CRM Pricing: How Much a CRM Costs per User, From Free Plans to Enterprise

A CRM costs nothing for one to three people, roughly $7 to $35 per user a month for an entry paid plan, and $12 to $105 per user for the mid tier where automation, forecasting and sales sequences usually live. Above that, enterprise editions run to $550 per user a month. Those are list prices on annual billing; the price you actually pay also depends on how you are billed, how many seats you buy and which fees come on top.

This page compares CRM pricing across the market, tier by tier, with prices taken from each vendor's own US pricing page. It doesn't rank the products. If you want to know which CRM to pick, read our best CRM for small business guide; if you want to know what you'll pay and why, read on.

CRM pricing at a glance

All prices are per user a month on annual billing, in US dollars, before tax. Less Annoying CRM doesn't offer annual billing; its $15 is a monthly price.

The chart shows the main pattern in CRM pricing: entry plans are close together, mid tiers are not. Among the eight small-business CRMs (all but Dynamics 365), the cheapest and the most expensive entry plan are $28 a user apart. At the mid tier the gap is $88, because HubSpot, Salesforce and Close put their sales automation behind a much bigger step than Zoho or Bigin do.

Free CRM plans: what $0 buys

Five of the nine CRMs here have a free plan, and each one is limited by users, records or both:

The free plan is the right start for a founder or a two-person team. The moment a third or fourth person needs to log in, or you want automated follow-ups, you are on a paid plan. Our free CRM guide compares the free plans' limits feature by feature.

Entry plans: $7 to $35 a user

Entry plans add more users, more records, basic automation and email tools. For most small businesses this is where CRM cost starts.

• Bigin Express, $7 ($9 monthly). Zoho's pipeline-first CRM, the cheapest paid plan here.
• Freshsales Growth, $9. Freshworks prices on annual billing and says yearly plans save 20%.
• Zoho CRM Standard, $14 ($20 monthly). See our Zoho CRM pricing guide for what each edition adds.
• Less Annoying CRM, $15 a user a month. One plan, every feature, no contract.
• HubSpot Starter, $20 list. New customers are offered $7 a seat with an upfront annual payment or $10 a seat month to month. The full breakdown is in our HubSpot CRM pricing guide.
• Salesforce Starter Suite, $25, billed monthly or annually at the same price. See our Salesforce pricing guide.
• Attio Plus, $35 ($44 monthly), for up to 10 seats.
• Close Essentials, $35 ($49 monthly). Close also sells a Solo plan for one user at $9 annually or $19 monthly.

Dynamics 365 Sales Professional, $65 a user a month paid yearly, is in a different bracket: it is built for companies already on Microsoft 365, and our Dynamics 365 pricing guide covers it.

Mid tiers: where the bill jumps

The mid tier is usually where automation, forecasting, sequences and more pipelines live, and it is where CRM vendors differ most:

Zoho and Bigin barely raise the price for the next tier. HubSpot and Salesforce raise it four- to fivefold. That doesn't make the expensive tiers bad value, but it means you should check which features you actually need before planning on "the next plan up".

What 10 users pay in the first year

Here is the full first-year bill for a 10-person team on each mid tier, on annual billing, with any required fee included:

From the second year, HubSpot's onboarding fee falls away and the team pays $10,800. Less Annoying CRM's figure is its monthly price × 12, since it doesn't sell annual plans.

The hidden costs of CRM pricing

The per-user price is the headline. These are the costs that make the real bill bigger.

Onboarding and implementation fees

HubSpot charges a required one-time onboarding fee: $1,500 for Sales Hub Professional and $3,500 for Sales Hub Enterprise. Marketing Hub Professional requires $3,000, and Marketing Hub Enterprise $7,000. On a three-seat Sales Hub Professional team, the $1,500 fee adds more than 46% to the first year's $3,240 in seats.

None of the other pricing pages in this comparison list a required onboarding fee, but larger rollouts of Salesforce or Dynamics 365 are often done with an implementation partner, billed separately.

Annual commitments

Many higher tiers can't be paid month to month:

• Salesforce: Starter Suite is billed monthly or annually, but Pro Suite and every Sales Cloud edition are billed annually. Salesforce's own FAQ says most of its products use annual contracts.
• Dynamics 365 Sales: every plan is priced "paid yearly".
• HubSpot: the new-customer Starter price of $7 a seat requires an upfront annual payment.

