Free Cloud Based CRM Software: Best 5 Solutions for 2024

Your grandfather might have used a physical spreadsheet to keep track of customer data, lead management, and sales processes. In his office, there were reams of paper in organized stacks. It was likely a nightmare sifting through all these customer insights and tracking the sales performance.

Today, we don't use physical spreadsheets to strengthen customer relationships and advertising. The digital revolution was supposed to eliminate that kind of wasteful confusion.

And yet, our digital desktops are a universe of files, and our cloud drives are filling up with an organized mess of business processes and customer information.

Does this sound familiar? Are your sales teams wasting their time searching through piles of digital client files? There is a solution.

Cloud-based CRM will change your operational life entirely. Are you curious how? Don't even know what a CRM system is? Keep scrolling to find out and learn about the best cloud-based CRM solutions.

What Is a Customer Relationship Management Software?

Do you want to maintain a relationship with your customers or clients, easily access customer data, and improve customer satisfaction? Then, cloud-based CRM software is right for you.

CRM stands for customer relationship management. CRM does exactly what it says. Traditional CRM systems help businesses build client contact management for sales and marketing teams and automates and facilitates all your customer information.

These systems often come with business tools for common processes to minimize manual data entry. Customer relationship management software include tools to help you automate marketing funnels and follow up with one-time clients.

On top of all of this, CRM vendors even provide productivity and performance measuring tools to help you blow clients out of the water.

Who Should Adopt a Cloud CRM Software?

CRM platform is popular in the B2B world. Most B2B businesses use some sort of CRM solution to manage complex sales processes throughout the entire sales pipeline. This doesn't mean software as a service is only for B2B businesses. Small businesses can benefit from CRM tools as well.

No matter what kind of business you run, you need to organize your customer data. No matter what kind of clients your targeted audience is, an ROI of $2.50-$5.60 per dollar invested sounds like a sweet deal to help your sales teams nurture relationships.

Learning If Business Needs a Cloud CRM Software

If you're still wondering if you should adopt a cloud-based CRM system (you should) to incorporate it into the sales pipeline to enhance customer interactions, here are a few questions to ask yourself:

• Do you need to maintain a list of information on your customer interactions and lead generation?

• Are you storing and managing customer and lead information in more than one place?

• Will your clients or customers interact with more than one person on your sales team? If so, are you missing a streamlined way to transfer all information about a client or lead to the next person?

• Would a better understanding of your sales team's productivity benefit your company?

• Do you lack a structured process for your sales team collaboration?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you might need a cloud-based CRM solution.

The Top 5 Free Cloud-Based CRM Systems

The final barrier to adopting any software system is often price, especially for small businesses. You're likely budgeting around 7-8% of your gross revenue on marketing. Your budget is like a frozen soda can ready to burst.

Cloud-based CRM software companies understand that adding one more subscription to your already maxed-out budget will stress you out. They also understand that as you grow, you'll want to increase access to their software to manage customer relationships and gain more detailed predictive sales analytics.

This is why most companies that develop CRM software offer a free version. Not all of them include every single feature, but the best ones do. Here are the top five free cloud-based CRM systems.

1. Bitrix24

Are you the kind of person who buys every single tool you need and even some extras (just in case) before starting a project? Do you love discovering new and useful customer service tools? Then Bitrix24 is the right cloud-based CRM software you're looking for.

Bitrix24 is the complete tool chest of CRM programs. Sure, it includes the basic customer service management tools most programs include, but it offers surprising features such as:

• AI assistant CoPilot;

• file sharing;

• user friendly interface;

• sales pipeline management;

• email marketing integration;

• task management;

• accounting software;

• data security;

• sales tracking;

• contact management and customer service software;

• analytics to forecast sales;

• third party integrations;

• various automation features.

Bitrix24 is the best free CRM tool, and its software is designed to scale with your business needs and assist in revenue growth. If you're a small business, an intuitive interface will help you centralize all your customer service teams and marketing campaigns. As you grow, the functionality will be there when you need it.

