Founder-led GTM, without the $5,000/month tool budget.
Autocloz for startups is a free-forever CRM for the whole team: 5 users, 100,000 contacts, 10 mailboxes and all five outreach channels with daily limits, with AI running on your own API key. It is built for the stage where you need a hundred customer conversations rather than six SaaS subscriptions; the Growth plan lifts the limits when volume outgrows the free tier.
When you are 3 people and need 100 customer conversations, you do not need 6 SaaS subscriptions. The CRM is free forever: 5 users, 100,000 contacts, 10 mailboxes, and all five channels with daily limits. Bring your own AI key for AI features. Upgrade to Growth (₹1,999/month) when you need higher channel limits.
What does founder-led outbound look like in week one?
Week one is about learning, not volume. You pick 200 people who match your best guess at an ideal customer, write a short email that asks one question, and send it from a mailbox that is still warming up. In Autocloz the warmup ramp limits how many emails each new mailbox sends per day, so the first days go slowly on purpose. That is fine: at this stage 30 thoughtful conversations teach you more than 3,000 sends.
Replies come into the unified inbox, tagged by AI intent when you have connected an AI key. The ones worth a call get moved into the pipeline. The free CRM for startups guide walks through setting up stages that match a founder's sales process instead of an enterprise one.
How far does the free plan actually go?
The free plan allows 5 users, 10 mailboxes and 100,000 contacts. Daily channel limits are 1,000 emails, 100 calls, 50 LinkedIn actions, 250 SMS and 250 WhatsApp messages across the workspace. For a founding team doing hand-picked outbound, those limits are rarely the constraint; the constraint is how many good conversations you can hold.
You outgrow it when you hire a sixth person who needs a login, or when your sequences need more than those daily sends. Growth costs ₹1,999 a month and removes the user cap; the pricing page lists every limit per plan. Nothing is deleted on upgrade or downgrade: contacts, sequences and history stay in the workspace.
When should a startup add calls, LinkedIn or WhatsApp?
Add a second channel when email alone stops producing replies from people you know are a fit. A LinkedIn connection request two days after the first email, or a call to prospects who opened but did not reply, often reaches people who ignore cold email. In Autocloz these are extra steps in the same sequence, and a reply on any channel pauses the rest.
Calling needs a carrier account (Telnyx, DIDLogic or FreJun) and WhatsApp needs a WhatsApp Business number. Both are optional, and the multi-channel sequencing page explains how steps across channels are ordered and checked.
What Autocloz does not do here
- It does not write DNS records for you; it checks SPF, DKIM and DMARC and tells you what to add.
- AI features need your own OpenAI, Anthropic or Groq key; no plan bundles AI credits.
- Calling and WhatsApp need your own carrier and WhatsApp Business accounts.
- The free plan stops at 5 users; a sixth teammate means a paid plan.
The pain stack
What teams in this shape stop tolerating once they switch.
Tool budget eats runway
A sender, a second sender, a warmup tool and a calling tool can add up to ₹24,000 a month before any results. Many founders give up and go back to spreadsheet outbound after a few weeks.
Setup time eats founder time
Each tool needs hours of setup: SMTP authentication, DKIM, DMARC, warmup settings and sequence building. Across four tools that can take a week before the first email leaves, and a rushed setup can damage a new domain's reputation.
What you get on day one
Each capability links to its dedicated feature page if you want to drill in.
Free-forever CRM
5 users, 100,000 contacts and companies, a full pipeline, 10 mailboxes and the unified inbox. Enough to run early GTM before paying anything.
Every channel on the free plan
Email, call, LinkedIn, SMS and WhatsApp are all included; you raise the per-day limits as you grow.
Bulk lead import
CSV import with AI-assisted column mapping, so a messy export lands in the right fields.
Automatic mailbox warmup
A 21-day ramp on every new mailbox, with no separate warmup subscription.
Bring your own AI key
Connect your own OpenAI, Anthropic or Groq key for AI replies; plans do not meter AI per credit.
Onboarding timeline
What the first weeks look like for a team in this shape.
Sign up and connect Gmail via OAuth; the free CRM is active immediately
Import your contacts via CSV. AI suggests how columns map to lead fields.
Build a 3-step multi-channel sequence.
Press Start. The mailbox starts its warmup ramp and the sequence sends inside your sending hours.
Frequently asked
Will my emails land in spam?
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Autocloz checks your domain's SPF, DKIM and DMARC records and tells you what is missing; you add the records at your DNS provider. Every new mailbox also gets an automatic 21-day warmup ramp. Placement still depends on your list and your copy, so nobody can promise an inbox rate.
How quickly can I upgrade from free to Growth?
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The workspace owner picks Growth under Billing and authorises the Razorpay payment; Growth activates once Razorpay confirms it, and sequences, contacts and history stay. Cancelling returns you to the free CRM after the paid period.
What do I get by upgrading?
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The free CRM already includes every channel for up to 5 users. Paid plans raise the per-channel daily limits, remove the user cap and add automation and governance. Many pre-seed teams stay free for months, then move to Growth (₹1,999/month) as volume grows.
Ready for the pre-seed playbook?
Free workspace, no card required. Most teams send their first sequence inside an hour.