Quick answer
For most small agencies: Pipedrive if you live in a sales pipeline, HubSpot if you want a free tier that stays free and marketing tools in the same place, Zoho if price is the deciding factor. And genuinely, if you have fewer than about 20 active deals, a spreadsheet is still fine and switching too early costs you more than it saves.
Pricing, including the parts that get buried
| CRM | Entry price | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| HubSpot | Free tier, Starter from about $15/seat/mo | Professional jumps to around $100/seat/mo and carries a mandatory onboarding fee reported at $1,500 |
| Pipedrive | Lite from $14/user/mo (annual) | Lite lacks email sync and automation, so most teams realistically start on Growth at $39/user/mo |
| Zoho CRM | Free for up to 3 users, Standard from $14/user/mo (annual) | Cheapest real option. Interface is dated but it does the job |
| Monday CRM | Basic from about $12/seat/mo | Three-seat minimum, so the actual floor is around $36/mo even solo |
Pricing is taken from each vendor's own public pages as of August 2026 and changes often. Check with them directly before deciding.
Two patterns to notice. Advertised entry prices are usually annual-billing rates, so monthly costs more. And the cheapest tier frequently omits the one feature you actually need, which is how a $14 plan becomes a $39 plan.
HubSpot
The free tier is the most generous in the category and does not expire, which makes it the lowest-risk starting point. Unlimited contacts, deal tracking, email integration.
The risk is the upgrade cliff. Automation, lead scoring, and custom reporting sit on Professional, which is around $100 per seat per month plus a reported mandatory $1,500 onboarding fee. That is a different category of spend for a three-person agency.
Pipedrive
The best pure sales CRM at this size. The pipeline view is genuinely good, setup takes under an hour, and reps actually use it, which is the only CRM metric that matters.
Budget for Growth at $39 per user per month rather than the advertised $14, because Lite has no email sync or automation and you will hit that wall quickly.
Zoho CRM
Free for up to three users and $14 per user per month after that. If cost is the deciding factor, this is the answer and there is not much debate.
The interface feels older than the alternatives and the wider Zoho suite can be a maze. Neither of those stops it working.
When you do not need a CRM yet
Under roughly 20 active deals, a spreadsheet with columns for business, contact, last touch, next action, and status will outperform a CRM you have not configured properly.
The signal that you have outgrown it is not deal count, it is forgetting. When you start losing deals because nobody followed up on attempt three, that is the moment a CRM pays for itself.
The part most agencies get backwards
A CRM manages relationships you already have. It does not find anyone. Plenty of small agencies buy one hoping it will fix an empty pipeline, then discover they have bought an expensive place to store the same twelve contacts.
Sort out where prospects come from first. Then buy something to keep track of them.