10 Best SugarCRM Alternatives for Growing Businesses

Lam Min  | October 27, 2026
10 Best SugarCRM Alternatives for Growing Businesses

On April 13, 2026, SugarCRM announced it was now SugarAI. The press release framed the change as a shift to “precision selling” and quoted CEO David Roberts: “Teams don’t need more data or dashboards, they need direction.” Today, sugarcrm.com/pricing redirects to sugarai.com/pricing. Three listed plans run from $68 to $155 per user per month on annual billing, and two Precision+ plans are quote only (checked October 27, 2026).

April 13, 2026
SugarCRM announces its new brand identity as SugarAI.
October 27, 2026
sugarcrm.com/pricing redirects to sugarai.com/pricing.
Listed Plans
Standard+ $68, Advanced+ $98 and Premier+ $155 per user per month.

A rebrand and a price page are often the nudge a team needed to ask whether the CRM still fits. Maybe your 25 reps have outgrown what one admin can maintain. Maybe you want marketing automation in the same system as your deals.

This guide covers ten CRMs worth a trial for a growing business, what each costs on its public price page, and who each one suits. It also covers the step most comparison posts skip, which is your data. Span’s SugarCRM users list shows 1,247 companies in the USA, against 22,995 U.S. companies for Microsoft Dynamics CRM in Span’s technology lists (October 2026). Whichever platform you pick, your contact records move with you, including the dead ones.

$68
SugarCRM Standard+ per user per month, annual billing
1,247
U.S. companies on SugarCRM in Span’s list
22,995
U.S. companies on Microsoft Dynamics CRM in Span’s lists
$9
Lowest paid seat of the ten, Freshsales Growth

The 10 Alternatives at a Glance

We picked tools that are actively sold as of October 2026, show pricing publicly or say plainly that they are quote based, and suit teams of roughly 10 to 200 seats. The last column prices 25 seats for one year at the tier shown.

What 25 Seats Cost Per Year
One year of 25 seats at the tier shown, USD, annual billing.
An alternative
SugarCRM today
HubSpot CRM
Starter
$6,000
Zoho CRM
Professional
$6,900
monday CRM
Pro
$8,400
Pipedrive
Growth
$11,700
Freshsales
Pro
$11,700
Insightly
Professional
$14,700
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales
Professional
$19,500
SugarCRM (now SugarAI)
Standard+
$20,400
Salesforce Sales Cloud
Pro Suite
$30,000
SuiteCRM
Self hosted or hosted
Licence fee $0. Hosting and services extra.
$0
NetSuite CRM
Quote based
Set by platform, modules, users and setup fee.
Quote

Prices are USD per user per month on annual billing, taken from each vendor’s public pricing page on October 27, 2026. Salesforce and Zoho figures come from third party 2026 price guides because their own pages would not load. HubSpot Starter is listed at $20 per seat, and the page also showed a promotional $7. Tiers do not line up one to one across vendors, so treat the last column as a budget sketch, not a quote.

The 10 Best SugarCRM Alternatives

01
$20
per user per month, Starter
Best for marketing and sales on one database

HubSpot CRM: Start Free, Add Hubs Later

HubSpot’s free plan covers up to two users, 1,000 contacts and 1,000 records across other standard objects, with no time limit. That makes it the cheapest way to test whether a lighter CRM can replace Sugar for a pilot team. Paid Starter seats are listed at $20 per seat per month.

The pull for a growing company is that marketing and sales share one contact database. Costs rise as you add hubs, seats and contacts, so price the setup you will need in 12 months, not the one you start on. To see which companies already run it, open Span’s HubSpot users list.

2
users on the free plan
1,000
contacts, no time limit
1,000
records across other standard objects
02
$100
per user per month, Pro Suite
Best for deep customization

Salesforce Sales Cloud: Maximum Depth, Maximum Admin

If your Sugar instance runs on custom modules, workflow rules and integrations your admin built over years, Salesforce is where that depth fits. List prices per user per month on annual billing are $25 for Starter (up to ten users, no API access), $100 for Pro Suite, and about $175 for Enterprise after a 6 percent rise in August 2025, according to Redress Compliance’s 2026 price guide. Add ons stack fast: CPQ lists at $105 per quoting user.

Budget for an admin or a partner, because someone has to configure all that depth. For a feel of how it plays out, read how companies use Salesforce CRM across industries, or pull Span’s Salesforce CRM users list for peer accounts.

Starter
$25
up to ten users, no API access
Pro Suite
$100
no API access
Enterprise
about $175
after a 6 percent rise in August 2025
03
$23
per user per month, Professional
Best for the most features per dollar

Zoho CRM: The Most Features per Dollar

Zoho offers a free plan for up to three users, then Standard at $14, Professional at $23, Enterprise at $40 and Ultimate at $52 per user per month on annual billing (Zeeg’s 2026 guide, updated September 28, 2026). Professional is where it starts to look like Sugar. Zoho’s own page lists process management, CPQ, inventory management and custom customer portals at that tier.

