Despite what you may have been told – your freelance business lives and dies by one simple factor…

The ability to drive new leads and sales.

And the best way to generate a consistent flow of new sales is by taking advantage of a CRM for freelancers.

Here’s the problem:

There are tons of freelance CRMs out there to choose from. I spent the time and tested 10 of the most popular freelance CRMs and found Bonsai to be the best CRM overall. It has all the features you need in a freelance CRM – plus it has a ton of extra features to help you manage your entire business.

But I know from being a freelance content writer for almost 7 years…

Every freelance business and industry is different. So I’ve put the top 10 freelance CRMs to the test and reviewed each once so you can see which is right for you.

I’ll also show you why you should be using a CRM for your freelance business and some key criteria before choosing a CRM software.

Ready to get started?

Let’s get started!

Key Takeaways

• Bonsai is the best CRM for freelancers and offers a ton of unique benefits to manage your entire business
• A CRM can significantly enhance a freelancer’s productivity and client management
• There are several CRM options that cater to freelancers’ specific needs
• Choosing the right CRM involves comparing features, affordability and ease of use

10x Best CRM For Freelancers Compared

There are a ton of CRMs and tools for freelancers available.

The problem is that a lot of them are designed for large businesses. They’re also really complicated to use and take ages to set up.

As a freelancer – you need a specific type of CRM that works for your freelancer business.

Below is a list of the 10 best CRMs for freelancers so you can get a quick overview of which one is right for you.

CRM	Best For	Rating	Price
Best CRM Choice	Bonsai Best CRM For Freelancers Overall: Easy To Use CRM Project Management Invoicing, Proposals, Contracts Tasks & Time Tracking	9.6	Check Price
	HubSpot CRM Best CRM For Marketing Features Robust CRM Great Marketing Tools Free Tier Tons Of Integrations	9.5	Check Price
	Pipedrive Best CRM For Acquiring Clients Sales Pipeline Advanced Tracking Client Database Great User Interface	9.4	Check Price
	Freshsales Best CRM For Free Option Good Sales Tools Analytics & Reporting Automation Free Plan Available	9.2	Check Price
	monday.com CRM Best CRM For Customizable Workflows Workflow Automation Customizable Boards Task Management Integrations	9.2	Check Price
	Moxie Best CRM For Simple Business Management Simple CRM Client management Time-tracking Task automation	9.2	Check Price
	HoneyBook Best CRM For Streamlining Work All-in-one platform Client Management Invoices & Contracts Forms & Questionnaires	9	Check Price
	Trello Best CRM For Simple Use Visual Boards Collaboration Simplified User-Interface Completely Free	8.4	Check Price
	Streak CRM Best CRM For Gmail Integration Built-In Inbox Project Management G-Suite Integration Free Plan Available	8.2	Check Price
	Agile CRM Best CRM For Low-Cost Option Huge Range Of Tools Generous Free Plan Unlimited Deals, Tasks & Documents Email Marketing Suite	8.1	Check Price

Every freelancer CRM has a unique selling point and something that it focuses on. The key is to understand what features you need and what kind of CRM will help you close sales.

1. Bonsai

Bonsai is an all-in-one CRM and business management software designed specifically for freelancers.

It has a ton of powerful features to make running your freelance business easier.

But what makes Bonsai stand out from the rest is how the CRM integrates into the business management workflow.

Here’s what I mean:

You start by adding a client lead to your Bonsai CRM dashboard. Bonsai comes with forms and automations so you can collect leads directly from your site.

The next step is to create a project that captures all the important information about the client. Think of things like services required, contact details, custom notes and more. Easily drag and drop the project through each stage of the client customer journey.

Ready to send a proposal?

Bonsai comes with a ton of proposal, contract and invoice templates. As the deal progresses, it’s easy to send all the necessary documents and collect signatures online. All of this is recorded in one place.

You can even set up tasks and track time. With a couple of clicks you can turn tasks and time tracking into an invoice and send it directly to the client for payment.

Bonsai is more than just a freelance CRM software.

But what makes it the best CRM for freelancers is how the CRM integrates with every part of your business. It takes the overwhelm out of managing leads, sales and clients while still running your freelance business effectively.

