Pipedrive Alternatives for UK Small Business 2026: The Honest Comparison
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Check the Premise Before the List
The usual case for looking at Pipedrive alternatives is that Pipedrive has no free tier and the alternatives do. Both halves of that need qualifying.
Pipedrive genuinely has no free plan. But it does have a 14-day trial with no credit card required, so you can evaluate it properly at zero cost and zero commitment — the claim that you cannot trial it without handing over card details is simply wrong.
And of the five alternatives usually recommended here, only one has a free tier that is both real and as generous as advertised. Two are described with figures that are years out of date, one has no free plan at all, and one’s free plan is not listed on its current pricing page.
So here is the same list with the free tiers checked, which changes the order considerably.
What Pipedrive Actually Costs, and What It Gates
Four plans: Lite £14, Growth £39, Premium £59, Ultimate £79 per seat per month on annual billing, excluding VAT. Essential, Advanced, Professional and Power are retired names still quoted almost everywhere.
The fair criticism of Pipedrive’s pricing is not the entry price. It is that workflow automation and revenue forecasting both start at Growth, £39 — the second of four tiers. Lite has no automation at all, so for anyone buying a CRM to stop doing follow-ups by hand, the real entry price is £39 rather than £14.
That is the gap worth shopping against, and it is covered properly in our Pipedrive pricing guide and automation guide.
What to Look For
Free tier, if it is real. Can you run on it, or is it a demo?
Per-seat cost, and any seat minimum. A low per-seat price with a three-seat floor is not cheap for a sole trader.
Billing currency. Several of these do not bill in pounds, which adds exchange risk and card fees.
UK accounting integration. Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, FreeAgent.
Where automation sits. The tier that unlocks it usually matters more than the headline price.
Pipedrive Alternatives for UK Small Business: The Five
1. Zoho CRM — The Only Free Tier That Is As Advertised
Free: 3 users, free forever · Paid from: £12 per user/month (Standard) · Billing: GBP
The strongest option here, and the one the usual version of this list under-ranks.
Zoho’s free edition runs three users permanently with leads, contacts, accounts, deals and basic workflow. That is more seats than any other free tier in this comparison, and Zoho’s own pricing page confirms it as free forever rather than a trial.
Paid tiers are Standard £12, Professional £18, Enterprise £35 and Ultimate £42 per user per month annually, or £16, £28, £45 and £55 monthly. Note the entry figure: £12, not £14, which is the number usually quoted. And multiple sales pipelines arrive at Standard, so £12 buys something Pipedrive charges £39 for and Capsule charges £27 for.
Stands out: three free seats; genuinely cheap paid tiers; integrates with Xero, QuickBooks and Zoho Books; the wider suite if you later want Desk, Campaigns or Projects.
Falls short: the interface is cluttered next to Pipedrive or Capsule, the volume of settings is daunting, and support on lower tiers is slow.
Verdict: most CRM per pound by a clear margin, and the only free tier in this list that will carry a small team rather than one person. It rewards the setup time you give it.
2. Capsule CRM — Best UK Accounting, But Not on the Free Plan
Free: 2 users, 250 contacts · Paid from: £14 per user/month (Starter) · Billing: GBP
A British CRM, Manchester-based, running since 2009, and the cleanest interface here. Its paid entry tier is £14, not £18 — £18 is Zoho’s Professional price and it has drifted into Capsule write-ups repeatedly.
Capsule’s genuine advantage is UK accounting breadth: Xero, QuickBooks Online, Sage Accounting and FreeAgent, plus Crunch, FreshBooks, KashFlow and Wave. That is the widest coverage of anything in this comparison.
Here is the problem with recommending it as a free starting point, and it is a contradiction most versions of this list contain. The Xero integration is not on the free plan. It starts at Starter, £14. The free tier is 2 users, 250 contacts, one pipeline and five custom fields — the tightest free offer in this list. So “start free with Capsule because it integrates with Xero” recommends two things that cannot both be true.
Two more tier facts worth knowing: multiple pipelines and workflow automation are Growth features at £27, not Starter, and reporting below Growth is basic.
