Every CRM demo looks great. The question is which one your team will still use in six months.
Short answer: if leads reach you by email and web forms, pick HubSpot, free for two users. If your team sells on the phone, pick Close and budget $99 a rep. If your customers are a WordPress email list, pick FluentCRM at $129 a year.
The catch is how each bill grows. That’s what most small business CRM guides skip, so we priced it.
Three questions that pick your CRM
For most small businesses, three questions decide it. Where do deals happen, who logs in, and do you track deals or only people?
1. Where do your deals happen?
Think about your last ten customers. How did each one go from stranger to paying?
Phone calls point to a CRM built around dialing. A form fill and a few emails point to one built around the inbox. A WooCommerce order or a course signup points to one that lives where that data already sits.
2. How many people log in?
Close and HubSpot charge per user. FluentCRM charges per website, so five people on one WordPress site cost the same as one.
That one detail moves the maths more than any feature. Three reps pay three times on Close, and once on FluentCRM.
3. Do you track deals, or only people?
A deal pipeline shows each sale moving through stages: new, contacted, proposal, won. Close and HubSpot have one. FluentCRM doesn’t.
Its developers say pipelines are on the roadmap, with no release date. If you forecast revenue from open deals, that rules FluentCRM out today.
Our older list of CRM software covers a dozen tools. This guide narrows it to three we’ve reviewed in depth, because they match the three ways small businesses sell.
How we checked (and what we didn’t)
Every price was checked October 2026 on each vendor’s own pricing page, in US dollars. Prices are per month on annual billing unless we say otherwise.
This guide builds on our Close CRM review and FluentCRM review. We didn’t run fresh trials for this post. The costs below come from published prices, not our own invoices.
Disclosure: we earn a commission if you buy FluentCRM or HubSpot through our links. Close has no affiliate link on this page, and the maths treats all three the same.
Close: built for teams that sell on the phone
Close is the pick when your reps spend the day calling. Calls, texts and email sit inside each lead, so a rep works a whole list from one screen.
The plan names hide one trap. Solo is $9 a month and Essentials $35 a user, but neither includes workflows. Automated follow-ups, the Power Dialer and bulk email start on Growth, at $99 a user.
| Close plan | Annual billing | Monthly billing | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo | $9/user | $19/user | 1 user, 10,000 leads, no workflows |
| Essentials | $35/user | $49/user | Unlimited users and leads, no workflows |
| Growth | $99/user | $109/user | Workflows, Power Dialer, bulk email |
| Scale | $139/user | $149/user | Predictive dialer, call coaching, permissions |
Calls cost extra. Close passes them through at cost, around $0.02 a minute, and numbers start at about $1 a month.
What does a real team pay? Take three reps on Growth, each on the phone 20 hours a month. That’s $297 in seats plus about $75 in calls, or roughly $4,460 in year one.
Our take: Budget for Growth, not Essentials. If your reps don’t need the dialer or automated follow-ups, you probably don’t need Close.
Close won’t run your newsletter or landing pages. Outbound teams pair it with a sending setup like our cold email outreach system.
HubSpot: built for leads that start in your inbox
HubSpot is the pick when a few people share leads from your website and email. Its free plan is real, and Starter is cheap per seat.
Free gives you 2 users and 1,000 contacts, with no time limit. You get a deal pipeline, Gmail or Outlook sync and forms, plus HubSpot branding on your emails.
Starter lists at $20 a seat and drops the branding. New customers can get it for $7 a seat on annual billing right now, or $10 month to month. HubSpot calls that a limited-time offer, so budget for $20.
The meter nobody prices: marketing contacts
HubSpot bills seats and marketing contacts, meaning anyone you send marketing email to. Starter includes 1,000.
Each extra 1,000 then costs $50 a month up to 3,000, and $45 up to 5,000. So a 5,000-subscriber list adds $190 a month, and one Starter user pays about $2,520 a year.
Contacts you never email in bulk are free. A sales-only team can hold thousands of records and pay for seats alone.
Where the sales features cost more
Sequences, HubSpot’s automated sales follow-ups, need Sales Hub Professional. That starts at $100 a seat a month, plus a required $1,500 onboarding fee.
For our three reps, that’s $5,100 in year one. Close Growth came to about $4,460, roughly $640 less, with a Power Dialer included.
Our older HubSpot free plan and pricing post tours the free tools, though HubSpot no longer runs an expiring trial. You can start HubSpot free and upgrade when a third person needs in.
FluentCRM: built for a list that lives on WordPress
FluentCRM is the pick when your customers are subscribers, students or store buyers on your own WordPress site. It’s a plugin, so contacts stay in your database.
The free plugin covers contacts, lists, tags, basic campaigns and basic automation. Pro adds email sequences, WooCommerce purchase history, dynamic segments and SMS.
Pro is priced per site, whatever your list size. One site is $129 a year, or $90 for the first year with the current discount.
Here’s the catch. FluentCRM doesn’t send email itself. It hands each message to your site’s sending service, which bills you separately.
Most users pick Amazon SES, where new accounts pay $0.16 per 1,000 emails. Four emails a month to 5,000 subscribers costs about $3.20.
