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A CRM only pays off if your reps actually use it. For a small team that usually means the simplest tool that covers your sales motion, not the one with the longest feature list.
Our short answer: start on HubSpot's free CRM if you're not sure yet, choose Pipedrive if your team thinks in pipeline stages, and pick Close if most of your selling happens on the phone.
Top pickHubSpot Sales Hub
Best for: Teams that want marketing, sales and service in one system and expect to grow
- The most generous free CRM we know of
- Email tracking, meeting links and templates even on the free plan
- Huge library of free training in HubSpot Academy
- The jump from Starter to Professional is big, and Professional adds an onboarding fee
- Sequences and automation only start at Professional
From $0, then $9–15 a month
Visit HubSpot Sales Hub ↗Pipedrive
Best for: Small teams that live in their pipeline and want something simple that reps actually use
- The clearest visual pipeline of any CRM
- Quick to set up: most teams are working in it on day one
- Fair pricing with no onboarding fees
- No free plan
- Email sync and automations need the Growth plan or higher
- Lighter on marketing features than HubSpot
From about $14 a month
Visit Pipedrive ↗Close
Best for: Inside sales teams that make a lot of calls
- Calling, SMS and email built in, no extra dialer needed
- Power dialer on the Growth plan
- Fast, keyboard-friendly for high volume
- Calls are paid per minute on top of the seat price
- Less suited to long, complex enterprise deals
From $9 a month
Visit Close ↗The three at a glance
| HubSpot Sales Hub | Pipedrive | Close | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type | CRM | CRM | CRM |
| Best for | Teams that want marketing, sales and service in one system and expect to grow | Small teams that live in their pipeline and want something simple that reps actually use | Inside sales teams that make a lot of calls |
| Free plan | Yes, for 2 users | No | No |
| Try it | Free plan, 14-day trial of paid plans | 14 days, all features | 14 days |
| Price | Starter $15 a seat a month ($9 on annual billing). Professional $100 a seat ($90 annual) plus a $1,500 onboarding fee | Lite from about $14 a seat a month on annual billing, Growth about $39, Premium about $59. Monthly billing costs more | Solo $19 a month ($9 annual) for one user, Essentials $49 a seat ($35 annual), Growth $109 ($99 annual). Call minutes are billed on top |
| See HubSpot Sales Hub pricing ↗ | See Pipedrive pricing ↗ | See Close pricing ↗ |
How to choose in five minutes
Answer three questions:
- Do you need to spend nothing right now? Then it's HubSpot. Its free plan covers contacts, one pipeline, email tracking and meeting links for two users. Neither Pipedrive nor Close has a free plan.
- Do your reps make more than 30 calls a day? Then look hard at Close. Calling, SMS and a power dialer sit inside the CRM, so reps don't switch between tools and every call is logged automatically.
- Is your main problem that deals get forgotten? Then Pipedrive. Its pipeline view makes it obvious which deals have no next step, and it nags reps until each one has one.
If two answers point to different tools, run both free trials side by side with your real deals for a week. The one your team opens without being asked is the winner.
What a small team actually needs from a CRM
You can ignore most feature lists. These five things matter:
- A pipeline view with your own stages, so everyone sees the same picture.
- Email sync with Gmail or Outlook, so conversations are logged without copy-paste.
- Tasks and reminders for the next step on every deal.
- Simple reports: pipeline value by stage and deals won per month.
- A mobile app for reps on the road.
All three tools here do these well. The differences are in price, calling and how far each one grows with you.
HubSpot: free to start, pricey to grow
HubSpot's free CRM is genuinely useful, not a teaser. The catch comes later: sequences (automated follow-up emails) and workflow automation only start at Sales Hub Professional, which costs around $90–100 a seat a month plus a one-off onboarding fee. For a team of five that's a big step up from Starter.
Choose HubSpot if you also want marketing tools (forms, landing pages, email newsletters) in the same system, or if you expect to grow past twenty sellers.
Pipedrive: the one reps like
Pipedrive was built by salespeople for salespeople, and it shows. Deals sit as cards you drag between stages, and the "activity-based selling" approach means every deal should have a scheduled next step. It's the easiest CRM here to roll out to a team that has never used one.
Plan for the Growth tier if you want email sync and automations; Lite is very basic.
Close: built for the phone
Close is the odd one out: it's a CRM with a phone system inside. Reps can call, text and email from one screen, and the Growth plan adds a power dialer that moves through a call list automatically. Call minutes are billed on top of the seat price, so budget for that.
If your process starts with cold calling, Close saves you buying a separate dialer.
Common mistakes when buying a CRM
- Buying for the team you might have in three years. Pick for today; all three tools let you export your data.
- Building twenty pipeline stages. Five to seven stages that match how buyers actually decide is plenty. Our sales process guide shows a simple version.
- Not deciding who keeps it clean. Somebody has to own the data, or it rots within months.
Once your CRM is set up, use the pipeline calculator to work out how many deals you need in each stage to hit your number.