MilooshCRM Plan-Gate Dataset 2026
A CRM's advertised entry price doesn't say which plan you actually need. This dataset checks 7 CRM vendors -- Pipedrive, Close, HubSpot (Sales Hub), Zoho CRM, Freshsales (Freshworks CRM), Salesforce (Sales Cloud), monday CRM -- against their own pricing pages and help documentation for the plan tier where two-way email sync, workflow automation, and sales sequences actually unlock. This is not a ranking: no score, no weighting, no recommended vendor.
Citation
Miloosh Research. “CRM Plan-Gate Dataset 2026.” Verified 2026-09-27. https://miloosh.com/research/crm-plan-gates-2026. Methodology: https://miloosh.com/research/crm-plan-gates-2026#methodology. Dataset licensed CC BY 4.0 -- reuse with attribution.
1 of 7
Include sales sequences/cadences on their entry paid plan (Zoho CRM)
5 of 7
Include two-way email sync on their entry (or free) plan
4 of 7
Include workflow automation on their entry paid plan
3 of 7
Disclose no cap on the number of pipelines (Pipedrive, Close, monday CRM)
4 of 7
Offer a genuine free tier (not just a trial)
1 of 7
Have a confirmed minimum seat count to purchase (monday CRM)
Which plan unlocks which feature
“Entry plan” means each vendor's own cheapest PAID plan. A feature missing from the entry plan is not a flaw -- it is a packaging choice worth pricing into your decision before you commit to a seat count.
| Vendor | Entry plan | Email sync | Automation | Sequences |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pipedrive | Lite | No | No | No |
| Close | Solo | Yes | No | No |
| HubSpot (Sales Hub) | Sales Hub Starter | Yes | Yes | No |
| Zoho CRM | Standard | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Freshsales (Freshworks CRM) | Growth | Yes | Yes | No |
| Salesforce (Sales Cloud) | Starter Suite | Yes | Yes | No |
| monday CRM | Basic | No | No | No |
Full gate detail
The exact wording and numbers behind each Yes/No/Unknown above.
Lite -- US$14/seat/month billed annually (US$24/seat/month billed monthly)
- Email sync
- Growth (and above). Lite includes no email sync at all. Growth/Premium/Ultimate include two-way sync of 1/3/5 email accounts per user respectively.
- Automation
- Growth (and above). Lite has no Workflow Automation. Growth unlocks 50 active automations/company (3 if/else steps); Premium 150/10; Ultimate 250/20.
- Sequences
- Growth (and above). Sequences do not exist on Lite. Growth includes 5 sequences/company, Premium 25, Ultimate 50.
- Pipelines
- No cap on the number of pipelines or stages on any plan. The tiered cap that does exist is on combined "leads + deals" records: Lite 2,500/seat, Growth 5,000/seat, Premium 15,000/seat, Ultimate 20,000/seat -- each capped at an absolute 300,000/company regardless of seat count.
- Minimum seats
- Not confirmed either way
- Contact/record scaling
- "Pipedrive has no usage limits for contacts" on any plan (per Pipedrive's own usage-limits article). The separate "leads + deals" record type does scale by tier, as above.
- Billing
- Monthly billing available at the entry price -- no free tier, 14-day free trial.
- Left unknown
- minimumSeats -- no Pipedrive-owned page states a minimum-seat requirement; third-party sites claim none, but that is not a primary-source confirmation
Solo -- $9/user/month billed annually ($19/user/month billed monthly)
- Email sync
- No gate -- two-way email sync is included on all four plans (Solo, Essentials, Growth, Scale). Only the NUMBER of connected accounts is tiered: 3 accounts on Solo/Essentials, 10 on Growth/Scale.
- Automation
- Growth ($99/user/month annual) is the minimum tier. "Automated Workflows" is Not included on Solo or Essentials.