At $23 a seat, a 25 person team pays about $6,900 a year. Check the Professional tier line by line against your Sugar modules before you commit. Span’s Zoho CRM users list shows who already runs it.

Free
3 users
Standard
$14
Professional
$23
Closest to Sugar
Enterprise
$40
Ultimate
$52
04
$39
per user per month, Growth
Best for deal stage selling

Pipedrive: Built Around the Pipeline

Pipedrive’s four plans cost $14 (Lite), $39 (Growth), $59 (Premium) and $79 (Ultimate) per seat per month on annual billing. Growth adds full email sync, automations and follow up sequences. Premium adds lead generation and routing, custom lead scoring and company data enrichment.

It suits sales led teams whose process is mostly deal stages and activity. If that describes how you used Sugar, the move is small. See the accounts on it in Span’s Pipedrive CRM users list.

Lite $14
Leads, calendar and pipeline
Growth $39
Email sync, automations, sequences
Premium $59
Lead routing, scoring, enrichment
Ultimate $79
Account security, sandbox, phone and email enrichment
05
$65
per user per month, Professional
Best for Microsoft 365 teams

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales: The Microsoft 365 Route

Professional costs $65, Enterprise $105 and Premium $150 per user per month, billed yearly (Microsoft pricing page, October 27, 2026). Professional covers core sales force automation with limited customization. Enterprise adds full customization and automation, conversation intelligence and Copilot capabilities, so most teams that customized Sugar will land on Enterprise.

Teams already working in Outlook and Teams get the shortest training path. Browse Span’s Microsoft Dynamics CRM users list or read about the top companies using Microsoft Dynamics.

Professional
$65
Core sales force automation, limited customization
Enterprise
$105
Full customization and automation, conversation intelligence, Copilot
Premium
$150
Advanced sales engagement, Sales Insights, 1,000 Copilot credits per user
06
$39
per user per month, Pro
Best for sandbox and scoring on a budget

Freshsales: Sandbox and Scoring Without the Enterprise Bill

Freshsales lists Growth at $9, Pro at $39 and Enterprise at $59 per user per month on annual billing (Freshworks, October 27, 2026). Pro adds contact scoring, territory management and sales sequences. Enterprise adds forecasting insights, field level permissions, custom modules, a sandbox and audit logs.

If your Sugar admin will not give up a sandbox and audit logs, the Enterprise tier delivers both at $59 a seat, well under the roughly $175 list price of Salesforce Enterprise.

Sandbox and Audit Logs, Price Check
Freshsales Enterprise
$59
Salesforce Enterprise
about $175
07
$28
per user per month, Pro
Best for teams already on monday

monday CRM: For Teams That Already Live in monday

Basic costs $12, Standard $17 and Pro $28 per seat per month on annual billing, with plans starting at three users and teams above 40 sent to a quote (monday pricing page, October 27, 2026). Contact caps climb with the tier: 1,000 active contacts and deals on Basic, 10,000 on Standard, 100,000 on Pro. Pro adds mass emails and email sequences.

It fits when delivery already runs on monday boards and you want a won deal to hand off to the project without a second system. Check the contact cap against your Sugar export before you pick a tier.

Contact and Deal Cap by Tier
Basic
1,000
Standard
10,000
Pro
100,000
Each tier allows ten times the last.
08
$49
per user per month, Professional
Best for deals that become projects

Insightly: CRM With Projects Attached

CRM seats cost $29 (Plus), $49 (Professional) and $99 (Enterprise) per user per month on annual billing. Professional adds lead assignment and routing, workflow automation and an AI copilot. Enterprise adds sandboxes, price books, quotes and audit logging. Project management sits alongside the CRM, which suits services firms that win a deal and then deliver it.

Read the integration line before you sign. The AppConnect tier for 25,000 tasks is $249 a month, and each AppConnect tier carries a $3,000 technical setup fee.

$3,000
technical setup fee on each AppConnect tier. The 25,000 task tier costs $249 a month on top.
09
$0
licence fee, hosting and services extra
Best for teams that want the code

SuiteCRM: The Open Source Cousin

SuiteCRM began as a fork of SugarCRM’s open source edition after SugarCRM stopped developing that version. It is licensed under the AGPL, and the latest stable release was 8.9.2 on January 13, 2026 (Wikipedia). SuiteCRM says there are no licence fees and no vendor lock in.

The cost moves from licences to people and hosting. You can self host, use SuiteCRM Hosted, or buy services such as SuiteASSURED, migration and implementation. It suits teams with in house technical skill who want control of the code. Get a hosting and support quote before you call it free.

You Skip
Licence fees
Vendor lock in
You Pay For
Hosting
Support
Migration and implementation
10
Quote
annual subscription plus setup fee
Best for companies running NetSuite ERP

NetSuite CRM: When the ERP Decides

NetSuite CRM covers sales force automation, marketing automation and customer service, and it comes with the NetSuite platform. Pricing is quote based: an annual subscription that depends on the core platform, modules and number of users, plus a one time setup fee.

