How we picked
A food truck makes its margin off the calendar, not the curb. Lunch service pays the fuel bill, but catering and private events — weddings, corporate lunches, festivals — are where the real money lives, and every one of them starts as a fragile web or DM inquiry that's easy to drop mid-shift. The right CRM grabs each request the moment it lands, prompts the quote, collects the deposit, and re-books last season's clients automatically. We weighted catering lead capture, deposit follow-up, and repeat-event automation over anything that assumes you're sitting at a desk.
What to consider
- All-in-one from your phone → Thryv. Inquiries, quotes, payments, and reviews in one mobile app.
- Deposit and quote follow-up → Keap. Auto-chase unpaid deposits and unanswered quotes so events don't fall through.
- Simple event pipeline → Pipedrive. Inquiry → quote sent → deposit paid → booked, drag-and-drop.
- Start free → HubSpot. Capture unlimited catering leads while you're still building the book.
- Best value → Zoho CRM. Full automation and forms at the lowest per-seat cost.
Pricing snapshot
Truck-appropriate plans run $0–$60/month for a one- or two-person operation. HubSpot starts free; Pipedrive and Zoho anchor the value end; Thryv and Keap cost more but bundle the quoting, payments, and review tools you'd otherwise juggle across apps.
Trial advice
Test it against a real catering inquiry. Time how fast you can capture a request and fire back a quote from your phone, then set one automation to follow up on any deposit unpaid after two days. The CRM that lets you quote between services and quietly chases the deposit will book more of the events you're already getting asked about.