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How to choose a CRM in 2026

Five steps, no vendor pitch. Read it in six minutes, apply it in a week.

Do you need a CRM at all?

If follow-ups are slipping, two people are emailing the same customer, or nobody can say how much revenue is in the pipeline, yes. If you have ten customers and one salesperson, a spreadsheet is fine for now.

Start from your process, not from features

Write down the stages a deal goes through and the three actions reps repeat every day. A CRM that makes those three actions fast beats one with a longer feature list.

Price the whole team for a year

Multiply the per-seat price by every user, including managers and support, times twelve. Add the plan you will actually need in six months, not the one you can tolerate today. Free plans are great to start and are also where the upsell begins.

Check the integrations you cannot live without

Email and calendar are table stakes. Then your phone system, accounting, support desk and website forms. One missing integration costs more in copy-paste than a more expensive plan.

Run a real trial

Pick two platforms, import real contacts, and have one rep use each for a full week of actual work. The one they keep opening on their own is the answer.

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