Most free CRMs are seat-capped demos of a per-seat ladder. Plyto's free plan is the actual product at starter scale: 100 contacts, unlimited users, an AI agent doing the work, and one flat $49 step when you outgrow it.
Brand-new businesses
First customers, first follow-ups, no budget line for software yet.
Startups pre-revenue
The system should exist before the spend does. Set it up free, grow into it.
Side businesses
Nights-and-weekends operations that still lose money when a lead goes cold.
Teams outgrowing the spreadsheet
Past the shared sheet, not ready for a three-figure monthly bill.
Every free CRM is an acquisition tool, including this one. The difference is where the walls are and whether they are printed on the front. Most free tiers cap seats at two or three, lock automation and AI behind upgrades, and price the ladder per user so the bill scales with your headcount. You end up architecting your business around someone's pricing page.
Contacts, companies, deals, pipelines, saved views, custom columns and lead forms. The same product paying customers use, at starter scale, not a separate stripped build.
Seat caps are the most common free-tier wall. Plyto never prices seats on any plan, so the free plan holds your whole team.
$10 of AI credit refreshed monthly: imports mapped, lists cleaned, emails drafted in your voice, questions about your pipeline answered. On paid plans the same agent runs automations and ad campaigns.
$49 for 1,000 contacts, $149 adds automations, ads and SEO tools, $399 for scale. By contact count, never by seat. You can model next year's cost in a minute.
How free plans usually work, against how this one does:
| Typical free CRM tiers | Plyto | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats | Capped at two or three users | Unlimited |
| AI | Locked to paid tiers | $10 of agent credit every month |
| The plan's job | Move you onto per-seat pricing | Run a small business until 100 contacts stops fitting |
| Upgrade shape | Per seat, per module | $49 flat, by contact count |
| The walls | Discovered at the paywall | Printed on this page |
Free tiers change constantly. HubSpot, Zoho and EngageBay all publish current limits; compare them against the caps here, which are also published: 100 contacts, 100 email sends a month, $10 of monthly AI credit.
An example setup on the free plan:
Sign up without a card. The agent asks what the business does and builds pipeline stages to match.
Contacts import from a spreadsheet; the agent maps the columns and flags duplicates.
A lead form goes on the site, and every submission lands as a contact with a deal.
The team joins on unlimited seats, and the agent drafts your first customer email for approval.
The caps, and they are printed here: 100 contacts, 100 email sends a month, $10 of AI credit. Automations, ad campaigns and the website builder are paid features you can preview in the trial. When the business outgrows the caps, the next step is $49.
HubSpot's free caps are larger (around 1,000 contacts) but new accounts get two seats, no automation and no AI. Plyto's free plan is smaller on contacts and bigger on product: unlimited seats and a working agent. There's a fuller comparison on our free HubSpot alternative page.
Free forever, no card, no trial clock on the free plan. The AI credit refreshes every month.
We make money when your business grows into a paid plan. A free CRM that genuinely works for a two-person business today is how we earn the upgrade when you're a ten-person business later.
Unlimited seats, agent included, no card.
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