Highrise was once the simple CRM that small business owners loved, and then its makers stopped developing it, leaving many teams looking for an actively developed replacement. If you still have old contacts, notes, and deal history sitting in an export file, or you are searching because a colleague mentioned it, you have a decision to make. Do you pick another lightweight tool, or grow into something bigger? The wrong choice means months of messy data and unused software. This guide explains what happened to Highrise, how to rescue your data, and which alternatives genuinely fit a small business in 2026, with honest notes on cost, setup time, and who each tool suits.
What Happened to Highrise CRM and Why It Matters Now
The Basecamp decision to sunset the product
Highrise began life as a side product from the team behind Basecamp, built for freelancers and small teams who wanted a simple place to track contacts, notes, and follow-ups. In 2018 the team announced it would end development of Highrise. Its official “future of Highrise” page says current customers can keep using it, but the product is no longer being improved. That means Highrise is frozen rather than shut down: existing accounts still work, but new features will not arrive, so most teams are better served by an actively developed CRM. If you land on an old tutorial or review that describes new Highrise features, treat it as a historical record, not a recommendation.
The decision made sense from the company’s side. Basecamp chose to concentrate on its flagship project management product and on HEY email, rather than maintain a smaller CRM competing against far larger vendors. For customers, however, the practical effect was disruption: pipelines, notes, and contact histories had to be moved elsewhere on a deadline. If you are reading this because a former colleague mentioned Highrise, the useful question is not whether it can come back, but what its closure teaches you about choosing a replacement.
What the original tool did well
Highrise earned loyalty because it stayed small on purpose. Contacts, companies, notes, tasks, and a basic deals view lived in one uncluttered screen, and a new hire could be productive within an afternoon. Its email dropbox let you forward a message and have it attach itself to the right contact, which gave a two-person agency a running conversation history without any manual data entry. That low-friction habit is the main thing worth carrying forward into your next tool.
Its restraint was also its limit. Highrise offered little in the way of marketing automation, deep reporting, or integrations compared with modern platforms. When you evaluate replacements, write down the three or four things you actually used every week: perhaps the follow-up reminders, the shared notes, and the deal stages. Then shortlist tools that do those jobs cleanly. Simplicity remains a legitimate buying criterion, and several current options still serve small teams well, including Less Annoying CRM (single-plan, $15/user/mo after a 30-day free trial), Nutshell ($13/user/mo on the Foundation plan billed annually, with a 14-day free trial), and Close CRM (from $9/user/mo on the annual Solo plan after a 14-day free trial). For a no-cost start, Zoho CRM offers a free tier for up to 3 users and HubSpot’s free plan covers 2 users and 1,000 contacts.
Why old exports are still worth rescuing
If you ever exported your Highrise data, that file may be the most valuable thing left from the product. A contact record with years of notes tells you who bought, who went quiet, and what you promised each person. Locate those files first: check old email attachments, cloud storage folders, and any backup drives. Typical exports arrive as CSV or similar spreadsheet files, which nearly every modern CRM can import.
Here is a practical rescue routine. First, copy the export so you always keep an untouched original. Second, open it in a spreadsheet and remove duplicates, dead email addresses, and obvious junk. Third, map columns to the fields your new CRM expects, such as name, company, email, phone, and notes. Fourth, import a small batch of ten contacts as a test before loading everything. Finally, tag imported records by source so you can tell legacy contacts from new leads.
Consider a landscaping company with eight years of client notes in an old export. Importing those into a tool like Pipedrive (from $14/user/mo on the annual Lite plan, after a 14-day free trial) lets the owner set seasonal follow-up tasks for every past customer, turning dormant history into repeat revenue. Check each vendor’s official pricing page for current plans before you commit.
How to Migrate Your Highrise Data Without Losing Context
Exporting contacts, notes, and tasks
Start by treating the export as an archive job, not just a stepping stone. Log in to Highrise as an account administrator and use the export tools to pull people, companies, notes, emails, tasks, and deals into files you can store outside the system. Export in more than one format if possible, and save everything to a dated folder in cloud storage. Do this before you cancel anything or invite your team into a new CRM.
Next, check what actually came out. Open the contact file in Excel or Google Sheets and spot-check ten records you know well, such as a long-standing client with years of conversation history. Confirm their notes, phone numbers, custom fields, and assigned owners are present. Notes and tasks often export separately from contacts, so verify that each note still points to the right person or company. If something is missing, re-export before moving forward.
Finally, decide what history deserves a home in the new system and what belongs in the archive only. A five-year-old note about a lunch meeting may matter for relationship context, while completed tasks from 2016 rarely do. Keep open tasks, recent notes, and active deals for import, and store the rest as a searchable backup. This keeps the new CRM fast and uncluttered without destroying your institutional memory.
