Start with who will use it
Count the people who will log in every week. Several vendors price by user or seat, and some plans cap seats: Attio's Free tier stops at three seats and its Plus plan at ten, Close's Solo plan is limited to one user, and EspoCRM's cloud plans require at least three, five or ten users. Bigin's free edition is for one user.
Read the billing terms, not just the headline price
Most pricing pages show a per-user monthly figure that applies only when billed annually. Close, Copper, Attio, Nutshell and Bigin publish both figures; Twenty and Salesforce's higher editions are billed yearly. Check whether the monthly price is available at all, and what the vendor says about cancelling or downgrading.
Decide what has to be built in
Calling, SMS and email sequences are included in some products and sold as add-ons in others. Close includes calling and SMS on every plan; Nutshell sells SMS and email marketing as add-ons; Copper adds bulk email from its Professional plan. If your team lives in Gmail or Outlook, look for a native integration: Copper is built around Google Workspace, and Capsule, Attio, Nutshell and Zoho CRM publish Gmail and Outlook integrations.
Check the integrations directory
Every vendor in this category publishes an integrations or apps page. Look up the tools you already pay for, and note whether the integration is native, through a marketplace app, or via Zapier.
Consider deployment
Most CRMs are hosted by the vendor. EspoCRM and Twenty are open source and can be self-hosted for free, with hosted plans as an option.
Use the trial to test your own process
Trials range from 14 days (Close, Capsule, Nutshell, Pipedrive) to 15 (Bigin) and 30 days (Less Annoying CRM, Salesforce); most need no credit card. Import a real slice of your contacts, run one pipeline end to end, and confirm reports answer your questions before the trial ends.
What TechBigs verifies
Every price and capability on TechBigs product pages links to the official page it was read from, with the date it was read. Where a vendor blocks automated reads (Pipedrive) or renders prices only in the browser (HubSpot, Zoho CRM), the profile says so instead of guessing.
