Short answer: Forbes Advisor UK’s list puts Zoho first, followed by Zendesk Sell, monday CRM, Salesforce and HubSpot. But the best choice depends on what you mean by a marketing CRM. Zoho is the strongest value-oriented starting point for many small businesses; HubSpot is better suited to all-in-one inbound marketing; Salesforce is the more natural enterprise choice; monday CRM focuses on visual workflows; and Zendesk Sell is primarily a sales CRM for improving pipeline conversion.
There is an important date qualification. The live Forbes Advisor UK comparison is identified as audited and verified on 29 April 2025, not as a page explicitly titled in 2024. The exact historical 2024 ranking cannot be confirmed from the live page alone. A Zoho announcement dated 24 April 2024 says Forbes Advisor named Zoho the Best Marketing CRM, but that is vendor-published evidence and does not establish the complete 2024 UK ranking.
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This guide separates what Forbes recommended from what each product is designed to do now. Prices, free-plan limits and product packaging change frequently, so the Forbes list is best used as a shortlist—not as a current 2026 price comparison or a universal verdict.
Forbes Advisor UK’s CRM marketing platform ranking
The live Forbes Advisor UK article gives the following five-platform ranking and ratings:
#1 Best Overall
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| Rank | Platform | Forbes rating | Forbes positioning | Our category |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zoho | 4.5/5 | Personalised lead management at scale | Broad CRM with marketing capabilities |
| 2 | Zendesk Sell | 4.4/5 | Boosting conversions | Sales CRM |
| 3 | monday CRM | 4.3/5 | Scaling marketing through automations | Configurable workflow CRM |
| 4 | Salesforce | 4.3/5 | Targeted email marketing | Enterprise CRM ecosystem |
| 5 | HubSpot | 3.9/5 | Cross-channel lead-nurturing marketing | All-in-one CRM and marketing platform |
These are Forbes Advisor editorial ratings, not an industry certification or an independently reproducible performance benchmark. Forbes does not publish a fully transparent numerical weighting for this particular UK comparison, so a lower rating does not necessarily mean a product is worse for your business.
Which platform is best for each type of business?
| Business need | Best starting point | Why | Main warning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low-cost CRM with broad functionality | Zoho | Strong combination of contacts, pipeline, forms, campaigns and reporting | Advanced marketing may require Zoho Campaigns or Zoho Marketing Automation |
| Inbound and cross-channel marketing | HubSpot | Combines CRM, forms, landing pages, email, content, automation and attribution | Costs can rise sharply with marketing contacts and higher editions |
| Complex enterprise marketing | Salesforce | Deep customisation, integrations, permissions and marketing products | Marketing Cloud is a separate, much more expensive proposition than a basic CRM licence |
| Visual processes and flexible workflows | monday CRM | Board-based configuration and automations suit teams that want to design their own process | Seat minimums, board limits and integrations can change the economics |
| Sales conversion and pipeline visibility | Zendesk Sell | Strong focus on leads, contacts, deals, activity tracking and forecasting | It is not naturally equivalent to a full marketing-automation suite |
These are editorial use-case conclusions, not objective universal rankings. A newsletter business may prefer an email-marketing specialist, while a sales team may gain little from paying for advanced campaign orchestration.
CRM versus marketing automation: the distinction that changes the answer
A customer relationship management system primarily stores and organises customer and prospect relationships. It normally covers:
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- Leads and opportunities
- Sales pipeline stages
- Tasks, calls and meetings
- Deal ownership and forecasting
- Sales activity history
- Basic reporting
A marketing-automation platform is built around attracting, segmenting and nurturing audiences. It may provide:
- Website forms and landing pages
- Audience segmentation
- Bulk email campaigns
- Behaviour-triggered journeys
- Lead scoring and routing
- Social or advertising audiences
- Campaign attribution
- Marketing analytics
Some products combine the two. Others use the word marketing for a much narrower set of features, such as email templates, one-to-one sales sequences or simple workflow rules. Zoho’s own explanation of CRM and marketing automation makes the same basic distinction.
