HubSpot alternatives
The 7 best HubSpot alternatives in 2026 — when your network isn't a funnel
For years the reflex answer to "where do I park my contacts for free?" was HubSpot — and for startups assembling their first sales and marketing engine, it still holds. But the free CRM has changed: since the September 2024 reduction it's capped at 1,000 contacts and 2 users, emails and forms carry HubSpot branding, and the first paid step leads into a hub system whose Professional tiers run to four-figure annual sums. If all you keep there is your personal or professional network, you're effectively operating a marketing database about your own friends. This list sorts through seven exits: lightweight business CRMs for solo professionals, and true personal CRMs for anyone whose contacts aren't leads. Prices checked against public pricing pages on 10 June 2026, with our own product clearly marked.
Why people leave HubSpot
Three things push people out of HubSpot. First, the free-tier cut: since September 2024 the free CRM holds just 1,000 contacts — if you've accumulated an address book there over years, you hit the ceiling or pay up. Second, the branding and the upsell ladder: the free CRM is the entry to a hub system where Sales Hub Starter begins at $20 per seat per month and the deeper Breeze AI features sit behind paid hubs. Third, the shape: contacts carry lifecycle stages and lead scores, the timeline logs deal activity — the wrong grammar for a personal network, and on the GDPR side your data sits on AWS in the US by default (Frankfurt only if you actively chose it, with some sub-processors still operating outside the EU). For a growing company HubSpot remains first-rate — for remembering people, better-fitting tools exist.
How we ranked — and our bias
So nobody skims past it: Endearist at rank 1 is our own product. We therefore lay out the criteria instead of claiming neutrality. We weighted what HubSpot leavers concretely look for: a free tier or fair flat price instead of a hub ladder, a contact model without lifecycle pressure, data location, and the quality of the export exit. All pricing was looked up on each vendor's pricing page on 10 June 2026. Nobody paid for their position, nothing here earns us a commission — and each entry's weaknesses sit right beside it, ours first.
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Endearist
Our productA personal CRM without the funnel: your people, your device, your key
Best for: The personal network that should never carry lifecycle stages
Strengths
- No 1,000-contact cap and no hub ladder: Pro Lifetime costs €69 — once, not per seat per month
- Local-first with optional end-to-end encrypted sync (AES-256-GCM, you hold the key) — GDPR questions don't even arise
- Fields HubSpot has no concept of: how-we-met, pets, life events, plus a journal and a weekly ritual
- AI only if you want it: your own API key stays on-device, or EU-routed actions in the cloud tiers
Weaknesses
- No pipelines, sequences, forms, or dashboards — for anything revenue-shaped you'll still need HubSpot or similar
- No email sync: the contact timeline doesn't auto-populate from your inbox
- Deliberately without team seats — unsuitable as a shared company CRM
Pricing: Free up to 25 contacts. Pro Lifetime €69 once, Pro Cloud Light €4.99/mo, Pro Cloud €9.99/mo.
Our most honest advice: split, don't switch. Keep HubSpot for everything that is revenue, export the personal contacts as CSV (CRM → Contacts → Export), and give them a home in Endearist without lead scores. As a side effect that frees up your 1,000-contact cap — and the people who matter to you end up on your device instead of in a marketing company's funnel.
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Capsule CRM
The CRM that's allowed to stay small — a free tier with no branding stamp
Best for: Solo professionals for whom HubSpot became too much machine
Strengths
- 250 contacts and 2 users free, without your emails carrying someone else's branding
- Pipeline, tracks, and project boards without hub architecture — one product instead of five modules
- Exemplary data egress: CSV, Excel, vCard, and a full ZIP export for admins
Weaknesses
- Sits on AWS in the United States and, unlike HubSpot, offers no EU data residency
- Opportunities and sales vocabulary run through the product — it feels like work for personal use
Pricing: Free (250 contacts, 2 users). Starter $18/user/mo (annual) up to Advanced $60/user/mo.
If HubSpot merely feels too big — not fundamentally wrong — Capsule is the calm sibling: the same core functions, no upsell architecture, dependable for over fifteen years. The 250-contact free tier fully covers many independents. Just consciously sign off on the US data hosting with no Frankfurt option.
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Attio
The best-built CRM of the moment, with a flexible data model
Best for: Startups trading HubSpot's module logic for genuine flexibility
Strengths
- Custom objects and real relations between records — you build your model instead of having one imposed
- A free plan for up to 3 users that's genuinely usable, plus Gmail/Outlook sync and real-time collaboration
- AI research agents that enrich contacts and companies automatically
Weaknesses
- Priced for companies at ~$34-69/seat/month — four figures per person over three years
- Cloud-only and revenue-shaped: defaults are companies, deals, and funding stages, with AI metered in credits
Pricing: Free up to 3 users (with limits). Plus ~$34/seat/mo, Pro $69/seat/mo (annual). No lifetime.
Attio is the answer when HubSpot loses you through rigidity rather than size: its data model bends further toward personal life than any other sales CRM on this list. It remains a go-to-market instrument with per-seat pricing, though — as a pure address book for friends it would be like fetching groceries in a race car.
