CRM software, or customer relationship management software, helps business owners monitor all communications and develop relationships with leads and clients. If you have a significant pile of spreadsheets, apps, and databases to track client data, an excellent CRM can be perfect for you. The best CRM software can help you experience better time management, organization efficiency, and happier clients.
...Safe to assume that’s what you want, right?
In this article, I've curated a list of the best CRM software on the market today to help you find the tool that's best for your team.
What is CRM Software?
CRM software connects all data from your sales leads and customers into one accessible place. Your CRM consolidates all business communications, such as calls, form fills, text messages, e-mails, and meetings. Your team can access details associated with each customer, including documents, purchases, quotes, and tasks, to deliver excellent service or close a sale.
CRM software assists businesses of all sizes with pipeline management, sales forecasting, contact management, and even email campaigns. The CRM systems on this list also feature many third-party integrations to help you streamline the customer journey within an all-in-one solution.
Depending on your business needs, you can explore paid plans, or free CRM options. Whether you're an SMB or a large organization looking at enterprise plans, this comprehensive list features CRM solutions to suit a variety of budgets.
10 Best CRM Software
- SAP CRM - Best for using customer data to personalize experiences
- Salesforce - Best customizable CRM
- Hubspot - Best for integrating with current systems
- Zendesk Sell - Best for increasing sales efficiency
- Zoho CRM - Best for remote and hybrid teams
- monday Sales CRM - Best for managing your entire sales cycle
- Freshsales - Best for AI-powered lead scoring
- Pipedrive - Best for visual sales pipelines
- Streak - Best for implementing a CRM in Gmail
- Insightly - Best for sharing customer data
Overviews of the 10 Best CRM Software
Here’s a brief description of each CRM software to showcase each tool’s best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give a snapshot of the user interface.
1. SAP CRM – Best for using customer data to personalize experiences
SAP CRM is a popular customer relation platform that can support your company when you’re improving work capabilities while providing you with the necessary data to help you have excellent customer interactions for business growth.
SAP CRM allows users to deploy its platform on the cloud or their servers, depending on their needs. The platform can improve your sales, customer engagements, and marketing. SAP CRM also integrates and automates all customer experiences using your collected data.
SAP CRM’s sales, service, and marketing solutions can help companies in industries such as consumer products, automotive, tech, retail, and communications, provide excellent customer experiences. These organizations can use these solutions from the platform to understand their customers, refine sales processes, diagnose and resolve issues, and execute global campaigns. You can use data from your in-house databases, third-party software, legacy systems, and multichannel touchpoints to create a single customer profile.
SAP CRM Standout Features and Integrations
Features include tools like a shared campaign calendar and a dashboard to show real-time costs and budgets. The experience management tools support web page creation and editing, allowing you to create responsive designs for tablets, mobile, and desktop devices. The platform also provides a centralized interface for managing catalogs and products with product attributes support and bulk editing.
Integrations include Anypoint Platform, eBuyer Assist Procurement, Marketo, and Mule ESB.
SAP CRM Plans and Pricing
SAP CRM offers custom pricing upon request.
Pros:
- Provides a complete view for all customers.
- Robust and flexible with a significant number of features.
- Provides users with various tools, reports, and views to help analyze and forecast your business.
Cons:
- Requires a very skilled professional to deploy the platform on-premises.
- Doesn’t support automatic sales order creation.
2. Salesforce – Best customizable CRM
Salesforce helps companies of any size who require significant customization options when using a CRM to create a bespoke platform using internal and third-party systems.
Salesforce allows users to pick and choose which apps they need to develop a complete CRM platform to match their requirements. Using the platform, you can customize marketing automation, eCommerce sales, and call-center software. Salesforce dedicates itself to customizing everything you need to manage your customer relationships.
Salesforce’s versatility is excellent for small business owners or enterprise organizations with marketing, sales, and customer support teams. They can use Salesforce to handle all their business processes. For example, the platform offers software to help users build marketing campaigns and automation.
Salesforce Standout Features and Integrations
Features include identifying excellent sales opportunities and tracking parameters, such as communications, customer history, and social media mentions. The platform allows you to drag, drop, share, and track reports. You and your teams can also set goals and update your targets to achieve the best performance.