Bitrix24 plans

Free

This CRM provider is free for up to twelve users. A small business might not need more than that. And ask yourself, does everyone in the company need access to cloud-based CRM tools?

Standard plan

If the answer is "yes", then you can gain the required access in the Standard version of the cloud CRM
for unlimited users for only $99 a month.

No matter how much you scale your business, Bitrix24 CRM software will still charge the same per month. If you're large enough to need the unlimited option and you're hesitant to sign up, try the professional option 30-days for free.

The Standard version offers 100 GB of CRM data storage and the ability to use your own logo.

Professional Plan

If you want to add more project management features to your cloud-based CRM software, try the Professional plan. It's $199 a month , and it includes:

• unlimited storage,

• time management,

• sales marketing,

• marketing automation

• meeting and briefing tools,

• records management tools,

• use of your own domain name.

Why is Bitrix24 Top of the List?

Bitrix24 is the best free CRM software since it puts customers at the heart of your business. Its tools allow you to balance hundreds or thousands of clients at once without losing sight of everything else.

Bitrix24 is a cloud-based CRM solution that is as easy to use as your Facebook page. And if you need to understand how to use a tool, you can watch any of their introductory videos or take part in a number of online training courses.

Use one of Bitrix24's workflow processes or create your own. Collaborate with your team using the Activity stream. Alert others quickly to your reviews by "liking" an activity.

With this free cloud CRM software, you can track deals and leads, build sales funnels, make quotes, bill clients with invoices, improve customer engagement, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

And if something goes haywire, Bitrix24is s the best cloud CRM and its top-notch multichannel customer support center will be ready to solve your problems and meet customer expectations.

2. SalesForce

Salesforce created one of the first cloud CRM solutions. They paved the way for future web-based collaboration and customer relationship software suites.

They've since expanded beyond just a CRM system. But it is still their core offering.

They offer several capability tiers, starting with their Sales Cloud. This allows you to tailor your experience to your business and limit or increase functionality as you need.

Salesforce CRM has been around long enough to garner some impressive value-add partners. This allows you to add features from other companies and combine third-party integrations with other software solutions.

Salesforce puts its AI, Einstein Analytics, front and center. It does what other CRM software suites do, but Salesforce merely wants you to think their AI is special and can do things other cloud CRM can't do. Einstein is pure marketing.

How Much Does SalesForce Cost?

Salesforce's tier system can be a tad confusing. If you're looking for the purest cloud CRM offering at Salesforce, you'll want to use Sales Cloud and one of the tiers within that designation.

Free plan

Unlike Bitrix24, there is no entirely free tier. There is a 30-day free trial of any tier you can take advantage of.

The Essentials plan

The Essentials plan costs $25 per user per month. This gives you access to up to 10 users. Really, for how feature-poor this tier is, you shouldn't even bother. You would need to have a vendetta against Bitrix24 or one of their employees to go for this option over our absolutely free tier.

The Lightning Professional plan

The Lightning Professional plan is the happy medium of Salesforce CRM plans. You pay $75 per user per month, and there is no user limit. You get most of their CRM tools and a few advanced tools like their collaborative forecasts to improve your sales process.

3. Zoho CRM

Zoho is a popular name in the marketing world. They aren't just a cloud CRM provider. They offer a point of sale, marketing, mobile apps, and more to help you focus on customer experiences.

CRM is their most mature offering on the table. We have to give it to them; Zoho has done a fine job with their UI by creating a sleek cloud product that's as easy to use as a lightweight product.

Zoho CRM boasts gamification tools, comprehensive reporting, and lead management. Their social media and communication tools are well-designed and easy to use. And their integrations are easy to implement.

How Much Does Zoho CRM Cost?

Free plan

Zoho CRM is genuinely free for up to ten users. This is still not as generous as Bitrix24's free CRM tools, but we'll give them some points for being better than Salesforce.

The free version gives you sales lead tools, marketing tools, customer support automation, and forecast and reporting tools. If you want more features, you'll have to upgrade to their Standard edition.

