Best CRM and Project Management Software: 6 Picks

How we chose

This list started from a simple test: does the product hold both a sales pipeline and project work without a second subscription? Every pick here passes that test in a different way, from HubSpot's free CRM with its task and deal tools to Insightly's built-in projects. Prices were read from the vendor pricing pages listed under Sources and checked on 13 November 2026, using the cheapest paid tier that includes both sides of the job. No hands-on testing was done. The ranking is by fit for a small team that sells and then delivers the work itself.

A combined tool solves a handoff problem. When sales lives in one system and delivery in another, the details of a deal — what was promised, by when, for how much — get retyped, lost or argued about. A single record that moves from pipeline to project keeps that history in one place. The cost is compromise: a combined tool rarely matches a dedicated CRM on sales depth or a dedicated project tool on planning depth. If your sales team and delivery team are separate departments, that compromise may not be worth it, and a dedicated CRM such as those in Best 50 CRM Software may serve you better.

1. HubSpot: best for a free start that grows

HubSpot's free CRM covers up to 2 users and 1,000 contacts, with pipelines, email tracking and meeting scheduling at no cost and no expiry date. That makes it the easiest place to start: a solo consultant or a two-person firm can run real deals for free. Paid Sales Hub Starter seats list at $20 per seat per month, with promotional pricing for new customers, and add simple automation and higher email limits. Projects and tasks sit alongside deals, so follow-up work stays attached to the contact it belongs to.

The jump to Professional is steep — $90 per seat per month billed annually, plus a $1,500 one-time onboarding fee — and most serious automation lives there. HubSpot also charges per seat, so a growing team feels every hire in the CRM bill. Skip HubSpot if you need deep automation on a small budget, or if your team is larger than two and you want to stay free: the free plan stops at two users.

2. monday.com: best for visual boards and pipelines

Monday.com Sales CRM is built on boards: deals move across columns, projects sit in the same view, and a team can see the whole pipeline at a glance. There is a free CRM plan, and Basic CRM costs $10 per seat per month billed annually, with a 3-seat minimum, so the smallest paid bill is $30 a month. Standard CRM at $14 per seat per month billed annually adds two-way email integration and 250 automation actions a month.

The visual style is the strength and the weakness. Boards suit teams that think in stages and deadlines, but heavy reporting and forecasting need higher tiers, and the per-seat minimum means a solo user still pays for three seats. Skip monday.com if you need strong sales forecasting or a single-seat plan — Zoho CRM below charges per user with no minimum.

3. Zoho CRM: best for a low-cost full CRM

Zoho CRM's free plan covers up to 3 users, and Standard costs $14 per user per month billed annually, or $20 per user per month billed monthly. Standard adds mass email, multiple pipelines, custom dashboards, forecasting and workflows. Project management comes through Zoho Projects, a separate app, rather than inside the CRM itself — but the two share the Zoho account, and Zoho One bundles CRM, Projects and more than 40 other apps for around $37 per user per month.

That split is the main trade-off on this list. Zoho CRM alone is a sales tool; the project side is an add-on, not a native view. If you want one login and one bill, Zoho One solves it, but the price is higher than Zoho CRM alone. Skip Zoho CRM if you want projects inside the CRM record itself — Insightly does that natively.

4. ClickUp: best for tasks, docs and CRM together

ClickUp Unlimited costs $7 per user per month billed annually, or $10 per user per month billed monthly, and the Free Forever plan has no seat limit. One workspace holds tasks, docs, chat, dashboards, Gantt charts and a CRM view, so a small team can run sales and delivery without a second tool. Unlimited storage and integrations are included at that price, which is the lowest paid entry on this list.

ClickUp's breadth can feel unstructured. There is no single obvious pipeline view until you build one, and the AI layer, ClickUp Brain, is a separate add-on at $9 per user per month billed annually, charged for every member of the workspace. Skip ClickUp if you want a CRM that works well out of the box with minimal setup — HubSpot or monday.com need less building before the first deal is logged.

5. Insightly: best for sales that become projects

Insightly was built as a combined CRM and project tool, and it shows. Its Plus plan costs $29 per user per month billed annually, and a won opportunity converts directly into a project with tasks, milestones and delivery tracking in the same system. Contacts, notes and deal history carry across automatically, so nothing is retyped at handover. That is the cleanest sales-to-delivery flow on this list.

Plus has a real gap: workflow automation is not included, so automated lead assignment and triggered emails need Professional at $49 per user per month billed annually. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial. Skip Insightly if your work ends when the deal closes — you would pay for project features you never use, and Zoho CRM would cost less.

6. Salesforce: best for large teams that need depth

Salesforce Starter Suite costs $25 per user per month, billed monthly or annually, and includes lead, account, contact and opportunity management, built-in sales flows and AI email and calendar sync. A Free Suite covers up to 2 users. Projects are handled through Salesforce's broader platform rather than a single built-in project view, and the higher editions — Pro Suite at $100, Core at $195, Advanced at $395 and Max at $550 per user per month billed annually — add forecasting, quoting and advanced security.

Salesforce is the deepest CRM here and the hardest to set up. Admin time, training and add-ons such as API access at $25 per user per month can double the licence cost. Skip Salesforce if your team is under ten people and your process is simple — the tools above will be live in days, while Salesforce can take weeks to configure well.

What a five-person team pays in year one

These figures are licence costs only, before tax, add-ons and onboarding. HubSpot's figure uses the $20 list price, not the new-customer promotion, and Salesforce's figure excludes the API add-on. The cheapest option is not always the cheapest year: a team that needs automation on Insightly moves to Professional at $49 per user per month, or $2,940 a year for five users, while a team that needs automation on HubSpot moves to Professional at $90 per seat plus $1,500 onboarding.

How to choose

Before you choose, trial the pipeline with your own deals, not the sample data. Import ten real contacts, move one deal through every stage, and create the project that follows it. If that flow feels awkward in the trial, it will feel worse at fifty deals. For sales-focused comparisons, see Best CRM Software for Sales Reps and Best CRM Tools for B2B Startups. If you are weighing outside help against doing this yourself, the in-house vs agency vs freelancer guide sets out the trade-offs, and Adziq's email service can cover the follow-up emails your CRM sends after a deal closes.

Common questions

Sources

• HubSpot Sales Hub pricing
• monday.com Sales CRM pricing
• Zoho CRM pricing
• ClickUp pricing
• Insightly pricing
• Salesforce Sales Cloud pricing

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