Do you need a CRM, or is a spreadsheet enough?

A spreadsheet is enough while one person owns it, every lead is on it, and nothing slips. You need a CRM when a second person needs the same list, when follow-ups start to slide, or when a customer’s history lives in three inboxes. Crossing that line costs nothing at first: five free plans in this guide fit one person, and four fit two.

When is a spreadsheet still enough?

Keep the sheet if you can answer yes to all four of these. That is true for more businesses than the software industry suggests, and the money is better spent elsewhere.

• One person updates it. You, or one person you have handed it to. Nobody else needs to edit it on the same day.
• Every lead is on it. When someone asks “did we ever quote them?”, you open the sheet, not your email.
• You know what is due this week. A sort by date, or a weekly look down the list, tells you who to call. Nothing slipped in the last month that the sheet should have caught.
• The notes fit. A cell holds what you need to remember about a customer. You’re not pasting whole email threads into it.

What does a working lead sheet look like?

If you’re staying on a spreadsheet, make it one that can hold the line. A working lead sheet has one row per person and these columns, in this order: name, company, how they found you, what they want, stage (new, quoted, waiting, won, lost), last contact date, next action, next action date, and notes. Nothing else. If a column is empty on most rows, delete it.

Then the weekly pass, which is the part most sheets lack. Pick a fixed half hour, sort by next action date, and work the top of the list until every row dated this week has a next action dated later than today. Rows with no next action get one or get marked lost. That half hour is the whole system. It takes an evening to set up and keeps working as long as one person owns it.

What are the signs a spreadsheet has stopped working?

Check each of these against the last month, from what happened rather than what you intended.

• Two people need it at once. You and a second person both update the list, and rows get overwritten, duplicated, or stale. Version names like “leads-final-v3” are the tell.
• Follow-ups are slipping. A lead went quiet because nobody called back, and you found out when they bought elsewhere. The sheet held the date; nothing made you look at it.
• History is scattered. To answer “where are we with this customer?” you check your inbox, then your partner’s, then a text thread. The sheet has the name but not the story.
• You rebuild the same view every week. Who is waiting on a quote, who is overdue, what is likely to close this month. If you re-sort and re-filter the sheet to get those answers, you’re doing by hand what a pipeline view does on its own.
• You stopped trusting it. You double-check the sheet against your email before you call someone. Once that habit sets in, the sheet is no longer the system; your memory is.

One of these is a nudge. Two or more, in the same month, is the line. Our view is that the second sign, follow-ups slipping, is the one that costs real money, because a lost lead is lost revenue, not lost time.

What does a CRM add that a spreadsheet cannot?

Three things: it reminds you, it shares cleanly, and it keeps the history in one place. A next step with a date surfaces on that day. Two or five people work the same list without overwriting each other, and each change shows who made it. Emails, calls, notes, and quotes attach to the person, so “where are we?” is one screen. A pipeline view shows what is stuck without you building it.

What a CRM does not add is discipline. If follow-ups slip because nobody has time, a tool will show you the slipping more clearly, which helps, but it will not make the calls. Decide first whether the problem is the sheet or the schedule.

The thirty-day test

Take the last thirty days and answer four questions honestly.

1. Did two people need to edit the lead list in the same week?
2. Did a lead go cold because nobody followed up on time?
3. Did you check more than one inbox to answer “where are we with this customer?”
4. Did you rebuild the same sorted or filtered view more than twice?

Zero or one yes: the spreadsheet is enough. Set it up as above and look again in three months. Two yeses: start a free plan this month. Three or four: you’ve already outgrown the sheet, and the slipping is costing you more than a small paid plan would.

What’s the first step, and what does it cost?