Cleaning duplicates before the import
Duplicates multiply during a migration, so clean them in the spreadsheet rather than after import. Sort your contacts by email address first, since it is the most reliable unique identifier, then by company name and last name. Look for the usual culprits: the same person entered as “Bob” and “Robert,” a contact stored once under a personal email and again under a work address, and company records spelled three different ways, such as “Acme Inc,” “Acme, Inc.,” and “ACME.”
When you find a duplicate, merge the information deliberately instead of deleting one row. Copy any unique phone numbers, notes, or tags from the weaker record into the stronger one, and keep the earliest created date if your sheet includes it. For a small business with a few thousand contacts, a pivot table or the “Remove duplicates” feature in Excel handles exact matches, while Google Sheets users can lean on the built-in “Data cleanup” menu for fuzzy ones.
Standardize formatting at the same time. Convert phone numbers to a single pattern, fix capitalization, and split full names into first and last name columns, because most destination CRMs expect them separately. Tools such as Zoho CRM, Pipedrive, and Less Annoying CRM all offer their own duplicate detection after import, but catching problems beforehand means you start with trustworthy data and avoid merging records that already carry new activity.
Mapping deals and tags to new pipeline stages
Mapping is where context is most easily lost, so build a simple translation table before you import. List every Highrise deal status and category in one column, then write the matching stage in your new pipeline beside it. A Highrise deal marked “pending” might become “Proposal Sent” in Pipedrive, while “won” and “lost” map to closed outcomes. Write down any statuses that have no obvious match and decide on them deliberately.
Tags need the same attention. Highrise tags often grew organically, so you may have “vip,” “VIP client,” and “important” all meaning the same thing. Consolidate them into a short, consistent set before import, and decide which become tags, which become custom fields, and which should become pipeline stages. A tag like “needs follow-up” is better recreated as an open task with a due date than as a label that nobody checks.
Run a small test import of twenty to fifty records first. Check that deals land in the correct stages, tags attach to the right contacts, and notes appear on the timeline in chronological order. Compare options such as HubSpot, Zoho CRM, Nutshell, and Close CRM by how well their import tools handle custom fields, and check each tool’s official pricing page for current plans. Once the test looks right, import the full dataset and keep your Highrise archive until your team has used the new system for several weeks.
Best Highrise Alternatives for Simple, Affordable CRM
Highrise built its reputation on being a straightforward contact manager for small teams, and many people still search for a tool with that same lightweight feel. If you are weighing your options, the good news is that several modern CRMs cover the basics of contact tracking, deal pipelines and follow-up reminders without the clutter of enterprise software. Below are three alternatives that stay simple, keep costs predictable and leave room to grow. Only a few tools genuinely fit this need, so we kept the list short.
HubSpot: the free-tier route for contact tracking
Freshsales: clean interface with built-in phone and email
Salesforce Starter Suite: room to grow without enterprise bloat
If you want the lowest-risk replacement for Highrise, start with HubSpot: the free tier lets you move your contacts over and test the workflow without paying anything. Freshsales is the better choice if your team lives on the phone and wants calling and email inside the CRM for a low per-user price. Salesforce Starter Suite makes sense only when you are confident your business will outgrow a simple tool and you are willing to pay more for that headroom. Whichever you pick, run a small import first before you switch.
Alternatives for Teams That Need Automation or Sales Focus
Highrise was a simple, friendly contact manager, and many teams that used it now find they want more: smarter follow-up sequences, a tool built around the phone, or a cheaper way to reach customers by email and text. The three options below each fix one of those gaps. ActiveCampaign suits teams that live and die by automated follow-up. Close CRM fits inside sales reps who spend their day calling. Brevo suits small teams that care more about messaging costs than pipeline depth. HubSpot, Freshsales and Salesforce Starter Suite are covered elsewhere in this article, so they are not repeated here.
ActiveCampaign: automation depth for follow-up sequences
ActiveCampaign is the strongest pick here if your main frustration with Highrise is manual follow-up. Its visual automation builder lets you branch sequences based on opens, clicks, tags and deal stage, which goes far beyond the reminder-style tasks of a basic contact manager. The CRM side is real but secondary: it is an email and automation platform first, with deal tracking attached.
Close CRM: built for inside sales and calling
Brevo: budget email and SMS with light CRM features
Pick based on the job you need done. ActiveCampaign wins for automated follow-up, Close CRM wins for phone-driven selling, and Brevo wins when you mainly want inexpensive email and SMS with a lightweight contact database. None of them copies Highrise’s simplicity exactly, so expect a short learning curve. If you are weighing a move, test each one with a sample of your Highrise data before you decide.
