The best personal CRM for consultants and advisors

The tool isn't usually the problem. The maintenance is. A personal CRM only helps if it reflects reality, and keeping it current is a job in itself, the exact job a busy consultant never gets to. Below is a fair look at the main options, who each one suits, and where they differ on the thing that actually matters: who keeps it up to date.

Dex, from $12/mo

The simplest and cheapest personal CRM. Good for keeping in touch with a network: contacts, notes, and reminders to reach out. You keep it current yourself, but there's not much to keep current, which is the point. If you want a light address book with nudges, Dex is a sensible pick.

Cloze, from $17/mo

An email-led relationship manager. Cloze pulls context from your inbox and reminds you who you've not spoken to in a while. More automated than Dex, still something you tend and check. Good if your relationships live mostly in email.

folk, from $30/user/mo

The best-looking lightweight CRM. Clean, fast, and genuinely pleasant to organise, with team-friendly shared workspaces. You still maintain it, but maintaining it is pleasant. Good if arranging your network is something you actually enjoy. (Aldous vs folk in full.)

Salesflare, from $29/mo

Auto-updating, so it fills itself in from your email and calendar. The catch for a consultant is that Salesflare is really a sales-team CRM, built for a team working a shared pipeline at a desk. It's very good at that job, and heavier than a single adviser needs. (Aldous vs Salesflare in full.)

Aldous, £39/mo

The CRM that updates itself, run from WhatsApp. You don't organise, maintain, or log in. You talk to Aldous like a colleague, and Aldous keeps your people and pipeline current, briefs you before meetings, drafts your follow-ups, and flags who's gone quiet. Built for the consultant who will never keep a CRM up to date, because Aldous does that part for you. It works the same whether it's just you or your whole firm.

How to choose

• Want the cheapest, simplest option: Dex.
• Your relationships live in email: Cloze.
• You enjoy organising a clean workspace: folk.
• You run a sales team on a shared pipeline: Salesflare.
• You'll never maintain a CRM and you live in WhatsApp: Aldous.

If the reason your last CRM went cold was the upkeep, the fix isn't a tidier CRM. It's one that keeps itself up to date. That's what Aldous is for.