Contact caps are the most common wall in free CRM plans: the tier is free until your list grows, which for a working business is another way of saying "not free for long." As of this writing, several major free tiers cap stored or marketable contacts around the 1,000 mark, with more contacts being the headline reason to upgrade. Always check the vendor's current pricing page — these numbers move.
If you want no contact limits without paying, you have two realistic paths:
- Self-hosted open-source CRMs (for example Twenty or EspoCRM). The software is free and unlimited, but you host, secure, back up, and upgrade it yourself — real work, and real server costs.
- A hosted CRM with no paid tier. crm-153 is built this way: unlimited contacts and companies in every workspace, because there's no paid plan that a cap would funnel you toward.
Whichever you choose, protect yourself with the exit door test: can you run a full CSV export on the free plan today? If the answer is no, the contact cap isn't the only wall. (In crm-153, export is always one click.)