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Less Annoying CRM
The anti-upsell machine: $15 flat, no asterisks for years
Best for: Small service businesses tired of HubSpot's pricing ladder
Strengths
- Exactly one plan: $15/user/month, unlimited contacts, every feature included — the exact opposite of the hub model
- Humans on a free support phone line — a higher-tier privilege at HubSpot
- No AI, no marketing module, no growth pressure: the tool stays the way you learned it
Weaknesses
- No free tier — the HubSpot free reflex doesn't work here; after the 30-day trial you pay
- Web-only on US servers with no EU residency and no native mobile or desktop apps
- Personal life only fits via improvised custom fields — the defaults think in leads
Pricing: $15/user/month flat. 30-day free trial, no free tier, no contracts.
LACRM cures the HubSpot trauma at the root: there is simply nothing to upgrade to. For realtors, consultants, and trade businesses with a client base, that's liberating. If you're not running a business at all, though, you're paying €540 over three years for a job a personal CRM does cheaper and better.
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Pipedrive
Pure sales without the marketing superstructure — pipeline only, from $14
Best for: Teams that only ever needed the sales part of HubSpot
Strengths
- Concentrates on exactly one thing — the kanban pipeline — and does it better than HubSpot's deal board
- Transparent seat pricing from $14 to $79 instead of hub combinatorics with mandatory onboarding
- EU customers get Frankfurt as their data center and contract with Pipedrive's EU entity
Weaknesses
- With no free tier, the main reason many ended up on HubSpot in the first place disappears
- Even less suited to personal networks than HubSpot: here, truly everything is a deal
Pricing: No free tier. Lite $14/seat/mo (annual), Growth $39, Premium $49, Ultimate $79.
The right trade if what bothers you about HubSpot is the marketing superstructure, not selling itself: Pipedrive is more focused, faster to learn, and more honestly priced. But it explicitly solves the business problem — if you're rescuing your private address book from the free CRM, look at ranks 1, 6, and 7 instead.
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Monica
An open-source personal CRM that belongs to nobody but you
Best for: Self-hosters pulling their network out of other people's clouds entirely
Strengths
- AGPL-licensed and publicly developed since 2017 — self-hosted, there's not a single fee
- Thinks in relationships, not leads: gift lists, debts, activities, a relationship graph
- The cloud edition runs on European servers — a GDPR upgrade over HubSpot's US default
Weaknesses
- Mobile is just a web view of the Laravel app, desktop is browser-only — native apps are missing
- Your own server needs tending: PHP, Laravel, MySQL, updates — indefinitely
Pricing: Self-hosted free. Monica Cloud $9/mo or $99/yr.
Monica answers the question HubSpot never asks: what if contacts are simply people? Birthdays, gift ideas, and shared memories get native fields here instead of improvised properties. Just bring a willingness to tend a server — or the $9 a month for the EU-hosted cloud edition.
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Dex
Professional relationship upkeep — LinkedIn sync instead of lead scoring
Best for: Networkers who nurture contacts without selling them anything
Strengths
- Captures job changes automatically via LinkedIn sync and a browser extension — HubSpot needs enrichment tools for that
- Per-person keep-in-touch cadences instead of per-segment sequences
- Properly native apps on iOS and Android plus web and macOS
Weaknesses
- Hosted on US servers (AWS) with AI features running through OpenAI — a trade-off for GDPR-conscious users
- Premium at $12/month costs more than some sales-CRM entry tiers — with no lifetime option
- Cut for professional life; personal depth like life events or how-we-met is absent
Pricing: Free tier. Premium $12/mo, Professional $20/mo. No lifetime.
Dex fits when your HubSpot account was really a career network: it keeps hundreds of professional contacts warm without pushing them through a funnel. Your data does move from one US cloud to another, though — if that's precisely what you resent, ranks 1 and 6 are your answer.
Frequently asked questions
- Is HubSpot's free CRM still free?
- Yes, it still exists — but noticeably trimmed since September 2024: a maximum of 1,000 contacts, 2 users, and HubSpot branding on your emails and forms. Beyond that, the paid path starts at Sales Hub Starter for $20 per seat per month. So free here means: free as long as your network stays small.
- Can I use HubSpot as a personal CRM?
- Technically yes, and many do because the free tier beckons. In practice you end up maintaining a marketing database about your friends: every contact carries a lifecycle stage and lead score, and things like "how we met" have no home. Past 1,000 contacts, the cap also forces you into a business tier.
- How do I get my contacts out of HubSpot?
- Under CRM → Contacts, filter the people you want, select all, and click Export — as a CSV with all properties. Names, emails, phone numbers, and notes carry into any other tool; lifecycle stages and lead scores stay behind, which for a personal move is exactly right.
- Which HubSpot alternative is free?
- Three candidates: Capsule carries 250 contacts for 2 users free with no branding, Attio is free for up to 3 users (with limits), and Monica costs nothing self-hosted — but demands your own server. Endearist Free covers 25 contacts; beyond that, the €69 lifetime license is the only one-time price on this list.
Prices and availability verified: 2026-06-10
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