Best Business Development Software Shortlist
Check out my shortlist of business development platforms to find a tool that meets your needs.
- Demodesk - Best for helping revenue teams automate tasks
- Hunter - Best as your all-in-one email outreach platform
- Nutshell - Best comprehensive solutions for B2B CRM needs
- Aircall - Best cloud-based dialing system for CRM software integration
- Sync - Best for collaboration with internal teams, external contractors, and all other stakeholders
- ZoomInfo - Best for when you need to streamline your sales pipeline
- Pipedrive - Best CRM platform for automating business processes
- Gong - Best revenue intelligence platform to increase visibility
- QuickMail - Best for cold outreach email deliverability
- Copper - Best for targeting profitability through Google
- CloudTalk - Best for helping enterprise businesses connect with customers
- Visual Visitor - Best for consent-based website visitor identification
Whether you’re trying to connect with your prospects or nurturing relationships with your partners, business development software is an essential part of streamlining your operations. When your processes involve a bunch of manual tasks, data entry, or regular outreach, automation software can make your organization more efficient and save you money.
Explore the tools I’ve listed to discover which platforms can enhance collaboration, improve workflow efficiency, and establish personalized connections with customers, clients, and shareholders.
What Is Business Development Software?
Business development software is a general category of tools that can help you optimize prospect identification, outreach, and deal closes. At every stage of business development, you have unique tools designed to handle each task so this guide will show you the top options for several different parts of your sales process.
Overviews Of The 12 Best Business Development Software
As you read each summary below, you’ll find a screenshot of the tool’s inner workings, the main pain point they strive to address, a breakdown of pricing and trials, and a few pros and cons for a quick look into whether these are a good fit for the way you operate.
1. Demodesk - Best for helping revenue teams automate tasks
Demodesk is a revenue operations platform that focuses on meeting scheduling, real-time guided selling, and customer engagement. Through personalized desktops and coaching during every call, you can empower every sales team member with the customizable tools they need to succeed, including automating non-selling tasks, like meeting prep, CRM documentation, and follow-ups.
Why I picked Demodesk: One feature that really stood out to me about this tool is the types of meeting rooms they offer. Whether you need to meet with customers or collaborate with team members, you can schedule video calls in branded sales rooms with interactive virtual screen technology that allows participants to interact with your product or content on the call.
Demodesk Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include real-time sales playbooks that automatically load the perfect pitch for every prospect, call shadowing that allows managers to get real insights into how each rep sells, and automated scheduling that handles distribution and handoffs more fairly.
Integrations include Allego, Chorus, Gong, Google Suite, Guru, HubSpot, Make, Microsoft Office, Pipedrive, and Salesforce.
Pricing One-Liner: From $39/user/month
Free Trial One-Liner: 7-day free trial
Pros
- Responsive and supportive customer service
- Frequent improvements based on customer requests
- Provides a customer portal for meetings
Cons
- Limited reporting and analytics functionality
- Scheduling isn’t editable after sending a request
2. Hunter - Best as your all-in-one email outreach platform
As a cloud-based email marketing tool, Hunter is designed to help businesses of every shape and size send out cold emails. In addition to email finding and verifying tools, you can also use this platform to export domain search results, craft personalized emails with templates, insert images into your emails, and handle follow-ups.
Why I picked Hunter: I included this platform on my list because they do so much more than help you build your email list. Once you have a targeted prospect list ready to go, Hunter also provides email marketing campaign guidance at scale with custom attributes, media and attachments, scheduling automation, email tracking, and warm lead identification.
Hunter Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include a domain search tool that helps you find emails from any company name or website and email verifying tools to ensure the quality of your contact list.
Integrations include Airtable, Close CRM, Copper, Gmail, HubSpot, Outlook, Pipedrive, Salesforce, Zapier, and Zoho CRM.