If finance already runs on NetSuite, a single customer record from quote to cash is worth real money. If it does not, this is a hard one to justify. See Span’s NetSuite CRM users list, and read how ERP and CRM integration affects sales and marketing.

Core platform
+
Modules
+
Users
+
Setup fee
=
Annual quote
Shortlisted Two? Test Them With Clean Records
Send Span your Sugar export and get it back verified, enriched and scored before you load it into a trial.

Clean Before You Move: A Four Step Data Plan

Every platform above will take your Sugar export. None of them will tell you which rows deserve to be imported. A CRM switch is the cheapest moment you will get to fix your data, because you are already touching every record. This plan builds on Span’s audit, verify, enrich, score process.

1

Audit the Export

Pull everything out of Sugar: accounts, contacts, leads, opportunities, notes and custom fields. Then classify each contact as valid, invalid, stale or duplicate. Span’s CRM audit benchmarks put the average unverified CRM at 41 percent invalid emails, 22 percent duplicate contacts and 60 percent incomplete profiles. Your numbers will differ, and measuring them is the point. Span’s CRM data audit and enrichment service runs this classification on your export.

2

Verify and Merge

Validate emails against mail servers and phone numbers against carrier databases, merge duplicates and drop dead contacts. Span puts B2B data decay at 2 to 3 percent every month. If that compounds, a list nobody has touched for 24 months keeps only about 48 to 62 percent of its accuracy (our arithmetic: 0.97 and 0.98 raised to the 24th power).

That is why a straight copy from Sugar carries old problems into a new system. Data cleansing handles the one time clean, and this guide to keeping data quality from decaying covers the habits that keep it clean afterward.

Accuracy Kept With No Cleaning
Our arithmetic, from Span’s 2 to 3 percent monthly decay figure, compounded.
2 percent monthly decay
3 percent monthly decay
After 6 months
89%
83%
After 12 months
78%
69%
After 24 months
62%
48%
3

Map Fields Before You Import

Decide which Sugar modules and custom fields have a home in the new CRM and which to retire. Put the mapping on one sheet with three columns: Sugar field, new field, owner. Import a test batch of 500 records, check how the new CRM handles duplicates, then load the rest.

4

Enrich Once You Land

Fill the gaps in job title, seniority, company revenue, headcount and tech stack so the new CRM starts with segments you can use. Span’s technographics data pairs technology installs with the decision makers who buy them, and tech installs append adds installed tools to the records you already have.

A Client Example From Span’s Audit Page
Trusted before the clean
500 of 4,200
Verified after the clean
2,800 records
The client is unnamed, so treat the figures as a directional example.
$313K
in pipeline moved within 90 days

How to Pick in One Afternoon

You customized SugarCRM heavily

Shortlist Salesforce, Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise or SuiteCRM

You want the lowest seat price

Shortlist Freshsales Growth, monday CRM or Zoho CRM

Marketing and sales need one database

Shortlist HubSpot

Your process is mostly deal stages

Shortlist Pipedrive

Delivery follows the sale

Shortlist Insightly or monday CRM

Finance runs on NetSuite

Shortlist NetSuite CRM

Pick two. Load the same cleaned 500 records into both trials and have the reps who live in the CRM score each one for a week. AI features are arriving in every tool on this list, so read how AI is changing CRM before you weight them. For a quick look at which brands run which CRM, see our roundup of the top 10 companies that use CRM.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is SugarCRM Still Available?

Yes. It rebranded as SugarAI on April 13, 2026, and its pricing now lives at sugarai.com/pricing.

What Is the Cheapest SugarCRM Alternative?

HubSpot and Zoho have free plans. Among paid plans, Freshsales Growth at $9 per user per month is the lowest listed.

Is There an Open Source SugarCRM Alternative?

SuiteCRM, a fork of SugarCRM’s open source edition. You pay for hosting and support instead of licences.

How Do I Move My Data Out of SugarCRM?

Export, audit and clean the records, map your fields, test with 500 records, then load the rest.

Can I Get a List of Companies Using SugarCRM?

Yes. Browse Span’s technology lists or request a free sample list.

Moving CRMs? Start With Clean Data
Send Span your Sugar export and get it back audited, verified and enriched. Request a free sample list or book thirty minutes with the Span team.

 

About Author

Lam Min

Lam Min

Lam Min is a Strategic Account Manager specializing in helping organizations accelerate growth through data-driven solutions and targeted outreach. Working with clients across all industries, from SMBs to enterprise and Fortune-level organizations, Lam Min delivers customized data, lead generation, and market expansion solutions.

At Span Global Services, Lam Min partners closely with clients to identify ideal audiences, strengthen market reach, and drive measurable business results through a consultative and relationship-focused approach.


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