Bigin Alternatives

Why look for a Bigin alternative

Bigin does something rare: it gives a genuinely usable CRM at $7 per user per month (Express, annual billing at time of writing; about $9 month to month), with Premier at $12 and Bigin 360 at $18 on annual billing, plus a free plan for a single user. It is Zoho's deliberately small CRM — pipelines, contacts, activities, team pipelines, a mobile app — and when I set up a side business on it, the value per dollar was hard to argue with.

The reasons to leave are almost all about outgrowing it. Bigin is a lightweight product by design, and the limits show up in predictable places: record caps and pipeline counts on lower tiers (Express keeps things deliberately narrow), reporting that covers the basics but not much more, and automation that handles reminders and simple workflows rather than real marketing journeys. There is no serious marketing automation, no helpdesk, and no advanced customization — when a team wants multiple departments, custom modules, or forecasting, Bigin points you toward Zoho CRM instead, and some teams would rather not walk that particular path. The free plan's single-user ceiling also means the "start free" story ends at exactly the moment a second person joins.

Then there is preference: not everyone wants to live in the Zoho ecosystem, and if the rest of your stack is non-Zoho, Bigin's integrations are fine but not deep. One more practical note: Bigin sits inside Zoho's wider suite, so the cleanest upgrade path is usually Zoho CRM rather than a third party. If you suspect you will want marketing automation or helpdesk in a year, factor that into today's choice — a tool family you can grow inside beats a chain of migrations.

For a solo micro-business, Bigin may be all the CRM you need — the alternatives below matter when the day comes that it is not.

The alternatives compared

I judged the alternatives on five things: what they cost versus Bigin's $7-$18 per user range at time of writing, whether they fix the specific ceiling Bigin hits (marketing, data, calling, client documents), how quickly a two- or three-person team gets running, sales tooling depth, and the size of what you would be adding to your stack. One honest note: the listed alternatives include prospecting platforms and personal CRMs, which serve different jobs than a small pipeline CRM. I mark exactly who should consider each one.

HoneyBook

HoneyBook is client-flow software for service businesses: lead capture, proposals, contracts, invoices, scheduling, and a client portal with some automation around project delivery. At time of writing it is roughly $29 per month (annual) on Starter, $49 on Essentials, and $109 on Premium.

Switch if your "deals" are client projects with documents attached — studios, consultants, event suppliers. Bigin tracks stages; HoneyBook runs the whole client experience from inquiry to payment, and does it with style.

Stay if price is why you chose Bigin. HoneyBook is flat-priced per organization, but the entry point is several times Bigin's per-user cost, and it is not a sales pipeline tool — teams doing classic B2B deal tracking will find it misshapen for the job.

Apollo.io

Apollo.io is sales intelligence plus outreach: a large B2B contact database, enrichment, email sequencing, and dialing features on a credit system. At time of writing plans run about $49 per user per month (Basic, annual), $79 (Professional), and $119 (Organization), with phone reveals costing roughly eight credits and the advanced dialer sold separately at about $149 per team per month.

Switch if your bottleneck is finding leads, not tracking them. Bigin assumes you already know your prospects; Apollo hands you the list and the tools to contact them.

Stay if you want an affordable system of record for a small team. Apollo costs more per seat than Bigin's entire tier ladder, its CRM layer is thin, and the credit model makes spend harder to predict. For post-lead pipeline management, Bigin is the calmer, cheaper tool.

Clay

Clay is a data-enrichment and GTM workflow platform: spreadsheet-like tables that run multi-provider enrichment waterfalls and AI research, then feed your sequencer or CRM. At time of writing it has a free tier with modest limits, with paid plans from roughly $185 per month (Launch) and $495 (Growth).

Switch if outbound data quality is the problem Clay solves — better enrichment than any single database, custom research fields, and list-building workflows that Bigin cannot touch.

