AI CRM: 10 Picks Priced With the AI Switched On (2026)

An AI CRM is a CRM with the AI built in and billed by the CRM vendor: an assistant you can question, agents that research or prospect, lead scores, and notes written up from your calls. It comes with the seats, from the same company, on the same invoice.

Nine of these ten pricing pages lead with a seat price. On eight of the ten CRMs here, the AI also runs on a meter of its own: HubSpot counts credits per account, folk caps its AI features by the month, and Salesforce sells its sales agents as a per-seat add-on.

That changes which plan is cheapest. HubSpot's free plan carries no credits at all. Salesforce's $25 Starter Suite gets one built-in AI feature on the vendor's own comparison table, activity capture, while the prospecting agent starts at $320 a seat on annual billing, as of October 2026.

So I read all ten pricing pages on 9 October 2026, plus HubSpot's and Salesforce's credit rate sheets, which print per-action rates. Then I priced one month for a five-person team with the AI switched on.

How I compared them

I read every pricing page, AI page and credit rate sheet cited here on 9 October 2026, in US dollars, in both billing states where a page had a toggle. HubSpot, Zoho and Freshsales served rupees to my machine first, so I switched each to USD through the vendor's own currency setting or a US location. Four questions did the sorting:

• Which plan first carries the headline AI? I took the AI each vendor leads with, such as HubSpot's Prospecting agent, and found the cheapest plan that lists it.
• What does that seat cost on annual and monthly billing?
• What meters the AI, and what does more cost? Where a page printed no top-up price, the table says so.
• What would five people pay? The bill assumes one illustrative team on annual billing, before taxes.

What I did not do: run any of these CRMs as a customer. I imported no contacts, recorded no calls and watched no agent prospect, so judge each AI yourself before you commit, on a free plan or trial that actually carries it: Salesforce's 30-day trial covers Starter Suite, which has no agents, and HubSpot Free carries no credits.

Reading the vendor's own page matters: Zapier's ranking roundup still lists Attio "from $29" a seat, and Attio's own page said $35 a seat a month billed annually on 9 October 2026.

Quick comparison

One row per CRM: the cheapest plan with its headline AI, the seat price both ways, and the meter on top.

Prices as of October 2026, in US dollars. Annual prices are per month, billed yearly; Salesforce sells Core on annual billing only. "Not printed" means the page I read showed no number, which is different from free.

What five people pay in a month

Here is one illustrative team of five on annual billing, each on the cheapest plan carrying the vendor's headline AI. The arithmetic uses only the prices above, as of October 2026, before taxes and before any extra AI usage.

Same five people. Bills from $35 to $1,600 and up.

HubSpot's $35 is the cheapest line, and it buys five prospecting recommendations a month for the whole account. Ask for 100 and the team pays $130: 10,000 credits, minus the 500 included, leaves 9,500 at $0.010 each.

Close and Attio both land on $175 because their cheapest plans stop short of five people: Close Solo is for one person and Attio Free for three seats. At the top, Salesforce's add-on, from $625 for five seats, is the only AI charge in the table that its vendor calls "Unmetered".

What the AI in a CRM actually does

Read the feature names on these ten pricing pages and the AI does five jobs.

It writes and summarises. Pipedrive offers AI email summarization and an AI email generator in beta, Zoho Professional summarises email threads and notes, and Salesforce Core includes Sales Emails.

It sits in on calls. Pipedrive's Nova writes a brief before each meeting, a transcript and "ready-to-approve CRM updates". HubSpot Starter lists a Notetaker, Zoho Professional has Call Summary and Call Transcription, and Attio sells Call Intelligence from Pro.

It scores and predicts. Salesforce Core includes lead scoring, opportunity scoring and predictive forecasting. Zoho rations its Zia Scores at five per organisation on Professional.

It answers questions about your records. Zoho lists Ask Zia from Professional, Attio puts Ask Attio on every plan, and HubSpot's Data agent bills each answer as "one prompt for one record".

It works the outbound list. HubSpot's Prospecting agent recommends outreach lead by lead, monday CRM lists an Outreach caller agent and a Lead sourcer agent, and Close says Chloe "can call leads automatically, qualify prospects through live conversations, book meetings".

That last job is where the meters bite: on HubSpot's rate sheet, one prospecting recommendation costs 100 credits, ten times a Data agent answer.

1. HubSpot: the cheapest paid seat with agents on it

HubSpot's agents start on the cheapest paid seat in this guide. As of October 2026, Sales Hub Starter is listed at $7 a seat a month on annual billing, or $10 monthly, beside a struck-through $20 with no promo terms printed. The card lists the Prospecting agent, Notetaker, Agent Builder and 500 HubSpot Credits a month.

Credits are counted per account, reset monthly and "do not roll over". Extra ones cost $0.010 each on Pay-as-You-Go, or $10 for a 1,000-credit monthly pack that raises the monthly limit for the rest of the term.

