Free CRM Software for Small Businesses

As your business grows, you need a place to manage what you know about your audience. Otherwise, contact details, behavioral data, and other relevant information can be hard to organize and cumbersome to use. That’s where customer relationship management (CRM) software comes in—it’s software that centralizes your audience data to help you better understand who you’re talking to and deepen your relationship with them.

Top companies like Salesforce and ActiveCampaign offer free trials of their CRMs, while Mailchimp offers a Marketing CRM as a feature of its Free plan.

Mailchimp’s Marketing CRM delivers value comparable to other top paid CRMs, but without the cost. Plus, the Free plan includes other vital marketing features—like a website builder, unlimited landing pages, email marketing, and much more—so you don’t just know your audience, you grow your audience. And with hundreds of integrations, you can seamlessly use Mailchimp with the apps and tools you already count on to run your business.

As you compare CRM software solutions, consider what your business needs now and what you may need in the future. The right CRM for your business offers all those features at a price you can afford.

Why do you need CRM software?

CRM software allows you to better manage your growing list of contacts by gathering information from your interactions with them into a central organization system. This data—and the many ways to sort and segment it—can then be used to improve your customer experience across the board, helping your business build loyalty and grow.

CRMs take what would be several different software programs and combine them into one platform. Many can collect customer preference and demographic data, organize your audience for easy reference, rank your contacts to show who are most likely to lead to conversions, and more.

Having all that information in one place helps you track your customers more effectively, making communication easier and saving you time. Instead of spreadsheets (or even old-school pen-and-paper lists), you have a robust database at your fingertips.

Because of the wealth of data CRMs provide and the array of functions they perform, they can be expensive. There are, however, a range of affordable and even free options for small businesses that can cover a small business owner’s needs.

How Mailchimp compares to the top free CRMs

According to G2, the 3 top free CRM software tools are offered by:

• HubSpot
• Salesforce
• ActiveCampaign

All 3 are highly rated and have tens of thousands of users. So what makes them stand apart, and how does Mailchimp compare?

HubSpot

HubSpot’s CRM offers a solid range of features that provide a good foundation for sales. Here’s what you can do:

• Get a clear view of your sales funnel in an easy-to-understand dashboard
• Track customer interactions automatically, whether they happen in an email, on social media, or on a call
• See where you left off with a lead in a timeline of your interactions with them
• Get unlimited users, data, and up to 1,000,000 contacts with no time limit or expiration date

HubSpot’s CRM is designed for sales, but it does have some marketing functionality. While Mailchimp’s Free marketing plan includes many of the same features, it’s a specialized marketing-focused CRM rather than a more traditional lead-generation CRM.

Here’s how HubSpot’s Free CRM plan compares to Mailchimp’s Free marketing plan.

Mailchimp vs. HubSpot CRM at a glance

HubSpot’s free CRM plan can serve as a jumping-off point, but to comprehensively cover your marketing needs, you may need to upgrade to their Marketing Hub Starter plan, which starts at $45/month. Their marketing automations are only available with a paid plan.

Mailchimp’s Free marketing plan, on the other hand, includes automation features that can help you take full advantage of the CRM. Mailchimp’s all-in-one Marketing Platform offers automations that send messages based on customer behaviors that are paired with the CRM’s audience segmentation feature.

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is known for its automation features, which combine elements of email marketing, CRM, and machine learning to reach customers more effectively. There is no permanently free plan for ActiveCampaign’s CRM platform, but there is a 14-day trial.

During the free trial, users will have access to all the features available in ActiveCampaign’s Lite plan. After the trial, the Lite plan begins at $45/month.

With ActiveCampaign’s Lite plan, you can:

• Build and send emails using a drag-and-drop designer
• Automate your marketing to reach customers based on actions they’ve taken (or haven’t)
• Design and publish landing pages to get your message out and build your audience

Mailchimp vs. ActiveCampaign CRM at a glance

ActiveCampaign offers an impressive feature set, but those features are not available for free after the trial period. The Professional plan starts at $129/month if paid annually. They offer a more affordable plan, the Lite plan, currently $9/month if paid annually, but it offers fewer of the features detailed above.

Mailchimp offers most of these features in the Free plan. A website builder, automations, email marketing, and analytics are all included. Free plan users also get features like regular reports and even a subject line helper for emails.

Sign up for Mailchimp’s Free marketing plan today and use it for as long as you want. When you’re ready, you can explore the other plans Mailchimp offers and see which one is right to take your business to the next level.