Free CRM software: the limits each vendor publishes

What “free” means on the pages themselves

HubSpot’s page for its free CRM puts the claim in its opening lines: unlike a free trial, it says, the CRM is 100% free with no expiration date. Further down, in its answer to what CRM software costs, the page gives the conditions: up to two users, 1,000 contacts and no limits on customer data. Its plan table lists Free as needing no credit card, with contact management, deal pipelines, CRM import, the Breeze Assistant and a reporting dashboard among the popular features. Starter starts at $15 a month per seat, Professional at $50 and Enterprise at $75. A footnote says the discount is for new customers only, that the offer has no set end date and can be discontinued at any time, and that the limits that apply are on HubSpot’s pricing page. We did not read that pricing page.

Zoho’s free-CRM page says its free edition supports up to 3 users, that it is free forever with no trial period and no forced upgrade, and that signing up needs no credit card. It gives up to 5,000 records in all modules and 1 GB of file space, lets you import from a spreadsheet or another CRM, and says workflows can be automated for up to 5 tasks. Zoho’s pricing page repeats the three users under the heading “Forever free” and adds up to 10 custom email templates, standard reports, and an API allowance of 5000 calls a day.

Two further pages widen the picture beyond the two vendors. The US Chamber of Commerce’s small-business site, CO-, published a list on 25 August 2026 of five vendors with free plans: HubSpot at two users and 1,000 contacts, Freshsales at three users, Zoho at three users, EngageBay at 15 users and 250 contacts, and Bitrix24 for unlimited users. It adds that free CRMs work well for solo business owners and companies with one or two sales reps. Salesforce, which sells its own CRM and promotes a free one on the same page, says only that free CRMs may have limits on the number of users, contacts or storage space. It gives no figure.

The limits each vendor publishes

The vendors state their limits in different places. For HubSpot, the free CRM page carries the user and contact figures. The email figure sits in the terms: in the archived version of HubSpot’s Product Specific Terms, dated 15 November 2022, the free CRM’s email sending is capped at a maximum of 2,000 emails per calendar month. Once the cap is reached, the terms say, no more emails go out until the start of the next calendar month, scheduled ones included, and the cap cannot be increased. The same section says the free services may not be used in a way that substantially exceeds typical use projections, with storage and bandwidth given as examples.

Close, a company that sells a competing CRM, published a post on the limits of HubSpot’s free CRM, last updated on 23 June 2026. Because it is written by a competitor, we treat it as one vendor’s claims about another. It lists 15 minutes of calling per user per month, no inbound calls, HubSpot branding on emails, a single sales pipeline and no email automation. For marketing it lists HubSpot branding, only two social media accounts for ad management and 2,000 marketing email sends a month. It also lists an API allowance of 250,000 calls a day and a rate of 100 requests per 10 seconds, against the 5000 calls a day that Zoho’s pricing page gives its free edition. On support, Close says free users get HubSpot Academy, the Community and the knowledge base, all published in advance, with no direct help from the company. HubSpot’s current terms mention one of those channels: for those who do not pay a subscription fee, support is available through the HubSpot Community.

Zoho puts its limits on the plan page itself, as figures for the free edition, given in full above. Its pricing page lists email integration with mass emails, built-in calling and multiple sales pipelines under the Standard plan, and not in the Free list, which names custom email templates, tasks, meetings and calls, and standard reports. Its help guide on exporting adds a per-day count, covered below. US Chamber’s list gives the other vendors’ free-plan figures in a sentence each, and the first figure above sets them in one place.

Where the numbers disagree

The sharpest difference is the number of contacts on HubSpot’s free CRM. HubSpot’s own page says up to two users and 1,000 contacts, and US Chamber gives the same two figures. Close’s post says the free HubSpot CRM offers one million free contacts. We cannot tell from the pages we read which figure applies, so we report each with its page: the vendor’s page and a business-association page say 1,000; a competitor’s post says one million. HubSpot’s terms, in both versions, say only that there is no charge for contacts in the CRM, without a number.

Close goes on to say that contacts in the free CRM are loaded into the paid Marketing Hub once you subscribe to it, and that the paid plans have lower contact limits. That is a competitor’s claim. HubSpot’s terms partly agree: both versions say that if you subscribe to Marketing Hub, you are charged for contacts as part of that fee, even if they were added through the free CRM. The terms do not give the thresholds Close describes, and we did not read HubSpot’s Product & Services Catalog.