Pricing One-Liner: From $49/month
Free Trial One-Liner: Free plan available
Pros
- Has a Chrome extension to use the tool in your browser
- Guarantees an A-list of prospects with 95% accuracy
- User-friendly interface that’s easy to learn
Cons
- UX isn’t as intuitive as it could be
- Sent emails look like they’re sent from your Gmail
3. Nutshell - Best comprehensive solutions for B2B CRM needs
Because it’s an all-in-one CRM platform, Nutshell is designed to be simple enough for everyone on your team to use while incorporating sophisticated tools into your workflow. With Nutshell, you don’t have to separate your sales and marketing tools. Everyone can use the same platform for sales automation, pipeline management, email marketing, and team collaboration.
Why I picked Nutshell: This tool is one of my favorites because of the web form collection feature. With this tool, you can capture all the information you need from prospects and collect it in a central repository for automated management and easy access for your entire team. Add custom forms to any website with just two clicks to gather personal information or get answers to unique questions.
Nutshell Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include Board View, which offers interactive pipeline management that allows your team to drag and drop leads into every sales stage, and contact management that ensures you can import your contact, emails, and calendar from any source.
Integrations include 3CX, ActiveCampaign, Box, Constant Contact, FreshMail, Gravity Forms, Kixie, Mailchimp, Slack, and Trello. Find over 50 native integrations on Nutshell.
Pricing One-Liner: From $19/user/month
Free Trial One-Liner: 14-day free trial
Pros
- Easy to maintain without technical knowledge
- Mobile-app friendly for iOS and Android
- Outstanding support team for technical issues
Cons
- iPhone app has limited functionality
- Limited email scheduling – only full sequences available
4. Aircall - Best cloud-based dialing system for CRM software integration
This is a cloud-based phone system that’s designed to seamlessly integrate with the most popular Help Desk and CRM tools. You can use this tool on desktop and mobile for calling and texting, as well as enhanced collaboration, productivity, and workflow with tons of other features and content.
Why I picked Aircall: I like Aircall as a business development software because it blends your outreach with a variety of other business needs, including customer relationship management with inbound call management. Use this feature to put callers in queues, route calls to the right people, and create a callback list that allows your customer to skip the line and wait to receive a call from your team members when they have time.
Aircall Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include outbound phone numbers with toll-free and international numbers, warm transfers that allow team members to speak to each other before transferring a call, and call transcriptions to record call activity and history.
Integrations include ActiveCampaign, BigCommerce, Copper, Daton, Enthu, Flip, HappyFox, HubSpot, Klaus, and Microsoft Teams. Aircall offers over 100 native integrations.
Pricing One-Liner: From $40/user/month
Free Trial One-Liner: 7-day free trial
Pros
- Very easy to learn to use
- Only needs to be configured once
- Massive array of integration options
Cons
- Conference calls are a little clunky
- If the tool lags or freezes, it forces you to disconnect your call
5. Sync - Best for collaboration with internal teams, external contractors, and all other stakeholders
If you need a business development software that targets teamwork for project management, Sync.com provides a cloud-based file-sharing and document storage platform to enhance your communication tools. This platform can help you send and receive files, preview documents, organize folders, back up files, and control user permissions to involve customers, clients, contractors, and other stakeholders without risking sensitive information.
Why I picked Sync.com: I consider this tool essential for business development teams because it includes groundbreaking data protection features. Whether you need to ensure HIPAA compliance for medical providers or protect a new product that’s still under development, this platform provides enterprise-grade security infrastructure and support.
Sync Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include access to files from anywhere, including computers, the web, and mobile devices, centralized folders for internal team members, and cloud storage to free up more space on your servers.
Integrations include Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word.
Pricing One-Liner: From $6/user/month
Free Trial One-Liner: Free trial available
Pros
- Simple and straightforward to implement
- Easy for non-tech savvy users to learn
- Priced for single users and businesses
Cons
- No CRM system integrations to maintain security
- Limited service diversity due to security
6. ZoomInfo - Best for when you need to streamline your sales pipeline
ZoomInfo allows you to target buyers more precisely with a variety of filters.
