Insightly's cheapest plan has no automation and no AI. The plan that does costs $49 a seat, billed annually. Bigin Express is $7 a seat and comes with the phone, WhatsApp, mass email and automation.
Read on to find out why Bigin is a smarter choice for small businesses!
Bigin offers more value for money with powerful features tailored specifically for small businesses
Insightly is a genuinely broad product: CRM, projects and reporting in one place, and reviewers like it. The catch is where the features sit. Plus, at $29 a seat billed annually, it ships without workflow automation, without AI Copilot, and without a phone. The CRM starts earning its keep one tier up.
Professional is $49 a seat, $2,940 a year for five people, and calling still means using a third-party app. Want help? Guided Onboarding is $1,500 and Premier Support runs 20% of your licence, $3,000 minimum. Moreover, Insightly doesn't offer any refunds, so you could end up wasting both your time and your money. Bigin Express on the other hand starts at $7 with automation, built-in-telephony and WhatsApp built in. AI features come in at $12.
Small businesses love Bigin. Here's why:
We built Bigin around how small teams work, and priced it that way. Everything a customer-facing team runs on comes in the box: customizable pipelines, a built-in phone with IVR, WhatsApp and email in one place, and automation that starts on the free plan. AI features join in at $12/user/month with 1,000 credits every month, a number you can actually budget against.
There is a forever-free plan to start on, one-click migration from Insightly when you are ready, and 50,000+ small businesses across 150+ countries already running on it.
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Key limitations in Insightly
Automation starts at $49, not $29
Insightly Plus has no workflow automation. None. Insightly's own plan matrix puts "Complete workflow automation" on Professional, which is $49 a seat and $2,940 a year for five people. Bigin's free plan runs three automations and Express runs 30 at $7. A follow-up should not cost seven times more to automate.
No free plan, and every price is annual
Insightly's pricing page sells three plans and a 14-day trial. There is no free plan on it, and no monthly billing either, so trying the cheapest tier costs $348 up front. Bigin's free plan is permanent, paid plans start at $7, and monthly billing exists when you want it.
The entry plan gets no AI at all
AI Copilot skips Insightly Plus entirely. It appears on Professional with 75 queries and Enterprise with 100, and Insightly never says 75 queries per what: per user, per month, per account. Bigin Premier includes the full AI toolkit at $12, with 1,000 credits every month. A number you can budget against.
No built-in phone, and no IVR anywhere
Insightly ships no dialer on any plan. Calling means a third-party VoIP app such as Kixie or RingCentral, billed separately, and several of those run through AppConnect, another paid product. There is no IVR, queue or routing at any tier. Bigin has a built-in phone with IVR from the free plan onward.
WhatsApp is not in the box
Insightly has no native WhatsApp Business channel. Messaging means a connector through AppConnect or a marketplace tool, billed on top of your seats. Bigin Express includes WhatsApp Business at $7, on your own WhatsApp Business account, sitting next to email and the phone in the same customer timeline.
Quotes and products live on the $99 plan
Products, pricebooks and quotes are Enterprise-only in Insightly's plan matrix: two dashes, then a tick at $99 a seat. A five-person team pays $5,940 a year before it can send a quote from the CRM. Bigin handles quotes and invoicing through Zoho Books and Zoho Invoice on every paid plan.
Integrations are a second product
AppConnect, Insightly's integration engine, is sold separately, lists a required $3,000 technical setup, and its published tiers run to $1,899 a month. Plus cannot use it at all: AppConnect support starts on Professional. Bigin connects to Zapier and Zoho Flow from the free plan, at no extra charge.
Help is a line item, and Insightly prints the price
Guided Onboarding costs $1,500. Premier Support and Success costs 20% of your licence fees, $3,000 a year minimum, and Insightly's pricing page marks both as required on its All-in-One bundles. Every paid Bigin plan includes phone, email and live chat support, plus a free onboarding session.
Customization is rationed by tier
Plus allows two roles, two page layouts and 50 custom fields per object. Custom objects wait for Professional. Calculated fields, validation rules and SAML single sign-on wait for Enterprise. Bigin gives you custom fields, tags, filters and views at $7, with developer APIs from the free plan onward.
Marketing your contacts is another bill
The CRM sends mail, but campaigns, journeys, landing pages and prospect scoring live in Insightly Marketing, a separate product from $99 to $999 per account per month, with prospects metered on top and email volume tied to how many you buy. Bigin Express includes mass emails, templates and email insights at $7.
Here's a list of features that Bigin offers for your business:
Built-in pipelines dedicated to different operations
Case and ticket management through Email-in
Connected records (When a record reaches the desired stage in one team pipeline, you can create a record automatically in another team pipeline that captures the next set of business activities.)
