Do you need a full CRM, or just a way to track leads?

Most owner-run teams need a lead tracker, not a full CRM. A lead tracker is a pipeline with reminders: every lead in one place, a dated next step on each, and the history of what was said. A full CRM adds the parts that act without you: follow-up emails that send on a schedule, automation, marketing email, and forecasts. Those earn their keep for a team with a sales manager and more leads than people to chase them. The test is one question: do you need the tool to send things for you? If not, track leads on a free plan or a light paid one, and keep the money.

What does tracking leads actually take?

Four things, and for most small teams nothing else:

1. One list of everyone you’re talking to, with where each one stands: new, quoted, waiting, won, lost.
2. A dated next step on every open lead, and a reminder the day it’s due.
3. The history on each person: notes, the emails that matter, what you quoted.
4. A pipeline view, so you can see what’s stuck without building a report.

That’s a lead tracker. Notice what it doesn’t do: it doesn’t send anything on its own. You still write the follow-up; the tool makes sure you write it on the right day. If a spreadsheet and your calendar already do those four, you may not need software yet (CRM or spreadsheet? has the test). If they don’t, a free plan is the next step, and for most small teams it stays the right one for a while.

What does a full CRM add, and who uses it?

The parts that act for you, and they sit on higher plans or in bundles. Here’s where each one starts.

• Sequences: a series of follow-up emails that go out on a schedule until the lead replies. HubSpot puts them on Professional, Freshsales on Pro, and Pipedrive on Growth (its “nurturing sequences”).
• Automation that does the work: rules that move a deal, create a task, or send a notification when something happens. Capsule’s workflow automations start on Growth. Bigin’s free edition allows 3 automations and Express 30. HubSpot’s Starter has a limited set of workflows with restricted triggers, and Professional has full automation. Less Annoying CRM’s automations are shortcuts that add tasks, update a pipeline, or save notes when a contact’s status changes or a form comes in.
• Marketing email: newsletters and campaigns to a whole list. Pipedrive sells it as the Campaigns add-on and Capsule as a Marketing add-on. Bigin Express and Zoho CRM’s Standard plan include mass emails. HubSpot’s Starter is a bundle across its marketing, sales, service, content, and data tools.
• Forecasting and deeper reports: what’s likely to close and when. HubSpot puts forecasting on Professional, Zoho CRM on Standard, and Capsule’s advanced sales reporting is on Growth.

Who uses all that? A team where one person manages others who sell, or a business with more leads than its people can follow up by hand. Our view is that the signal is volume, not headcount: sequences start to pay when there are more open leads than your team can personally chase in a week. Until then, a personal follow-up on the right day beats an automated one, and it costs nothing extra.

The lighter options, and what they cost

Lighter means built around the pipeline, with plans that stay simple as you grow. Three products in this guide fit that description.

• Bigin (by Zoho) is Zoho’s smaller CRM, sold separately from Zoho CRM, and Zoho pitches it at first-timers moving from spreadsheets. Its free edition is for 1 user, with 1 pipeline and 500 records. Express, at $9 a month per user, adds team pipelines, 50,000 records, and email integration.
• Capsule is free for 2 users up to 250 contacts. Starter, at $22 a month per user, lifts that to 30,000 contacts and adds email templates and a shared mailbox. Automation waits on Growth, so you can stay on Starter until you want it.
• Less Annoying CRM sells one plan at $15 a month per user, with no free plan and no tiers: unlimited contacts and pipelines, tasks, and email logging. There’s no suite above it to be sold, which is the point.

Here’s every CRM in this guide at one and three people, each on the cheapest plan that fits: what tracking leads costs when you don’t need anything more.

At three people, two free plans still fit: Zoho CRM’s and Freshsales’s (3 users each). HubSpot’s row at three is Starter, which on HubSpot’s Sales pricing page is the bundle across its marketing, sales, service, content, and data tools. If you’d only use the sales side, you’re paying per seat for the rest, so budget on the regular price.