Integrations include Slack, Quickbooks, MailChimp, Jira, DocuSign, Dropbox, and ActiveCampaign.
Salesforce Plans and Pricing
Salesforce costs from $25/user/month and comes with a 30-day free trial.
Pros:
- Wide variety of features and customizations.
- Cloud-based system allows access from anywhere.
- 24/7 customer support via e-mail, phone, and tickets.
Cons:
- Many features add to the price of the subscription.
- There can be a steep learning curve.
3. Hubspot – Best for integrating with current systems
Hubspot can centralize all data from multiple providers, which makes it an excellent option for sales teams who need to improve performance thanks to integrating with thousands of systems.
Hubspot allows users to connect third-party applications to synchronize and clean their data while also automating their business processes, which can positively impact their team’s efficiency. After integrating an organization’s other systems, the Hubspot CRM tracks sales metrics, productivity, actionable insights, and performance. The platform is powerful and flexible, allowing users to start immediately without changing much of what they’re already doing.
Hubspot is an excellent choice for individual users, small teams, start-ups, and small businesses. The platform is an ideal solution for these businesses to start their customer relationship management software journey. They can also generate detailed productivity, sales activity, and individual performance reports to see where they can make improvements.
Hubspot Standout Features and Integrations
Features include everything you need for marketing, sales, service, and CMS. The marketing features help users with lead generation, and the automation capabilities keep you in your customers’ minds. The sales features are where you can get an advanced CRM and tools such as a meeting scheduler. The service capabilities provide a help desk, tickets, customer feedback, and knowledge bases.
Integrations include Gmail, Zoom, WordPress, Mailchimp, and Slack.
Hubspot Plans and Pricing
Hubspot costs from [$$]/user/month and comes with a ##-day free trial.
Pros:
- Helpful free tools.
- Extensive support for integrated payment processing.
- Connects all customer interactions.
Cons:
- Can be time-consuming to implement.
- Might require customizing according to your requirements.
4. Zendesk Sell – Best for increasing sales efficiency
Zendesk Sell helps businesses accelerate sales by providing everything sales teams need in one tool.
Zendesk Sell is a sales CRM platform that helps makes sales representatives’ jobs much more manageable. The tools inside of the platform helps boost your team’s processes, productivity, and pipeline visibility. The primary focus of Zendesk Sell is closing deals and customer satisfaction.
Zendesk Sell is an excellent choice if you’re already a Zendesk customer. Organizations of any size can use Zendesk Sell to identify prospects and develop targeted lists of verified and accurate records. It’s also worth looking into if you need a platform to help you with your help desk requirements.
Zendesk Sell Standout Features and Integrations
Features include a unique auto-dialer tool to help your sales reps call people on your list. After completing a call, the software automatically dials the following number and keeps your agents engaged. The platform allows your representatives to schedule meetings and monitor deal history. They can also use the mobile application to ensure efficiency when on the move.
Integrations include Quickbooks, Microsoft Outlook, G Suite, Mailchimp, and Hubspot Marketing. The platform also allows users to build Zendesk applications with its API. You can also integrate it with other Zendesk products.
Zendesk Sell Plans and Pricing
Zendesk Sell costs from $19/user/month, and it’s billed annually. It also comes with a 14-day free trial.
Pros:
- Simple onboarding and team-creation features.
- Centralized dashboard provides all sales-related activity.
- Excellent customer support.
Cons:
- Can become pricy beyond lowest subscription.
- Limited pipelines.
5. Zoho CRM – Best for remote and hybrid teams
Zoho CRM enables remote and hybrid workforces to increase leads, measure performance, and accelerate sales efficiently.
Zoho CRM helps teams on the go or in multiple locations accomplish more together. The platform provides a gamification feature that encourages friendly competition among your sales reps. Every lead, deal, and call can help your team members earn trophies, generating a competitive and nurturing sales environment regardless of where they work.
Zoho CRM focuses on small-to-medium businesses, enterprise clients, and various business types, no matter their size. The customization within the platform allows these companies to build what they need and adjust as they grow. It’s easy for them to create multiple pipelines and custom dashboards thanks to its flexibility to accommodate the need of these different organizations.
