Macro CRM Review

Macro CRM keeps customer data attached to the work around it: emails, calls, notes, and tasks link to the right company or contact, and a unified chronological timeline shows everything for each record. It has pipeline management with custom stages, custom fields and tags, and @mentions that link contacts and deals to docs, tasks, and channels. Agents share team-level memory, so they can log activity, update records, and draft follow-ups using call transcripts, contracts, and email.

The hosted app at macro.com is the quickest route, and it signs you in with Gmail or Google Workspace. Self-hosting means deploying the full Macro monorepo (Docker Compose, a Nix dev shell, and docs/RUNNING_LOCALLY.md) since the CRM is not distributed separately. The README does not give hardware requirements, and the architecture includes dozens of services, so budget real engineering time.

The experience is a conventional pipeline board and record pages, with the unusual part being how little data entry is needed because email and calls fill in the records. Built-in email and chat sit next to the deals. We did not use it ourselves; this section reflects the README, pricing page, and OpenAlternative.

• Contacts, companies, and deals created and enriched from email
• Pipeline board with custom stages, custom fields, and tags
• Unified timeline per contact
• Agents that update records, log activity, and draft follow-ups
• Built-in email and chat with @mention links

• Records that update themselves from email and calls, which reduces manual logging
• One workspace for CRM, email, chat, docs, and tasks
• Open source under AGPL-3.0, with very active development

• Email support is Gmail-focused
• CRM depth, such as forecasting, quoting, marketing automation, and integrations, is far below HubSpot or Salesforce
• Not available standalone, and the self-hosting footprint is large
• Hosted pricing is per seat, and the Pro plan at $40/seat is not cheap for sales teams

Self-hosting is free under AGPL-3.0. Hosted Macro lists Free at $0 with limited AI and up to 2 connected email accounts, Pro at $40/seat/month with a 30-day trial, and Max at $200/seat/month. Team plans need a paid seat for every member.

HubSpot and Salesforce are complete platforms with marketing, service, reporting, and big ecosystems, while Attio is a modern, flexible CRM. Macro CRM is closest to Attio in spirit, with automatic enrichment from email, but it lives inside a suite with email and chat. It is open source, which the others are not, so you can self-host and audit it.

• Small teams already using Macro and Gmail who want a CRM without manual data entry
• Companies that want an open-source CRM with AI agents
• Teams that value a single workspace over best-of-breed tools

• Sales organizations that depend on advanced reporting, quoting, or marketing automation
• Teams not on Google Workspace
• Anyone who wants a standalone CRM