Sheets is great early on: cheap, flexible, and everyone knows it. For a business with dozens of leads a month and simple tracking — it can last years.
It breaks when several people edit at once, when you need automatic reminders, clear statuses, or a chat history. Then you get mistakes, duplicates, and "who owns this?".
A small CRM (free HubSpot, Pipedrive, or a local tool) gives a sales pipeline, reminders, and custom fields. You can import from Sheets and keep the sheet as a report.
My rule of thumb: if you have more than ~30 active leads a month or more than one person touching them — use a CRM. Otherwise Sheets plus light automation can hold. You can start from CRM systems.
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