Key Features

• Client Relationship Management (CRM): Bonsai offers a CRM tool specially designed for freelancers to manage client relationships and secure more work.
• Project Management: Bonsai’s project management features allow freelancers to efficiently track and manage their projects from start to finish.
• Automated Invoicing and Payments: Bonsai provides automated, customizable invoicing and secure payment options, expediting the payment process for freelancers.
• Professional Templates: Bonsai provides a wide range of professional templates for proposals, contracts, and invoices, enhancing freelancers’ professionalism.
• Financial Management: Bonsai offers comprehensive financial management tools including bookkeeping, tax estimates, and a dedicated business banking account.

Pricing

Plan	Cost	Overview
Starter	$25/month	All Templates, Unlimited Clients & Projects, Invoicing & Payments, Proposal & Contracts, Scheduling, Expense Tracking, Forms & Questionnaires and Client CRM
Professional	$39/month	All Starter features, plus: Branded Client Portal, Unlimited Scheduling Events, Workflow Automations, Integration With Other Programs
Business	$79/month	All Professional features, plus: Hiring Agreement Templates, Subcontractor Onboarding, Subcontractor Management

Bonsai Pros & Cons

Bonsai provides a powerful yet easy-to-use solution to freelancers looking to streamline their business operations and client management. The CRM will be perfect for most freelancers who want to manage their sales process efficiently.

Want to learn more about Bonsai? Make sure you check out our complete Bonsai review to see everything this incredible tool can do.

2. HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM is an excellent all-in-one solution to help you stay organized, save time and manage leads effectively.

It comes with a huge number of features and even offers a completely free CRM plan.

Where HubSpot really shines is in its contact management and sales features.

It’s easy to segment your clients and leads, track each interaction and get better insight into what they like and don’t like. In our experience, there isn’t a better freelance CRM for maintaining good relationships with your clients.

For example, whenever you have a meeting with a client, you can take notes directly inside the CRM. You can even go as far as to record the personal things you chat about with your clients, which makes it easy to show them you care.

HubSpot also includes email marketing features for free. They provide a nice drag-and-drop email editor and some basic templates to start with. The Free CRM plan includes 2,000 monthly email sends and 1 automated action.

While the Free plan will suit most freelancers, the Starter plan is also a good option for freelancers who need those extra CRM features to manage their business.

Key Features

• Contact Management: Easily store and manage client contact information in a centralized database.
• Task and Activity Tracking: Keep track of tasks, reminders, and important interactions with clients.
• Email Integration: Seamlessly integrate your email account with the CRM to manage all client communications.
• Deal Pipeline Management: Track the progress of potential projects or deals and gain visibility into your sales pipeline.
• Reporting and Analytics: Access valuable insights and generate reports on key business metrics.

Pricing

Plan	Price	Overview
Free	$0	Free foundational tools to get you started e.g. Tools For Marketing, Sales, Services, CMS, Operations, Commerce
Starter	$15/month	Essential Marketing, Sales, Service, CMS, and Operations Software
Professional	$1,200/month	Comprehensive Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, CMS, and Operations Software

HubSpot CRM Pros & Cons

HubSpot CRM is a powerful software with a ton of features. It has everything you need to capture leads and turn them into sales. It also has some of the best contact and client management you will find in a CRM for freelancers.

The major downside is that while it starts free, paid plans become expensive quickly. Keep that in mind before you sign up.

3. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is considered one of the OG CRMs for freelancers.

It has been around for a long time and has proven itself to be a quality CRM.

Pipedrive’s biggest unique feature is sales pipeline management. You start by setting up each stage in your sales funnel. These stages can be as big or as small as you want.

For example, the stages could be as simple as:

1. New lead
2. Proposal sent
3. Contact sent
4. Deal Closed
5. Client onboarded

It doesn’t have to be complicated! But the best part is that Pipedive has the flexibility to adapt to your own business. This means you can create whatever kind of sales funnels and stages you need.

Have a lot of projects?

For freelancers who have a lot of projects on the go at once, you’ll love the leads and deal management features that Pipedrive offers. You can map out complex projects inside of Pipedrive before you even start.

