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The best free real estate CRMs for 2024 (+ 4 low-cost alternatives) by Megan DeMatteo for HousingWire

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Whether you’re a new agent looking to get up and running or a seasoned pro wanting to save a few dollars, our comprehensive guide to the best free real estate CRMS can help. We researched countless options to find the best free real estate CRMS (plus a few low-cost alternatives) to save you time and money. The CRMs that made our list will help you stay organized, turn your leads into clients, and scale your business as you go. We considered the following key features when curating CRMs for this comprehensive guide.

  • Value for money: We weighed ease of use, price & client support
  • Storage capacity. How many contacts does the free version store?
  • Automation. How do they take work off your desk?
  • Scalability. Can you easily level up to paid plans as you grow your business?
  • Outreach tools. Are email, text messaging & auto-dialers included?
  • Customizability. Can the tool be tailored to typical real estate workflows?

At-a-glance: Best free real estate CRMs for 2024

You don’t need to spend hundreds to get a functional CRM to nurture your leads until they’re ready to buy or sell. Let’s dive into our top picks — with the best options for lead generation, lead nurturing, customization, and more.


Best overall:

Freshsales

Jump to Details

Lead nurturing:

Agile CRM

Jump to Details

Lead generation:

HubSpot

Jump to Details

Referrals:

HotSheet

Jump to Details

Multi-channel marketing:

Zoho

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Customization:

Bitrix24

Jump to Details

Low-cost alternatives CRMs


Team communication:

Wise Agent

Jump to Details

Small teams:

LionDesk

Jump to Details

Lead nurturing:

Insightly

Jump to Details

Workflow automation:

Pipedrive

Jump to Details

Best Free Real Estate CRMs for 2024

Freshsales: Best overall

Logo-Freshsales

Freshsales is designed to grow with you. The free plan includes 2GB of storage and a built-in dialer for calling leads. It allows for up to three team members and effortlessly merges into the more robust paid versions — giving you and your budding business a foothold to get up and running.

Freshsales is part of the Freshworks software ecosystem. It’s not real estate-specific, but it’s packed with tools and features to help you easily run your business from one platform.

Pricing

When you’re ready to migrate from the free plan to a paid plan, Freshsales offers several options to choose from.

  • Growth: $9/month billed annually
  • Pro: $39/month billed annually
  • Enterprise: $59/month billed annually

Try any plan free for 21 days. No credit card required.

Pros & Cons

  • Offers automated workflows for lead nurturing
  • Includes built-in chat, email, and phone options
  • Features an intuitive chatbot to assist in managing leads
  • Includes 2GB storage in the free version
  • User-friendly mobile app
  • Includes built-in dialer
  • Call routing/rotation for team members
  • Limited to only three users in the free version
  • Restricted analytics capabilities
  • Limited customer support
  • Not designed for real estate
  • Email automation is not available in the free plan

What We Love

Freshworks stands out for its versatility in communication, offering email, SMS and phone call routing capabilities. If you’re an active communicator who likes to lead with a hands-on client follow-up approach, Freshsales is for you. Its intuitive interface makes it an excellent choice for agents seeking efficient client interaction.

Check out Freshsales

Agile CRM: Lead nurturing

Logo-Agile-CRM

Agile CRM has a lot to offer, including lead scoring and social media integrations. Its free version allows up to ten users and 50,000 contacts, giving you ample time to ramp up before upgrading to one of Agile’s paid plans.

Pricing

Agile CRM offers several levels to choose from when it’s time to level up.