How to Choose the Right Replacement for Your Business
Matching tool complexity to team size
Start with how your team actually sells, not with a feature matrix. A two-person agency that tracks maybe thirty live deals needs a contact list, a pipeline board, and reminders. That profile fits lean tools like Less Annoying CRM or Close CRM’s entry plan far better than a platform built for a forty-person sales floor. Highrise users tend to prize simplicity, so a replacement that buries daily tasks under dashboards will feel like a downgrade.
Next, map your real workflow in three steps. Write down how a lead arrives, who touches it, and what triggers the next action. Then count the people who need logins, including part-timers and the owner who only checks reports. If email sequences and marketing automation are central, ActiveCampaign or Brevo deserve a look. If calls and quick follow-ups drive revenue, Close CRM or Freshsales fit better. If you expect to add marketing, service, and sales tools later, HubSpot or Salesforce Starter Suite offer room to grow.
Be honest about admin time. A solo consultant should not spend weekends configuring custom objects and permission sets. A team of ten with two sales roles and an assistant may genuinely need shared inboxes and role-based access. Choose the simplest tool that covers your current process, then confirm it can export data cleanly, so a future move never turns into another forced migration like the one that brought you here.
Budget math: free tiers versus paid plans
Free tiers are useful for testing, but price the plan you will actually live on. HubSpot’s free tier covers 2 users and 1,000 contacts, which suits a small team that is still validating its process. Its Starter plan is $20/seat/mo, though new-customer promotional pricing may start lower. Zoho CRM offers a free tier for 3 users, with the Standard plan at $14/user/mo. Others, such as Freshsales, offer a 21-day trial with no free plan, so budget from day one.
Multiply per-seat prices by your real headcount, then add what the headline number leaves out. Close CRM’s Solo plan is $9/user/mo on annual billing, or $19 if you pay monthly, and that gap adds up across a team over a year. Freshsales Growth is $9/user/mo billed annually. Salesforce Starter Suite is $25/user/mo. A five-person team on a $14 seat pays $840 a year before add-ons, while the same team on a $9 seat pays $540. Compare annual versus monthly billing explicitly, and ask what happens to your contact limits when you cross a threshold.
Finally, include migration and time costs. Start from what you pay for Highrise today, then compare it against the replacement’s full-year cost, not the first month. A cheaper tool that needs a paid automation connector or extra email add-ons may end up costing more than a mid-tier option that includes them. Always confirm current numbers on each vendor’s pricing page before committing.
A one-week trial checklist before committing
Run every finalist through the same seven-day test using real data, not demo records. On day one, export your contacts from Highrise and import a representative slice of two or three hundred. Note how cleanly notes, tags, companies, and custom fields carry over. Day two, build your actual pipeline stages and add five live deals. If setup takes more than an hour for a basic pipeline, that friction will repeat every time you adjust your process.
Midweek, test the daily work. Log calls, send emails from inside the tool, and create follow-up tasks, ideally with your least technical teammate doing it instead of the person who chose the tool. Connect your email and calendar, and check whether sync is reliable and whether messages thread to the right contact. Try one automation, such as a follow-up reminder when a deal sits idle for five days, to see how much effort it takes.
Close the week with a decision review. Check these points:
- Speed: can your team record a call or update a deal in under a minute?
- Reporting: can you see pipeline value and stalled deals without building a custom report?
- Exit path: can you export everything in a standard format if you leave?
Ask each teammate which tool they would keep using unprompted. Trials like ActiveCampaign’s 14-day window or Freshsales’s 21-day window comfortably cover this test, so start early rather than rushing a choice before your old subscription ends.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Highrise CRM still available in 2026?
Development has ended. According to Highrise’s own page, existing customers can keep using it, but it no longer gets new features. Most teams are better off exporting their data and moving to an actively supported CRM alternative.
What is the best free alternative to Highrise?
HubSpot’s free CRM is the strongest starting point for most small businesses. It covers contact records, deal tracking, and email logging without a monthly fee, with paid upgrades available as you grow.
Can I import old Highrise data into a new CRM?
Yes, if you saved an export. Most modern CRMs accept CSV imports for contacts, companies, and notes. Clean duplicates first and map your old tags to new fields so history stays usable.
Which Highrise alternative is best for sales teams?
Close CRM suits inside sales teams that live on calls and email, while Freshsales offers a gentler all-round option. Pick based on whether your team prioritizes calling speed or broad, simple contact management.
Highrise is gone, but its core idea, a simple place to remember every customer conversation, is easy to replicate. For most small businesses, HubSpot’s free tier or Freshsales’ free trial is the closest match to that old simplicity. Teams needing automation should look at ActiveCampaign, and phone-heavy sales teams at Close. Export your data now, clean it, and trial two tools for a week before deciding.