This makes it easy to write down specific tasks needed to complete the project. I really like this feature because you can pre-plan each project and accurately estimate how long it will take to complete.

Pipedrive comes with all the other essential freelance CRM features such as contact management, automation and the ability to integrate with over 400+ other tools and software.

Key Features

• Pipeline Management: Pipedrive provides a visual sales pipeline for tracking leads and spotting opportunities.
• Task Automation: Pipedrive eliminates repetitive tasks through automatic alerts and reminders.
• Smart Docs: Pipedrive streamlines document management by allowing trackable quotes, proposals, and contracts.
• LeadBooster: Pipedrive’s LeadBooster tool increases lead capture for client growth.
• Projects: Pipedrive’s Projects feature allows efficient task outlining and progress tracking with a kanban board view.

Pricing

Plan	Price	Overview
Essential	$21.90/month	Essential features to get organized and set up effective sales processes quickly.
Advanced	$37.90/month	Advanced features to automate processes and email sequences and nurture business relationships.
Professional	$59.90/month	Features to optimize performance and streamline sales processes with more customizations and reporting.
Power	$74.90/month	Scalable collaboration capabilities, higher usage limits and premium project management features.
Enterprise	$119.00/month	Limitless pipeline and team customization tools, extensive reporting features and maximum account security.

Pipedrive Pros & Cons

Overall, Pipedrive is a great CRM for freelancers. It has all the features you need to map out your sales funnel, manage leads and clients, and ensure you get each project done on time.

Pipedrive is best suited for freelancers who have lots of different projects and clients to manage.

4. Freshsales

Freshsales is a CRM that will feel like a step up from most freelancer CRMs.

Why?

It comes with a huge range of advanced features for contact management, workflow automatics and data insights.

But just because it’s advanced doesn’t mean that it’s complicated. I’ve personally found Freshsales to be one of the most intuitive freelance CRMs that we’ve ever used.

The best part is that Freshsales is extremely affordable – especially when you consider what’s included.

When you first log in to Freshsales you will see your CRM dashboard.

Think of this like an overview report of your business leads and sales. You can also forecast sales and see which clients are bringing the most value to your business.

But contact management is where Freshsales really kicks it up a level.

The customer profile features give you everything you’ll ever need to know about your clients and prospects. Think of things like contact details, related deals and recent conversations.

Freshsales also has built-in unique tabs for meeting notes and general notes.

This will help you understand your clients better and help create better relationships.

The free Freshsales plan allows for up to 3 users and includes the basic contact management and CRM features most freelancers will need.

Freshsales is a CRM designed for freelancers who are serious about growing their business. It has a huge number of sales features and will help you keep track of current leads and prospects so you can continue business growth for years to come.

Key Features

• Unified CRM: Freshsales Suite provides a comprehensive CRM solution for seamless customer journey management.
• Intelligent Workflow Automation: Automate tasks like lead assignment, email dispatch, reminders creation for efficient outreach.
• AI-Powered Contact Scoring: Prioritize and personalize customer engagement with insights on customer behavior.
• Predictive Deal Insights: Optimize your sales strategy with AI-powered recommendations and predictions.
• 21-Day Free Trial: Freshsales offers a risk-free 21-day trial to fully explore its features.

Pricing

Plan	Price	Overview
Free	$0	1000+ free CRM features
Growth	$30/user/month	All Free features, plus: custom fields, workflows, AI-powered contact scoring
Pro	$66/user/month	All Growth features, plus: advanced sales and marketing features, auto-assignment rules for contacts, account and deals
Enterprise	$119/user/month	All Pro features, plus: custom modules, AI-based forcasting insights, field-level permissions

Freshsales Pros & Cons

Freshsales is a solid CRM for freelancers. While it lacks a lot of the “extra” features that other CRMs have, it has very robust sales features. It will help you keep track of potential deals and help you close more clients.

5. Moxie

Moxie is a relatively new CRM that boasts some excellent features for freelancers.

It is designed specifically with freelancers in mind and includes a huge range of tools you can use to manage your entire freelance business.

Moxie is more of an all-in-one platform that focuses on streamlining your sales process and project management.

