Best Budget-Friendly CRM for Your Course Business Reviewed

Choosing the right CRM tool feels like falling down a rabbit hole of features, plans, and pricing traps, does it not?

Some CRM systems offer more than just managing contacts, deals, and automations, while others keep it more focused. I tested several CRM tools to find out which ones actually make sense for an online course business. They had to be functional, easy to use, CRM-focused, and budget-friendly. That is why you will not see the biggest names here. I went through the onboarding steps, explored the features by creating deals and contacts.

To make this review more comprehensive, I also went through what other users had to say on review platforms and included overall opinions for each CRM tool in our list. 

Let’s find a CRM tool that can perfectly fit your business and sales processes. 

5 Best CRM tools that don’t cost an arm and a leg 

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software helps you keep track of everyone who interacts with your business, from new leads and email subscribers to students and repeat buyers.

A good CRM helps you store contacts, manage communication, follow up at the right time, track deals or enrollments, and even automate repetitive tasks like sending welcome emails or reminders.

When choosing a customer relationship management system for your course business, pay special attention to the following factors:

• Contact limits. Some CRMs sound great until you hit the plan's limit and suddenly have to upgrade. Of course, most CRM work this exact way. You just want to make sure the platform gives you enough room to grow.
• Deal and pipeline tracking. Check if you can customize and set the pipelines in a way that fits your business’s sales process. 
• Ease of use. If you are not a tech person, skip anything that makes you feel like you are setting up a spaceship. Because you want a tool that eases your tasks, not ones that create more problems. 
• Reporting. Check if the reporting provides sufficient data and KPIs that are important in the case of your business. 

Now that you have this in mind, here is an overview of the best CRM tools we will discuss together.

Active Campaign CRM

ActiveCampaign is a powerful marketing automation and CRM platform. It combines automation, lead scoring, and sales tracking to help you nurture students and sell. Besides just the CRM functionality, the tool has advanced segmentation and behavioral triggers to personalize your marketing campaigns. 

The onboarding checklist with video guides helped me get started by showing the key steps: setting up automations, managing emails, managing contacts, etc. 

Speaking of the management process, everything is manageable with tags, lead scoring, and segments. You can apply scores based on actions and use prebuilt segments or create your own. There is a basic report showing contact performance. But I think it would be better if we could also see the reports for how those contacts engaged in specific campaigns. 

The pipeline dashboard is clean. You can add deals and move them through stages. It works well for following up with leads or keeping track of course sales.

What I also liked is the emails and automations. The email builder is one of the easiest I tested. It comes with all the essential blocks, and at the same time, is not cluttered. The AI tools help with writing emails and building automations. When you add a step to your automation, it suggests what action to add next, which speeds things up.

Another great news for people who mainly use WhatsApp to communicate with the students. You can connect ActiveCampaign to WhatsApp through Hilos, automate the communication, and close more sales. 

There are detailed reports for contacts, deals, automations, and sales. Active Campaign provides more than 420 integrations with tools such as analytics, customer support, eCommerce, marketing automation, and so much more. 

Pricing 

Active Campaign does not have a free plan. It provides 4 main pricing options and depends on the number of contacts you have. For 1000 contacts, the tiers go as follows. 

• $15/month Starter
• $49/month Plus
• $79/month Pro
• $145/month Enterprise

Starter has limitations on the emails you can send and on the actions you can have for each automation workflow. 

Reviewer’s experience

Active Campaign has an average rating of 4.5 stars on G2. If you need advanced automation without enterprise pricing, it is a crowd favorite. 

Reviewers love how powerful it is, especially for automating email sequences and managing contacts all in one place. Some say it takes a little time to learn, the reporting can be buggy, and customer support is not always fast. 

“ActiveCampaign convinces me with its intuitive user interface, flexible automations, and strong CRM features. Particularly helpful are the extensive segmentation and personalization options.”

G2 Reviewer

HubSpot CRM 

HubSpot is an all-in-one platform that helps businesses manage marketing, sales, and customer service in one place. It’s known for its user-friendly interface, free CRM tier, and powerful tools for automating workflows, tracking leads, and nurturing customer relationships. 

One of the greatest things about having HubSpot as your CRM is that it has a free version that comes with a little bit of everything from its main features. They include email marketing, website management, and deal and task tracking. 

The interface is simple and easy to navigate. Once you join, the software guides you through the steps of where to start with integrations, importing contacts, etc.

The contact data is easy to manage, especially when you use the advanced filters to set the exact view of the fields you need.  

What I like about this CRM is the lead management opportunities. You can capture leads with the help of forms on your landing pages and then use automated email workflows to nurture them. To evaluate the leads, the CRM suggests scoring, lead stages, and active lists. For each contact, you keep track of all the calls, emails, communication, and location. 