  • Free: This plan is for up to 10 users and includes 50,000 contacts and companies, unlimited deals, lead scoring, and more.
  • Starter: $9.99/month per user billed annually 
  • Regular: $39.99/month per user billed annually
  • Enterprise: $64.99/month per user billed annually

Pros & Cons

  • Unlimited document storage
  • Social media integrations included in the free plan
  • Lead scoring to prioritize potential clients
  • User-friendly dashboard with customizable landing pages
  • Supports up to 10 users and 50,000 contacts
  • Additional features include email tracking, appointment scheduling, and custom deal milestones
  • Interface could be more intuitive
  • Marketing automation not offered in the free plan
  • No texting feature
  • Mobile app is not user-friendly
  • Requires a domain-linked email account for signing up

What We Love

We chose Agile CRM for its unique sales gamification approach, which adds an element of competition and fun to the sales process. The CRM stands out with its lead-scoring feature and automation based on agent-defined triggers to help you prioritize leads effectively. The free plan’s social media integrations are particularly beneficial for connecting with business accounts.

Check out Agile CRM

HubSpot: Lead generation

Logo-HubSpot

HubSpot’s suite of tools is designed for marketers and salespeople (though not specifically for real estate agents). Its sleek, customizable, and easy-to-use dashboard makes managing leads from multiple sources simple and efficient. It’s great for tracking your lead generation efforts and building your pipeline of clients. Hubspot’s free version supports unlimited users.

Pricing

HubSpot offers a full suite of integrated tools through its platform (Think: email marketing, marketing automation, and AI, to name a few). You can add some of Hubspot’s to your suite of tech tools as you build your business. But if you’re just looking at Hubspot’s CRM, here are the prices you can expect to grow into.

  • FREE Hubspot CRM: Up to 1M contacts
  • Sales Hub Starter: $15/month per seat billed annually
  • Starter Customer Platform: $15/month per seat billed annually
  • Sales Hub Professional: $90/month per user billed annually
  • Sales Hub Enterprise: $150/month per user billed annually

Pros & Cons

  • Supports unlimited users and manages up to 1 million contacts
  • Supports a variety of integrations
  • ChatSpot AI assistant
  • Includes a mobile app for on-the-go access
  • Easy-to-use dashboard
  • Additional features like live chat, AI email writer and templates, meeting scheduler, and more
  • Free website builder and customizable landing pages
  • Not ideal for large teams requiring more intricate customizations
  • Limited real estate-specific features and templates
  • The free version may lack some advanced functionalities needed for large-scale operations

What We Love

Imagine what you could accomplish if you could store up to 1 million leads for free. That’s what HubSpot enables. Its free CRM is renowned for its user-friendly interface that simplifies sales activity tracking and analysis. It’s a powerhouse for lead generation, offering real-time views of sales pipelines and detailed reports on sales activities and individual performance. With unlimited data available in the free version, it’s suitable for teams of all sizes.

Check out Agile CRM

HotSheet: Referrals

Logo-HotSheet

If you’re looking for a simple, straightforward user interface and clutter-free approach to handling up to 1,000 contacts with unlimited follow-ups that you and your agents can learn quickly, HotSheet is an excellent free real estate CRM.

Pricing

There’s so much you can do with HotSheet for free, but when you’re ready to level up and add additional features, here’s what you can expect to pay for them.

  • FREE HotSheet CRM: Up to 1,000 Contacts
  • Pro: $34.50/month per user billed monthly
  • Team: $249.50/month includes ten users billed monthly
  • ReferralEdge: This add-on allows for agent-to-agent referrals
  • Solo: $24/month for one city
  • Multi-city: $90/month for five cities

Pros & Cons

  • Agent-to-Agent notification feature boosts social media referral leads
  • Up to 1,000 contacts with unlimited follow-ups in the free version
  • Effective scheduling tools with email notifications
  • Automated referral tracking
  • Transaction management
  • Clutter-free dashboard
  • More features planned
  • Steeper learning curve for less tech-savvy users
  • Limited integrations with other tools
  • Less robust reporting compared to competitors
  • Lacks some advanced CRM features
  • No mobile app, which may affect flexibility for on-the-go agents

What We Love

HotSheet is shaking up the real estate CRM world, offering features other CRMs charge for. For a small monthly add-on fee, HotSheet’s agent-to-agent referral feature promises a significant boost in your ability to snag referrals. This tool alerts you immediately when a referral is posted, enabling you to connect with potential clients. For the budget-conscious and tech-savvy agent, HotSheet is definitely a great CRM to start off with.

