Lightweight CRM built for small teams and agencies
Bigin by Zoho CRM is the pipeline-first CRM Zoho built for businesses that find Zoho CRM itself too heavy. We picked it because at $9/user/month it occupies a sweet spot: real pipelines, automations, multichannel comms and signals, without the implementation overhead of Zoho CRM, HubSpot Sales Hub or Salesforce.
You define a pipeline (or several team pipelines on Premier), drag deals through stages, and let "Signals" surface the email replies, missed calls and chat messages that need a response today. Bigin connects to Gmail, Outlook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram and Zoom. Workflows automate stage changes, follow-up tasks and notifications. Toppings (Zoho's name for plug-in modules) extend Bigin with tasks, mailboxes and analytics without bloating the core.
Bigin sits inside Zoho's wider universe, so when you outgrow it you can graduate to Zoho CRM without re-importing data.
The free plan covers one user, 500 records and a single pipeline; usable for solo operators. Express at $9/user/month annual ($12 monthly) gives you multiple pipelines and basic Toppings. Premier at $15/user/month annual ($21 monthly) adds team pipelines, advanced Toppings and analytics. There are no usage credits or surprise add-ons; the price you see is the price you pay.
| Tool | Strength | Weakness vs Bigin |
|---|---|---|
| Bigin | Pipeline simplicity at $9 | — |
| HubSpot CRM Free | Free, deeper marketing | Paid tiers escalate sharply once you need automations |
| Pipedrive | Cleaner UX | 2-3x the price for similar small-team features |
| Zoho CRM | Far deeper for sales teams | Heavier setup and higher cost for solo/very small teams |
Buy if you are a freelancer or 1–10 person team, you want a real pipeline (not a spreadsheet), and you would rather not learn enterprise CRM concepts to send three emails a week.
Skip if you have 20+ sales reps, you need deep forecasting and territory management, or you are committed to the HubSpot or Salesforce ecosystems already.
Click through the verified link for the current promotion. We re-check pricing monthly.
Founders managing 20–100 leads per month use Bigin to track pipeline, automate follow-ups, and forecast revenue without IT overhead. The flat-rate model and free tier let bootstrapped teams defer paid seats until product-market fit.
Agencies running 10–30 concurrent projects use Bigin alongside Zoho Books to track leads, convert to projects, and invoice. Native integration eliminates double-entry and keeps client data in sync across sales and accounting.
RevOps teams at 15–50 person companies use Bigin to unify lead routing, deal tracking, and customer support tickets via Zoho Desk. Automation rules and custom fields let ops teams reduce manual data entry by 60–70%.
Quarterly access to product leadership.
Bonus credits redeemable on partner tooling.
We re-verify the offer every quarter so it never goes stale.
Hit the button on this page — opens the partner site in a new tab.
Check your investor or accelerator benefits portal for the Bigin by Zoho CRM partner code. Y Combinator, Sequoia, and most Tier 1 VCs have codes available.
Renewals stay at the same rate — verified by us, not the vendor.
| Feature | Bigin by Zoho CRM |
|---|---|
| Free trial | 14 days |
| Cheapest paid plan | $0/mo |
| Annual discount | Up to 25% |
| Refund window | 30 days |
| Setup time | < 1 hour |
| Best for | Founders |
“Free plan is genuinely useful for solo operators”
“Affordable entry point into Zoho ecosystem”
“Perfect lightweight CRM for a small agency team”
Free plan + free trial available
Free plan + free trial available
Verified offer
Free plan available
Verified offer
Verified offer
Free trial available
Verified offer
