But until you absolutely need something more complex, using Google Sheets as your CRM is a practical, smart, cost-effective, and efficient option<\/strong>.<\/p>\n In fact, we know there are lots of GMass users who manage their customers out of Google Sheets \u2014 so many, in fact, that we even built a special, free Google Sheets CRM template<\/a>\u00a0made to work with GMass.<\/p>\n In this article, I\u2019ll cover the main reasons why you should use Google Sheets as your customer relationships management tool<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 as well as the hesitations you might have about doing so.<\/p>\n And then I\u2019ll share some of the best free Google Sheets CRM templates<\/strong>\u00a0out there, including GMass\u2019s, to get you started.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re running a gigantic sales team for a major corporation, you\u2019re almost certainly too big for a spreadsheet-based CRM tool.<\/p>\n But if you\u2019re a newer business, a small business, a small team, and\/or someone who doesn\u2019t need all the bells and whistles of expensive CRMs \u2014 Google Sheets is a fantastic option.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n Sure, you\u2019re likely paying for a Google Workspace account, so Google Sheets isn\u2019t 100% totally free.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s about as low cost as any CRM tool can get<\/strong>.<\/p>\n In contrast, paid CRM tools often range anywhere from $20 to $200 and up per seat<\/em>\u00a0per month, making them a major expense.<\/p>\n Odds are you\u2019re already pretty comfortable in Google Sheets.<\/p>\n You\u2019re probably not<\/em>\u00a0comfortable with tools like Salesforce<\/a>\u00a0and Hubspot<\/a>. Training on those tools is an entire industry in and of itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n So when you\u2019re running your CRM out of Google Sheets, you can hop in without any delay \u2014 meaning you can focus on the more important job of actually selling.<\/p>\n You are in full control of every column header, every field, every tab, and every piece of data in a Google Sheet. You\u2019re also in control of your reporting \u2014 create every chart and graph you want.<\/p>\n Other CRM software is usually more prescriptive<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 requiring you to adapt to its<\/em>\u00a0naming, organizational, and other conventions. And more customization might even require upgrading to an even more expensive tier.<\/p>\n Later in this article I\u2019ll share some free Google Sheets CRM templates. One thing they have in common is that they\u2019re fast and simple<\/strong>. You start entering or importing customers and you\u2019ll be rolling in minutes.<\/p>\n The setup process on a traditional CRM is significantly longer<\/strong>. Besides having to learn the software, it\u2019s also less intuitive to import customers, build out automations, and figure out how to do the various things you want to do.<\/p>\n Google Sheets is built for collaboration<\/strong>\u00a0(and also contains your history, in case you want to see the changes that other people made).<\/p>\n Plus, the \u201cper user\u201d seat is as cheap as getting another Google Workspace account \u2014 something everyone on your team likely has already.<\/p>\n It can be tough integrating your other tools with a CRM<\/strong>. You may need to pay for a higher tier \u2014 and then figure out how to get the tools to work together.<\/p>\n With Google Sheets, you can use Google Apps Scripts or an automation tool like Zapier<\/a>\u00a0to integrate any other app you want however you want.<\/p>\n In a Google Sheets CRM, your data is yours<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 it\u2019s all in front of you, and all ready to export, share, or copy.<\/p>\n With traditional CRMs it can be a lot harder to get at your data \u2014 especially if it\u2019s locked into a proprietary format.<\/p>\n It\u2019s almost guaranteed your fancy CRM will be bloated with some features you don\u2019t want or need<\/strong>. You\u2019re paying for those features anyway \u2014 but you don\u2019t use them, and they\u2019re in the way.<\/p>\n When you\u2019re using a Google Sheets CRM, you can strip it down to contain exactly what you need<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Even with all the advantages I\u2019ve just shared about running a CRM from Google Sheets, you may still be skeptical.<\/p>\n I get it. Most of the people I spoke with as I was preparing to do this article had some skepticism.<\/p>\n Here are the five biggest reasons why people are hesitant to use a Google Sheets CRM \u2014 and my rebuttals to those reasons.<\/p>\n Traditional CRMs automate things behind the scenes<\/strong>\u00a0like follow-up timing, lead scoring, and team assignments (among many others).<\/p>\n Google Sheets does not have any of those natively built in.<\/p>\n But\u2026 <\/strong>you can<\/em>\u00a0have Google Sheets do any of those things, using Google Apps Script. I can also tell you from experience, ChatGPT and co. are all well-versed in writing Google Apps Scripts. So if you need your Google Sheets CRM to do something automatically, you can build a solution \u2014 even if you\u2019re not a coder.<\/p>\n One aspect of traditional CRMs that you won\u2019t find in Google Sheets is native communication tracking<\/strong>.<\/p>\n But\u2026 <\/strong>this, again, is something you can accomplish with Google Apps Scripts. Also, look for email tools like GMass that can write email data back to a Google Sheet.<\/p>\n It\u2019s nice to be able to drag and drop leads from one step on the sales funnel to the next<\/strong>\u00a0to the next.<\/p>\n Google Sheets doesn\u2019t have that drag and drop functionality and there\u2019s no workaround to add it.<\/p>\n But\u2026 <\/strong>while that\u2019s a nice feature, is it worth breaking the bank if you\u2019d be stretching to fit a CRM tool into your budget? Or are dropdown menus and Google Sheets filters a fine enough step down to keep you satisfied as you grow?<\/p>\n Traditional CRMs have different role-based permission levels<\/strong>, so not everyone on the team is necessarily seeing everything nor being able to edit everything.