Which do you need?

Find the line that sounds like your team.

• You want reminders and a shared pipeline, and nothing sent for you. A lead tracker. Start free: when a free CRM plan is enough shows which free plan fits your size and lasts longest. If you’d rather pay for a light tool, three people cost $27 a month on Bigin Express (by Zoho), $45 a month on Less Annoying CRM, or $66 a month on Capsule Starter.
• You never want to make a plan decision again. Less Annoying CRM: one plan, one price per person, nothing to upgrade to.
• You want follow-ups to go out on their own. Then you need the plan with automation or sequences, and on most tools the bill steps up. On the lighter tools: Capsule’s automations start on Growth, $120 a month for three instead of Starter’s $66 a month, while Bigin Express (by Zoho) already includes 30 automations and mass emails at $27 a month. For sequences, it’s Pipedrive Growth, Freshsales Pro, or HubSpot Professional; what a CRM costs for 1, 3, 5, and 10 people prices each of those plans at every size.
• You want sales, marketing, and service in one tool, and you’ll use all three. That’s what HubSpot’s Starter bundle is for: $60 a month at the regular price ($30 a month for new customers, for a limited time) for three. HubSpot calls the lower price a limited-time offer for new customers and gives no end date, so plan on the regular one.
• The only thing pulling you toward a suite is a newsletter. That’s email marketing. Keep your lead tracker and decide the newsletter on its own, on what it costs by itself.

Say you run a three-person travel agency: you and two advisers take enquiries, quote itineraries, and chase each quote until the client books or goes quiet. You’ve been told you need a full CRM, and the pitch was sequences that chase quotes automatically, a newsletter builder, and booking reports. Run the test on each. The chasing is the part your advisers are good at: a couple weighing a honeymoon quote wants a call from the person who built it, not the third email in a sequence, so what you need is a reminder on the right day. The newsletter is real, but it’s email marketing, a separate decision. The reports you want are how many quotes are open and how many turned into bookings, and a pipeline view shows both.

So you need a lead tracker for three, and Zoho CRM’s and Freshsales’s free plans fit 3 users, so tracking costs nothing. With years of past travelers to import, check the list against Zoho CRM’s free storage (5,000 records (10 MB), notes included). Freshworks doesn’t publish a contact allowance for Freshsales’s free plan, so confirm it inside the account before you import. If you’d rather pay for a light tool from day one, Bigin Express (by Zoho) for three is $27 a month. The suite you were pitched, priced on HubSpot, is Professional at $300 a month for three seats, on a year’s commitment, plus a required onboarding fee, mostly for emails your advisers would rather write themselves.

What not to pay for yet

• Sequences for leads you can chase by hand. If your team can call or write to every open lead this week, the sequence is solving a problem you don’t have.
• A bundle for one feature. More templates, a newsletter, or a chat widget is a reason to check the cheapest tool that does that one thing, not to put every seat on a suite.
• Forecasting before you have history. A forecast needs months of won and lost deals behind it. Track first; forecast when there’s something to forecast from.
• A yearly commitment and an onboarding fee before one full sales cycle. HubSpot’s Professional asks for both. Prove the lead tracker works first.

Your next step

This week, write down the three things you’d want a CRM to do in its first month, and circle any that’s the tool sending something or acting on its own. No circles means you need a lead tracker, so start a free plan at your size and import your list the same evening. At three people, that’s one of the two free plans that fit three: start Zoho CRM’s free plan or start Freshsales’s (sign up, then switch the plan to Free under Admin Settings, Account Settings, Plans and Billing). At one or two, when a free CRM plan is enough shows which free plan lasts longest for you. If the only circle is a newsletter, leave it out of the CRM decision. If you circled automated follow-ups and you can’t keep up by hand, price the plan that has them on the cost-by-team-size page and start a trial of that plan, paid monthly.