Built-in dashboards for detailed insights into your business
All you need to take your business to the next level
Bigin is the right choice for your small business and is trusted by over 50,000+ small businesses globally. We want to help you scale up your business and achieve consistent growth. And in the future, if your business needs more than what Bigin can offer, you can always switch to Zoho CRM or Zoho CRM Plus. We're here to help you at every milestone your business reaches.
Build your business using the most powerful app ecosystem
With its wide variety of editions and suites, Insightly is often thought to be best suited to manage operations beyond sales. But that's far from the truth! Zoho One, a carefully crafted suite of applications, is perfectly equipped to manage all aspects of your business. The best part? It is priced at $37 dollar/user/month, which is considerably less than most of Insightly's offerings.
Expert reviews and ratings
Rating Platform
Insightly
Bigin
4.4/5
4.6/5
Ease of Use
8.2
9.1/10
Ease of Setup
7.8
8.7/10
4.4/5
4.7/5
4.7/5
4.7/5
4.2/5
4.4/5
4.4/5
4.7/5
4/5
4.7/5
*The names and logos for Zoho are trademarks of Zoho Corp. All other trademarks, brand names, or product names belong to their respective holders. Comparison information as of 4/08/2026. Prices mentioned are in USD.
Trusted by 50,000+ small businesses globally
I had been searching for an affordable, user-friendly CRM for our tech startup business, Kiteline Health. Following a lot of research, trials, and demonstrations, we decided that Bigin was the most complete package and signed up. We are delighted with our choice and would recommend it to any small/startup/medium-sized business looking for a small cost with maximum efficiency.
Emma Crutchley,Customer Success Manager, Kiteline Health
For a Solopreneur like me Bigin was a dream come true! I have tried Pipedrive, Close and other CRM’s but couldn’t justify the expense, and the free tiers of other products simply lacked the features that truly made them useful. But then came along Bigin! Everything I need, and affordable. Thank you so much Zoho for making a product that helps solo operations and small businesses!
Adam Whittaker,Owner, Mixed By Adam
Personally, I find that Bigin stands out with its low cost and ease of use without neglecting the main functionalities a CRM needs (Kanban board, list of contacts, dashboard for advancement, etc.). We tried other CRMs and it was expensive, since there was just too much stuff we didn't use. So now we pay only for what we need.
Jérôme Lortie,Digital Growth, Hot Poc
Still have more doubts? Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions!
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Is Insightly free?
No, Insightly's pricing page sells three plans, Plus at $29, Professional at $49 and Enterprise at $99 per user per month, all billed annually, with a 14-day trial. A legacy free plan for two users still turns up in old reviews, but it is not offered on the pricing page today. Bigin has a forever-free plan for a single user that includes a customizable pipeline, contact management, a built-in phone, three automations and a web form, and paid plans start at $7.
How much cheaper is Bigin than Insightly?
Bigin's paid plans run $7 to $18 per user per month billed annually. Insightly runs $29 to $99, annual billing only. The gap widens once you match features rather than price tags: automation costs $7 on Bigin Express and $49 on Insightly Professional. For a five-person team that is $420 a year on Bigin Express against $1,740 on Insightly Plus, or $720 on Bigin Premier, AI included, against $2,940 on Professional. Then add what Insightly sells separately: Guided Onboarding at $1,500 and Premier Support and Success at 20% of licence fees with a $3,000 annual minimum.
Does Insightly include AI on its cheaper plans?
Not on the cheapest one. AI Copilot, which covers conversational lookup, record updates by chat, AI email replies and summaries, starts on Professional at $49 with 75 queries and rises to 100 on Enterprise. Insightly does not publish what period those queries cover. Plus, at $29, gets no Copilot at all. Bigin includes its full AI toolkit, a writing assistant, email replies, record summaries, cross-sell suggestions and churn alerts, from Premier at $12, with 1,000 AI credits refreshed every month and 3,000 on Bigin 360.
Can I make calls from Insightly?
Not without buying a phone system. Insightly has no built-in dialer on any plan; calling means a third-party VoIP integration such as Kixie, KrispCall or RingCentral, billed separately, and several of those run through AppConnect, which is also sold separately. There is no IVR, call queue or call routing at any tier. Bigin has a built-in phone with IVR from the free plan onward, plus 100+ telephony integrations.
How do I migrate from Insightly to Bigin?
Bigin has single-click migration built for Insightly: your contacts, companies, deals and notes move over automatically. Every paid plan includes a free onboarding session and data-import assistance from our team, so you do not have to work out the field mapping alone. And if it does not work out, Bigin has a money-back guarantee: 30 days on monthly plans and 45 on annual.
Will I outgrow Bigin?
Bigin scales from a free single-user plan to Bigin 360 ($18/user/month) with 15 team pipelines, one million records, 100 automations, and 3,000 AI credits a month. If you eventually need more, your data moves to Zoho CRM with one click, so you never migrate platforms twice.
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