Check out HotSheet

Zoho: Multi-channel marketing

Logo-Zoho

Zoho’s free real estate CRM (and paid plans) are excellent, budget-friendly tools that offer tons of customization and functionality, as well as integration options.

Pricing

Zoho offers several levels so you can comfortably add on additional features as your business grows.

  • FREE Zoho CRM: 1 GB of storage
  • Standard: $14/month per user billed annually
  • Professional: $23/month per user billed annually
  • Enterprise: $40/month per user billed annually
  • Ultimate: $52/month per user billed annually

Pros & Cons

  • Automation included with all plans
  • 1 GB of storage available on free plan
  • Includes mobile app
  • Customization options available
  • Multi-channel customer engagement alerts
  • No analytics in free version
  • Doesn’t sync with Google Calendar
  • AI feature only available in enterprise-level tiers
  • API integrations limited to 5000 credits per 24-hour window
  • Limited to only 3 users
  • Requires time to set up and customize

What We Love

Zoho offers simple features, like leads, automations, documents, and a mobile app to help get you up and running quickly. Then, as your business expands, you can tap into the various paid versions with an array of features to tailor the platform to suit your needs, like dashboard customizations and integrations, to make it work for you without blowing out your budget.

Check out Zoho

Bitrix24: Team communication

Logo-Bitrix24

Bitrix24 stands out as an all-in-one CRM solution offering a wide range of functionalities, from lead management to client service. Notably, Bitrix24 offers great communication tools with the free version, including chat, customizable triggers for automations, an AI-powered assistant, and HD video calls and video conferencing for up to 48 people.

Pricing

You can stick with the free version as long as it makes sense. When your business needs outgrow it, you can easily migrate to one of  Bitrix24’s paid plans.

  • FREE Bitrix CRM:  Unlimited users and 1 GB cloud storage
  • Basic: $49/month for up to 5 users, billed annually
  • Standard: $99/month for up to 50 users, billed annually
  • Professional: $199/month for up to 100 users, billed annually

Pros & Cons

  • Offers a comprehensive set of tools, including CRM, project management and contact center functionalities
  • Includes an intuitive website builder
  • Includes a highly functional mobile app
  • Dashboard customizations, including a kanban view
  • Not real estate specific
  • Marketing tools like texting, batch email templates, not included in free plan
  • Learning curve for less tech-savvy agents
  • Limited cloud storage and customer support

What We Love

Bitrix24 caters to businesses (of all types) seeking complete control over their sales process, providing seamlessly integrated omni-channel marketing, lead generation, project management and client communication tools. There’s a lot to love!

Check out Bitrix24

Related articles

Best CRMs Under $50 Per Month

We’ve just shared our top six best free real estate CRMs for 2024. But for many of you already hustling, these platforms may not have the functionality you need for where you are in your business. For you, check out this short list of some of our favorite budget-friendly real estate CRMs that rank high on performance and features.

Wise Agent: Small teams

Wise Agent logo; a real estate CRM or customer relationship management software

Wise Agent is an all-in-one solution for real estate agents and small teams looking for an affordable, feature-rich CRM with lead automation, transaction management, and excellent customer support.

Pricing

WiseAgent pricing is simple and straightforward, and it comes with a 14-day free trial to kick things off.