When it comes to pipelines, you can use the drag-and-drop functionality to manage your deals. Besides the default properties (In card, Closed Won, Closed Lost), there is an opportunity to add additional properties for unique processes. 

As you already guessed, HubSpot provides many frills for its free CRM version. Some AI tools are available for the free plan as well. So you can generate the necessary content faster with an AI blog assistant, email generator, meta description generator, etc. 

HubSpot integrates with more than 100 eCommerce, customer success, collaboration, event management, help desk, and other tools. 

Pricing

The CRM has 2 main pricing options, including a free plan. With the free version, you can get up to 1000 contacts, 2000 emails, 1 pipeline, and some other limitations. For advanced features, you can get the Starter Customer Platform for $15/month per user. 

Reviewer’s experience

HubSpot CRM has an average rating of 4.4 stars on Capterra. 

The free plan is a huge win, and users rave about seamless Gmail/Outlook integration, handy meeting schedulers, and clean contact management. They appreciate the user-friendly interface, customizability, and extensive third-party integrations.

“It has excellent information sharing and conversation tools that help us communicate effectively with our clients during the entire period of doing business. HubSpot CRM reporting functions provide very resourceful reports that allow us to monitor the performance of our interactions with clients and the services we are offering them”.

Capterra Reviewer

Streak CRM 

If you love using spreadsheets to collect data and all your sales communication happens via email, congratulations. You can simply install Streak on your Gmail and track all the sales and communication with your students directly from your inbox. 

There is one big reason people love Streak: email tracking. You can see when someone opened your email, what time they opened it, and whether they clicked on a link. This works right in Gmail, with a little eye icon that lights up when someone views it.

Pipelines in Streak work like spreadsheets within Gmail. Each row, called a "box," represents an item you are tracking, such as a lead or deal. You can customize columns to store specific data and use the drop-down functionality to manage statuses like in Spreadsheets. 

At the top of the line, you can see the stages of your pipeline and track how many leads/customers are in those stages. 

As for the contacts, Streak uses the email communication history and gives a complete view of interactions with each contact. This works the same way, even if you have multiple people engaged in the thread of that email. 

Automations in Streak can be set up directly within your pipeline. You can create triggers based on actions like form submissions (you need Google Forms) or stage changes, and define actions such as sending emails or creating tasks. There is also an opportunity to trigger the automations manually. 

There is another big reason people love Streak: email tracking. You can see when someone opened your email, what time they opened it, and whether they clicked on a link. This works right in Gmail, with a little eye icon that lights up when someone views it.

As for integrations, you can connect it with tools such as Calendly, Typeform, Google Hangouts, Google Forms, Slack, and Zapier. 

Pricing 

Besides the free plan, Streak offers 3 other tiers.

• $59/monthly per user Pro
• $89/month per user Pro+
• $159/month per user Enterprise 

Reviewer’s experience 

Streak has an average rating of 4.5 stars on G2. 

Reviewers like the interface and the fact that they do not lose any threads, emails, and contacts. Features like email tracking, snooze, and mail merge help them to organize the contacts. Many highlight the free plan as a great starting point. However, some reviewers consider it too basic for scaling. 

“I love creating a pipeline for my sales, and it's easy to create snippets to pre-populate email templates for different types of leads, and leads in different stages. Streak literally saves me 2-3 hours a week, and its integration right into Gmail makes it very easy to use. I also like the ability to export my pipeline so I can run analyses on my performance.”

G2 Reviewer

Monday CRM

Monday CRM is a customizable, AI-powered sales CRM designed to manage leads, deals, and customer interactions in one intuitive platform. It integrates with Monday’s project management tools. 

The layout of the CRM is similar to what we are used to seeing with popular project management tools, and the navigation is easy. 

Once you join, the system suggests adding the contact information step-by-step, including their names and account details. Based on the contacts you enter at first, Monday CRM creates the templates that you can later change and add to.

The way you manage all the active and inactive contacts is through boards, such as deals, leads, and accounts. There is an opportunity to create diverse groups to organize the contacts. 

Besides the simple functionality, I like how visually pleasing the pipelines and all the other boards look. You can customize the deal columns to fit your sales process, and use the Kanban view to drag and drop deals between stages.

In terms of customization, Monday CRM is flexible. Especially, you can use the widget for goals and charts. They give the opportunity to create a dashboard view just how you want it, and visualize all the data. 

Besides the typical CRM functionality, you also have your activity management board to keep track of your tasks as a user. Monday CRM offers basic automation to follow up on leads, change statuses when an action is triggered, and set reminders. 

When it comes to the integrations, you can connect Monday CRM with 200+ popular apps, such as Slack, Google Workspace, Zoom, etc. 

Pricing 

Pricing for Monday CRM depends on the number of users. For 10 seats, the tiers go as follows:

• $12/month per seat Basic
• $17/month per seat Standard
• $28/month per seat Pro
• Enterprise

The prices are billed annually, and you can start with a 14-day free trial. 

