How we compare CRM software
We list 11 CRM tools sold into the UK, and a published rate card exists for 11 providers. Where a vendor quotes instead of publishing, we show a quote rather than an invented figure.
The calculator is driven by team size, because that is the axis most of this table prices on, and ranking is arithmetic on the published rate at the number of users you enter. Commission never moves a provider, we do not sell prominence, and the cheapest row is whatever the arithmetic says it is.
Prices are what each vendor publishes to a UK buyer. Some are quoted monthly and some are the monthly equivalent of an annual commitment, which is why the contract row deserves as much attention as the figure in the price column.
UK GDPR and PECR: the law that follows customer data into CRM software
Most software you buy holds your own data. A CRM holds other people's, by name, with notes attached, which is why UK data protection law bears on this purchase more directly than on anything else the business will buy. None of what follows is legal advice and no row in our table is a compliance verdict. What the rows show is where a mechanism exists, and what to ask before you sign.
Lawful basis comes before the software. UK GDPR requires you to identify a lawful basis for holding each set of contact records, and to be able to say which one you rely on. For a B2B pipeline that is often legitimate interests, which carries its own balancing assessment; elsewhere it may be consent or contract. The consequence for the software is that a CRM has to record which basis applies and when the record was created, which is a configuration job on setup rather than a feature you can buy. Custom fields read Yes across this table, and that is the mechanism you use to hold it.
Retention is a decision the CRM will not make for you. Records survive the salesperson who created them, the campaign that sourced them and the reason you had for holding them. UK GDPR expects personal data not to be kept longer than necessary, so somebody has to decide how long a dead lead stays and something has to enforce it. Ask whether retention can be automated per record type or whether it is a manual purge, because that decides whether your policy survives a busy quarter.
PECR governs the marketing you send from it, and the rules split. PECR sits alongside UK GDPR and covers electronic marketing specifically. Broadly, marketing to individuals, which includes sole traders and most partnerships, needs consent; marketing to corporate subscribers is treated differently; and the soft opt-in covers people who bought something similar from you and were given a clear chance to refuse. All three routes share one requirement: you have to evidence which applied to a given contact, months later, from the record itself. That is a CRM job. Capsule CRM lists Add-on (Transpond) while Pipedrive lists Add-on (Campaigns) and Zoho CRM lists Add-on (Zoho Campaigns). Where the sending sits somewhere else, the consent flag still has to travel with the contact.
Where the records are stored is a row you can read. Since Brexit the UK runs its own transfer regime, so moving personal data outside the UK needs a route, whether that is a UK adequacy decision, the International Data Transfer Agreement, or the UK addendum to standard contractual clauses. Hosting region is therefore a real procurement question rather than a technicality. Capsule CRM lists UK/EU hosting and Salesforce lists UK/EU hosting, while Pipedrive lists EU hosting and Freshsales lists EU option. At the other end, Copper lists US hosting, Insightly lists US hosting and Keap lists US hosting. A US-hosted CRM is a normal thing for a UK business to buy; it is not a thing to buy without knowing you have. The same row tends to track the support clock: Capsule CRM is a UK company and lists support as UK-based, where Copper lists Business hours and Insightly lists Business hours, which in a distant timezone means an overnight wait on the afternoon a data request lands.
Subject access, erasure and getting your records out of CRM software
Two requests turn data protection from paperwork into an operational job, and both land on whoever administers the CRM.
A subject access request has to be answered within a month, and the answer has to cover the personal data you actually hold about that person. In a CRM that is rarely one tidy record: it is the contact row, plus free text notes, plus logged emails, plus custom fields somebody added two years ago, plus whatever a colleague typed into a deal comment. Before you commit, run the test that matters and search a name to see whether the search reaches note bodies and attachments or only the indexed contact fields.
Erasure is harder, because a CRM is designed to remember. Ask three things. Does deleting a contact remove the associated activity or orphan it. Is deletion actually deletion, or a hidden archive that reporting still counts. And what happens to the copies, because a CRM is a hub and the record has usually been syndicated outward. That last one grows with your integration count, and this table spans a wide range: Capsule CRM lists 60+ (Xero, QBO), Pipedrive lists 400+, HubSpot lists 1,000+ and Salesforce lists 5,000+. Every connected app is another place the same person exists.
Export is the same capability wearing a different hat, and it is also your exit route. API access reads Yes across this table, so a bulk extract is technically possible everywhere; what differs is how much of the record comes with it.
Why two CRM software prices are not comparable until you fix the unit
The most common mistake in this category is comparing figures that do not measure the same thing.
Per user per month is the shape most of this table uses, and it is the only one where headcount is the whole story. Freshsales lists £7/user/mo, Zoho CRM £12/user/mo, Capsule CRM £14/user, Pipedrive £14/user/mo, Copper £17/seat, HubSpot £18/seat/mo, Salesforce £20/user/mo and Insightly £22/user.