This cloud-based tool is primarily a customer lifecycle platform for B2B organizations that helps you find prospects and leverage buyer intent data to better inform your sales and marketing teams. Their tools are designed to provide solutions for lead generation and prioritizing new opportunities. Find data on company mergers, funding announcements, and tech adoptions to better understand your business opportunities.
Why I picked ZoomInfo: One feature that caught my eye on ZoomInfo was the email and phone automation to help you execute multi-touch sales cadences through customizable email templates, tailored scripts for conversations, and account-based selling to contact everyone you need to all at once.
ZoomInfo Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include conversion tools to turn leads into pipelines with ZoomInfo MarketingOS and no-code data management through ZoomInfo OperationsOS.
Integrations include Dynamics 365 Business Central, Google Analytics, HubSpot, Marketo Engage, Outreach, Salesforce, Slack, Snowflake, Sugar CRM, and Visualize ROI.
Pricing One-Liner: Custom pricing upon request
Free Trial One-Liner: Free trial available
Pros
- Very intuitive for new users
- Simple user interface and dashboards
- Email verification accuracy is at 98%
Cons
- Clunky formatting for email templates
- Can be overwhelming due to all the features
7. Pipedrive - Best CRM platform for automating business processes
Pipedrive provides a pipeline view of the progress for all your deals.
This platform is a CRM and sales pipeline management tool for smaller teams. Built by ex-Skypers and hardcore salespeople, Pipedrive is designed to help you organize your leads better and ensure you’re focusing on the most important deals in your queue. Use this tool to set up your pipeline, track progress with automated notifications, and gain insights from custom metrics.
Why I picked Pipedrive: One of the reasons I put this tool on my list is because of the login process. The minute you fire up the program, you land on your personalized dashboard with a single, streamlined view of your current sales process. You can get more clarity and ensure your team is on the same page because the pipeline is always your starting point.
Pipedrive Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include visual sales pipeline for crucial data at a glance, customizable pipeline that matches your sales cycle, and contact history to track all cold calls, emails, meetings, and notes.
Integrations include DocuSign, Google Drive, HubSpot, LinkPort, Microsoft Teams, Monday.com, PandaDoc, WhatsApp, Zapier, and Zoom Meetings.
Pricing One-Liner: From $14.99/user/month
Free Trial One-Liner: Free trial available
Pros
- Provides a holistic view of the sales process
- Fast to learn and easy to use
- Has hundreds of available integrations
Cons
- Limited customer support channels
- Limited branding and customization
8. Gong - Best revenue intelligence platform to increase visibility
As a revenue intelligence platform, Gong focuses on transforming old and new businesses with a more accurate understanding of customer interactions. Using these insights, your business can capture data, prioritize customers, and act on real-time information in one integrated platform. Gong uses a patented and proprietary AI to better interpret customer interactions, increasing your visibility to drive decision-making.
Why I picked Gong: What caught my eye about Gong was their CRM updater feature. This unique tool allows you to edit and update custom fields for open deals as needed without having to toggle between each platform. Gong then shares the new data through bi-directional integrations with your other apps.
Gong Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include deal execution tools that provide a bird’s eye view of pipeline health, personalized coaching for sales reps, and Smart Trackers that can be trained to pick up and track the most important elements of your business.
Integrations include Ambition, Apollo, Crayon, Google, Highspot, Lessonly, RingCentral, Salesforce, Teams, and Zoom.
Pricing One-Liner: Custom pricing upon request
Free Trial One-Liner: Free demo available
Pros
- Simple to implement with existing workflow
- Instant tips and next steps after every call
- Intuitive call analysis tools
Cons
- Occasional transcription errors from the AI
- Training on the tool could be more proactive
9. QuickMail - Best for cold outreach email deliverability
This automated email solution is designed to help business development teams actually reach their intended recipients during email campaigns instead of landing in the spam folder. The QuickMail platform allows you to send personalized emails to prospects and follow up on priority leads from one inbox that can be shared with your entire team.