  • No credit card required 14-day free trial
  • Monthly: $49/month
  • Annual: $499/year (save 15%)
  • Enterprise: Custom

Pros & Cons

  • No credit card required 14-day free trial
  • Free one-on-one onboarding and 24/7 support
  • Intuitive and user-friendly interface
  • Easy customization options with tons of integrations
  • No long-term contract
  • Comprehensive drip campaigns and customizable landing pages
  • Extensive contact automation and an AI writing assistant
  • 24/7 customer support
  • Robust options may be overwhelming to some less tech-savvy users
  • Transaction management features may be too basic
  • Not ideal for scaling teams or large brokerages
  • No mobile app
  • Updates are implemented without notice
  • Interface feels a little dated

What We Love

We love Wise Agent’s user-friendly interface, comprehensive features, and exceptional customer support. It offers a balanced mix of essential CRM functionalities and advanced marketing tools at a competitive price, addressing the specific needs of real estate agents.

Check out Wise Agent

LionDesk: Lead nurturing

LionDesk logo; a real estate CRM or customer relationship management software

LionDesk reigns as one of the top real estate CRMs on the market, praised for its functionality and affordability. Its vast suite of features offers agents the flexibility to grow their business at a rate that makes sense — without losing any clients along the way.

Pricing

LionDesk keeps everything simple in its two CRM plans.

  • No credit card required 14-day free trial
  • CRM: $39/month billed monthly
  • CRM Premier: $139/month billed monthly (Premier includes the single line dialer and landing pages in the monthly subscription)

Pros & Cons

  • Video, email & texting capabilities
  • Power dialer integration add-on
  • Automated drip campaigns and pre-built marketing campaigns included
  • Clean, easy-to-use interface
  • No credit card required 14-day free trial
  • Integrated landing pages available
  • Robust options may be overwhelming to some less tech-savvy users
  • Not ideal for scaling teams or large brokerages
  • Analytics may be insufficient
  • Basic transaction management features
  • AI assistant (Gabby) no longer offered

What We Love

LionDesk excels in providing fundamental CRM features and innovative additions like video messaging and an AI assistant, called Gabby. Its commitment to continuous product upgrades and responsive customer service also sets it apart.

Check out LionDesk

Insightly: Customization

Logo-Insightly

This CRM is ideal for small business owners or solo entrepreneurs needing a basic CRM system. Insightly lets you store up to 2,500 contacts or leads.

Insightly stands out for its core functionalities which are designed for small businesses. It’s suitable for agents who are just starting out, and who need a simple CRM with essential features. It has tons of customizations and is easy to scale as you grow.

Pricing

For all the features and customizations, Insightly remains highly affordable.

  • No credit card required 14-day free trial
  • Plus: $29/month per user
  • Professional: $49/month per user
  • Enterprise: $99/month per user

Pros & Cons

  • Highly customizable fields and layouts
  • No credit card required 14-day free trial
  • Custom dashboards and reports
  • Workflow automation
  • Project management features
  • Tons of integrations with third-party platforms, including Gmail & Outlook
  • Interface may be overwhelming to some users
  • No longer offers a free version
  • Not real estate specific and limited on real estate templates

What We Love

Insightly’s free version stands out for its core functionalities, which are tailored specifically to small-scale operations. It’s suitable for those just starting out who need a simple CRM with essential features.

Check out Insightly

Pipedrive: Workflow automation

Logo-Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a sales-driven CRM with a focus on pipeline management. Pipedrive excels at helping you move your potential clients through the sales journey so you can turn more leads into closed transactions.

Pricing

  • No credit card required 14-day free trial
  • Essential: $24/month per user
  • Advanced: $44/month per user (includes email and automations)

Pros & Cons

  • No credit card required 14-day free trial
  • Customizable dashboard
  • Tons of integration options
  • Robust lead management and sales tracking tools
  • AI-powered sales assistant to increase conversion
  • Lead generation and email campaign tools not included (a la carte add-ons)
  • Limited reporting and analytics
  • Lacks automation features
  • Marketing tools not included
  • Set up time can be overwhelming for less tech-savvy users

What We Love

Pipedrive isn’t specifically designed as a real estate CRM, but its customizable dashboard allows you to set up your workflow in a way that works best for you. Plus, the visual pipeline makes it easy to keep track of your leads.

Check out Pipedrive

FAQs: The best free real estate CRMs

What features should I look for in a free real estate CRM?