Here’s how it works:

You start by creating a sales pipeline and sales process in Moxie. This is the first aspect of the CRM features. It’s basic but the Kanban-style board is a drag-and-drop which is nice.

Then you can add your contacts and deals.

This is where Moxie really shines. They have created a simplified contact management system that still has all the features you need.

Every invoice you send, contract clients sign and note you take is recorded under each client. You can also see all the deals and where you are up to with each project.

This makes managing current clients so much easier.

Moxie even has built-in accounting tools and analytics. Every time you log in you land on your customizable dashboard to see how your business is tracking for the month.

Cool, right?

The only thing I don’t like about Moxie is the user interface. While it’s intuitive and easy to use, it just looks ugly and personally didn’t make me excited to crack into work each day.

Key Features

• Comprehensive Client Management: Moxie consolidates all your client contacts in one easy-to-manage platform.
• Streamlined Project Management: Break down and customize your projects into tasks, due dates, and deliverables with Moxie.
• Simplified Accounting: Moxie offers simplified expense tracking, profit calculating, and third-party integrations for hassle-free bookkeeping.
• One-Stop Proposals & Contracts: Transition smoothly from discovery calls to proposals and client agreements without switching between apps with Moxie.
• Time Tracking Made Easy: Moxie’s integrated time tracking feature simplifies invoicing and effectively tracks your hourly rate.

Pricing

Plan	Price	What’s included
Pro	$20/month	One full license, unlimited project collaborators, support, essential features
Teams	$30/month	5 full licenses, customized team solutions, unlimited project collaborators, priority support

Moxie Pros & Cons

Moxie is a good CRM and business management platform for freelancers. If you like what Bonsai offers but don’t have the budget, then Moxie is a great option for you.

Just don’t expect the most advanced features.

6. monday.com Sales CRM

monday.com is a simple but great CRM for freelancers.

It started off as a productivity tool before they realized tons of people were using it as a CRM. So they built a complete CRM platform with all the features that you’ll need as a freelancer.

monday.com CRM has a relatively simplified user interface. If you’ve ever used a tool like click-up, Asana or Trello – you will feel right at home.

But just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s not powerful.

The biggest benefit to monday.com Sales CRM is the work management features. As you convert leads into sales, you’ll want to set up projects and tasks quickly. There isn’t a better CRM platform on this list than monday.com for task and project management.

Do you get a lot of emails?

monday.com CRM connects directly with Gmail and Outlook to send and receive emails. It comes with a fully integrated AI-assisted email composition feature that makes it easier to draft personalized emails to clients and prospects right inside the CRM.

What about the CRM pipeline and client management?

You can collect leads from any source and build out your customized sales pipeline. Easily add deals, record notes and launch projects all in one place. The Kanban-style drag-and-drop system makes it easy to move deals along and stay on top of your current leads.

The biggest downside to monday.com sales CRM is the cost.

They don’t have a free plan and you have to buy a minimum of 3 seats (users). If you are just a solopreneur freelancer, you will essentially be paying for an extra 2 users that you likely won’t use.

Key Features

• Fully Customizable: Monday.com CRM allows freelancers to tailor their software to fit unique sales cycles without any coding.
• Automated Sales Processes: The platform automates repetitive tasks, freeing up valuable time for freelancers.
• Centralized Client Communication: The CRM integrates with email for efficient client communication and interaction tracking.
• Integrated with Existing Tools: The software connects with tools freelancers already use, offering a seamless work environment.
• Real-Time Dashboards: Monday.com CRM provides real-time dashboards for tracking progress and making data-driven decisions.

Pricing

Plan	Price (USD)	Features
Basic	$17.30/user/month	Standard features, limited integrations
Standard	$23.60/user/month	Customization, integrations and automations
Pro	$40.20/user/month	Advanced features, increased integrations and automations, priority support
Enterprise	Custom	Advanced features, enterprise-scale automations and integrations, multi-level permissions

Monday.com CRM Pros & Cons

monday.com sales CRM brings the power of the monday.com tasks management platform to customer relationship management. It has a number of great features for freelancers to take advantage of and is very customizable. Just keep in mind that features are relatively limited compared to other Freelance CRMs.