500 credits buy five prospecting recommendations a month

The rate sheet charges 100 credits for the Prospecting agent to "Recommend outreach for one lead", and 10 for a Data agent answer. Starter's allowance therefore covers 5 recommendations or 50 Data agent prompts.

Five recommendations. For the month.

Professional is $90 a seat billed annually or $100 monthly, with 3,000 credits, and it carries a required one-time onboarding fee of $1,500 that the seat price leaves out. Enterprise starts at $150 a seat a month, with a required one-time $3,500 onboarding fee. If you already run HubSpot, this is what its agents cost, job by job.

2. Salesforce: agents across the sales cycle, from $320 a seat

Salesforce's ladder has six rungs as of October 2026. Free Suite is $0, Starter Suite $25 a seat a month billed monthly or annually, and Pro Suite $100 billed annually. Core ($195) and Advanced ($395) are billed annually, and Max ($550) goes through sales. Under the cards sits one line: "AI can be added to Core and above."

Salesforce's Agentforce sales AI starts on Core

Salesforce's own edition matrix splits it like this:

• Starter Suite and Pro Suite get Activity Capture, with Momentum available for purchase. Free Suite gets no AI rows.
• Core and Advanced include Sales Emails, lead and opportunity scoring, predictive forecasting and conversation intelligence. Advanced adds Account Research.
• Agentforce Prospecting, Lead Nurture, Pipeline Management, Sales Signals and Call Summaries are "Available for purchase" on Core and Advanced and included in Max.

So the cheapest seat with the prospecting agent is Core plus the Agentforce for Sales add-on, "From $125 USD/user/month": from $320 a seat billed annually, as of October 2026. Salesforce calls the add-on "Unmetered Agentforce usage for employees". The metered route is Flex Credits at $500 per 100,000, which Salesforce's own worked example turns into $0.10 an action.

Core's card says "Billed annually", and the FAQ adds that "Most Salesforce products use annual contracts". If you already run Salesforce, this is what its agents cost across six real jobs.

3. Pipedrive: meeting AI on the entry plan, no AI meter shown

Pipedrive puts its meeting AI on the cheapest plan. Lite, at $14 a seat a month billed annually or $19 monthly as of October 2026, includes AI report creation and Nova, which gives you "a brief before every meeting, a transcript of every call and ready-to-approve CRM updates afterward".

The approval part is in writing. Nova's FAQ says it "won't change existing CRM data without your approval", and consent to record is the organiser's job.

No AI meter appears on Pipedrive's pricing, AI or Nova pages: no credits, no sessions, no AI add-on. Attio's AI CRM roundup says heavier Pipedrive AI use adds metered credits; none of those three pages showed one on 9 October 2026. They do not promise unlimited use either.

Premium, at $49 a seat billed annually or $64 monthly, adds AI that writes, summarises and replies to email. If you already run Pipedrive, this is what its AI costs across five jobs. Pipedrive has no free plan; its 14-day trial asks for no card.

4. Zoho CRM: Zia's summaries start two tiers up

Zoho CRM's Free plan is "Forever free, for 3 users", and Standard costs $14 a seat a month billed annually or $20 monthly, as of October 2026. Neither carries much of Zia, Zoho's AI: Standard's only Zia row is data enrichment.

Professional adds call summaries, Ask Zia and AI agents

Professional, at $23 billed annually or $35 monthly, adds email and call summaries, call transcription, Ask Zia, notes summaries and competitor alerts, and its card lists "AI agents". Enterprise ($40 / $50) promises "Extended AI capabilities", and Ultimate ($52 / $65) appears only on the complete feature list, last updated 12 May 2026.

Zoho prints no AI credits. Its AI limits are caps instead: 500 enrichment records a seat on Standard, and per-organisation caps on a few predictions, such as 5 Zia Scores on Professional. For one recurring Zoho chore, the maths behind automating record updates is worked out separately.

Professional also includes Smart Prompt with ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Cohere, and the page does not say who pays for the model. Ask Zoho before you build on it.

5. Attio: AI agents on every plan, paid for in two kinds of credit

Attio ticks Ask Attio and AI agents on every plan, Free included. Free covers up to 3 seats, Plus is $35 a seat a month billed annually or $44 monthly for up to 10 seats, and Pro is $79 or $99, as of October 2026.

Attio splits its credits between the seat and the workspace

Seat credits are personal and go on Ask Attio: 100, 500, 1,000 and 2,500 a seat a month, Free through Enterprise. Workspace credits pay for every AI feature and workflow, at 250, 1,500 and 10,000 a month on Free, Plus and Pro. Another 5,000 costs $70 a month on annual billing or $85 monthly.

The pricing page does not print how many credits an action uses; it links to a guide I did not read. Call Intelligence starts on Pro.

6. folk: AI assistants from the first plan, capped by the month

folk bills itself as "The only AI CRM your team needs to close deals and find your next clients". Standard, its cheapest plan, costs $24 a member a month billed annually or $30 monthly, as of October 2026, and it already carries AI Assistants and Magic fields. Premium is $48 or $60.