Before comparing prices, ask which of these you actually need:
| Requirement | What to verify |
|---|---|
| One-to-one sales email | Templates, tracking, replies, scheduling and mailbox integration |
| Bulk email | Send limits, unsubscribe handling, bounce management and domain authentication |
| Lead nurture | Multi-step journeys, delays, branching logic and suppression rules |
| Behavioural marketing | Website, form, email and advertising events available as automation triggers |
| Lead scoring | Custom scoring rules, decay, thresholds and automatic sales assignment |
| Attribution | First-touch, last-touch, multi-touch or revenue attribution—not just email opens |
| Multichannel campaigns | Whether email, SMS, WhatsApp, ads and social tools are native or separate add-ons |
What Forbes Advisor’s methodology covers—and what it leaves out
The Forbes UK comparison says it considered price, ease of use, features and functionality, marketing automation, email templates and sequences, website forms and customer support. Its broader CRM ratings methodology refers to factors such as pricing, pipeline management, customisation, analytics, mobile or VoIP integration, expert analysis and customer support. The weighting can change according to the use case.
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That is useful for producing a consumer-friendly shortlist, but it does not answer every question a UK business needs to ask. The comparison does not adequately expose or standardise:
- Marketing-contact thresholds
- Email-send limits
- Deliverability controls and sending infrastructure
- Lead-scoring depth
- Journey-builder and branching capability
- Attribution models
- Data residency and international transfers
- Onboarding, implementation and support costs
- Migration complexity and API limits
- Marketing-specific compliance controls
- Whether a feature is native, integrated or sold separately
The page also places a featured partner offer for monday CRM before the editorial ranking. Forbes says advertiser compensation does not determine editorial recommendations; nevertheless, readers should keep paid placement, editorial ratings and affiliate links conceptually separate. More information is available in Forbes Advisor UK’s policies.
1. Zoho: best value and broad SMB functionality
What Forbes says
Forbes ranks Zoho first with a 4.5/5 rating and positions it for personalised lead management at scale. The review highlights lead engagement, automated marketing, pipeline management, web forms, reporting and analytics. It also refers to a free single-user plan and low-cost paid plans.
The 2024-specific evidence is narrower than the title suggests. A Zoho announcement dated 24 April 2024 says Forbes Advisor named Zoho CRM the Best Marketing CRM. That supports Zoho’s 2024 recognition, but it is not independent confirmation of every platform in the historical UK ranking.
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Zoho CRM’s marketing features include segmentation, lead nurturing, web forms, campaign management, email campaigns, marketing attribution, Google Ads campaign tracking, events, surveys, sub-campaigns and email analytics.
The crucial qualification is that Zoho is an ecosystem rather than one perfectly self-contained marketing product. A business may combine Zoho CRM with Zoho Campaigns or Zoho Marketing Automation. The required functionality, licence and contact limits should therefore be checked product by product.
Rank #2
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Free edition and cost caveats
Zoho’s current free-edition page says its free version supports up to three users and 5,000 contact records, with 150 emails per day, five workflow automation rules, web forms, reports, mobile access and seven native integrations. Those are current product claims and should not be treated as the limits that applied in 2024.
The Forbes page itself contains a pricing inconsistency: its detailed Zoho section gives a range of £14 to £42 per month, while its summary table gives £12 to £42. Do not reproduce either range as a current UK price without a date and plan explanation. Zoho’s pricing calculator may also display US-dollar results rather than a definitive UK quote, so verify the final currency and tax treatment directly through the Zoho pricing page.
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- Small businesses that want CRM and marketing tools in one wider ecosystem
- Teams with a limited software budget
- Businesses that need web forms, campaigns and pipeline management
- Companies likely to grow beyond a free or entry-level plan
Not ideal for
- Teams wanting a very simple setup with no ecosystem decisions
- Businesses that need sophisticated enterprise journeys without buying additional products
- Companies that have not defined their data fields, lifecycle stages and automation rules
Verdict: Zoho is the strongest candidate for best value in this group. Its headline affordability should not be confused with an all-inclusive marketing-automation licence. Test the exact combination of Zoho products, users, contacts, email volume and integrations you will need.