So the same 5,000-subscriber list costs about $128 in year one on FluentCRM, then $167 a year. On HubSpot Starter it was $2,520.
The price is your time. You own the sending setup, including SPF, DKIM and DMARC, which our email authentication guide walks through. And there’s still no deal pipeline.
Real-world tip: Install the free plugin first and connect your forms or store. If free automation covers your welcome email, you may never need Pro.
When you outgrow it, FluentCRM Pro comes with a 14-day money-back guarantee.
What a small business CRM costs in year one
Here are four common setups, priced at the rates above. The cheapest tool changes every time.
| Your setup | Close | HubSpot | FluentCRM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo consultant, under 1,000 contacts | $108 (Solo, no workflows) | $0 (Free) | $0 (free plugin, no pipeline) |
| 5-person agency, inbound leads | $2,100 (Essentials) | $1,200 (Starter, list price) | Not a fit: no pipeline |
| 3 outbound reps with calling | About $4,460 (Growth + calls) | $5,100 (Sales Pro + onboarding) | Not a fit: no dialer |
| WordPress list of 5,000, 4 emails a month | Not a fit: no newsletters | $2,520 (Starter + contacts) | About $128 (Pro + SES) |
Count the “not a fit” cells. These three tools barely compete, which is why the first question matters more than any price.
Five mistakes that make a CRM fail
Most bad CRM picks trace back to one of these. Each is cheap to avoid before you import a single contact.
- Buying for the feature list. A CRM nobody updates is an expensive spreadsheet. Pick the one that fits where your team already works.
- Pricing year one only. HubSpot’s $7 seat and FluentCRM’s $90 licence are first-term deals. Budget the renewal.
- Forgetting who counts as a user. Five people on Close Essentials cost $175 a month. On FluentCRM, they share one licence.
- Ignoring the contact meter. HubSpot Free stops at 1,000 contacts in total. Starter bills every marketing contact past 1,000.
- Testing with five fake leads. Load a real week of leads into the trial. Close gives you 14 days, so plan the test first.
Connecting the CRM to your forms or store? A webhook is usually the glue, and our explainer on how webhooks work shows what to check before you rely on one.
So which CRM should your small business choose?
Answer the first question honestly. The bill settles the rest.
- Choose HubSpot if up to five people share inbound leads, because Free covers two of them and Starter is $20 a seat after. Price the contact tiers before you grow a big email list.
- Choose Close if your reps call all day, because dialer, calls and follow-ups share one screen. Budget $99 a rep plus about $25 in calls.
- Choose FluentCRM if you sell to a WordPress list, course or WooCommerce store, because one $129 licence covers any list size. Skip it if you track deals through stages.
| Feature |
Close$99/user (Growth)Best for: Phone-first outbound sales teams |
||
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per seat + marketing contacts | Per user + calls at cost | Per site, any list size |
| Free option | Free plan: 2 users, 1,000 contacts | 14-day trial only | Free plugin |
| Deal pipeline | Yes | Yes | No |
| Calling | Calling on paid plans | Built in; Power Dialer on Growth | No |
| Newsletters and campaigns | Yes | No | Yes |
| Where your data lives | HubSpot cloud | Close cloud | Your WordPress database |
We may earn a commission when you buy through links on this page. This does not affect our reviews.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a trial last when you choose a CRM for a small business?
Two full weeks of real work. That matches Close’s 14-day trial and FluentCRM’s 14-day refund window on Pro. HubSpot has no expiring trial, so you can run its free plan beside your old system for as long as you need.
Is a spreadsheet good enough instead of a CRM?
For one person with a few dozen active leads, often yes. A spreadsheet breaks when two people edit it, when you need reminders, or when emails should log themselves. That’s the moment to try HubSpot Free, which costs nothing for two users.
Can I switch CRMs later without losing my contacts?
Yes. All three export contacts to a CSV file and import one. History is what doesn’t move cleanly: email threads, call recordings and automation rules usually get rebuilt by hand. Switch early, not after two years of data.
Does Close have a money-back guarantee?
Yes. Close offers a 30-day money-back guarantee after you buy, on top of the free trial. The trial needs no credit card and includes $5 of calling and enrichment credits, enough to test real calls from your own network.
Do I need a separate email marketing tool with Close?
For newsletters, yes. Close sends one-to-one sales email and, on Growth, bulk email to leads. It isn’t built for designing newsletters to a subscriber list, so teams that also market by email usually keep a separate tool.
Does FluentCRM work without WooCommerce?
Yes. FluentCRM runs on any self-hosted WordPress site and connects to forms, membership and course plugins as well as stores. WooCommerce purchase history is a Pro feature, so a blog with a newsletter can start on the free plugin.
Is HubSpot’s free CRM really free forever?
Yes, within limits. The free plan never expires, but it caps you at 2 users and 1,000 contacts in total and adds HubSpot branding to emails and forms. A third user or the 1,001st contact means moving to Starter.
Choosing a CRM for a small business starts with where your deals happen. Phone sales point to Close, inbox leads to HubSpot, and a WordPress list to FluentCRM.
Price the renewal and the meter that grows with you, not the first month. Then open HubSpot’s free plan or the FluentCRM plugin and import one real week of leads.
