Softwr

CRM · head to head

Bigin vs Cresta

Bigin logo

Bigin

CRM

Zoho pipeline CRM for small businesses, priced well below Zoho CRM itself

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Cresta logo

Cresta

Customer Support

Real-time AI coaching and autonomous agents that sit on top of an existing contact centre platform

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Bigin has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Bigin the plan limits are the product boundary, not a soft guideline: three pipelines on Express and thirty automations will constrain any business with more than a couple of distinct sale types, and the only fix is to pay up a tier.; Cresta cresta depends on the CCaaS platforms it integrates with, and NICE, Genesys and Five9 are all shipping native real-time assist and auto-QA of their own, so at renewal you may be paying twice for capability your platform vendor will bundle at a discount.
  • They diverge on capability: Bigin covers Multiple pipelines, Cresta covers Real-time agent assist.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Bigin and Cresta actually diverge.

Attributes where Bigin and Cresta differ
AttributeBiginCresta
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelPer user per monthquote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWeb, iOS, Android, macOS, watchOSWeb, API
CategoryCRMCustomer Support

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Bigin

  • Multiple pipelines
  • Teampipes
  • Built-in telephony
  • Email integration
  • Workflow automation
  • Mobile apps
  • Zoho ecosystem
  • Free onboarding

Only in Cresta

  • Real-time agent assist
  • Autonomous AI Agent
  • Conversation intelligence
  • Automated quality management
  • Behavioural coaching
  • Knowledge surfacing
  • Multilingual deployment
  • Supervisor dashboards

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Bigin

  • A five-person sales team wants a real CRM for under 50 US dollars a month total and will never use the territory management or forecasting depth in Zoho CRM.not Cresta
  • A business already running Zoho Books or Zoho Mail wants a CRM in the same account with native links rather than a bridged third-party tool.not Cresta
  • A services firm wants to run client onboarding and delivery as pipelines alongside sales, which is what Teampipes exists for, without buying a separate project tool.not Cresta
  • A buyer evaluating Zoho CRM Standard should price Bigin first, because for straightforward pipeline selling it is roughly a third of the cost on the same platform.not Cresta

Cresta

  • A 1,500-seat telecommunications sales centre that wants conversion lift from live agent prompting without migrating off an incumbent Genesys deploymentnot Bigin
  • An insurance contact centre replacing manual QA sampling of two per cent of calls with automated scoring of every call for regulatory evidencenot Bigin
  • A retail support operation deploying autonomous voice agents on high-volume order status calls while keeping humans on complex claimsnot Bigin
  • A contact centre director who needs to prove which specific agent behaviours drive outcome differences, rather than relying on post-call survey scoresnot Bigin

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Bigin

  • The plan limits are the product boundary, not a soft guideline: three pipelines on Express and thirty automations will constrain any business with more than a couple of distinct sale types, and the only fix is to pay up a tier.
  • Outgrowing Bigin means migrating to Zoho CRM, a different product with different objects and configuration, so the cheap start becomes a project later rather than a plan upgrade.
  • The free plan is one user with 500 records and no automation, which makes it a trial rather than a usable free tier of the kind Zoho CRM competitors offer.
  • Reporting and analytics are basic compared with Zoho CRM, with no serious forecasting, territory management or custom module building, so sales operations functions have nothing to work with.
  • Zoho runs two overlapping CRMs and has an obvious incentive to keep Bigin limited, so features that would make it a genuine competitor to Zoho CRM are unlikely to arrive however much customers ask.

Cresta

  • Cresta depends on the CCaaS platforms it integrates with, and NICE, Genesys and Five9 are all shipping native real-time assist and auto-QA of their own, so at renewal you may be paying twice for capability your platform vendor will bundle at a discount.
  • Pricing is not published and contracts are seat-based and annual at enterprise scale, which in practice means six-figure commitments and a procurement cycle measured in months rather than weeks.
  • Real-time guidance only pays back where conversation outcomes are measurable and repeatable, so support teams handling long, varied, low-volume cases rarely recover the licence cost.
  • Deploying real-time assist requires agents to accept on-screen prompting mid-call, and contact centres with strong union representation or experienced tenured agents frequently see adoption resistance that no amount of model quality fixes.
  • Automated quality scoring changes what agents are measured on, and organisations that switch from human QA without rewriting their evaluation rubric and appeals process create industrial-relations problems that surface months after go-live.

