A simple CRM for founders: what to use for your first 100 customers, and when a spreadsheet is enough
A simple CRM for startups should take ten minutes to set up and cost under $40 a month. When a spreadsheet works, when it stops, and four tools founders use.
On this page
A simple CRM for a startup is a list of companies, the people at them, where each conversation stands, and the date you promised to follow up. Until about 30 open conversations, a spreadsheet does this. Past that, or as soon as a second person sells, a lightweight CRM pays for itself in the follow-ups you stop forgetting. As of October 2026, four tools cover founders well: Less Annoying CRM, Attio, Twenty and Atrix.
This post is short on purpose. The tool matters less than the habit, and the habit is the same in all of them.
When a spreadsheet is fine
A spreadsheet works while all of these are true:
- One person owns every conversation.
- Fewer than 30 deals are open at once.
- Follow-ups fit in a calendar reminder.
- Nobody needs a report.
If that is you, make a sheet with seven columns: company, contact, stage, value, last touch, next step, next step date. Sort by next step date every morning. That is the whole system, and it closed our first customers.
When it stops working
The sheet breaks at a predictable moment: the day two people are talking to the same company and neither knows. Other signs:
- You find a lead from three months ago that nobody followed up.
- A prospect replies to a thread and you cannot find the original context.
- An investor asks for pipeline value and you spend an afternoon building it.
- You start a second sheet for "customers" and the two drift apart.
At that point move. Not to Salesforce; to something you will still be using next quarter.
The move itself should take an afternoon. Export the sheet as CSV, import companies and contacts, create the open deals by hand (there are fewer than 30, and re-typing them is a useful review), and archive the sheet. If the import needs a consultant or a week, the tool is too big for you.
One more test before you pick: the number of fields on a new deal. A founder with twelve customers needs company, contact, stage, value, next step and date. A CRM that asks for lead source, industry, region, probability and forecast category on every deal is built for a sales team with a manager. You will stop filling it in by the second week, and a half-filled CRM is worse than the sheet because it looks complete.
Four simple CRMs for founders, as of October 2026
| Tool | Price shown on vendor page | Free plan | Setup time | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Less Annoying CRM | $15 per user per month | 30-day trial, no card | Ten minutes | Founders who want the simplest possible pipeline and phone support |
| Attio | Free for up to 3 seats; Plus $35 per user per month billed yearly ($44 monthly); Pro $79 ($99) | Yes | An hour, more if you model objects | Founders who want a data model that grows with them |
| Twenty | Open source, self-host free; cloud Pro $9 per user per month billed yearly; Organization $19 | Self-hosted | Ten minutes on cloud, an evening self-hosted | Technical founders who want to own the data |
| Atrix | Builder $39 a month for 5 seats, CRM included with projects, docs and chat | 7-day trial, card required | Fifteen minutes | Founders who want the pipeline in the same place as the work |
Less Annoying CRM
It does what the name says. One plan, $15 per user per month, a pipeline, contacts, a calendar, and a support team that answers the phone. No automation, no sequences, no AI. For a solo founder who wants to stop losing follow-ups and nothing else, this is the shortest path. The 30-day trial needs no card.
Attio
Attio is the modern choice. Records are objects you can shape (companies, people, deals, plus up to 3 custom objects on the free plan), the free plan covers 3 seats and 50,000 records, and the email sync is good. Plus is $35 per user per month billed yearly, Pro $79. The risk is the opposite of Less Annoying: it is easy to spend a week building a data model for a company with twelve customers. Start with the defaults.
Twenty
Twenty is an open-source CRM you can run on your own server for free, or use in the cloud at $9 per user per month billed yearly. The interface is close to Attio's, the data is yours, and a technical founder can have it running in an evening. The trade-off is that you are the admin: updates, backups and the inevitable Docker afternoon.
Atrix
Atrix is the option when you would rather not add a tool at all. The customers module holds companies, contacts and a five-stage pipeline; deal values are permission-gated so a contractor can see the deal but not the number; every teammate has a public booking link that syncs with Google and Outlook. The pipeline sits beside the product board, the docs and team chat, so the won deal and the onboarding project are one click apart.
The limits are real: no email sequences, no marketing automation, no free plan. Builder is $39 a month for 5 seats, with a 7-day trial that needs a card. If you only want a CRM, Less Annoying is cheaper. If you are about to pay for a CRM, a project tool and a docs tool, one workspace is cheaper than three. The founders page shows the whole setup.
The habit that matters more than the tool
- Log every conversation the same day. A CRM with gaps is a spreadsheet with extra steps.
- Set a next step on every open deal. No next step means the deal is closed-lost; mark it.
- Review the pipeline on one fixed morning a week. Fifteen minutes, sorted by next step date.
- Keep the stages to five. New, contacted, qualified, proposal, won. Add a sixth only when five breaks.
- Write down why you lost. Three words per lost deal, and read them every quarter.
We did all five in a sheet before we had a CRM, and all five still hold now that we do.
Two things changed when we moved the pipeline into the same tool as the work. The first is that the deal stopped being a sales artefact: the won deal became the product's first page, the scoping notes were already attached, and the engineer who picked it up read the same record the founder had written. The second is that the weekly pipeline review moved into the Monday meeting we already had, because the pipeline was on the same screen as the week's issues. Neither depends on Atrix specifically; any workspace with a pipeline next to the work gives you both. What they depend on is not having to open a second app to see whether a customer is waiting on you.
The one thing that did not change is the fifteen-minute review. We tried letting the tool's reminders replace it and lost two deals in a quarter to follow-ups that were technically scheduled and practically ignored. The review is the system; the tool is where the review happens.
FAQ
What is the simplest CRM for a startup?
Less Annoying CRM, at $15 per user per month, if you want one plan and nothing to configure. Attio's free plan (3 seats) if you want something that grows. Atrix if the pipeline should live next to your projects and docs.
Is there a free CRM for startups?
Yes. Attio is free for up to 3 seats as of October 2026, HubSpot's CRM is free for 2 users, and Twenty is free to self-host. Atrix and Less Annoying CRM have trials but no free plan.
Can I use a spreadsheet as a CRM?
Yes, until about 30 open conversations or a second seller. Seven columns and a daily sort by next step date cover a solo founder's first customers.
When should a startup switch from a spreadsheet to a CRM?
When two people talk to the same company without knowing, when a follow-up is missed because nobody owned it, or when an investor asks for pipeline numbers and the answer takes an afternoon.
Does Atrix have a free CRM?
No. Atrix has no free plan; every workspace starts with a 7-day trial that requires a card, and the CRM is included in Builder at $39 a month for 5 seats.
Next step
Look at the Atrix CRM if you want the pipeline next to the work, or read the founders page for the setup we use on our own first hundred.
Sources
Checked in October 2026: Less Annoying CRM pricing, Attio pricing, Twenty pricing, Atrix pricing.