Verdict: the right answer if UK accounting integration matters most, and the honest entry point is £14 rather than free. Detail in our Capsule pricing guide.
3. HubSpot — Two Users, Not Unlimited
Free: 2 users, 1,000 contacts · Paid from: around £18 per seat (Starter, often ~£7 promotionally) · Billing: GBP
This entry needs correcting more than any other in the list.
HubSpot’s free CRM is described almost everywhere as unlimited users with a vast contact ceiling. HubSpot’s own pricing and product pages state it is free for up to two users, with 1,000 contacts and no expiry. The unlimited-users version was true before HubSpot moved to seat-based pricing and it is years out of date.
Two users is the same cap as Capsule’s free plan, with four times the contacts. Still the better of those two free tiers, by a far smaller margin than claimed, and not a way to equip a team.
Paid Starter is per seat, roughly £18 at list and frequently around £7 on promotion — which undercuts Capsule Starter when the promotion is running. The sharp escalation people warn about is real but happens at the step to Professional, not at Starter.
Stands out: native marketing tools, forms and email campaigns; strong dashboards; the ecosystem if marketing is how you generate work.
Falls short: the Professional cliff; overkill if you only want a pipeline; UK accounting tools are marketplace apps whose plan requirements are not clearly stated.
Verdict: right if marketing is a meaningful part of how you win business. See our Capsule versus HubSpot Free comparison for the free-tier detail.
4. monday CRM — There Is No Free monday CRM
Free: None · Paid from: 12 per seat/month (Basic), minimum 3 seats · Billing: not confirmed as GBP
The correction here is categorical. monday CRM has no free plan. monday’s own FAQ says the first way to use monday CRM for free is a 14-day trial. The free-forever two-seat plan that gets credited to it belongs to monday.com work management, which is a different product.
Paid tiers are Basic 12, Standard 17, Pro 28 per seat per month yearly, with Ultimate sold through sales — not an “Enterprise” plan. The commonly quoted £9 entry price is too low.
Two structural points. The three-seat minimum is real, so a sole trader pays for three seats they do not need: roughly 36 a month minimum rather than the £27 usually calculated. And monday’s advertised per-seat prices are quoted at a ten-seat selection, so a three-seat buyer should check the rate at their actual headcount rather than assume the headline applies.
monday’s pricing page shows these with a dollar sign and states prices depend on billing country, so confirm the sterling figures at checkout. Its own page also promises 33% for yearly billing in the toggle while the FAQ says 18%.
Verdict: strong if you already run monday.com and have three or more people, because the minimum stops being a penalty and CRM sits beside your delivery work. Poor value below three people. Our Pipedrive versus monday CRM comparison goes through it.
5. Freshsales — Closest in Feel, Free Tier Unconfirmed
Free: not listed on the current pricing page · Paid from: $9 per user/month (Growth) · Billing: USD
In look and purpose Freshsales is the nearest thing to Pipedrive here: a clean visual pipeline, quick to load, good mobile apps.
The claim that carries it onto most lists is a free tier with unlimited users. We could not confirm it. Freshworks’ current CRM pricing page lists three plans only — Growth $9, Pro $39, Enterprise $59 per user per month annually — with no free plan among them. The page’s own metadata still references a free plan without naming it or giving any limits, which suggests something may exist as a legacy or unlisted option, but it is not on offer where you would buy.
Note also that Growth is a paid plan at $9, so describing the free tier as “the Growth plan” conflates the two. The figures are in dollars, and we found no sterling view.
One point in its favour the usual version misses: the trial is 21 days, longer than Pipedrive’s 14.
Falls short: UK accounting integration is less native than Capsule’s or Zoho’s; reporting is thin on lower plans; automation needs the higher tier.
Verdict: worth trialling if you like Pipedrive’s shape and want a cheaper paid plan, but do not choose it for a free tier until you have confirmed one exists for new accounts. Our Capsule versus Freshworks comparison covers the product itself.