Reviewer’s experience 

Monday CRM has an average rating of 4.7 stars on Capterra. 

Based on user reviews from Capterra, monday CRM is praised for its intuitive and visually appealing interface, which users find easy to navigate and customize. The platform's flexibility allows teams to tailor workflows to their specific needs, enhancing collaboration and productivity. Users also appreciate the comprehensive documentation and support resources available.

“We have used the Monday CRM in my past organization. What I like the best about it is that it gives you a detailed dashboard report for your whole team, and you can do the analysis from that and manage the work easily.”

Capterra Reviewer

Freshsales CRM 

Freshsales CRM is an AI-powered sales CRM designed to help businesses manage leads, automate workflows, and close deals faster with features like built-in email/phone, predictive lead scoring, and visual pipelines. It is known for its user-friendly interface and affordability. 

The first thing that caught my attention after signing up for Freshsales is how clean, simple, and organized the tabs and the dashboard looked overall. The main actions you need to complete are front and center, such as importing contacts, adding team members, and personalizing the fields. Unlike other CRM I tested, it took less than 5 minutes to figure out what goes where on Freshsales. 

The CRM comes with AI functionalities, more specifically, an AI assistant. It helps with a number of tasks, such as generating emails, managing duplicate contacts, and sharing insights. The AI is also the one that does the scoring of contacts based on their behaviour, so you would not need to do it manually. 

As for the contacts, you can automatically capture leads from emails, web forms, and chat, and enrich contact profiles with social media information. The CRM provides customizable sales pipelines where you can move the deals to the next stage with the drag-and-drop functionality. 

There are opportunities to create multiple pipelines for different teams or products, and use filters to sort deals based on value, probability, or activity. You can make calls directly from the CRM with automatic logging and recording. Integration with chat platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, so there is everything for multichannel communication.

As for the analytics, there are detailed reports with sales and analytics dashboards presented in a visually appealing and highly functional way. 

The software offers powerful integrations with communication, marketing, productivity, finance, and customer support tools. 

Pricing

Apart from the free plan, Freshsales offers 3 other tiers:

• $9/month per user Growth
• $39/month per user Pro
• $59/month per user Enterprise

You can start with a free plan, which allows up to 3 users, or with a 21-day free trial. 

Reviewer’s experience

Freshsales CRM has an average rating of 4.5 stars on G2. 

People appreciate that Freshsales is easy to use and set up, with a clean interface and helpful automation features. The AI assistant, Freddy, gets a thumbs-up for offering useful insights. However, some users have pointed out that the reporting tools can be complex and not very intuitive. There are also mentions of limited native integrations compared to other CRMs. 

“It has an intuitive interface and essential features that make it easy to use. The platform's pipeline and contact management have improved the way we manage our client relationships. Most of all, I like that Freshsales gives me the tools I need without overwhelming me with too much.”

G2 Reviewer

Bring your CRM and course platform together with Uteach 

As you can see, each CRM tool provides unique opportunities for you to manage your leads and turn them into paying students. 

Having a separate CRM tool is helpful, but it adds another layer to manage. If you are running an online course business, Uteach already comes with built-in CRM features, so you can handle everything in one place. 

Inside your dashboard, you can view each student's full profile in a format designed for learning. This includes where they came from (the traffic source), their total learning time, which courses and digital products they enrolled in or purchased, and their learning progress. You also get their payment history and other key data in one view.

There is an opportunity to apply filters to sort and group students based on their actions, courses, products, etc. Then, you can send automatic messages and platform notifications. 

You can also manage product enrollments directly from the CRM view, manually adding or removing students from courses or bundles without going through several steps. Plus, you can create and connect forms and surveys to collect custom data points from your students and have that information stored within their profiles.

If you want to see how this works for your business, book a demo with our expert. They will walk you through how Uteach can help you manage, sell, and scale your course operations more smoothly.

Conclusion

Together, we tested and discussed the best CRM tools here. We looked at ActiveCampaign for its easy automations and WhatsApp connection, HubSpot for being clean and simple to start with, Streak for managing everything right inside Gmail, Monday CRM for its visual boards and custom pipelines, and Freshsales for solid contact management with AI help and a bunch of integrations.

Each of these tools brings something different to the table. If your course business is just getting off the ground, you might want to test the waters with a free plan. But keep an eye on the limitations. Some free versions look great until you realize you can barely do anything with them. 

Your choice really depends on what you need. Are you mainly focused on managing leads? Do you need deep student data? Are automations a must? Think about what you want the CRM to actually do for your course business, not just what sounds cool on the feature list.

And if you want to skip the CRM puzzle altogether, remember Uteach already gives you CRM tools built for online teaching.