Nothing, for most owners reading this page. This guide has five free plans (Zoho sells two CRMs, Zoho CRM and the lighter Bigin, and each has one), and they’re capped mainly by users: Bigin’s stops at 1, HubSpot’s at 2, Capsule’s at 2, Zoho CRM’s at 3, and Freshsales’s at 3. Four publish a limit on how much you can keep: Capsule’s stops at 250 contacts, Bigin’s at 500 records (contacts, companies, pipeline records, activities, products, and notes all count), HubSpot’s at 1,000 contacts, and Zoho CRM’s free edition stores 5,000 records (10 MB) in all, notes included. Freshworks publishes no contact allowance for Freshsales’s free plan, which isn’t the same as unlimited, so confirm it inside the account before a big import. A business with a few years of customers can pass Capsule’s or Bigin’s on import, and a list in the thousands can pass HubSpot’s. Pipedrive and Less Annoying CRM have no free plan; both offer a trial with no card, and then you pay from the first month.

Pick by situation:

• You alone: all five free plans fit. Pick the one whose cap you’ll hit last. Check your import against the four published data allowances: Capsule’s free plan stops at 250 contacts; Bigin’s at 500 records, where each contact, company, and note counts as one, so a list of a few hundred contacts with their companies can pass it; HubSpot’s at 1,000 contacts; and Zoho CRM’s stores 5,000 records (10 MB) in all. Freshsales’s free plan has no published contact allowance, so confirm it inside the account first.
• You and one other person: four fit, since Bigin’s free edition ends at a second user. A large contact list still rules out Capsule’s, and a list over HubSpot’s contact cap (1,000 contacts) rules out HubSpot’s too.
• Three of you sharing one list: Zoho CRM’s or Freshsales’s free plan. HubSpot’s and Capsule’s have already ended at a third user and Bigin’s at a second, so the first month there is a paid one.
• You’d rather pay a little than hit a cap: three people cost $27 to $72 a month, and the lowest paid bill is Bigin Express (by Zoho) at $27 a month. The cost by team size page shows every tool at one, three, five, and ten.

Say you run a two-person design studio: you sell, your partner delivers, and you have about three hundred past and current clients in the sheet. Four free plans fit two people (Bigin’s is for one), and Capsule’s contact cap rules it out on import, so you’re choosing among three. If a third person is likely to join the pipeline within the year, start on Zoho CRM’s or Freshsales’s free plan and the bill stays at nothing; start on HubSpot’s and the third seat makes it $60 a month at the regular price ($30 a month for new customers, for a limited time), unless you move then.

What not to pay for yet: automation (you don’t have the volume), a higher plan for a feature you haven’t missed, and a yearly commitment before you’ve used the tool through one full sales cycle. The free-plan page compares what ends each free plan, and the solo seller page answers the one-person case on its own.

What to set up first, once you cross the line

Do these in order, and stop when the next one isn’t a problem yet.

1. Import the sheet. One row per person, the columns above. Fix the sheet before the import, not after.
2. Set a next action on every open row. This is the reminder that fires; without it the CRM is a slower spreadsheet.
3. Connect one inbox, the one the leads land in, if your plan includes it; if not, log the important emails by hand. History starts collecting from that day.
4. Build one pipeline with the same stages your sheet used. Don’t invent new ones yet.
5. Add the second person and agree who owns each row.
6. Keep the weekly pass. Same half hour, now sorted by next action in the tool.

Nothing else for the first month. Reports, automations, and integrations come after you know which cap you’ll hit first.

Your next step

If you’re at two yeses or more, open a free plan this week and import the sheet the same evening, and pick it by the cap you’ll hit last. If there are three of you, or a third person is likely to join within the year, that’s Zoho CRM’s or Freshsales’s free plan, the two that fit three: start Zoho CRM’s free plan or start Freshsales’s. If you’ll stay at two, any of four fits, and on your own Bigin’s free edition is a fifth; when a free CRM plan is enough shows which cap ends each one. If you’re at one yes or none, set up the lead sheet above and the weekly pass, and put a note in your calendar to run the thirty-day test again in three months.