The email cap differs between versions. The archived terms of 2022 give 2,000 emails per calendar month, and Close gives the same number for marketing sends. In the current terms, last modified on 16 September 2026, the terms call the product HubSpot Smart CRM and section 1.2 still describes an Email Send Limit and what happens when it is reached, but no figure appears in section 1. The 2022 sentence that HubSpot may change the limits at any time in its sole discretion and without notice is also absent from the current section 1. A similar sentence does appear elsewhere in the current terms, in section 7.7 on HubSpot AI features. The pages we read do not say why the wording changed.

Smaller differences turn up in prices and in Zoho’s wording. HubSpot’s page puts Starter at $15 a month per seat, with a footnote about a discount for new customers; US Chamber lists it at $10 per seat monthly. Zoho’s pricing page says you can export data from Zoho CRM up to 10 times for free, while its help guide gives a limit of 10 exports per day on the Free edition. These are two formulations of what may be the same allowance, and the pages do not reconcile them.

What happens to your data

HubSpot’s terms state this point explicitly. Section 1.3 of the current version says HubSpot will provide reasonable assistance, at your reasonable cost, if you need help retrieving your Customer Data during the subscription term. It strongly recommends retrieving the data before the term ends, and says that for the HubSpot Smart CRM and free services it will not provide any access to Customer Data after termination or expiration. The 2022 version does not carry the recommendation to retrieve the data early; its section 1.6 says only that, for the HubSpot CRM and Free Services, HubSpot will not provide any access to Customer Data after termination or expiration, and its sentence on assistance says “at your cost” where the current one says reasonable cost.

HubSpot’s knowledge base explains how to take records out while the account is open. You need export permissions, export from a list view, and receive an email with a download link that expires after 30 days. By default the file includes the properties and associations in the view, with up to 1,000 associated record IDs per association column; the option to include all associated records is for CSV files only. The article’s Last updated line is blank in the text we read. It also says up to 300 exports can be completed within a rolling 24-hour window, and up to three at once, without naming a plan.

Zoho’s help guide describes exports by module, in CSV or XLSX, with the download link available for seven days and delivered as a zip file. XLSX is limited to fifty thousand records; CSV allows two hundred thousand records from a single module in one go. The guide lists how many exports per day each edition allows: 10 on Free, 100 on Standard, 250 on Professional and 500 on Enterprise. For more than the module limit, the guide suggests exports filtered by Created Time, or a local backup of the whole module. It also describes a complete backup of all module data and attachments as the way to export everything. The pages we read do not say whether the Free edition includes that backup, so we do not claim it does.

The pages we read do not compare the two exports, and the figures do not line up: both give a link lifetime, 30 days against seven, but HubSpot adds a limit on associated records and a count per rolling 24 hours, while Zoho adds a limit on records per module and a count per day. The third figure below puts the points the two vendors describe next to each other, and where one vendor is silent, it says so. For the rules on emailing the people in a customer list, see the guide to consent and the rules for business email.

Reading a free tier before you rely on it

The pages we read do not rank the free plans. This section lists checkpoints that follow from what the sources say, each with where it comes from, as a reading aid and not a ranking.

• Which page gave the figure. The contact figure for HubSpot is 1,000 on HubSpot’s page and in the US Chamber list, and one million in a competitor’s post. Noting which page a number came from is how the difference above was found.
• The date on the terms. The archived 2022 terms said HubSpot could change the limits at any time without notice. The current section 1, last modified on 16 September 2026, does not carry that sentence.
• The footnote under the price. HubSpot’s plan table says its discount applies to new customers only and can be discontinued at any time, and sends readers to a pricing page for the limits.
• The limits Salesforce names. Its guide says free CRMs may limit users, contacts or storage, and that a sign to move up is reaching the user or contact limit, or needing automation or custom reporting.
• Getting the data out. HubSpot’s terms recommend retrieving Customer Data before the term ends; Zoho’s guide sets the export formats and counts. US Chamber’s advice for moving a spreadsheet in is to export each tab as a CSV file and import a few rows first to see whether names, emails and custom fields display correctly.
• Security and support. Salesforce’s guide says free CRMs might not have the same level of security as paid versions and offer limited or community-based support, and it tells readers to check the security features and privacy policies. That is a vendor’s general statement, not a finding about any one product.
• How long the free plan runs. HubSpot’s current terms make the Smart CRM available until the earlier of the end of the free subscription or the start of a paid one.

US Chamber says free CRMs work well for solo business owners and companies with one or two sales reps, and Salesforce lists team size, implementation, industry and intended use as things to weigh. Both are general statements, and neither gives a threshold.

What we did not use

We opened no account and tested no feature. We did not read HubSpot’s pricing page or its Product & Services Catalog, which is why the current contact and email figures rest on the CRM page alone.