Stay if you are a small business choosing a CRM. Clay is not one. It is an expensive, technical data layer that plugs into other tools; at $185 per month it costs more than two years of Bigin Express for one user. Consider it only if data quality is a real revenue constraint.

GoHighLevel

GoHighLevel is the agency-grade all-in-one: CRM, email and SMS marketing, funnels, scheduling, reputation management, and white-label resale for one flat fee — around $97 for Starter (three sub-accounts), $297 Unlimited, $497 SaaS Pro at time of writing.

Switch if you run marketing for clients or you need SMS, funnels, and review generation that Bigin simply does not have. The flat pricing also scales without per-seat accounting.

Stay if you are one to three people who wanted a tidy, cheap CRM. GoHighLevel is powerful but sprawling; the setup time and the $97 entry price are real costs when Bigin would have you selling the same afternoon.

Close

Close is a sales CRM for teams that sell by phone and email at pace: a native dialer, calling, SMS, email sync, and sequences, with activity-centric reporting. At time of writing it is roughly $9-$19 per user per month on Solo (billing-cycle dependent), around $35-$49 on Essentials, and $99-$149 on the higher tiers.

Switch if calling is your motion. Bigin has telephony integrations, but Close treats the phone as the centre of the product — dialer, recording, and reporting are built in, and pipeline reporting is clearer than anything at Bigin's price point.

Stay if you need the cheap, general-purpose CRM Bigin already provides. Close is sales-only and starts several times higher than Bigin Express; buying it for basic contact management would be overkill. That said, for a small team of pure callers, one Close seat can replace the spreadsheet-plus-dialer mess that outgrew Bigin.

Dex

Dex is a personal CRM built around relationships: it enriches contacts from email and LinkedIn, keeps conversation history, and nudges you about follow-ups. At time of writing it is about $12 per month (annual) on Premium and $20 on Professional, with a Team tier near $40 per user.

Switch if you are a solo founder, recruiter, or consultant whose "pipeline" is really a network. Dex keeps far more relationships warm than any deal-based CRM, and it costs less than most paid CRMs.

Stay if you have a team sharing deals and forecasts. Dex is personal by design; shared pipelines, team permissions, and deal management are what Bigin exists for, and Dex will not replace them.

How to choose

Name the ceiling you hit in Bigin first, because the alternatives split cleanly by it. No leads to work with? Apollo.io (find them) or Clay (build lists with better data). Selling by phone? Close. Client documents and project flow instead of deal stages? HoneyBook. Marketing channels and client accounts under one flat bill? GoHighLevel. Solo and relationship-led? Dex. What I would not do is upgrade blindly to a bigger CRM because Bigin feels small — at $7 to $18 per user per month, plenty of healthy businesses should stay put and solve one gap at a time. Run each trial with one live deal and one real prospecting task; the right tool becomes obvious in a week, and the wrong one becomes obvious in a day. That trial discipline matters more here than any feature comparison, because Bigin's price sets a low bar that every alternative must justify clearing.

FAQ

What is the best alternative if I have outgrown Bigin? Depends what you outgrew. For pipeline depth and sales execution, Close or Pipedrive-style dedicated CRMs. For marketing and client acquisition, GoHighLevel or a marketing platform. If the answer is "everything a little bit", Zoho CRM is the designed upgrade path from Bigin — same vendor, no data migration drama.

Is Bigin really $7 per user per month? On Express with annual billing at time of writing, yes — about $9 month to month, with Premier at $12 annual ($15 monthly) and Bigin 360 at $18 annual ($21 monthly). Watch the tier limits (records, pipelines, users on the free plan) rather than the headline price; those limits are where most growing teams feel the squeeze.

Do I need Clay or Apollo if I already have a CRM? Only if finding leads is the bottleneck. Bigin organises the contacts you have; Apollo finds new ones and contacts them; Clay improves data quality across both. Plenty of small businesses need none of these — if your leads come from referrals and inbound, spend the money elsewhere.