7. HoneyBook

HoneyBook is a comprehensive CRM designed specifically for freelancers and small business owners.

While HoneyBook is an all-in-one platform for managing your business – it stands out by integrating the CRM with lead, project tracking and automated workflows.

Want to automate your sales process?

HoneyBook has all the features you need to get your business running on autopilot.

Let me explain:

Start by creating a form on your website to collect leads. When a lead signs up using a form, they’ll receive an automated email with a questionnaire.

When the questionnaire is filled out, Honeybook prompts them to book a meeting using the built-in scheduler. Meanwhile, the prospect is being moved along your CRM sales pipeline automatically in the background.

Pretty cool, right?

This is really just scratching the surface of what’s possible with HoneyBook automation and CRM. But you can see how valuable this kind of setup would be for your freelance business.

Key Features

• Efficient Client Management: HoneyBook provides an all-in-one platform for managing client interactions, from invoicing to contract signing.
• Automated Workflows: HoneyBook allows freelancers to automate administrative tasks like tracking inquiries and processing online payments.
• Interactive Proposals: Freelancers can create custom, interactive proposals to professionally showcase their services.
• Integrated Tools: HoneyBook integrates with existing tools, consolidating client and cash flow management.
• Mobile Accessibility: With HoneyBook’s mobile app, freelancers can manage their business operations on the go.

Pricing

Plan	Price	Overview
Starter	$19/month	Unlimited clients and projects, invoices and payments, proposals and contracts, professional templates, basic reports
Essentials	$39/month	All starter features, plus: scheduler, automations, expense management, standard reports
Premium	$79/month	All essential features, plus: unlimited team members, priority support, onboarding specialist, advanced reports

HoneyBook Pros & Cons

If you are a freelancer who values automation and wants a CRM that could literally manage your entire business – HoneyBook is a great option.

8. Trello

Freelance CRMs don’t have to be fancy or expensive.

That’s exactly where Trello comes in.

Trello is an incredibly versatile project management tool that freelancers can also utilize as a simple CRM.

Think of it like a blank kanban board where you get to design the CRM processes and workflows for your business. That means you can customize Trello to your business needs without restriction.

Here’s how we use it:

Create a new board and map out all of the stages of your CRM sales process. Next, create a card for each client and put your client’s name or business as the heading. Inside each card create a template that records all the essential client and project information.

That’s it!

You have a fully working CRM for free!

You can even create an onboarding checklist template so it’s easy to kick off every new client project.

What I really like about it is the visual approach to boards, lists and cards. It makes it easy to track clients through each stage of the sales process and even set up tasks for each client project.

If you don’t have a lot to invest in a CRM and don’t need all the bells and whistles, Trello is a great CRM for freelancers.

The best part is, Trello’s completely free!

Key Features

• Customizable CRM Workflow: Trello allows freelancers to tailor their CRM workflow to match their unique sales process.
• Advanced Checklists for Accountability: With Trello’s Advanced Checklists, freelancers can assign tasks, set due dates, and collaborate effectively.
• Powerful Visualization Options: Freelancers can visualize their sales pipeline and schedule with Trello’s Calendar, Table, and Dashboard views.
• Integration Capabilities: Trello integrates with over 200 popular tools, streamlining workflow for freelancers.
• Ready-to-use Templates: Trello provides CRM pipeline templates, offering a quick start for freelancers setting up their CRM system.

Pricing

Plan	Price (USD)	Overview
Free	$0	Unlimited cards, 10 team boards, attachments up to 10MB, simple automation
Standard	$6/user/month	Everything in Free, plus: unlimited team boards, 250MB attachments, advanced automation
Premium	$12.50/user/month	Everything in Standard, plus: calendar and table views, workspace-level templates, simple data export
Enterprise	$17.50/user/month	Everything in Premium, plus: unlimited workspaces, attachment permissions, organization-wide permissions

Trello Pros & Cons

Trello is typically a task management tool. But it has some really powerful features that allow you to convert it into a fully customizable CRM for freelancers. If you are on a budget and just need something simple, Trello is a great freelance CRM.

9. Streak CRM

Streak CRM is a Gmail-integrated CRM designed specifically with freelancers in mind.

