You probably don't need a CRM.
If you opened a CRM to keep your team's contacts in one place and closed it again because it wanted pipelines, deal stages and a week of set-up - you were right. Most teams don't need a sales machine. They need one shared address book that stays current. That's the whole job CentralContacts does.
What a CRM is actually for
A CRM is built to manage a sales pipeline: leads moving through stages, deals with values and close dates, forecasts, and reports on all of it. If you run a structured sales process and need to see what's going to close this quarter, a CRM earns its keep.
But a lot of teams never wanted any of that. They wanted everyone to have the right, current number for their clients, suppliers and members - shared, searchable, and not scattered across three people's phones. Bolting that onto a CRM means paying for a deal engine you'll never switch on and leaving half its fields empty forever.
A CRM vs a shared directory
| What matters | A CRM | CentralContacts |
|---|---|---|
| Set-up time | Days or weeks of configuration | Minutes - import and go |
| Built around | Deals, pipelines and forecasting | Your contacts, kept current |
| Training needed | Onboarding, admin, a power user | None - it's just an address book |
| Contacts with no email | Often rejected or half-broken | Fully supported - a number is enough |
| Kept up to date by | You, manually, forever | The person, on their own record |
| A reason on record, per contact | Rarely, and bolted on | Yes, on every contact |
| Click-to-call from Teams & Meet | Add-on or integration project | Built in |
| Cost | Per-user tiers that climb fast | £9.99/mo, then £3/user |
| What you stop using | Half the fields, most of the time | Nothing - there's nothing to ignore |
Why "lightweight" actually matters
Nobody has to be trained
If a tool needs an admin and a champion before anyone else will touch it, most of your team quietly keeps using their own phone. A shared address book people actually use beats a CRM they avoid.
It stays current on its own
A CRM is only as fresh as the last time someone updated it. Here the person maintains their own record, so the number is right because they kept it right - not because you chased them.
One flat price
No Starter-Growth-Advanced ladder where the feature you need sits one tier up. £9.99/month for up to five users - that's it. Free for individuals.
Already have a CRM?
You can run both. Keep deals and forecasting where they belong, and let CentralContacts be the always-current phonebook the whole team shares - including the people who never log into the CRM. Many teams find the CRM goes back to being just a sales tool once the "where's the right number?" job lives somewhere simpler.
Skip the CRM. Keep the contacts.
Import your book and your whole team is calling the right, current number in minutes - no pipelines required.