2. Zendesk Sell: best for sales conversion and pipeline visibility
What Forbes says
Forbes rates Zendesk Sell 4.4/5 and positions it as a tool for boosting conversions. The review highlights centralised lead and contact views, email sequences, forecasting, reporting, analytics and pipeline management.
There is an inconsistency in the Forbes copy: it says Zendesk Sell has no free plan but also refers in the summary to limited free-plan features. That should not be repeated without clarification.
What Zendesk Sell is actually designed for
Zendesk’s current Sell page presents it primarily as a sales CRM. Its functions include contact and deal management, activity tracking, lead generation, pipeline visibility, triggers, task automation, prospecting and engagement. That is valuable for a sales-led organisation, especially one already using Zendesk Support, but it is not automatically equivalent to HubSpot Marketing Hub or Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
The current official page lists Sell plans starting at $19 per month, followed by $55, $115 and $169 tiers. These figures are not the same as the historical Forbes UK range of approximately £15 to £89, and the currency, billing frequency and plan contents must be checked before purchase.
Best for
- Sales teams that need clean lead, contact and opportunity management
- Businesses focused on improving follow-up and conversion rates
- Organisations already using the Zendesk customer-service ecosystem
- Companies happy to connect a separate email-marketing or automation tool
Not ideal for
- Marketing departments seeking complex nurture journeys
- Businesses requiring extensive landing pages, campaign attribution or behavioural segmentation in the core product
- Buyers assuming that a sales email sequence is the same as marketing automation
Verdict: Zendesk Sell is a credible sales CRM, but it is a questionable choice if the primary requirement is full marketing automation. Put it on the shortlist when conversion management is central and confirm which marketing capabilities are native, integrated or paid add-ons.
3. monday CRM: best for visual workflows and configurable automation
What Forbes says
Forbes gives monday CRM a 4.3/5 rating and positions it for scaling marketing through automations. It highlights lead capture, lead management, website forms, marketing automations, app integrations and customisable workflows. The Forbes page mentions integrations with Mailchimp, Facebook Ads, HubSpot and Hootsuite.
What monday CRM is actually designed for
monday CRM is built around the visual, configurable board model associated with monday.com. That can work well when a team wants to design its own lead stages, ownership rules, follow-up process and internal marketing workflow rather than adopt a rigid sales system.
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Current pricing and the free-plan trap
The current monday pricing page lists CRM pricing from $12 per seat per month when billed annually, with plans starting from three seats. The page lists, among other limits, 1,000 active contacts and deals on the Basic plan, one custom dashboard, a maximum of five columns per board and 20 quotes and invoices per month.
The same page distinguishes monday work management from monday CRM. Its free offering is described as monday work management, while monday CRM has a 14-day trial. Therefore, older descriptions of a free monday CRM plan should be treated as date-specific and product-specific.
Rank #3
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Best for
- Teams already using monday.com
- Marketing and operations departments that prefer visual boards
- Businesses with unusual or highly configurable processes
- Small teams prepared to design and maintain their own workflows
Not ideal for
- Businesses wanting a deeply specialised marketing-journey builder out of the box
- Teams that do not have an owner for CRM administration
- Very small groups for whom the minimum number of seats undermines the advertised per-seat price
Verdict: monday CRM is best understood as a flexible workflow CRM with marketing integrations. It can be an excellent operational fit, but its board, contact, automation, dashboard and seat limits need testing against a real process.
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4. Salesforce: best for enterprise marketing ecosystems
What Forbes says
Forbes rates Salesforce 4.3/5 and positions it for targeted email marketing. The review highlights lead capture, email campaigns, templates, web forms, marketing-app integrations, reporting, analytics and pipeline management. Its historical price range is shown as £20 to £400 per user per month, billed annually.
Salesforce is not one comparable product
The label Salesforce can refer to substantially different products, including Salesforce Starter, Salesforce Pro, Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud Next, Account Engagement, Marketing Cloud Engagement and related data or messaging products. A low-cost CRM seat does not automatically include the enterprise marketing functionality that a buyer may have seen in a demonstration.