Why I picked QuickMail: One of the features that really caught my attention on this platform is the pricing structure. Instead of charging per seat or per email like many other tools, QuickMail charges per inbox. You can have your entire team working in one space without paying extra for every collaborator.
QuickMail Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include A/B testing that doesn’t require you to start a new campaign with every test and automated email verification that double-checks a recipient’s domain and address for errors and deliverability.
Integrations include Aircall, Amazon SES, BriteVerify, Gmail, HubSpot, Mailjet, Outlook, Slack, and Twilio. For everything else, including everything from Excel Spreadsheets to Salesforce, you can use Zapier.
Pricing One-Liner: From $49/month
Free Trial One-Liner: 14-day free trial
Pros
- Very easy and fast to learn
- Intuitive, straightforward tool navigation
- Quick configuration and implementation
Cons
- Limited data enrichment for prospects
- Not as many native integrations
10. Copper - Best for targeting profitability through Google
This business development software is a CRM that’s designed specifically for Google. Due to the seamless integration with Google Workspace, business owners can set up in just a few minutes and begin automating repetitive tasks, organizing contacts, tracking deals, and building personalized relationships with the email and marketing tools.
Why I picked Copper: This platform stood out because it’s tied to such a big name — Google. Many businesses use this giant for their everyday operations, so having a CRM that works directly with Calendar, Drive, and Gmail just makes sense. You never have to switch tabs to track conversations, add leads, find files, or manage sales processes.
Copper Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include custom pipeline setup to track deals, personalized reports dictated by your preferred metrics, and a mobile app that’s accessible from wherever you are.
Integrations include Calendly, DocuSign, DropBox, JustCall, LinkedIn, Mailchimp, PandaDoc, RingCentral, Square, and Zapier. All Google tools are also available for integration.
Pricing One-Liner: From $29/user/month
Free Trial One-Liner: 14-day free trial
Pros
- Purpose-built for Google users
- Easy to use and navigate
- Quick implementation for current Google users
Cons
- Automation rules must be entered manually
- Limited customer support for learning the tool
11. CloudTalk - Best for helping enterprise businesses connect with customers
This user-centered phone system is designed for businesses of all sizes, but especially for enterprise-level organizations. With over 70 advanced calling features and accessibility over browser and desktop, CloudTalk is an easily scalable solution that allows team members to make and receive calls from any place, on any device — even internationally.
Why I picked CloudTalk: I added CloudTalk to my list of top options because of its statistics and monitoring features. It’s not enough to simply reach customers and provide support, you also need to constantly improve your call center services. To help you do that, CloudTalk offers statistics that track call performance and monitoring for emotional analytics.
CloudTalk Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include call flow designer that allows you to customize call routing based on your rules, international numbers from more than 160 countries, and call notes to keep track of ongoing issues with a particular customer.
Integrations include ActiveCampaign, Dataddo, Freshsales, Freshservice, Front, Gong, Intercom, MS Dynamics, Zapier, and Zendesk.
Pricing One-Liner: From $25/user/month
Free Trial One-Liner: Free trial available
Pros
- Comprehensive suite of calling tools
- Excellent customer support for training
- User-friendly desktop app
Cons
- Pricing structure isn’t ideal for small businesses
- Mobile app isn’t as user friendly
12. Visual Visitor - Best for consent-based website visitor identification
Visual Visitor is a sales intelligence platform that focuses on providing you more leads and reducing prospecting time through website visitor identification. They also provide other tools, including buyer intent data, email and proposal tracking, and a B2B contact database that has over 600 million potential prospects.
Why I picked Visual Visitor: This tool stands out to me as an ideal business development software because of their primary tool — website visitor identification. When someone visits your site, Visual Visitor can get you access to their entire profile, including personal contact information that allows you to reach out right away.