- Sequences
- Growth -- same gate as automation. Close markets this entirely under "Automated Workflows" today (its own developer API still calls the underlying object "Sequences"), and it is unavailable on Solo/Essentials.
- Pipelines
- No tier-based numeric cap disclosed. "Pipelines" is Included on all four plans with no count limit given (unlike Leads/Contacts, which explicitly say Unlimited). The only numeric limit found is a non-tiered cap of up to 300 opportunities per lead.
- Minimum seats
- Not confirmed either way
- Contact/record scaling
- "Leads" capped at 10,000 on Solo; Unlimited on Essentials/Growth/Scale. "Contacts" (individual people) are Unlimited on all four plans, including Solo.
- Billing
- Annual billing required for the advertised entry price -- no free tier, 14-day free trial.
- Left unknown
- Explicit minimum-seat-count policy for Essentials/Growth/Scale (pricing shows per-seat from 1 user; Solo is capped at a maximum of 1 user, but no minimum is stated for the other three)
- Exact numeric cap, if any, on pipelines or pipeline stages
Sales Hub Starter -- $20/seat/month billed monthly; $7/seat/month billed annually. Sits above a permanently free $0/month CRM (up to 2 users), which is not counted as a paid plan here.
- Email sync
- Free tier. Two-way inbox connection (Gmail, Outlook, Microsoft Exchange) is listed under HubSpot's Free Tools and available on every plan, including Free -- no paid plan is required for sync itself.
- Automation
- Sales Hub Starter, with restrictions: "Up to 50 workflows with restricted triggers and actions." Full automation requires Professional (300 workflows) or Enterprise (1,000, plus the ability to trigger sequences).
- Sequences
- Sales Hub Professional. Sequences are listed only under Professional (5,000/account) and Enterprise (same cap, higher daily send limits) -- no Sequences row exists for Free or Starter.
- Pipelines
- Free: 1 pipeline per object type. Starter: 15 total pipelines/account. Professional: 100. Enterprise: 350.
- Minimum seats
- Confirmed: no minimum
- Contact/record scaling
- Free CRM caps at 1,000 contacts. Paid tiers have no fixed public per-tier contact ceiling; HubSpot states an overall platform maximum of up to 15 million contacts, with each account's actual limit set per contract.
- Billing
- Annual billing required for the advertised entry price -- genuine free tier available, 14-day free trial.
- Left unknown
- Exact published per-tier contact/record cap for paid Starter/Professional/Enterprise plans -- HubSpot discloses only an overall 15-million-contact platform ceiling, set per account by contract
Standard -- $14/user/month billed annually (about $20/user/month billed monthly)
- Email sync
- Standard (the entry paid tier). Real two-way email sync (IMAP/POP3/Gmail API/Graph API) is unchecked on Free and checked starting at Standard. (The separate "SalesInbox" unified client is Enterprise/Ultimate only, but underlying sync is available from Standard.)
- Automation
- Free. Basic workflow rules exist even on the Free edition (10 rules/module, 5 active). Standard raises this to 30/15, Professional 80/40, Enterprise 125/75, Ultimate 150/100.
- Sequences
- Standard. Zoho calls this "Cadences." Not available on Free; available from Standard (20 cadences/module, 10 active, 18 follow-up steps max), scaling up through higher tiers.
- Pipelines
- Free and Standard: limited to the single default sales pipeline. Professional: up to 5. Enterprise: up to 10. Ultimate: up to 20.
- Minimum seats
- Confirmed: no minimum
- Contact/record scaling
- Record/data storage scales by tier: Free ~5,000 records (~10MB), Standard ~100,000 records (~200MB), Professional/Enterprise ~10GB (~5M records), Ultimate ~30GB (~15M records).
- Billing
- Monthly billing available at the entry price -- genuine free tier available, 15-day free trial.
Growth -- $9/user/month billed annually ($11/user/month billed monthly)
- Email sync
- Growth (entry paid plan) and above -- two-way email sync is absent on the Free plan and present from Growth up through Pro and Enterprise.