The meter is a set of monthly caps. Standard allows 2,000 Magic fields (AI fields), 200 for the Research Assistant and 1,500 for the Workflow Assistant. Premium raises Magic fields to 5,000 and the Workflow Assistant to 10,000; the Research Assistant stays at 200.

No price is printed for going past a cap, so the way up is the next plan. There is no free plan either. A 2-week trial starts automatically with no card, and when it ends, folk says, "we'll block your account", though the data is not deleted straight away.

7. Close: phone, email and an AI agent on every plan

Close sells "calling, email, SMS, and workflows. Plus Chloe, an AI sales agent." Close says Chloe "can call leads automatically, qualify prospects through live conversations, book meetings, update CRM records after calls".

The pricing copy is exact about money: "Chloe access is free on all Close plans. You only pay for the work Chloe does." That work runs on AI credits plus telephony. Each plan includes a monthly allowance, from 500 credits a seat on Solo to 2,000 on Scale, pooled across the team and refreshed with no rollover.

Chloe joins your workflows from Growth

As of October 2026, Solo is $9 a seat billed annually or $19 monthly, for one person and without workflows. Essentials is $35 or $49, Growth $99 or $109, and Scale $139 or $149. Growth is the first plan where you can "Use Chloe in Workflows".

Every card says "Additional credits available", and the pricing page does not print their price. Calls are metered too: Close puts most outbound calls at "around $0.02/minute".

8. Freshsales: a $9 seat, and an AI add-on built for customer chat

Freshsales is the other $9 seat here. Growth costs $9 a seat a month billed annually or $11 monthly, Pro $39 or $47, and Enterprise $59 or $71, as of October 2026. The pricing page showed no free plan on 9 October 2026, although its meta description still mentions one.

Every plan lists the same AI add-on, "Freddy AI Agent $49/100 sessions", and the FAQ says what a session is: "Only customer-facing AI bot features consume bot sessions." So the $49 buys 100 sessions of a bot your customers talk to, after a one-time 500 per account. Your reps' AI features use none of them.

Best for

A team that wants a low seat price and a customer chatbot on one bill.

Free tier

None on the pricing page; a 21-day trial.

9. monday CRM: agents from Standard, on credits labelled trial

"Plans start from 3 users." monday CRM's Basic is $12 a seat a month billed yearly or $18 monthly, Standard is $17 or $25, and Pro is $28 or $41, as of October 2026.

Standard is where the agents appear: an Outreach caller agent, a Lead sourcer agent, a Meeting prep agent, Build your own agent and an AI meeting notetaker, among others. Basic names none.

The 6,000 AI credits are labelled as a trial

The feature list gives Basic, Standard and Pro 6,000 "Trial AI credits" and does not call them monthly, so neither do I. The AI credits add-on is "Eligible" from Standard, with no price printed. If monday already runs your projects, its AI agents have a guide of their own.

10. Clarify: unlimited seats, priced by the work

Clarify calls itself "The Autonomous CRM" and takes the seat out of the price: "Unlimited seats on every plan. Pay for the work, not the headcount." It is the AI-native pick in this guide.

A meeting summary costs 30 credits

Credits belong to the workspace. As of October 2026, Free gives 1,000 a month with the AI sales agent and a call recorder and notetaker. Starter is $40 a month billed annually or $50 monthly for 5,000, and Growth starts at $1,000 a month, billed annually.

The FAQ gives two example rates, "30 credits per meeting summary or 1 per Campaign email", which puts Free at about 33 summaries a month and Starter at about 166. At zero, "AI features pause until your next billing cycle", unless a paid plan turns on on-demand credits at a rate the page does not print.

The Starter card also says "Great for teams up to 3 people." The page sets no seat cap, so I read that line as sizing advice.

Which one should you choose?

Pick by team first, then by meter. Prices are as of October 2026, per seat per month on annual billing. If your CRM is already settled and what you want is agents working around it, the best AI agents for small business covers that side.

Selling alone: start on a free plan. Clarify Free covers about 33 meeting summaries a month, and Attio Free ticks AI agents for up to 3 seats. If you sell by phone, Close Solo at $9 puts Chloe on a one-person plan.

Five people already on Google Workspace: choose on meetings. Pipedrive Lite's Nova records Google Meet calls and drafts CRM updates for approval, at $70 a month for five.

A team that lives in email: Close Essentials at $35 keeps calling, email, SMS and Chloe in one tool. If email is the whole job, a standalone AI email assistant may be enough.

A team that needs AI agents now: HubSpot Starter at $7 is the cheapest seat with a prospecting agent, if you budget for credits past five recommendations a month. monday CRM Standard lists outreach and lead-sourcing agents at $17, from three seats. For agents across prospecting, nurture and pipeline management, Salesforce Core with Agentforce for Sales starts at $320 on an annual contract.

A team that wants unlimited seats: Clarify Starter costs $40 a month for the whole workspace, with 5,000 credits. Check your meeting volume against those credits before you add people.

FAQ

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