On its current UK pages, Salesforce lists Starter at £20 per user per month and Pro at £80 per user per month. Its Marketing Cloud Next pricing page lists Growth at £1,200 per organisation per month and Advanced at £2,600 per organisation per month, billed annually. The marketing editions can include capabilities such as forms, landing pages, lead nurturing, scoring, multi-channel journeys, analytics and personalisation, depending on the edition.
Best for
- Large organisations with complex sales and marketing operations
- Businesses needing extensive customisation, permissions and integrations
- Account-based marketing and sophisticated reporting environments
- Companies able to fund administrators, implementation partners and ongoing governance
Not ideal for
- A small business that only needs contacts, tasks and a simple pipeline
- Teams comparing a basic CRM seat directly with a complete marketing platform
- Businesses without the staff or partner support needed to maintain a complex implementation
Verdict: Salesforce is a powerful enterprise option, but the product edition and total commercial package matter more than the Salesforce name. Request a quote that includes users, marketing contacts, messaging credits, implementation, support, integrations and any required add-ons.
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5. HubSpot: best for inbound and cross-channel lead nurturing
What Forbes says
Forbes gives HubSpot a 3.9/5 rating and positions it for cross-channel lead-nurturing marketing. It highlights marketing automation, pipeline management, sales and marketing tools, landing pages, social-media advertising, SEO and blogging tools, automated email sequencing, revenue attribution and more than 1,000 integrations. The integration figure is a published platform claim and should not be treated as proof that every connection will meet your requirements.
What HubSpot includes
HubSpot Marketing Hub includes or supports forms, audience segmentation, personalised email, marketing automation, social-media management, marketing analytics, attribution, customer-journey reporting and landing pages. HubSpot also offers CRM, sales and service products, allowing a business to build a broader customer platform.
The free CRM tools are not the same as a full Marketing Hub subscription. Advanced automation, attribution, testing and reporting are generally tied to higher editions. The HubSpot pricing page also says total cost can depend on marketing contacts, seats, product tier, billing schedule, onboarding and additional product access.
Current price structure
HubSpot’s current product page lists Marketing Hub Professional from $890 per month and Enterprise from $3,600 per month, while free marketing tools are available separately. These are displayed in US dollars, so a UK buyer should obtain a current UK quote and confirm VAT, exchange-rate treatment and billing terms.
The historical Forbes range of £11 to £3,740 per month is too broad to function as a meaningful comparison without identifying the hub, edition, number of marketing contacts, seats, onboarding and add-ons. A business with a small team but a large database can pay much more as its marketing-contact count grows.
Best for
- Inbound-marketing teams using content, forms, landing pages and email
- Businesses wanting a unified CRM, sales, marketing and service record
- Companies that need cross-channel campaign reporting and customer-journey visibility
- Teams willing to pay for advanced features as their marketing operation matures
Not ideal for
- Businesses that only need a simple sales pipeline
- Companies judging affordability solely by the free CRM or lowest advertised tier
- Organisations with a large contact database but limited software budget
Verdict: HubSpot is the strongest candidate here for all-in-one inbound and cross-channel marketing. It is not necessarily the cheapest long-term option. Model the cost at your expected marketing-contact volume rather than relying on the free tools or entry-level headline.
Pricing: the advertised number is rarely the total cost
For a realistic comparison, use this formula:
Total cost = licences + marketing contacts + messaging credits + add-ons + integrations + onboarding + implementation + support + tax.
Ask each supplier to price the same scenario. For example, request the cost for the number of users, contacts and monthly email sends you expect after 12 months—not just the first month or free trial.
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Questions to ask about every quote
- Is the price per user, per seat, per contact or per organisation?
- Is it monthly or an annual-billing equivalent?
- Is an annual contract required?
- Is VAT included?
- Are there minimum seats?
- Are marketing contacts charged separately from CRM records?
- Are emails, SMS, WhatsApp messages or advertising audiences metered?
- Are onboarding, migration and training compulsory or optional?
- Are premium integrations, API access, reporting or support extra?
- What happens to features and data after cancellation?
Annual billing can make a platform look cheaper than paying month to month. Compare the cash commitment, not only the annualised monthly figure. Also test the price after the free tier expires and after your contact database grows.
