. Nutshell
Nutshell is a crazy powerful tool that can work for businesses ranging from one-person to global teams.
The platform’s cloud-based software makes it easy for anyone on your team to update project info virtually. This option is beneficial for salespeople.
Why it’s awesome
- Contact Management: Quickly access up-to-date information on every person and business you interact with, plus get free data import from spreadsheets or another CRM.
- Pipeline Management: Nutshell offers versatile sales tracking, allowing sales reps to view, manage, and prioritize leads effectively, with guidance and templates for building your pipeline.
- Sales Automation: Automate routine tasks like lead assignment, advancement, and task reminders, freeing up time to focus on building customer relationships.
- Marketing & Email Automation: Combine sales and marketing seamlessly with webforms, automated email sequences, and in-CRM email marketing tools to enhance engagement and response rates.
- Extensive Integrations: Connect Nutshell with your existing tech stack without significant additional costs, using native integrations, Zapier, and AppConnect for optimal flexibility.
How much does it cost?
Pricing starts at $19/user per month.
9. noCRM
Unlike other CRMs focused on data collection and management, noCRM.io is an action-based lead management tool designed to help your sales team with their primary goal: convert prospects into customers.
Why it’s awesome
- Easy Lead Management: Quickly turn leads into customers with noCRM.io’s user-friendly system. Add leads from LinkedIn or business cards and start working on them immediately.
- Designed for Small Businesses: Ideal for small teams, noCRM.io is simple to use with no software installation needed. Access your sales tools anytime, anywhere.
- Boost Sales: Increase your deal closing rates with clear next steps for each lead. Improve team performance with visual pipelines and essential sales reports.
How much does it cost?
Pricing starts at $27/per user per month.
10. OnePageCRM
With user experience in mind, OnePageCRM is a sales-focused CRM. Its features focus on lead capturing, sales management, and sales forecasting using a unique GTD-based (Get Things Done) design.
With OnePageCRM, you’ll always know what needs to be done next. You don’t have to try and memorize everything about a prospect. OnePageCRM does it for you.
No more stress and feeling overwhelmed.
Why is it awesome?
- Never Miss a Follow-Up: Keep track of who to contact next with handy reminders, so you always know what to do and when.
- All Your Client Info in One Spot: See everything about your clients on one easy-to-scroll page, like their contact details, what you last talked about, and your email chats.
- Emails Made Easy: Link your email with OnePageCRM and find sales emails quickly. Plus, you’ll know when someone reads your email, and you can use cool email templates too.
- Save Time on Repetitive Stuff: Let the CRM do the boring tasks for you, like organizing leads and remembering details, so you can focus more on your business.
- See Your Sales Grow on a Board: Visualize your sales journey on a board that you can change to fit your style, helping you see where you’re winning and what to do next.
How much does it cost?
Pricing starts at $29/per user per month.
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