Zoho CRM Standout Features and Integrations
Features include an AI-powered assistant, which the platform calls Zia, which can predict deals and leads, identify potential customers your team can convert, and help sales teams focus their work with user-friendly guidance. The platform also includes a comprehensive reporting feature that provides various pre-made sales, desk, and project reports.
Integrations include over 300 popular third-party applications, such as Mailchimp, G Suite, and Office 365. The platform is also a part of the 40 apps from Zoho, so if you’re already a customer, you can integrate Zoho CRM into your system.
Zoho CRM Plans and Pricing
Zoho CRM costs from $20/user/month when paying monthly or $14/user/month when billed annually. They also have a free edition for up to three users and offer a 15-day free trial when signing up for a paid subscription.
Pros:
- 24-hour premium user support.
- Advanced security features.
- Mobile app helps you stay in touch with customers from anywhere.
Cons:
- Steep learning curve
- Advanced features are only available in higher-priced subscriptions.
6. monday Sales CRM – Best for managing your entire sales cycle
monday Sales CRM helps businesses and their sales teams manage every aspect of the company’s sales cycle and customer data.
monday Sales CRM gives your sales team complete control over your company’s sales pipeline and allows them to manage accounts and contacts. The platform also helps organize your after-sales processes and sales enablement efficiently. You can also use monday Sales CRM’s customizable dashboards to get an overview of your sales without changing any code.
monday Sales CRM is an ideal choice for small-to-medium-sized businesses, sales managers, and teams. Managers and owners can get a complete overview of their sales team’s performance and the progress they can build themselves. Users can also create no-code automation to reduce repetitive manual work that prevents them from giving their attention to customers.
monday Sales CRM Standout Features and Integrations
Features include intuitive technology that supports your company’s success, whether you’re developing a custom dashboard for specific communication requirements or trying to analyze customer data with visualization tools. By using the simple trigger and action templates from within the platform, you can quickly build many time-saving automations. You can also implement notification systems to help eliminate unnecessary meetings by alerting team members when a task or project is ready for further action.
Integrations include over 200 third-party applications, such as Salesforce, Mailchimp, Aircall, Pandadoc, and Twilio.
monday Sales CRM Plans and Pricing
monday Sales CRM from $13/user/month when paying monthly for a minimum of three users or $10/user/month when billed annually. Each plan comes with a 14-day free trial, but there’s also a free forever plan for up to two users.
Pros:
- Unlimited boards to organize clients, projects, and processes.
- Easy to develop and implement automations.
- 24/7 customer support.
Cons:
- No customizable reports.
- All plans have a three-user minimum.
7. Freshsales – Best for AI-powered lead scoring
Freshsales uses an AI called Freddy to help businesses understand customers and leads with scoring to show their best opportunities.
Freshsales is an intuitive and adaptable platform that offers excellent built-in tools that help businesses optimize communications and better understand their customers. The powerful AI assistant gives users a comprehensive understanding of customers based on historical sales activities, data, and engagement. This information can help your sales reps know how to manage customer interactions, like when and how to contact them.
Freshsales offers industry-specific solutions for 15 industries, including eCommerce, logistics, manufacturing, retail, and healthcare. Organizations of any size can leverage the platform for their sales pipeline to gain clarity and efficiency in their workflows. They can also get measurable metrics that inform them about their sales performance.
Freshsales Standout Features and Integrations
Features include an AI-driven, bot-assisted messaging tool that Freshsales calls Freshchat. It’s designed to support your customers while freeing up your customer service representative’s time to handle more complex challenges. You can also use the platform to implement personalized e-mail marketing campaigns, manage deals, predict sales performance, strategically engage with potential customers, and forecast revenue.
Integrations include programs and applications from the vendor, such as Freshdesk, Freshmarketer, Freshconnect, and Freshcaller. Third-party application integrations include Mailchimp, Zapier, Hubspot Marketing, Quickbooks, and Office 365 Calendar.