Free Tiers, Honestly
| CRM | Free plan | Users | Contacts | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zoho CRM | Yes, forever | 3 | — | Confirmed on Zoho’s page |
| HubSpot | Yes | 2 | 1,000 | Confirmed; not unlimited |
| Capsule | Yes | 2 | 250 | Confirmed; no Xero, 1 pipeline |
| Freshsales | Not listed | — | — | Absent from current pricing page |
| monday CRM | No | — | — | 14-day trial; free plan is a different product |
| Pipedrive | No | — | — | 14-day trial, no card required |
Read down that column and the premise of this article largely dissolves. If a free tier is what you are shopping for, the answer is Zoho CRM, and after that HubSpot.
Which Of These Bill in Pounds
GBP: Zoho CRM, Capsule, Pipedrive, HubSpot.
Not confirmed in GBP: monday CRM and Freshsales both display dollar prices.
Worth knowing that Capsule, Zoho, HubSpot and Pipedrive all geolocate their pricing pages — requested from outside the UK they serve dollars, or in Zoho’s case rupees. That is the mechanism behind most of the wrong figures in circulation, including several in the draft of this article.
UK Accounting Integrations
| CRM | Xero | QuickBooks | Sage | FreeAgent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capsule | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Zoho CRM | Yes | Yes | Zapier | No |
| Pipedrive | Yes | Yes | Zapier | Yes |
| HubSpot | Marketplace app | Marketplace app | No | No |
| monday CRM | Zapier or connector | Zapier | No | No |
| Freshsales | Third-party | Third-party | No | No |
Capsule leads on breadth, Zoho and Pipedrive are solid, and the rest need a connector. Capsule’s directory does not state which apps are first-party or which tiers they need, beyond Xero being confirmed as Starter and above.
FAQ
Does Pipedrive have a free plan?
No, and it never has. It does have a 14-day trial with no credit card required, so you can evaluate it at no cost. The claim that you need to hand over card details to trial it is wrong.
Which alternative has the best free tier?
Zoho CRM, with three users free forever. HubSpot’s is two users and 1,000 contacts. Capsule’s is two users and 250 contacts with no Xero integration. monday CRM and Freshsales do not have a listed free plan.
Which is best for a UK sole trader?
Zoho CRM free if you want to spend nothing, or Capsule Starter at £14 if UK accounting integration is the priority. Avoid monday CRM below three people because of the seat minimum.
What are Pipedrive’s plans called?
Lite, Growth, Premium and Ultimate, at £14, £39, £59 and £79 per seat annually. Essential, Advanced, Professional and Power are retired.
Which works best with UK accounting software?
Capsule, which lists Xero, QuickBooks, Sage and FreeAgent. Zoho and Pipedrive both handle Xero and QuickBooks natively. HubSpot, monday and Freshsales generally need a connector.
Is Zoho CRM too complex for a very small business?
Not if you leave it alone. The free tier is simple until you start enabling things, and plenty of small businesses run a deliberately minimal Zoho setup and expand later. If you want simplicity out of the box, Capsule is the easier start.
Which is cheapest for multiple pipelines?
Zoho CRM Standard at £12 per user. Capsule charges £27 and Pipedrive does not publish its pipeline limits at all.
Pipedrive Alternatives: The Bottom Line
Pipedrive’s real weakness is not the absence of a free plan — it has a proper no-card trial — but that automation and forecasting start at £39, which is where you should aim your comparison.
Against that, Zoho CRM is the strongest alternative on both counts: three users free forever, £12 for Standard, and multiple pipelines included at that price.
Capsule wins on UK accounting breadth and ease, at £14 for Starter, with the caveat that its free plan has no Xero integration and the useful configuration is £27.
HubSpot is the pick if marketing matters, at two free users rather than unlimited.
monday CRM needs three seats and has no free tier of its own, so it suits existing monday.com teams and nobody else.
Freshsales is the closest match in feel and the cheapest paid plan at $9, but confirm the free tier exists before you plan around it.
If you are moving from a spreadsheet rather than another CRM, the subscription is rarely the hard part — our guide to migrating from spreadsheets to a CRM covers the field mapping and date formatting that is.
Pricing and features correct at time of writing. Plans and capabilities are subject to change — always confirm current details on the provider’s website before purchasing.