The best CRM for consultants and advisory firms

Consulting work is often won months after the first conversation, and HubSpot is the strongest option for nurturing those relationships. The free tools give two partners a shared contact database, email tracking, forms and a meeting link. Marketing Hub can later add email campaigns on the same records, and Service Hub can carry the client into delivery.

Starter at $20 per seat adds 15 pipelines, enough to separate service lines, and removes branding. The catch is the jump to Professional at $90 per seat plus $1,500 onboarding for sequences, forecasting and custom reports. Custom objects for engagements or referrers are Enterprise-only at $150 per seat.

Attio is built on a flexible data model of objects rather than a fixed sales pipeline, which suits consultants whose best leads come through people: former clients, referral partners and alumni networks. The free plan covers 3 seats and 50,000 records, with workflows included at 250 credits a month.

Plus at $35 per seat billed annually raises the limits to 5 objects, 250,000 records and 15 reports, but is capped at 10 seats. Pro at $79 is the plan a referral-heavy firm will want: custom objects, 12 objects in total, 1 million records, 100 reports and sequences.

Pipedrive fits firms whose process is a clear sequence of calls, proposals and decisions. Growth at $39 per seat covers two-way email sync, templates with tracking, a meeting scheduler, 50 automations, 5 sequences and up to 100 custom fields for details such as referral source or engagement type.

For consultancies, Premium at $59 deserves a look. It includes Smart Docs (proposals, quotes and e-signatures), Projects (post-sale project boards) and LeadBooster, which are add-ons on Growth starting from €32.50, €16 and €32.50. It also adds custom dashboards and 15 visibility groups for separating client data by team.

Zoho CRM is the cheapest way to give engagements, referrers or retainers their own records. Custom modules start on Standard at $14 per user (10 modules) and rise to 25 on Professional. Standard also includes 20 cadences per module for long-cycle follow-up and 100 custom reports.

Professional at $23 is the plan we would buy for an advisory firm: 10 pipelines, 80 workflow rules per module, unlimited custom reports and Zia AI scoring. The free edition covers 3 users but has no custom modules or cadences, so use it as a sandbox to design your setup.

Copper is built around Google Workspace, so it suits firms that already manage client work in Gmail and Google Calendar. Basic at $23 per seat billed annually holds 2,500 contacts with task automation.

Most firms will need Professional at $59: workflow automation, bulk email, reporting and 15,000 contacts. Email series and custom reports are Business-only at $99, so Copper costs more than Pipedrive or Zoho CRM for similar automation.

Close is a calling- and email-first sales CRM, so it suits consultants who build their pipeline by picking up the phone. Solo costs $9 a month billed annually for one user, and Essentials $35 per seat for a team.

Sequences (Close calls them workflows) and the power dialer start on Growth at $99 per seat; custom objects and the predictive dialer need Scale at $139. That is expensive for relationship-led firms, but good value if outbound business development is a partner's main job.