Freshsales Plans and Pricing
Freshsales costs from $18/user/month when paying monthly or $15/user/month when billed annually. They also have a free forever plan or a 21-day free trial on all paid subscriptions.
Pros:
- High-level automations and intelligent workflows.
- API to help modify, read, add, and delete data.
- Event tracking to help plan future customer approaches.
Cons:
- Reports are not available in the free plan.
- Configuration updates can be frequent.
8. Pipedrive – Best for visual sales pipelines
Pipedrive can help businesses customize deal pipelines to optimize workflow systems and improve processes throughout the company.
Pipedrive is a platform that focuses on helping businesses increase sales and revenue. It can help you and your teams organize your business in a way that gives you an excellent view of your sales, which can increase productivity. The platform is easy to implement with your teams, even without an IT staff, and the visual pipeline features provide your company with time-saving and organizational capabilities.
Pipedrive is an excellent choice for teams experimenting with CRM software for the first time or looking for a more minor entry barrier. The pipeline-focused setup makes getting a quick visual understanding of your sales leads throughout your process for your teams. It also provides a drag-and-drop interface with custom fields to make the platform fit with your current processes.
Pipedrive Standout Features and Integrations
Features include a sales assistant AI that offers suggestions to your team members regarding what they should prioritize throughout their workday. It also provides workflow automation tools with pre-made templates for sales tasks, such as follow-up e-mails. The available reports within the platform for you and your team members include deal duration, forecasting, and average value. In contrast, the goals reports track your revenue and activities each week.
Integrations include standard industry tools, such as Zapier, Slack, Dropbox, and Highrise. The Google Maps integration within the platform makes it easier for your sales reps to see customers on an interactive map.
Pipedrive Plans and Pricing
Pipedrive costs from $19.90/user/month when paid monthly or $14.90/user/month when billed annually. Each subscription comes with a 14-day free trial.
Pros:
- Track e-mails to make them easier to find.
- Offers an intuitive interface with a deal-driven workflow.
- User-friendly user interface.
Cons:
- No tracking of customer responses within the platform.
- Extra features, such as in-app phone capabilities, come with an additional charge.
9. Streak – Best for implementing a CRM in Gmail
Streak turns your Gmail account into a powerful CRM that allows you to manage your business.
Streak makes collaboration between teams and team members easier by automatically sharing e-mails, notes, and call logs. You can use the platform to manage all workflows inside Gmail, including hiring, customer support, projects, and sales. It also allows you to improve efficiencies throughout your company by using tools such as pre-written templates, e-mail tracking, and mail merging.
Streak is an excellent platform for small businesses and start-ups. Users can implement the platform to customize sales pipelines to represent deal flow stages, such as new lead, deal in progress, and won or lost sales. After customizing pipelines, teams can use pipeline templates provided by the platform to automate workflows and handle simple tasks.
Streak Standout Features and Integrations
Features include capabilities that allow users to manage all sales from a pipeline within Gmail. Users can also use the platform to manage new and existing communications while providing capabilities to help you channel discussions around a specific topic. Streak lets you create particular teams within the platform and assign each person a role. Team members can create reminders, add comments, and define their tasks.
Integrations include Calendly, Zapier, Typeform, and Slack.
Streak Plans and Pricing
Streak costs from $19/user/month when paid monthly or $15/user/month when billed annually. The vendor also offers a free forever plan.
Pros:
- Allows users to build and manage any process.
- Integrates well in Google environments.
- Customers can use the platform for many specific use cases and industries.
Cons:
- Lacks tools for marketing campaigns other than e-mail based.
- Only works within Gmail.
10. Insightly – Best for sharing customer data
Insightly provides users with a complete picture of their customers and allows teams to share customer data throughout their organizations.
Insightly helps companies centralize and manage all customer, business, and sales data, including information regarding your contact, leads, and e-mails. You can enjoy control and visibility in everything you sell, including who you sell to, what you sell, when, and for how much. While Insightly’s AI and predictive tools are available to customers in the higher-level plans, each subscription plan allows users to develop specific rules for standard events and triggers actions within your sales process.