Free plans: what is genuinely included?
| Platform | Free or trial position | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Zoho | The current free edition supports up to three users and 5,000 records, according to Zoho | 150 emails per day, five workflow rules, integrations, reports and whether the marketing feature you need is in CRM or a paid Zoho product |
| HubSpot | Free CRM and marketing tools are available separately from higher Marketing Hub editions | Marketing contacts, automation, attribution, reporting, branding, seats and onboarding |
| monday CRM | The current pricing page distinguishes a 14-day CRM trial from the free monday work-management product | Do not assume free work management equals a free CRM; check contacts, boards, automation and seat limits |
| Zendesk Sell | Forbes described it as having no free plan and a trial, although its summary wording is inconsistent | Trial length, retained data, included integrations and the paid tier needed for automation |
| Salesforce | Entry-level products and trials are not equivalent to a full Marketing Cloud deployment | Edition, organisation-level marketing price, user licences, messaging, implementation and support |
A free plan may exclude precisely the features that prompted the purchase: bulk email, advanced segmentation, lead scoring, multiple pipelines, custom reports, higher contact limits, data exports, phone support or removal of vendor branding.
How to choose: a practical scoring framework
For a more meaningful comparison than star ratings alone, score each finalist against your own requirements. The following is a proposed editorial framework, not a claim about Forbes’s weighting:
| Criterion | Suggested weighting | What to test |
|---|---|---|
| Core CRM functionality | 20% | Contacts, accounts, leads, pipeline, tasks and activity history |
| Marketing capability | 20% | Campaigns, segmentation, forms, email, journeys and nurture |
| Automation and lead scoring | 15% | Triggers, workflows, scoring, routing, decay and suppression rules |
| Reporting and attribution | 10% | Campaign ROI, revenue attribution, dashboards, forecasting and exports |
| Integrations and API | 10% | Native applications, marketplace tools, API access, limits and data synchronisation |
| Usability and adoption | 10% | Setup, navigation, admin burden, training and day-to-day user experience |
| Price and total cost | 10% | Realistic users, contacts, email volume, add-ons and billing terms |
| Support, security and compliance | 5% | Support channels, audit controls, privacy tools and data-handling options |
Test the same four scenarios
- Solo consultant: one to three users, fewer than 1,000 contacts, simple forms, notes and follow-up.
- Growing B2B team: about 10 users, 10,000 contacts, lead scoring and nurture sequences.
- Marketing-led small business: five marketing users, forms, email journeys, attribution and social integrations.
- Enterprise: multiple teams, complex permissions, several business units, advanced reporting and implementation support.
A platform that wins the solo-consultant test may not win at 10,000 contacts. Likewise, an enterprise product can be technically capable but financially and operationally disproportionate for a small business.
Integrations to check before signing
List every system that must exchange data with the CRM:
- Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace
- Website CMS and forms
- Email-marketing tools
- Ecommerce platform
- Accounting software
- Customer-service desk
- Telephony
- Advertising and social platforms
- Webinar and event tools
- Data warehouse or business-intelligence tools
- Zapier, Make or another automation connector
Classify each connection as native, a marketplace app, a third-party connector, API-only or a paid add-on. Do not assume that an integration directory entry provides two-way synchronisation, historical data transfer, custom field mapping or reliable error handling.
Reporting and attribution: decide what success means
Generic references to analytics do not mean that every platform answers the same question. Decide whether you need:
- Lead-source reporting
- Campaign-member tracking
- First-touch attribution
- Last-touch attribution
- Multi-touch attribution
- Revenue attribution
- Pipeline influence
- Email engagement
- Website activity
- Sales forecasting
- Custom dashboards
- Data export and API access
During a trial, create a test lead, submit a form, open and click an email, move the lead through the pipeline and inspect the resulting report. If the system cannot show how the activity affected the opportunity, do not assume that a label such as revenue attribution means the reporting is suitable for your business.
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A CRM does not make marketing lawful automatically. It can store consent and suppression records, but the business remains responsible for deciding why personal data is processed, what notices are provided and which messages may be sent.
Do UK businesses have to register with the ICO?