- Automation
- Growth includes "Basic workflows" (~20 cap per Freshworks help doc). Pro raises this to "Custom" workflows (~50 cap); Enterprise has the highest/no stated cap. Free has none.
- Sequences
- Pro. Freshworks' current live pricing page lists Sales sequences as new at Pro (not Growth or Free); an older help doc's conflicting claim of a capped Growth allowance was treated as stale.
- Pipelines
- Growth and Free: limited to a single sales pipeline. "Multiple sales pipelines" unlocks starting at Pro; no numeric maximum disclosed for Pro/Enterprise.
- Minimum seats
- Not confirmed either way
- Contact/record scaling
- Not stated on the main pricing page for plain Freshsales. A Freshworks help doc for the bundled "Freshsales Suite" (same plan names/prices) lists Free 100 active contacts, Growth 1,000, Pro 3,000, no cap stated for Enterprise -- not independently re-confirmed for the plain, non-Suite SKU.
- Billing
- Annual billing required for the advertised entry price -- genuine free tier available, 21-day free trial.
- Left unknown
- minimumSeats -- no primary source states a minimum for any plan
- exact contact/record caps for the plain (non-Suite) Freshsales SKU specifically
- exact maximum pipeline count for Pro/Enterprise (only confirmed as "more than one")
Starter Suite -- $25/user/month (billed monthly or annually). Sits above a $0/user/month Free Suite tier whose sync coverage could not be confirmed.
- Email sync
- Starter Suite ($25/user/month) is the minimum plan that explicitly advertises "AI Automatically Syncs Emails, Events, and Contacts." The $0 Free Suite tier's own feature list does not mention this.
- Automation
- Flow Builder is Included starting at the $0 Free Suite tier (capped at 5 flows/org) -- so it is also present on Starter Suite. Pro Suite ($100/user/month) adds "greater customization and automation."
- Sequences
- Sold separately as "Sales Engagement," a $50/user/month add-on. Bundled at no extra cost only starting at Advanced ($395/user/month) and Max ($550/user/month). Whether it can be purchased as an add-on specifically on Starter Suite/Pro Suite was not confirmed by the pricing pages.
- Pipelines
- No explicit numeric cap on pipelines, deals, or stages found on the official pricing page for any tier.
- Minimum seats
- Not confirmed either way
- Contact/record scaling
- No hard contact/record ceiling stated per tier; scaling is expressed via unquantified "Data Storage Per User" / "File Storage Per User" rows. The only explicit number found (2,000 leads/contacts) applies to the 30-day free trial only, not to any subscription.
- Billing
- Monthly billing available at the entry price -- genuine free tier available, 30-day free trial.
- Left unknown
- pipelineLimits -- no explicit numeric cap found on the primary pricing page
- minimumSeats -- no minimum-seat language found
- exact per-tier data/file storage figures (rows exist in the comparison table but values were not reliably extractable)
- whether the $0 Free Suite tier includes email/event/contact sync (only confirmed from Starter Suite up)
- whether Sales Engagement can be purchased as an add-on on Starter Suite/Pro Suite specifically, or only from Core upward
Basic -- $12/seat/month billed annually ($18/seat/month billed monthly); flat per seat across the 3-50 seat range.
- Email sync
- Standard. Two-way Gmail/Outlook inbox sync is not on Basic; monday's help doc confirms it starts at Standard.
- Automation
- Standard. No automation allotment exists on Basic. Standard includes 250 custom automation actions/month; Pro raises this to 25,000/month; Ultimate is effectively unlimited.
- Sequences
- Pro. "Set email sequences" is listed under Pro's "Includes Standard, plus..." -- not available on Basic or Standard.
- Pipelines
- No cap found. monday's help doc states plainly for Basic: "Unlimited customizable pipelines." Higher tiers are therefore also unlimited.