<\/p>\n With Google Sheets, everyone on your team will have the same level of access<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 and there\u2019s no way to restrict what anyone can see or what they can alter.<\/p>\n And, of course, something about having a CRM in a spreadsheet is less locked down than a CRM \u2014 especially one with two-factor authentication and all other sorts of security measures.<\/p>\n But\u2026 <\/strong>while permission levels make sense for larger teams and companies, it\u2019s usually unnecessary on smaller teams.<\/p>\n The upside and the downside of using Google Sheets as a CRM is: There are a lot of things you\u2019ll build yourself.<\/p>\n The upside there is that it removes feature bloat and makes sure everything, from fields to dashboards, are exactly to your specs.<\/p>\n The downside is that, again, you build them yourself<\/em>. So if you don\u2019t want to put in any time on customization, you won\u2019t be able to have all the fancy features of an enterprise-level CRM<\/strong>.<\/p>\n But\u2026 <\/strong>you can still manage your customers and deals \u2014 beyond that, though, the responsibility falls to you.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t have to build a Google Sheets CRM from scratch.<\/p>\n There are lots of free templates out there, and you can find one that\u2019s best for you (either as a jumping off point, or to use without modifications).<\/p>\n I built this Google Sheets CRM template for GMass after studying all the other Google Sheets CRMs on the market \u2014 as well as traditional software CRMs. My goal was to make something that was simple to use, easily expandable, <\/strong>and<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0had special handy GMass integration features built in<\/strong>.<\/p>\n With the GMass Google Sheets CRM template, you manage all your customers and opportunities in a single sheet.<\/p>\n The best part? You can then create new worksheets for new GMass campaigns in a single click and easily copy over customers into those sheets<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Zapier\u2019s CRM template is pretty basic \u2014 the deal status isn\u2019t even a dropdown \u2014 but that also makes it a nice simple canvas off which you can build<\/strong>.<\/p>\n They also have a well-designed dashboard as the primary tab of the template.<\/p>\n Salesflare put some clear thought into their Google Sheets CRM template. They have customers and opportunities all in one worksheet, then a nice insights tab as well.<\/p>\n This CRM isn\u2019t doing anything<\/em>\u00a0particularly fancy \u2014 but it would absolutely be usable as-is for a small sales team<\/strong>.<\/p>\n I\u2019m pretty sure Hubspot designed this Google Sheets CRM template to make you NOT want to use Google Sheets as a CRM and to pay them instead.<\/p>\n This template is the most complex of the free options available<\/strong>. (For better or worse). There are separate worksheets for organizations, contacts, opportunities, and interactions.<\/p>\n Those sheets don\u2019t really work together, though \u2014 again, Hubspot would rather you not use this and probably want you to realize quickly you\u2019d rather use their software.<\/p>\n I like OnePage\u2019s CRM template a lot. Like GMass, they use a Google Sheets table for easier sorting and filtering. They also have a minimalist but handy dashboard built in.<\/p>\n This is another of the templates that feels like you could begin using it off the shelf<\/strong>, without needing to make many modifications.<\/p>\n If you aren\u2019t familiar with GMass, it transforms your Gmail or Google Workspace account <\/strong>into<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0an email platform<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Sales teams<\/a>, outreach pros<\/a>, and almost 400,000 others use GMass every day to send campaigns faster and easier than anywhere else<\/strong>.<\/p>\n And GMass is a perfect<\/em>\u00a0fit for a Google Sheets CRM.<\/p>\n The most popular way to bring contacts into a GMass campaign is using Google Sheets<\/a>. It\u2019s simple to use mail merge features, and GMass can even create recurring campaigns that send every time you add someone to your Google Sheet.<\/p>\nGoogle Sheets CRM: Table of Contents<\/h2>\n
\n
The 8 Reasons Why You Should Use a Google Sheets CRM<\/h2>\n
#1. It\u2019s free (or basically free)<\/h3>\n
#2. No learning curve<\/h3>\n
#3. Unlimited customizations<\/h3>\n
#4. Fast setup<\/h3>\n
#5. Easy collaboration without extra costs<\/h3>\n
#6. No restrictions on integrations<\/h3>\n
#7. Better data ownership and control<\/h3>\n
#8. No feature bloat<\/h3>\n
The 5 Reasons Why People Are Still Hesitant to Use Google Sheets As a CRM<\/h2>\n
#1. It doesn\u2019t have built-in automations<\/h3>\n
#2. It doesn\u2019t have native email\/call\/communication tracking<\/h3>\n
#3. No built-in sales pipeline Kanban functionality<\/h3>\n
#4. Limited security and access controls<\/h3>\n
#5. Other missing built-in features, like dashboards or customer profiles<\/h3>\n
5 Free Google Sheets CRM Templates You Can Use<\/h2>\n
#1. Free Google Sheets CRM Template from GMass<\/h3>\n
![\"GMass's](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/googlesheetscrm-gmasstemplate.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n#2. Zapier\u2019s template<\/a><\/h3>\n
![\"Zapier's](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/googlesheetscrm-zapier.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n#3. Salesflare\u2019s template<\/a><\/h3>\n
![\"Salesflare's](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/googlesheetscrm-salesflare.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n#4. Hubspot\u2019s free template<\/a><\/h3>\n
![\"Hubspot's](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/googlesheetscrm-hubspot.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n#5. OnePage\u2019s template<\/a><\/h3>\n
![\"OnePage's](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/googlesheetscrm-onepage.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\nWhy a Google Sheets CRM and GMass Is a Great Combo for Sales Teams and Pros<\/h2>\n