How we pick
Every recommendation starts from the same question: would a solo consultant or 5-person agency still be glad they bought this six months later?
Evaluation criteria
- Fit for boutique work. Pipeline stages, relationship notes, retainers, proposals — not just SDR dashboards.
- Time-to-value. Can a non-ops person get useful value in a weekend, not a quarter?
- Total cost at small scale. Seat math, contact tiers, add-ons that become mandatory, and what happens when you grow from 1 to 5 people. Dated list prices live on the Pricing Snapshot.
- Admin burden. Duplicates, integrations, reporting that requires a specialist, migration pain. We publish estimated admin hours / week (solo baseline bands) beside prices — never fake precision.
- Honest limitations. We say when a tool is overkill or underpowered instead of padding a “top 10.”
Fit + price + admin triad
Rankings use all three. Affiliate commission never flips a pick. Client-ops tools (HoneyBook, Dubsado, Bonsai) stay in CRM roundups when paperwork is the job — even when their public affiliate terms are flat fees instead of recurring.
What we look at
- Current public pricing and plan gates (as of the article / Snapshot date)
- Product docs, changelogs, and trial experiences
- Common failure modes reported by consultants and small agencies
- Export / exit options — you should be able to leave
- Interactive recipes via the Stack Cost Calculator
What we do not do
- Sell rankings or “featured” placement
- Pretend every reader needs the most expensive tier
- Ignore free / cheaper options when they are genuinely enough
- Punish a tool in rankings because its affiliate payout is lower
Admin-hours bands (v1)
- A Low 0.5–1.5: Free CRM + free email; ≤15 active deals; disciplined stages
- B Moderate 1.5–3: Paid CRM or client-ops; proposals in-tool; light automations
- C Heavy 3–6: Frankenstack or over-configured hub; no named owner
- D Overloaded 6+: Fix process before buying more software
Full tool × plan table: Admin Hours. Downloadable matrix (price + admin): CSV. Boutique (2–8) shared CRM without an ops seat ≈ ×1.3–1.6 solo midpoints.
Pricing & admin caveatVendors change prices often. We note approximate USD list prices and the date we checked. Admin hours are estimates for retainer hygiene — not billable delivery. Always confirm on the vendor site before you buy. BoutiqueStack does not offer live 1:1 setup calls — guides, Calculator, Snapshot, and self-serve kits only.
Affiliate links (when live) use our /go/ redirects so we can update destinations without rewriting every article. Until affiliate accounts are approved, those links are placeholders.