Visual Visitor Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include person-level website ID that includes over 35 data points, company identification and employee tracking from website visits, and buyer intent data that’s gathered by crawling the internet for a visitor’s digital footprints.
Integrations include DropBox Business, Gmail, Google Analytics, Google Docs, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Slack, Trello, Zapier, and Zoho CRM.
Pricing One-Liner: From $59/month
Free Trial One-Liner: 14-day free trial
Pros
- Up-to-date data ensures accurate leads
- Allows prospecting through the database and your own website
- Intuitive navigation for finding lead information
Cons
- May take more than a month to learn all the features
- Some plans are limited when it comes to international visitors
Other Options
I know the list above seems pretty comprehensive but there are so many different types of businesses out there, you might find an even better fit in this list of my business development software runners-up.
- Calendly - Best shared scheduling software designed for small and medium companies
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator - Best software for advanced prospect search and targeting
- LeadGrabber Pro - Best platform for building B2B prospect lists with email verification
- MailShake - Best for automating cold email outreach by improving domain reputation
- Hubspot Marketing Hub - Best all-in-one marketing software for large organizations
- Hootsuite - Best social media management tool to increase engagement for SMBs
- Trello - Best team-based solutions for marketing, design, or engineering teams
- Fyle - Best mobile-based expense-management tool for organizations of any size
Selection Criteria For Business Development Software
Here’s a short summary of the main selection and evaluation criteria I used to develop my list of the best business development software for this article:
Core Functionality
Business development tools can address concerns across every aspect of your workflow, including marketing, sales, customer support, and accounting. If you want functionality that can be useful across any and all of these teams, here is what you should look for:
- Making manual tasks more efficient
- Enhancing communication and collaboration
- Improving visibility across every team
- Keeping you informed about trends
Key Features
While each of these business development options has a different focus, some key features you’ll see repeated in all of them include:
- Automation: Whether it’s an automated outreach campaign or data enrichment for prospects, automation is designed to save your team time when it comes to boring manual tasks that a computer can do better.
- Notes and chat: Some tools allow team members to talk within the platform, others have virtual meeting spaces for real-time collaboration. One other useful collaboration tool you’ll see allows team members to leave notes and comments.
- Bi-directional data sharing: You have many tools in your tech stack. Some only connect one direction, but others share data back and forth so every single tool has the same information, providing a single source of truth.
- Analytics and forecasting: Interpreting data on your own can be tough, so you need tools that provide more than just the data. They help you read the information you’re getting and provide forecasts of upcoming trends based on historical data.
Usability
Usability is essential for adding any business development software to your lineup. I focused on choosing tools that were easy to learn or had robust guidance from the platform’s customer support team. I also chose those tools that have intuitive navigation, data visualization for easy readability, and a variety of software integrations.
Software Integrations
I know you have a ton of other essentials in your tech stack so software integration is definitely a priority for you and for me. You’ll see the most popular native or Zapier-driven integrations listed in each tool overview to help you determine if it’s the right fit.
Pricing
Because business development tools cover a broad range of business operations, there’s going to be just as much variation in their pricing. Some tools on my list are free, while others offer custom pricing structures based on what your company needs. For more standardized paid plans, you can expect subscription-based pricing on a per seat or per month basis.
People Also Ask
Still trying to get a better handle on business development software? Check out these answers to the most frequently asked questions.
What are the benefits of business development software
Who uses business development software?
What tools are used for business development?
Other Revenue Operations Software
If you’re looking into business development software, you likely have a wide variety of needs to round out your tech stack. Take a look at these other tools that may complete your setup:
- Business Intelligence Software
- Predictive Analytics Software
- Lead Management Software
- Data Visualization Software
- Marketing Automation Software
- Revenue Operations Software
Final Thoughts
The first step to accelerating your business operations is to take as much manual labor as possible off the plates of your most valuable team members. Business development software can fill in gaps in your tech stack or help you build one from the ground up. With my breakdown, you have a great place to find the answers you need.
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