- Minimum seats
- 3 seats minimum to purchase any paid plan. Beyond 40 seats, monday directs buyers to a custom quote.
- Contact/record scaling
- "Active contacts & deals" caps scale by tier per the live pricing page: Basic 1,000 / Standard 10,000 / Pro 100,000 / Ultimate Unlimited. (A monday help article instead states Pro is Unlimited -- the live pricing page was treated as authoritative since it is the primary source of record.)
- Billing
- Monthly billing available at the entry price -- no free tier, 14-day free trial.
Methodology
- Sample
- The 7 CRM vendors named in the mission brief (Pipedrive, Close, HubSpot, Zoho CRM, Freshsales, Salesforce, monday CRM) -- not a hand-picked-to-fit-a-conclusion list, and not exhaustive of the CRM category.
- Verification
- Every field was checked against that vendor's own pricing page first, falling back to the vendor's own help/knowledge-base documentation only where the pricing page itself did not state a fact (never a third-party aggregator, except for one field on Zoho CRM where the pricing page geo-redirected to a non-USD currency -- see that row's notes). Verified 2026-09-27.
- No ranking
- This dataset computes no score, no weighting, and recommends no vendor. Every count reports how many vendors gate a named feature behind an upgrade from their entry plan -- a factual packaging question, not a quality judgment. A CRM that gates a feature is not a worse CRM; it is priced differently.
- Missing data
- Every vendor row lists its own specific unknowns (see “Left unknown” in the full detail above) rather than presenting a single blanket disclaimer. Nothing in this dataset was estimated to fill a gap.
- Limitations
- Feature names and tier structures change; this is a dated snapshot, not a live feed. “Entry plan” excludes free tiers by design, since a free CRM seat is rarely viable for a real sales team's full feature needs -- but where a free tier exists and includes a feature (e.g. HubSpot's email sync), that is noted. This dataset does not evaluate feature quality, only presence and plan placement.
- Site-wide standards
- This page follows the same rules as every other page on Miloosh: see the Sources Policy for how facts are sourced and dated, the Editorial Policy for how commercial relationships are kept separate from what gets published, and the Corrections Policy to report an error in this dataset.
What this means for a buyer
- Only Zoho CRM includes sales sequences on its entry paid plan -- the other 6 require at least one upgrade beyond the cheapest paid tier, which can change the real per-seat price you should compare.
- “Has email sync” is not a single fact -- Close, HubSpot, Zoho CRM, Freshsales, and Salesforce all include it from their entry (or free) plan, while Pipedrive and monday CRM require an upgrade first.
- A pipeline cap you never hit is irrelevant; one you will hit (HubSpot's 15/account on Starter, Zoho's single pipeline on Standard, Freshsales' single pipeline on Growth) should be checked against your actual team structure before signing an annual contract.
- monday CRM is the only vendor here with a confirmed purchase minimum (3 seats) -- worth knowing before pricing out a 1-2 person pilot.
- Annual billing is required to get the advertised entry price at 3 of 7 vendors (Close, HubSpot, Freshsales) -- budget for a yearly commitment, not a monthly one, when comparing those headline numbers.
Why “entry price” alone doesn't answer the question
A CRM's advertised entry price describes what you pay for a seat -- not what that seat can do. Two vendors at the same $/seat/month price can require completely different tiers to reach the same real capability, because “automation” or “sequences” means a different, vendor-defined feature bundle at a different price point for each of them.
Questions worth asking before signing a CRM contract:
- Which named plan -- not which price -- actually includes the specific feature your team needs on day one?
- Does the price you were quoted require annual billing, and what happens to that price if you need to add seats mid-year?
- Is there a real minimum seat count, and does it match your actual team size (not the size you plan to grow into)?
- If a pipeline or contact cap exists on your target plan, what does upgrading past it cost -- and is that the plan you were quoted, or the next one up?
Related reading
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