Not every UK business must pay the data-protection fee. The ICO says organisations processing personal information generally need to pay unless an exemption applies, and it provides a self-assessment. Current fee tiers range from £52 to £3,763, subject to eligibility and exemptions. This fee is not the same as the former broad notification regime, and paying it does not by itself make a company GDPR-compliant.
Marketing email and text rules
UK GDPR and PECR apply together, but they answer different questions. UK GDPR requires a valid lawful basis for processing personal data. PECR applies to electronic marketing such as emails and texts.
- Individual subscribers generally require consent for unsolicited electronic marketing, unless a valid soft opt-in applies.
- Corporate subscribers can generally receive unsolicited electronic marketing without consent, but the sender must identify itself and provide a valid opt-out route.
- Consent must be specific, informed, freely given and based on a clear affirmative action.
- Unsubscribe requests must be honoured promptly, and suppression lists must be retained so that opted-out people are not accidentally re-added.
- Website tracking, advertising identifiers, behavioural profiles and cookie-based personalisation require their own privacy and consent analysis.
The ICO’s electronic-mail guidance should be checked before launching a campaign. The Data Use and Access Act 2025 also amended UK data-protection and PECR rules. The ICO says its relevant data-protection provisions are now in force, so use current guidance rather than an old CRM checklist.
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Compliance features to compare
- Consent source, date, wording and lawful basis fields
- Separate consent for different channels and purposes
- Automatic unsubscribe and suppression handling
- Retention and deletion rules
- Processor contracts and subprocessor information
- International data transfers and data-residency choices
- Audit logs and permission controls
- SPF, DKIM and DMARC support
- Cookie, tracking and advertising-consent integrations
This is practical guidance, not legal advice. If you process sensitive data, operate across several jurisdictions or run high-volume marketing, obtain specialist advice before implementation.
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Email deliverability is part of the buying decision
A platform’s email feature list does not prove that messages will reach inboxes. Before committing, ask about:
- SPF, DKIM and DMARC configuration
- Dedicated versus shared sending infrastructure
- Bounce, complaint and invalid-address handling
- Automatic suppression lists
- Unsubscribe processing
- Sending-domain and tracking-domain configuration
- Domain-reputation monitoring
- Volume ramp-up for a new sender
- Transactional email versus marketing email separation
Marketing personalisation and lead scoring are also only as reliable as the underlying data. Duplicate contacts, inconsistent lifecycle stages, missing consent, broken event tracking and failed synchronisation can produce inaccurate campaigns and misleading reports.
Implementation checklist
Do not treat migration as a simple spreadsheet upload. Before signing a long contract:
- Export a sample database: include contacts, companies, opportunities, activities, consent history and unsubscribe records.
- Map fields: document lifecycle stages, lead sources, owners, consent statuses, custom fields and required formats.
- Deduplicate data: decide which record is authoritative and how conflicting consent histories will be handled.
- Define the pipeline: write down what each stage means and who can move a lead forward.
- Build one complete journey: test a form, confirmation email, scoring rule, sales assignment, nurture sequence and unsubscribe path.
- Verify routing: check time zones, ownership rules, notifications and duplicate prevention.
- Test attribution: use tagged links and known test leads to see whether campaign activity is recorded correctly.
- Authenticate email: configure sending domains and verify SPF, DKIM and DMARC before significant sending.
- Check limits: confirm contact, email, API, automation, storage and dashboard limits at your projected 12-month volume.
- Train users: explain required fields, lifecycle definitions, consent handling and how to avoid creating duplicate records.
- Confirm export and cancellation: find out how quickly data can be exported, in what format and what happens to backups after termination.
- Set a rollback plan: keep the old system available until imports, integrations and automations have passed acceptance testing.
Who may not need an all-in-one CRM
A full CRM marketing platform may be unnecessary for:
- A sole trader who only needs contact notes and reminders
- A newsletter publisher that needs email automation but no sales pipeline
- A high-volume ecommerce business that needs specialised lifecycle marketing
- A regulated organisation requiring specific hosting, audit or data-residency controls
- A company already committed to Microsoft or Salesforce infrastructure
- A simple sales operation that could use a lower-cost CRM alongside an email platform
Depending on the use case, it may be sensible to compare specialist tools such as ActiveCampaign, Brevo, Pipedrive, Freshsales, Microsoft Dynamics 365 or Klaviyo. They should be researched and tested separately rather than inserted into Forbes’s ranking without comparable evidence.
