What does a CRM cost for 1, 3, 5, and 10 people?

Budget nothing at one or two people. Five free plans fit one person, and four still fit two, because Bigin’s free edition is for a single user. At three, two free plans still fit, and paid plans run $27 to $72 a month. At five, nothing is free and you’re looking at $45 to $120 a month. At ten, $90 to $240 a month, with every tool priced per seat.

What to budget at each size

Each figure in the table is the whole monthly bill for that many people, not the price per seat. Every paid plan here is per seat, so the multiplying is already done: the five-person column is five seats on the cheapest plan whose limits fit five, at list price, billed monthly. Zoho sells two separate CRMs, Zoho CRM and the lighter Bigin, so each has its own row and its own free plan: Zoho CRM’s fits 3 users, Bigin’s 1 user. Tool names link to the full plan pages.

One person. Five free plans fit (HubSpot, Zoho CRM, Bigin, Freshsales, Capsule), so the honest budget is nothing. Pipedrive and Less Annoying CRM have no free plan. At two people Bigin’s free edition has ended, so four fit. If you’d rather pay from day one, a single seat runs $9 to $24 a month across these CRMs, and the lowest paid bill is Bigin Express (by Zoho) at $9 a month. The solo seller page says when one person should pay at all.

Three people. Zoho CRM’s and Freshsales’s free plans still fit; HubSpot’s and Capsule’s ended at the third user, and Bigin’s at the second. Paid, the range is $27 to $72 a month and the lowest bill is Bigin Express (by Zoho) at $27 a month. If you start on Zoho CRM’s free plan and later want Bigin’s price, that’s a move to a different product, not an upgrade on the same one; what switching CRMs costs covers what a move takes. This is the size where the free plan is still the right answer for most teams, and when a free CRM plan is enough shows which cap ends each one.

Five people. No free plan fits. Budget $45 to $120 a month; the lowest paid bill is Bigin Express (by Zoho) at $45 a month. At five, the spread between tools is wide enough that the plan you pick matters more than the tool’s name, and the email and automation table below shows what the next step costs.

Ten people. $90 to $240 a month, every one of them per seat. At ten you’re paying for the people who rarely log in, so count seats before you count tools.

Say you run a five-person staffing agency’s office: three recruiters who work the pipeline, you, and a bookkeeper who never opens the CRM. That’s four seats, not five. On the cheapest fitting plans, four seats cost $36 to $96 a month, and the lowest paid bill is Bigin Express (by Zoho) at $36 a month. Give the bookkeeper a weekly export instead of a login and you’ve saved one seat on every tool in the table.

What does the plan with email and automation cost?

Most small teams move up a plan for one reason, and it’s rarely a cap. It’s a feature the lower plan doesn’t have, and across these CRMs it’s nearly always the same one: your email inside the CRM, and follow-ups that keep moving without you. Pipedrive puts full email sync, automations, and nurturing sequences on Growth. Capsule puts email sync and workflow automations on Growth. HubSpot puts sequences and full automation on Professional. Freshsales puts sales sequences on Pro. Zoho CRM’s free edition already lists workflow automation, and email integration starts on Standard. Bigin’s email integration and its larger automation allowance start on Express, its first paid plan. Less Annoying CRM sells one plan, so there’s no step to price.

This table prices exactly those plans: the whole monthly bill for that many people on the plan named in each row, the same plan at every size.

Our view: don’t budget for this table until a slipped follow-up tells you to. The gap between the two tables at five seats is the price of email and automation, and a team that isn’t losing leads doesn’t need to pay it yet. On the Zoho CRM and Bigin rows at five there’s no gap: the cheapest plan that fits already includes it. HubSpot’s Professional row also carries a required one-time onboarding fee, so its monthly figure understates what the first year costs.

Monthly or yearly billing?

Pay monthly until you’ve used the tool through one full sales cycle, then take the yearly price once you know the plan fits. Five of the six vendors publish a lower per-month price for yearly billing. Less Annoying CRM publishes a monthly price only and says it offers no discount for paying in advance. HubSpot’s Professional plan asks for an annual commitment even when you pay monthly, so the lower figure there is a billing choice rather than a shorter commitment.

Here is the same table on yearly billing: still the whole monthly bill for that many people, at the yearly rate shown per month.

The saving is real. So is a year on the wrong plan.

Flat price or per seat?

There is no flat team price among these CRMs: every paid plan is per seat, and Less Annoying CRM’s “one plan” is still one price per user. Say three of you share one pipeline and one of you only looks at it on Fridays: that person is a full seat on every tool here, so give them a weekly summary instead of a login.

Your next step

Count the people who’ll actually log in this month, not the people on payroll, and read your size off the first table. If a free plan fits, start one this week and import your lead sheet the same evening. At three people only Zoho CRM’s and Freshsales’s free plans fit, so it’s one of those two: start Zoho CRM’s free plan or start Freshsales’s. At two, four fit, and on your own Bigin’s free edition makes it five; when a free CRM plan is enough shows which cap you’ll hit last, so you can pick the one that lasts. If no free plan fits, start a trial on the cheapest plan that does, pay monthly, and note the email and automation figure for the day a follow-up slips. Which CRM fits a 1 to 5 person business? turns these figures into a pick by situation, and first-year cost adds promotions and one-time fees.