The field of free real estate CRMs is vast, and no single CRM is right for everyone. But when you’re shopping for the right one for you, you should consider the following:

  • Ease of use. Look for a real estate CRM that you can learn to use quickly.
  • Support. Check customer reviews and work with a company that prioritizes customer service. Look for resources and tutorials to help you ramp up quickly.
  • Scalability. As your business grows, you’ll want your CRM to grow with you and adapt to your evolving needs. The last thing you want to do is make a big change later because you’ve outgrown your current CRM’s capacity to grow with you.
  • Compatibility. If you’re already using other tech for your real estate business, find a CRM that fits with your existing stack.
  • Price. Don’t think of it as a cost — consider it an investment. But make sure your CRM fits within your marketing and management budget.

Can I really get a good CRM for free, or will I need to upgrade?

You can absolutely get a great CRM for free. There are several options in this article. A free real estate CRM is great to help get you started in your business, especially if you’re starting out. More than likely, you will want to upgrade as you expand your business. You’ll come to discover that your time is valuable and better spent in other ways. And some tasks may be handled best through things like automation, which may be part of an upgraded plan.

How do free real estate CRMs compare to paid options?

Free real estate CRMs perform basic functions, while paid options offer more bells, whistles and features. The biggest differences will be features like customer support, automation, and AI assistance.

Are free CRMs secure enough for storing client data?

Some free real estate CRMs may have some vulnerability when it comes to data protection. Do your due diligence when researching a company to learn how they protect their clients’ data from hackers.

Can I integrate free CRMs with other real estate tools I use?

That depends on the CRM you choose. Some of the CRMs on this list allow for integrations with third-party platforms, while others don’t provide those capabilities. Learn what integrations your CRM of choice allows before you commit to pouring all your contacts into it!

How many contacts can I manage with a free real estate CRM?

Every platform has its different limitations in its free plan. Agile CRM, for example, allows up to 50,000 contacts. Some allow less, like closer to 1,000 contacts. So, if you have a lot of contacts to upload into a CRM, ensure it will accommodate your list.

Do free CRMs offer mobile apps for on-the-go access?

Yes! Most of the real estate CRMs on this list offer a mobile app or a web app for on-the-go access.

Can multiple team members use a free CRM account?

In some cases, yes. Most of the free real estate CRMs on this list allow more than one user to access the free account. Most of them are designed to grow as you build your team.

What are the limitations of free real estate CRMs?

Most limitations will come from customer support, storage, marketing, automation and AI assistance. Don’t expect to get the fancy lead capture and lead nurturing features that some of the more robust, real estate-specific CRMs on the market offer. Those kinds of features come with a price tag.

How easy is it to upgrade from a free to a paid plan if needed?

Most of these free CRMs for real estate are designed to be a starter plan that let you ladder up to paid plans. So, it’s super easy to convert to a paid plan to add features. Most of them are designed in a stair-step, so you can move up a little at a time.

Can I import my existing contacts into a free CRM?

Yes. The real estate CRMs on this list allow you to either manually enter your contacts, merge them from your Gmail or Outlook, or upload a CSV file.

Do free CRMs offer customer support?

Yes, they do. Most will offer less robust or email-only support. But you should still be able to get some assistance if you need it.

How do free CRMs handle lead generation and nurturing?

Don’t expect to get a lot of lead generation and nurturing from a free real estate CRM. Those are premium features that will cost a premium price. Some of the CRMs on this list have a few lead generation features that can get things started, but you’ll want to upgrade later to automate some of the functions.

Can I create custom fields in free real estate CRMs?

Yes. Some of the real estate CRMs on this list allow custom fields.

Are there any hidden costs associated with free CRMs?

No. Most free real estate CRMs are truly free. However, some offer a la carte features that can feel like a bait-and-switch. It’s best to weigh some of those CRMs against some of the low-cost options to see if you can get more of what you want for a better price than paying per feature.

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