How to choose a small-business CRM: five criteria, one test

A CRM is worth having if your team uses it every day and it tells you which sales are open, which are about to close and what to do today. Five criteria check this: your own stages, a forecast, a link to invoices, capture from every channel and a clear price.

Reviewed on 2026-10-10. BAI Business offers a CRM and publishes this article; that is why we also say when another one fits better.

The five criteria

Stages that speak your language

You should be able to name, order and adjust the stages with your business's vocabulary, without asking support: a restaurant talks about confirmed bookings, an estate agency about scheduled viewings, a consultancy about first calls. Ask too what each stage does: whether it counts as a won sale, whether it feeds the forecast, whether it triggers an alert. Without that, the board is just decoration.

A forecast of what may come in

The difference between recording the past and managing the future is knowing how much money the open sales add up to and how likely they are to close. Check whether the CRM calculates it or forces you to do it in a separate spreadsheet.

A link to invoices

If the CRM and the invoicing program are different products, someone copies the customer's details when a sale closes. Some tools bring the two together: Holded's page presents, in its Standard plan, accounting, banks, team and CRM in one place (accessed on 2026-10-10). Others focus on sales follow-up: Pipedrive's page describes sales CRM plans and does not mention invoicing (accessed on 2026-10-10).

Every channel in a single record

Contacts arrive by form, by message, by phone. If the CRM doesn't put them in the same customer record, you end up with parallel lists. What matters is that someone who wrote through one channel and calls through another appears as the same person, with their whole history.

A price you understand before you grow

Look at how it charges: per user, per edition or per plan, and what is paid separately. HubSpot has a free plan and paid editions per licence; Pipedrive charges per user and month; Holded charges per plan and number of users (accessed on 2026-10-10). The specific prices are on the pages of HubSpot, Pipedrive and Holded.

The ten-minute test

Before you pay, ask someone on the team who hasn't installed the CRM to do the following in ten minutes and without help:

1. Create a contact and assign it to themselves.
2. Move it to another stage.
3. Create the invoice from the sale, if the CRM allows it.
4. Mark it as won.
5. Check that it counts in the month's forecast.

If they need help with any of the steps, the CRM fails the test for your team.

Where BAI fits and where it doesn't

BAI Business is a management platform for the self-employed and small businesses. According to the sheet for its CRM solution, it lets you upload your customers from a spreadsheet with duplicates detected, keep one record per customer with their history, save in it what arrives through forms, bookings or the receptionist, assign each new customer with a deadline to respond, move sales along stages with their next action in your calendar, and have artificial intelligence summarise each sale and calculate how much may come in. You can see it on the CRM for your business page.

It fits if you want the CRM connected with the website, appointments, invoices and customer service. It doesn't fit if you want a purely sales CRM with very specialised features: programs such as Pipedrive focus more on that part, according to their page.

Frequently asked questions

What should a CRM for a small business have?

Sales stages you can name with your own vocabulary, a forecast of what may come in, a link to invoices, capture of the contacts from all your channels in a single record and a price you understand before you grow.

Is there a free CRM?

HubSpot has a free plan, according to its page (accessed on 2026-10-10). Pipedrive offers a 14-day trial with no card and so does Holded (accessed on 2026-10-10).

How do I check whether a CRM suits me before paying for it?

Ask someone who hasn't installed it to create a contact, assign it, move it to another stage, mark it as won and see that it counts in the forecast, all in ten minutes and without help. If they need help, the CRM fails the test for your team.

You may also be interested in

• Migrating from Excel to a CRM without losing data: the next step after choosing your CRM.
• First 30 days with a new CRM: what to set up first.

Sources

• HubSpot free CRM and plans, accessed on 10 October 2026.
• Pipedrive pricing, accessed on 10 October 2026.
• Holded pricing, accessed on 10 October 2026.