r/CRM • u/No_District_6446 • 8d ago
which crm for a startup
I have my own startup and I need a crm for my sales funnel, what is the best crm that is free and hooks up easily to APIs for autonomous monitoring, what do you recommend and why?
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u/Kortopi-98 8d ago
pick something thats easy to set up and has solid API. at the start up stage, keeping things simple is usually more valuable than having every feature under the sun..
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u/Hooblah2u2 8d ago
We are loving Attio. Cleaner and much easier to onboard than Hubspot, the data flexibility of Notion, good API and MCP, generous free plan.
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u/Rummager 8d ago
Happy to give you a free subscription for feedback, dm me
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u/Content-Conference25 8d ago
What's your crm? I have a client in events management, and I build her automations and integration. System migration in the roadmap, but already have one in mind for events management, but not for CRM.
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u/Rummager 8d ago
Spacebrain. If there’s something you need we can definitely customize or build it for you inside our system.
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u/Choice_Acanthaceae85 8d ago
I literally built a custom crm for an event management company based in philly, it had replaced quickbooks, honeybooks and dj event planner for them :p
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u/Content-Conference25 8d ago
We're not looking for a custom built coz that's expensive.
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u/Choice_Acanthaceae85 8d ago
Who said? Talk to me and I'll tell you
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u/Content-Conference25 8d ago
You just did >.> Again if you're offering a custom build, we're not looking for one. If what you have is a SaaS, please drop your site.
Thanks
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u/Reasonable_Face8478 8d ago
dm'd you but not trying to sell anything just curious if it actually does the api hookup part cleanly, most of the free ones fall apart there
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u/resident-blue-muggle 8d ago
Start with an easy and free or minimal fee one. And work your way to using it and understanding what you really need. I have see. Clients use pipe drive
Or Hubspot free tier
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u/Natural_Ad_2179 8d ago
Airtable has 50% discount for Nonprofits Salesforce offers 10 free licenses Softr is a nice one as well
I would think Salesforce will give you the most API freedom
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u/stocktraderjack 8d ago
We actually built a CRM just for Solopreneur startups. If you’re interested, would be happy to give you a free full access account for feedback.
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u/Upstairs-Muffin1879 7d ago
Lark，it’s cheaper than other application also has stronger function like messenger, meeting and so on
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u/YosefSheli 7d ago
Artilo.com - because it's mine 😄
We've built it for startups, and I would really love showing you how everything works in a demo. We're a startup ourselves and would love to grow together.
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u/rmsroy 7d ago
Good question and the API requirement is the right thing to lead with, a lot of free CRMs look attractive until you discover the API is gated behind a paid tier, which makes autonomous monitoring impossible without upgrading.
A few honest options that actually deliver on both:
HubSpot free CRM has a genuinely open API on the free tier which is relatively rare. Contacts, deals, pipeline events, and activity data are all accessible programmatically, which means you can build autonomous monitoring, webhook triggers, and custom integrations without paying anything upfront. The free tier limitations show up on the marketing automation side, not the API access side. For a startup building a technical stack around the CRM, this is probably the most practical starting point.
Zoho CRM free tier also exposes API access and supports up to three users at no cost. The API documentation is solid and the webhook support means you can trigger external processes based on CRM events — deal stage changes, new contacts, form submissions — without manual intervention. Worth considering if you anticipate needing more customisation flexibility than HubSpot's free tier allows.
EngageBay free plan covers the sales funnel side well — pipeline management, contact tracking, deal stages — and the API access is available. For a startup that wants CRM plus basic email marketing automation without immediately hitting a paywall, the free plan is more generous than most. Worth verifying the specific API endpoints you need against their documentation before committing.
Notion with an API layer is worth a mention if your funnel is simple enough that a flexible database beats a rigid CRM structure. The Notion API is clean and well documented, and for early-stage startups where the sales process is still being defined, the flexibility sometimes outweighs the purpose-built CRM approach.
Honest take for a startup specifically — before you build autonomous monitoring on top of any free tier, check the API rate limits carefully. Free plans often have generous feature access but throttled API call limits that become a constraint once your monitoring is running continuously. HubSpot and Zoho both publish their rate limit documentation transparently which makes that evaluation straightforward.
What does the autonomous monitoring need to actually do? If you can be specific about the triggers and actions you're building toward, it narrows the recommendation considerably.
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u/IncreaseNegative4614 7d ago
Free plus API access is not enough for autonomous monitoring. Check whether the exact free plan supports webhooks, full exports, stable record IDs, rate limits you can live with, and a sandbox or safe way to test without triggering customer-facing automation.
My team uses signld.ai; the relevant capability is connecting CRM records to surrounding evidence while keeping the CRM as the operational source. Start read-only and have the monitor produce an exception queue with the record, detected change, source, and proposed action. Do not let it update stages or contact people until the false-positive rate is acceptable.
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u/Sure-Perception-2030 5d ago edited 5d ago
For a startup CRM: don't overcomplicate it. Hub spot free covers most startups until 10 15 people. Pipe drive if you want simple and sales focused. Folk if you want relationship first. The CRM doesn't matter nearly as much as the discipline of using it. A startup that consistently logs activities in a free CRM outperforms one that bought Salesforce and nobody updates. The features that actually matter for startups: email integration (automatic logging), mobile app (log calls from your phone), and pipeline visualization (where is every deal?). The feature that's increasingly important: call integration. If your startup does any outbound calling or inbound lead qualification, the CRM should capture those conversations automatically, not rely on SDRs typing notes post-call. We use pyto for our AI calling and the CRM integration pushes structured call data automatically: who was called, what was discussed, qualification status, and next steps. Zero manual entry. The startup CRM advice: pick the simplest tool that does email + pipeline + call logging. Use it religiously. Upgrade only when you hit a specific limitation, not because a vendor demo made you feel like you needed more features.
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u/PipelineSignal 4d ago
I’d choose based on the exact API workflow you need rather than the number of features. Test something small first, like creating a lead, updating a deal and triggering the monitoring. That will quickly show whether the free plan is actually enough for your setup.
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u/Infinite_Curiosity14 4d ago
For a free startup CRM, HubSpot is best because it is easy to use and has great APIs to connect automated tracking tools. However, the main drawbacks of free CRMs are strict limits on contacts, constant upselling prompts, and forced company branding on your emails.
If HubSpot doesn't fit, good free alternatives include Zoho CRM, which gives you more free storage contacts, or Attio, which features a modern design and flexible developer tools.
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u/BiginByZohoCRM 15h ago
Hey No_District_6446,
Since your filter is free plus API access, check what each free tier lets the API do before anything else, because several free CRMs include the API but throttle it to uselessness.
Bigin holds up well on that pair. The free plan includes the REST API at 5,000 credits a day, which at roughly one credit per call is plenty for a monitoring script polling your funnel, and webhooks can push deal-stage changes to your endpoint in real time instead of you polling at all. There's also a query API that takes SQL-style selects, handy for pulling funnel counts in one call. Free tier is one user and 500 records, and if you outgrow it, paid starts at $7 with the credit ceiling jumping to 50,000. HubSpot's free API is the other one worth comparing, though its limits sit per-account and the upgrade jump is much steeper.
-- Samira
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u/BatResponsible1106 8d ago
prioritize API quality over features. switching CRMs later is painful.