Practical shortlist
For most small UK businesses, start with Zoho and HubSpot if you need both CRM and marketing. Add monday CRM if visual process design is important, Zendesk Sell if sales conversion is the main objective, and Salesforce if your requirements justify an enterprise ecosystem.
Then run the same test in each product: import a small, anonymised sample; create a form; send a compliant test campaign; route a lead; trigger a nurture sequence; generate an attribution report; export the data; and price the system at your expected user and contact volume. The winner should be the platform that passes that test at an acceptable total cost—not simply the one with the highest star rating.
Frequently Asked Questions
Was Zoho really Forbes Advisor UK’s best CRM marketing platform in 2024?
The strongest 2024-specific evidence is a Zoho announcement dated 24 April 2024 saying Forbes Advisor named Zoho the Best Marketing CRM. The live Forbes UK page is audited 29 April 2025, and the exact complete 2024 UK ranking cannot be confirmed from that page alone. Zoho was ranked first with 4.5/5 on the live comparison.
Is Zoho better than HubSpot?
It depends on the requirement. Zoho is generally the stronger value-oriented starting point for broad CRM functionality, while HubSpot is the stronger candidate for inbound marketing, content, forms, cross-channel campaigns and customer-journey reporting. Compare the exact edition, marketing contacts, automation features and add-ons rather than the free tiers alone.
Is Zendesk Sell a marketing CRM?
Zendesk Sell is primarily a sales CRM for leads, contacts, deals, activities, forecasting and pipeline management. It can support sales sequences and integrations, but it should not automatically be treated as equivalent to a full marketing-automation platform with advanced segmentation, nurture journeys and attribution.
Is monday CRM really free?
The current monday pricing page distinguishes monday CRM from the free monday work-management product. It describes a 14-day monday CRM trial, while the free offering is associated with work management. Check the current product, seat minimum, contact limit, automation allowance and board restrictions before relying on a free-plan claim.
Recommended Free Tools
Does Salesforce include Marketing Cloud?
Not automatically. Salesforce offers separate CRM products and Marketing Cloud products. A basic Salesforce Starter or Pro licence is not the same as Marketing Cloud Next. Current UK pricing lists Marketing Cloud Next Growth at £1,200 per organisation per month and Advanced at £2,600 per organisation per month, billed annually, subject to edition and commercial terms.
Can a CRM replace Mailchimp or another email-marketing platform?
Sometimes, but not always. A CRM may provide one-to-one emails, bulk campaigns or basic sequences without providing the segmentation, deliverability controls, branching journeys, suppression, testing and attribution expected from a dedicated email-marketing platform. Confirm the exact native features and limits before cancelling an existing tool.
Do all UK businesses need to register with the ICO?
No. The ICO says organisations processing personal information generally need to pay the data-protection fee unless an exemption applies. Businesses should use the ICO self-assessment. The fee is separate from broader UK GDPR compliance and from the rules governing marketing emails under PECR.
Do UK businesses need consent for B2B marketing emails?
The answer depends on the recipient and message. Individual subscribers generally require consent unless a valid soft opt-in applies. Corporate subscribers can generally receive unsolicited electronic marketing without consent, but the sender must identify itself and offer a valid opt-out. UK GDPR lawful-basis requirements still apply, so check current ICO guidance before sending.
The Bottom Line
Bottom line: Forbes Advisor UK’s list is a useful dated shortlist, not a current universal answer. Choose Zoho for value and broad SMB functionality, HubSpot for inbound and cross-channel marketing, Salesforce for enterprise complexity, monday CRM for visual workflow flexibility, or Zendesk Sell for sales conversion and pipeline management. Before buying, separate CRM features from true marketing automation, price contacts and add-ons as well as users, and test migration, deliverability, consent handling, reporting and data export.
Quick Recap
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