Pricing, plan by plan

Bigin

Free
  • FreeFree
    • One user only
    • 500 records
    • One pipeline
  • Express$7/month
    • Three pipelines
    • 50,000 records
    • 30 workflow automations
  • Premier$12/month
    • Five pipelines
    • 100,000 records
    • 50 workflow automations
  • Bigin 360$18/month
    • Fifteen pipelines
    • One million records
    • 100 workflow automations

Cresta

On request
  • Cresta$undefined/year
    • AI Agent
    • Agent Assist
    • Conversation Intelligence

Which should you pick?

Choose Bigin if

  • You need multiple pipelines.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android, macOS, watchOS.
  • You also want teampipes.
Bigin review

Choose Cresta if

  • You need real-time agent assist.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want autonomous ai agent.
Cresta review

Questions people ask

Is Bigin or Cresta better?
Neither clearly leads. Bigin starts at Free and Cresta at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Bigin or Cresta?
Bigin has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Bigin and On request for Cresta.
Does Bigin or Cresta run on more platforms?
Bigin runs on Web, iOS, Android, macOS, watchOS. Cresta runs on Web, API.
Can I use Bigin for free?
Yes. Bigin has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Cresta starts at On request.
What is Bigin best used for?
Bigin is most often used for a five-person sales team wants a real crm for under 50 us dollars a month total and will never use the territory management or forecasting depth in zoho crm., a business already running zoho books or zoho mail wants a crm in the same account with native links rather than a bridged third-party tool., a services firm wants to run client onboarding and delivery as pipelines alongside sales, which is what teampipes exists for, without buying a separate project tool., a buyer evaluating zoho crm standard should price bigin first, because for straightforward pipeline selling it is roughly a third of the cost on the same platform.. Of those, a five-person sales team wants a real crm for under 50 us dollars a month total and will never use the territory management or forecasting depth in zoho crm. and a business already running zoho books or zoho mail wants a crm in the same account with native links rather than a bridged third-party tool. are not what Cresta is typically brought in for.
What can Bigin do that Cresta cannot?
Bigin covers Multiple pipelines, Teampipes, Built-in telephony, Email integration. Cresta covers Real-time agent assist, Autonomous AI Agent, Conversation intelligence, Automated quality management.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Bigin: Is Bigin the same as Zoho CRM?

No. It is a separate, cheaper product on its own domain with its own pricing, aimed at small businesses, and it is deliberately capped so it does not compete with Zoho CRM.

Cresta: Does Cresta replace my contact centre platform?

No. It is designed to sit on top of NICE, Genesys, Five9, Amazon Connect and similar platforms, which is why it is chosen where a full CCaaS migration is not feasible.

Bigin: How much cheaper is it?

Express is 7 US dollars per user per month annually against Zoho CRM Standard at a higher rate, and the gap widens against the upper Zoho CRM tiers.

Cresta: What does it cost?

Cresta does not publish pricing. Contracts are seat-based and annual, and at the enterprise scale it sells into they are typically six figures per year.

Bigin: What happens when I outgrow the pipeline limits?

You move up a Bigin tier to five or fifteen pipelines, and beyond that you migrate to Zoho CRM, which is a data and configuration migration rather than a switch.

Cresta: Is it viable for a contact centre under 100 seats?

Rarely. The commercial model, implementation effort and required outcome measurement all assume several hundred seats or more.

Bigin: Is the free plan usable?

Only for one person with a very small contact list. It is one user, 500 records, one pipeline and no automation.

Cresta: Who owns Cresta?

It is an independent venture-backed company, having raised roughly 282 million USD in total including a 125 million USD Series D in November 2024 co-led by World Innovation Lab and the Qatar Investment Authority.

Share

Related pages

More on Bigin

More on Cresta

Keep looking

Other head to heads