Free AI Sales & CRM Tools: Only 4 of 11 Have Free Plans

Which free AI sales and CRM tools are on IMDA's list?

These are the 11 sales and CRM tools IMDA lists, with each vendor's own free terms as of October 2026.

How we chose and what "free" means here

We did not pick these tools. IMDA did. Its note says the list was "curated from multiple sources, considering signals of market adoption with generally positive user sentiment and relevance to local SMEs needs." The tools are not grant-supported pre-approved solutions, so the EDGE Grant does not cover them.

In October 2026 we checked each vendor's own pricing page and help centre for the free terms. A free plan has no end date but has limits on users, contacts or credits. A free trial gives you most or all features for a fixed period, usually 14 days, then asks you to pay. Where a vendor's page was unclear, we say so instead of guessing. We leave out paid prices because they change often and are quoted in US dollars.

Which CRMs have a free plan you can keep?

If you want a CRM you can use for months without paying, these are the two options on IMDA's list.

• HubSpot Sales Hub (free CRM): HubSpot's free CRM is for up to two users and 1,000 contacts, with no expiry date and no credit card needed. It covers contacts, deals, tasks and a shared inbox, and includes Breeze Assistant, HubSpot's AI helper for researching companies, preparing for calls and summarising records. Best for a two-person team, say a renovation contractor's owner and project lead, who need one place for every enquiry. The honest limit: 1,000 contacts fills up fast, and HubSpot's official WhatsApp connection needs a Professional or Enterprise Marketing Hub or Service Hub.
• Zoho CRM: Zoho's free edition is "free forever for 3 users" with 5,000 records, 1 GB of file storage and a daily API allowance. It handles leads, deals and simple workflows, and Zoho runs a full business suite if you later want books or a help desk. Best for a small logistics SME or trading company that wants three seats and room for more records. The honest limit: Zia, Zoho's AI assistant, is not on the free edition, and sending WhatsApp messages from Zoho CRM uses paid credits.

Between the two, HubSpot gives you AI on day one; Zoho gives you more seats and records. Both export your data, so starting on one does not lock you in.

Which CRMs offer a free trial instead?

These four CRMs have no free plan on their pricing pages, but each offers a trial long enough to test with real leads.

• Pipedrive: A 14-day free trial with no credit card. Pipedrive is built around a visual pipeline: every deal is a card you drag from enquiry to won. Best for owner-led sales, such as an interior design firm tracking quotes. Its native WhatsApp integration is on the Growth plan and up, is still labelled beta, and needs a Meta Business Portfolio and WhatsApp Business Account.
• Close: A 14-day free trial, no credit card. Close puts calling, email and SMS inside the CRM, and its AI agent, Chloe, can call and qualify leads and book meetings. Best for small teams that live on the phone. Close's own WhatsApp feature only opens a chat; full two-way logging needs a third-party app.
• Freshsales: A 21-day free trial of the full CRM. Its Freddy AI Agent is a paid add-on, and WhatsApp comes through Freshchat. Best if you already use Freshdesk for support. The pricing page mentions a free plan but lists only paid plans, so treat the free plan as unconfirmed and check the vendor's current terms.
• monday CRM: A 14-day free trial, no card needed. Good if your team already runs projects on monday.com and wants sales on the same boards. Paid plans start at three seats, and its AI calling and lead-sourcing agents use AI credits on Standard plans and up. WhatsApp messages go through a Twilio workflow block on Pro or Enterprise.

Which tools help you find and contact new leads?

Three tools on the list are about outbound prospecting rather than managing a pipeline.

• Apollo.io: A database of business contacts with email and sequencing built in. Apollo's free plan "stays free with no time limit", with a limited monthly credit allowance; paid plans also have a 14-day trial with no card. Sign up with your company email: Apollo's fair-use terms cap accounts without a verified company domain at far fewer credits. Apollo does not state how well it covers Singapore contacts, so test with your own target list first.
• Instantly: Cold email at scale, with an AI Reply Agent that drafts responses. The 14-day trial needs no card and includes two sending accounts, 250 leads and 1,000 emails. It is email only, and accounts that do not upgrade are deleted after the trial, so export anything you need.
• lemlist: Outreach across email and LinkedIn, with AI-personalised LinkedIn voice notes. The 14-day trial needs no card and includes 200 credits. WhatsApp automation is a paid add-on on its Multichannel and Enterprise plans.

One Singapore-specific caution: PDPA's Do Not Call rules cover marketing calls and text messages to Singapore numbers, and the Spam Control Act sets rules for unsolicited commercial email sent in bulk. Check both before you switch on any automated outreach.

Where do HubSpot Marketing Hub and Profound fit?

• HubSpot Marketing Hub: Free forms, landing pages and email, with no card needed. It feeds new contacts straight into the free HubSpot CRM, which makes the pair a sensible starting stack for a clinic or tuition centre that gets enquiries from its website. HubSpot does not publish the free email and contact limits on the pages we checked, and free assets carry HubSpot branding.
• Profound: A newer kind of tool: it tracks how often AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews mention your brand. Its free option is a 7-day trial with 50 prompts a day, not an ongoing free tier. Useful for a quick look at whether AI search mentions you at all; not a CRM.

For email newsletters and campaign tools, see our companion guide to free AI marketing and email tools.

How do you choose the right one for your business?

Whichever you choose, run the trial with real leads, not test data. Decide before day one what would make you keep it: fewer missed follow-ups, faster quotes, or a pipeline you can read in one glance.

What do free AI tools not do for you?

A free CRM gives you a place to store leads. It does not decide how leads get there. For many Singapore SMEs, enquiries and orders arrive in WhatsApp chats, and someone still copies names, items and amounts into the CRM or a sheet. When that person is busy, the CRM goes stale and the AI features have nothing to work with.

Free tools also leave the setup to you: cleaning your old contact list, defining pipeline stages, setting who approves a discount, and checking every day that follow-ups went out. None of that is a flaw in the tools. It is simply the work that turns software into a sales process, and it needs an owner.

Tool on its own vs tool + Biks

Both are valid choices. The difference is who does the connecting and the daily running.

How Biks can help with sales and CRM

Biks sits on top of the tools you already use, whether that is a CRM or a Google Sheet. When an enquiry or order comes in on WhatsApp, the details are recorded in your CRM or sheet, payment is checked, and follow-ups go out on schedule, with your team approving anything unusual. Nobody retypes a chat.

Rosalie, a food business that sells through WhatsApp, cut daily order admin from more than four hours to about 20 minutes, reached a 99% response rate and saw a sales closing rate more than 50% higher than before, live in three weeks. Read the Rosalie case study or see how customer operations works, then book a call to map your own sales flow. If your next question is support rather than sales, our guide to free AI customer service tools covers the other side of the chat, and the full IMDA list covers every category.