It’s one of the best CRMs for freelancers who only need essential tools and like the convenience of managing leads and sales directly from their inboxes.

Think of Streak CRM more as a way to manage your email inbox.

The truth is that most of your sales management will be done through email. So it makes sense to have a CRM that integrates perfectly with it.

You start by creating a sales pipeline that maps out every stage in your sales process.

Streak adds a custom view to your Gmail inbox so it won’t mess up your normal inbox.

Then you will add all the custom fields of data you want to track about your clients. This includes elements like contact details, deal information, meeting notes, calls etc. Streak comes with a ton of templates to make this process quick and easy.

The truth is that Streak CRM does feel a little bit clunky, but works really well – especially when you consider that fact you don’t even need to leave your Gmail account!

Streak CRM comes with a bunch of extra features like email tracking, mail merge and integrations with other tools. I particularly like email tracking feature because you can always see when leads and clients have opened emails or clicked on links.

Key Features

• Pipeline Management: Streak provides a visual interface for tracking projects, clients, and prospects.
• CRM Built into Gmail: Streak integrates with Gmail, allowing freelancers to manage work directly from their inbox.
• Collaboration Features: Streak facilitates shared projects by enabling the sharing of emails, notes, and call logs.
• Email Tracking and Mail Merge: Streak offers email tracking and personalized bulk emailing right from Gmail.
• Task and Reminder System: Streak includes a system for setting up tasks and reminders to ensure deadlines are never missed.

Pricing

Plan	Price	Key Features
Free	$0	Limited features and pipelines
Solo	$19/month	Solo usage, all core features
Pro	$59/month	Full features, team sharing
Pro+	$89/month	Full features, advanced reports, automations and integrations, AI assistant
Enterprise	$159/month	Full features, automations and integrations, custom roles and billing, priority support

Streak Pros & Cons

Streak CRM is a basic CRM for freelancers. But what makes it unique is the fact that you integrate it with Gmail and manage your entire sales process from your inbox.

It comes with all the essential features you need and will be a great fit for freelancers who only have a few leads and projects at one time.

10. Agile CRM

I think Agile CRM is an underrated CRM platform.

Why?

You get a ton of great features and it’s one of the most affordable CRMs available.

I mean, the amount of features that Agile CRM comes packed with can be overwhelming to begin with. But once you start to get used to it – you won’t go back.

Let me give you the highlights:

Agile CRM comes packed with great analytics tools. They go far beyond what your average CRM can do. You can create custom reports that allow you to see things like the conversion rate of your sales process, which deals make the most money and what kinds of clients are best for your business.

It does take a minute to get used to the reporting features but they are extremely advanced.

Need to keep in touch with current and past clients?

Agile CRM comes with a fully automated email marketing tool suite. They have tons of templates and even custom lead scoring based on email interactions. Agile CRM also comes with a live chat feature or a help desk ticket-based customer support features.

But there is one other feature that really makes Agile CRM stand out from every other CRM for freelancers on this list…

What is it?

Two words: Sales prospecting.

Agile CRM comes with a built-in lead prospecting tool for LinkedIn. You can pull contacts into Agile CRM and even find email addresses to reach out to them. All of this is captured inside your CRM process while basically allowing you to prospect on steroids!

Agile CRM is so powerful. And the best part?

They offer a completely free plan so you can test out a lot of their features for nothing!

Key Features

• Integrated CRM: Agile CRM offers a single platform for managing customer interactions, contact management, lead scoring, and email marketing.
• Marketing Automation: This feature enables scheduling of social media posts, email campaigns, and other marketing activities.
• Sales Enablement: Agile CRM provides deal tracking, task management, and sales reports to improve sales strategies.
• Customer Support Tools: Agile CRM includes helpdesk features, ticketing systems, and customer satisfaction surveys to enhance customer service.
• Project Management Capabilities: The platform offers tools for task assignment, tracking project progress, and setting deadlines to ensure organized and timely project delivery.