Insightly allows a business of any size in any industry to customize metric reports and processes to fit their requirements. Insightly’s features help you and your teams spend less time learning new software and more time on your customers. If you have an excellent Google user on your team, the platform is a perfect option because you can integrate it into a Google App account.
Insightly Standout Features and Integrations
Features include creating automated marketing funnels that target specific audience segments. The e-mail tracking feature can show you when sales leads open your e-mails and other link click details. You can also use the platform to monitor sales teams’ performance, track sales pitches, and identify where leads are in your funnel.
Integrations include Asana, Calendly, BambooHR, Quickbooks, and Slack.
Insightly Plans and Pricing
Insightly costs from $29/user/month and comes with a 14-day free trial.
Pros:
- Compatible with Android and iOS devices.
- Highly customizable and scalable.
- Customer support is available to users by phone, e-mail, and tickets.
Cons:
- Only focuses on sales, CRM, and marketing, not customer support.
- Higher price tiers can be expensive.
Other Options
Here are a few more options that didn’t make the best CRM software list:
- Scoro – Best for end-to-end work management.
- Hubspot CRM - Best for the most advanced CRM features.
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Best for developing growth through solid customer relationships.
- Accelo – Best for getting overall business health insights.
- Sugar CRM – Best for developer-oriented customizations.
- Apptivo – Best for cloud-based integrated modules.
- NetSuite CRM – Best for creating transparency in lead management.
- WORKetc – Best for managing an entire business from the cloud.
- PipelineDeals – Best for transitioning from working with spreadsheets.
- Keap – Best for small businesses new to CRM.
- Freshdesk – Best for collaboration on all lead and customer needs.
- Zendesk – Best for implementing a CRM into your help desk.
- Creatio – Best for analytics and marketing automation capabilities.
How I Selected the Best CRM Software
What do I look for when I select the best CRM Software? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:
- User Interface (UI): I look for a simple and modern design that’s easy to use and that you can implement immediately. It should provide a convenient interface focusing on daily sales activities and maximizes revenue via enhanced productivity, pipeline management and visibility, and processes.
- Usability: I look for a CRM with everything your sales team needs in one centralized place. These things include engagement, prospecting, communication, and lead generation capabilities. The software’s usability should help increase sales efficiency and productivity, which can result in excellent customer experiences.
- Integrations: I look for a platform that can play well with the tools you’re already using to operate your business and help automate your processes. By bringing all your systems and data together, a CRM should provide a complete customer view and an excellent understanding of your potential audience.
- Value for $: I look for a vendor that clearly understands the costs of using their platform. They should give potential customers information regarding maintenance fees, implementation costs, consultants, and add-ons. Some vendors offer a free version or trial.
Frequently Asked Questions
If your team is considering working with a CRM software platform, you likely have a few questions before signing on. Let's take a look at some of the FAQs about CRM software:
What is CRM Software Used For?
CRM software is used to enhance the quality of customer relationships, increase sales, and have greater visibility on the future pipeline. These SaaS tools assist teams with:
- Contact management
- Pipeline management
- Project management
- Email marketing
- Lead management / lead scoring
- Follow-ups
- Sales forecasting
- Workflow automation
How to Use CRM Software
CRM software are cloud-based SaaS solutions, meaning that you can access their functionality straight from your device (including mobile in many cases). The CRM software on this list were chosen for ease of use, meaning that they allow you to input your contacts and begin analyzing data and creating strategies right away, without the need for prior experience or subject matter expertise.
The best tools deserve the best practices
The right CRM software in your business can make a significant and immediate difference. As you might guess, these platforms can make staying organized easier, so you and your teams can make customers happy.
Each of the software I discussed offers an extensive range of features. Some are more suitable for your business than others. The best CRM software for your company depends on your business’s size and the parts you require the most. So, when searching for the best CRM software for your business, use the criteria I provided as you go through your journey to make your final decision.
If you’re looking for more information to help you with your RevOps team, remember to search through our list of tool reviews here. Our team reviews new software for your business regularly to help you decide which is the best for you and your needs.
To learn more about CRM software, check out these articles:
CRM & Marketing Automation: The Differences, Benefits, and Why You Need Both
What is Customer Relationship Management? Your Key to Successful Growth
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