The Standard edition

The Standard edition will cost you $12 per user per month if you sign up for a year upfront. You'll receive Google Adwords integration, social CRM tools, email integration, workflow automation, etc. Essentially, you're paying for Bitrix24's free tier (which gives you even more tools for free).

Zoho's Glaring Error

Is CRM really CRM without workflow automation? Companies lose 20-30 percent of revenue yearly due to workflow mismanagement and inefficiency. A major aspect of CRM is collaboration with other team members through workflow automation.

Zoho's choice to remove workflow from their free tier is puzzling. Wouldn't you want people to experience the full power of your software?

That would be like replacing a Ferrari's engine with a five-cylinder engine and telling someone they're test-driving a Ferrari. Charging to access the software's core powerhouse is a poor choice.

4. Agile CRM

Agile is cloud CRM software focused on small and midsize companies. They aren't targeting large enterprises at the moment.

Agile is a newer cloud CRM software company. Their founder, Manohar Chapalamadugu, was dissatisfied with the current options on the market. Within six months, they decided none of the CRM offerings on the market were up to par with their expectations. Thus was born Agile CRM.

Their most innovative offering of this cloud CRM is gamification. This mimics the addictive parts of gaming to help marketing teams by rewarding them, motivating them, and improving their efficiency overall. The idea is better labor equals better output and, thus, happier existing customers.

How Much Does Agile CRM Cost?

Free version

If you're a small business or a solopreneur, you should go with the free version as your CRM investment. It includes ten users, and almost all the tools are available in the free version.

The Starter tier

The Starter tier costs $9.99 per month if you pay annually. You receive 5,000 branded emails, a form builder, and a host of other cool features.

The Regular tier

The Regular tier costs $39.99 per month if billed annually. On top of all the features from the first two tiers, you'll receive full customer support, labels, group tools, and various new reporting tools.

The Enterprise Tier

Lastly, the Enterprise Tier costs $64.99/month if billed annually. This adds plugins and integrations, full email and phone support for your sales teams, integration with eCommerce stores, a Chrome extension, and advanced email reports.

Agile CRM From the Customer's Perspective

According to TrustRadius, Agile's weakness is in customer service and support. It might make sense not to include full customer support in your free tier, but to remove it from your starter tier is a bad move.

Customers were also dissatisfied with their UI. They cited a lack of customization as one of the weaknesses in Agile's templates and campaign setup tools. If you're looking for customization, go elsewhere.

5. Insightly

Insightly is one of the intuitive CRM platforms. You won't have to spend hours on training. Its claim to fame is the data flow between internal apps. While it's not as feature-rich as some, it includes a fairly competent set of tools for small to medium-sized businesses.

The ability to integrate with Power Bl makes their reporting capabilities better than some CRM software suites. You can granularly control the sharing settings. And their expanded workflow features have mobile access.

How Much Does Insightly Cost?

Free plan

There is a free option for Insightly. This option offers a limited set of tools, and there is no integration with either MailChimp or Google Contact.

The plus tier

If you want to take advantage of what Insightly has to offer, you'll need to opt for the Plus tier. This tier is $29 per user per month. It offers all the major features, with 2,500 emails per day and 1000,000 records with 10GB of storage.

The Professional tier

If you want more storage and more records and emails, you can upgrade to the Professional tier. This costs $49 per user per month and gives you 100GB of storage.

The Enterprise tier

The Enterprise tier costs $99 per user per month and gives you 250 GB of storage. The last two options add customized success plans, API support for developers, and intensive customer support.

There is a free trial, and it doesn't require a credit card. If you forget to renew, however, you'll lose all your data once the trial ends.

Quit Using Dated CRM Methods

Cloud-based systems will improve every aspect of your customer relationships. Why would you continue using digital spreadsheets, disparate apps, and Windows' file-folder system?

If you're looking for the best free CRM software with a complete tool chest that unifies your entire team, look no further than Bitrix24. It's a collaborative software suite that puts CRM, collaboration, and task management into one easy-to-use package.

It's time to boost your team's productivity and make customer relations a snap. Sign up for Bitrix24 today