Pricing

Plan	Price	Overview
Free	$0	Up to 10 users, basic features
Starter	$14.99/month	Enhanced features, limited storage
Regular	$49.99/month	Full features, 50,000 contacts, custom deal tracks, plugins and integrations
Enterprise	$79.99/month	Advanced features, unlimited contacts and companies, increased integrations

Agile CRM Pros & Cons

Agile CRM is an excellent CRM option for freelancers. It offers the best value for money out of any CRM for freelancers we’ve tested and is perfect for those who need a wide range of features.

Bonus CRM For Freelancers: Keap

Keap is a powerful CRM that combines sales and marketing automation into a single tool.

While it might not be for every freelancer – it has everything you need to scale your business to the next level.

The platform is pretty expensive, but its value lies in the automation capabilities it offers.

When a lead interacts with your forms, they instantly receive a welcome message and a link to book a call in your calendar. Keap CRM takes care of nurturing leads by sending reminder emails and prepping them for sales calls.

You can even customize email sequences to offer more value before the call.

A major selling point of Keap is its ability to collect payments for digital products and automate email series for upselling more expensive services. The CRM also features lead scoring, keeping you informed about the most valuable clients for your business.

Keap is perfect for freelancers who are serious about growing their business and leveraging automation to connect with clients efficiently.

But you will need to bring your wallet with you.

Keap is an excellent CRM for freelancers but it’s also really expensive. The reason I added it as a bonus is that you’ll need to make sure you will get value from the features Keap offers before making the investment.

The good news is that Keap does offer a 14-day free trial so you can test drive it before you buy!

What Does CRM Stand For?

CRM is an acronym that stands for Customer Relationship Management.

Customer relationship is any tool, process or strategy that helps your business better manage relationships with their clients and customers.

A CRM for freelancers is designed to help you nurture and manage all your key customer interactions in one. A quality freelance CRM should help you stay more organized while also helping you generate more leads and close more leads.

As a freelancer, you aren’t likely to have hundreds of clients at once. Most freelancers have few projects on the go and complete them one at a time.

The most important function of a CRM for a freelancer is to help complete work for current clients AND generate new projects for the future.

Think of it like a pipeline where you complete one project and immediately have the next one lined up. The CRM simply helps you maintain the pipeline.

Remember:

A CRM tool should make you more money. It’s a tool that continues to pay for itself time and time again.

Key CRM Features for Freelancers

As you can see…

There are tons of different freelancer CRMs that have a huge range of features.

The truth is that you need to first understand the important features for your business before choosing a CRM. Think about what you need and what will help bring you closer to your business goals.

Here is a list of key features we consider when looking for a freelance CRM:

Client Management – The best CRM software provides a centralized hub for managing contacts, communication history and client interactions. This will help you maintain strong relationships with clients without spending too much time on it. Client management is an aspect where Bonsai excels as a CRM.

Lead Generation – A good CRM for freelancers should help you generate more leads for your business. This means including features like online forms to collect lead information and integrating with marketing tools like MailChimp and HubSpot.

Sales Management & Lead Scoring – Freelancer CRMs offer features like sales pipelines, deal tracking, and lead scoring to manage leads effectively and enhance conversion rates.

Email Marketing – Some freelancer CRMs include email marketing capabilities to create, track and analyze email campaigns for better engagement with prospects and clients. As freelancers, we used CRM email marketing to keep in contact with past clients to continue generating new work for the future.

Project Organization – CRMs with project management features allow freelancers to create tasks, assign deadlines and track project progress. Think of it like simplifying the workload you have and making it much easier to manage.

Contractor Management – Have contractors that help you fulfill services? Many CRMs offer contractor management functionalities for smoother communication and coordination among team members.

Analytics & Automated Invoicing – A top-tier CRM for freelancers provides analytics for understanding client behaviors and preferences and invoicing features to automate payment processes ensuring timely payments. 

Wrapping It Up

Every freelance business is different.

That means the right CRM for freelancers depends on your own business needs and goals.

If you aren’t sure where to start, I recommend checking out Bonsai first. They have a ton of great features that will make managing your clients easy and help you generate more leads for your business.

Remember:

The best time to look for a CRM is before you actually need it.

Put the processes in place and develop a system that will help you consistently generate qualified leads and sales for your business. This will prepare you for future growth!

Frequently Asked Questions