Per contact ignores seats entirely. ActiveCampaign lists Per contact (from £13/mo), so the thing that moves its bill is the size of your database, not the size of your team. A two person business with a large list pays more than a ten person business with a small one, which is the exact reverse of every other row here.
A bundled platform fee is a third shape again. Keap lists £223/mo (Ignite, includes 2 users and 1,500 contacts) with seats beyond that at £29/user/mo above the 2 included, and a separate £1,121 one-time (Ignite Implementation Package). Read that as buying a platform rather than buying a seat, and compare it against what you would otherwise assemble from a CRM plus a marketing tool.
Then there is the seat minimum, which inverts the arithmetic at the bottom of the market. Monday CRM lists a minimum of 3, where most of this table lists None. A low per seat rate under a minimum can cost a sole trader more than a higher per seat rate with none, and the headline figure will never show you that. Put your real headcount and contact count into the calculator, because the entry figure is a unit price and not a bill.
The contact cap, not the seat cap, is what ends a free CRM software plan
Free and entry plans in this category are capped on two axes at once, seats and stored contacts, and the two behave differently.
Seats change when you hire: you know it is coming, you approve it, and the cost arrives with a decision attached. Contacts grow every week you trade, nobody watches the number, and the cap arrives mid quarter with no decision attached at all. That asymmetry is why the axis that ends a free CRM plan is almost always the contact cap.
The free tiers here are real and worth using. Capsule CRM lists Yes (2 users, 250 contacts), HubSpot lists Yes (2 users, 1,000 contacts) and Zoho CRM lists Yes (3 users, 5,000 contacts). Read each of those as two numbers, and ask which one you will hit first.
Paid entry plans carry contact ceilings too, and this is where the table separates. Monday CRM lists 1,000 (Basic), ActiveCampaign lists 1,000 (Starter entry), Keap lists 1,500 (Ignite) and Copper lists 2,500 (Basic), while Capsule CRM lists 30,000 (Starter) and HubSpot lists 25,000 (Starter). Elsewhere the ceiling is not the constraint at all: Pipedrive, Freshsales, Insightly, Salesforce and Zoho CRM all list Unlimited.
So estimate the database you will have in a year rather than the one you have today, and note that the two shapes fail differently. A capped plan stops and forces an upgrade on a day of its choosing. A contact priced plan does not stop, it costs more each month as you succeed, which is easier to live with and harder to notice.
Annual commitment or true monthly: reading the contract row on CRM software
Several products here publish a monthly equivalent price that assumes a year's commitment. That is standard practice rather than a trick, but it means the figure you compared and the figure you can buy at a month's notice are different numbers for the same plan.
The contract row is where this shows. Copper lists Annual, Insightly lists Annual and Salesforce lists Annual, while Capsule CRM lists No, Pipedrive lists No and Zoho CRM lists No.
This matters more in a CRM than in most software, because the switching cost is not the subscription. It is the migration, the retraining and the reporting history you leave behind. If you are still testing whether the team will use it at all, the ability to leave after a month is worth paying a little more for. If you have already decided, the annual rate is money you were going to spend anyway.
Set-up cost belongs in the same calculation. Most of this table lists None for onboarding and HubSpot lists None (Starter), so where an implementation charge does exist it is a real part of year one.
AI and MCP in CRM software: included, gated, or a paid add-on
Nearly every product here now lists something native under AI, so the presence of AI separates almost nothing. What separates them is whether it is included in the plan you are buying, and whether an outside assistant can reach your records. Read the AI row for the words that follow the product name. HubSpot lists Native + add-ons (Breeze), Salesforce lists Native + add-ons (Einstein, Agentforce) and Zoho CRM lists Native + add-ons (Zia, Agent Studio), where an add-on is named alongside the native feature. Freshsales lists Native (Freddy AI) and Capsule CRM lists Native (AI Content Assistant).
The row that will matter more over the next year is model context protocol support, which is how an AI assistant queries your CRM directly rather than through a copy of the data. Salesforce lists Native MCP (official), Monday CRM lists Native MCP (official) and HubSpot lists Native MCP (official, beta), while Capsule CRM lists Native MCP (beta, read-only) and Freshsales lists Native MCP (beta). Pipedrive lists Via 3rd-party (Zapier), Insightly lists Via 3rd-party (Zapier) and Keap lists Not stated.
Two things follow from that row and they pull in opposite directions. A native connection is useful, because asking a question of your pipeline in plain English is the first CRM feature in years that a non technical owner adopts without training. It also means an AI assistant is reading records about named people, which puts you back into the first section of this guide: a read-only scope, a documented lawful basis and a clear position on where queries are processed are worth settling before you switch it on.
The related trap is automation, which is frequently gated above the entry plan even where the feature list says the product has it. Monday CRM lists Standard+, Pipedrive lists Growth+, Capsule CRM lists Growth+ and Copper lists Professional+. If automation is the reason you are shopping, the plan you are pricing is probably not the entry one.