If you can pay monthly, you pay for the flexibility. Zoho CRM Standard is $20 monthly against $14 annually, 43% more. Close Essentials is $49 against $35, 40% more. Attio's monthly prices are about 25% above its annual ones. For a team that is still testing a CRM, a few months at the monthly price can still be cheaper than a year it doesn't use.

Seat caps and seat minimums

Some plans stop at a number of users, others start at one:

• Attio Plus allows up to 10 seats. An eleventh person moves the whole team to Pro, from $35 to $79 a seat.
• Zoho CRM's free edition stops at 3 users, HubSpot's and Salesforce Free Suite at 2, and Bigin's at 1.
• monday CRM says its plans start from 3 users, so even a solo founder buys at least three seats.
• Microsoft Relationship Sales, the Dynamics 365 bundle with LinkedIn Sales Navigator, requires a 10-seat minimum.

Contact-based pricing

Most CRMs charge per user and let you store as many contacts as your record limit allows. Marketing tools often charge by contact instead. HubSpot Marketing Hub is the example to know: Starter includes 1,000 marketing contacts, Professional starts at $800 a month with 3 seats and 2,000 marketing contacts, and Enterprise starts at $3,600 a month with 5 seats and 10,000 marketing contacts. Extra seats start at $45 a month on Professional and $75 on Enterprise. If you plan to email your whole database from the CRM, price the contact tier you will reach in a year, not today's list.

Promotional prices that end

HubSpot's Starter offer ($7 a seat annually, $10 monthly) is for new customers and for a limited time; the list price is $20. Before you buy at a discount, work out what the team will cost when the discount ends. A 5-seat team on Starter pays $420 a year at $7, and $1,200 at the $20 list price.

Usage, AI and add-ons

Seats are rarely the last line on the invoice:

• Calling and texts. Close passes calling and SMS through at cost: most outbound calls about 2¢ a minute, phone numbers from about $1 a month. Its Call Assistant add-on is $50 a month per organization plus 2¢ a minute.
• AI. Salesforce lists Agentforce for Sales from $125 a user a month. Freshsales sells its Freddy AI Agent at $49 per 100 sessions. HubSpot plans include a set number of HubSpot Credits (500 on Starter, 3,000 on Sales Hub Professional, 5,000 on Enterprise).
• Documents and storage. Freshsales charges $19 a user a month for branded documents. Salesforce says every edition includes a minimum of 10 GB of data storage shared by all users, with more sold per org.

Pipedrive and monday CRM

Both are popular with small sales teams, and both show prices in local currency depending on where you visit from, so we only quote them after checking US prices separately. For plan-by-plan US pricing, see the Pipedrive pricing and monday CRM pricing guides. Both are also priced in our small-business CRM comparison.

How to keep CRM costs down

1. Count the people who sell. Buy full seats for the people who manage contacts and deals every day, not for everyone who might look at a report. Zoho CRM also sells separate team user licenses from its add-ons page; ask what they can do before you buy full seats for occasional users.
2. Price the tier you'll need in a year. If you know you'll want sequences or forecasting, compare mid tiers now. Switching CRMs later costs more than a higher plan.
3. Pay annually once you're sure. Annual billing saves 20% on Attio and Freshsales, about 29% on Close Essentials and up to 34% on Zoho CRM. Use the monthly price or a free trial for the first months.
4. Ask for the full quote. For HubSpot Professional and above, Salesforce Pro Suite and up, and Dynamics 365, ask for the first-year total in writing: seats, onboarding, add-ons and contract length.
5. Ask about startup and nonprofit discounts. Several CRM vendors run them; our CRM for startups and CRM for nonprofits guides list the programs and their conditions.

Some businesses don't need a sales CRM at all. A salon or spa keeps client records, visit history and notes in its booking software; Vagaro's pricing, for example, includes client tracking in the base subscription. A team that has outgrown Salesforce's price can compare Salesforce alternatives.

How much should a small business budget for a CRM?

For a team of five on an entry plan, budget $420 to $2,100 a year on annual billing: $420 on Bigin Express, $840 on Zoho CRM Standard, $900 on Less Annoying CRM, $1,200 on HubSpot Starter at list price, $1,500 on Salesforce Starter Suite and $2,100 on Attio Plus or Close Essentials. If you need the mid tier, the same five people pay from $720 a year on Bigin Premier and $1,380 on Zoho CRM Professional to $5,400 on HubSpot Sales Hub Professional before its $1,500 onboarding fee, and $6,000 on Salesforce Pro Suite.

Start free if you are one to three people. When you buy, compare the first-year total, not the per-seat headline: the onboarding fee, the billing term and the seat cap often decide which CRM is cheaper.