Unwrapping the 10 Best CRM Software for Small Business

Welcome to the horizon of CRM software, a digital wizardry redefining customer relationship management. These are vital for businesses as it streamlines interactions with customers, enhances communication, and organizes data. By centralizing customer information and automating processes, CRM fuels business growth by helping in informed decision-making.

That’s why, if you need to upscale your company’s growth, this solution is the answer. A well-suited system enables you to maximize productivity, boost customer satisfaction, and drive sustainable growth. So let’s unwrap the best CRM software for small business companies that can unlock the potential to supercharge your customer relationships.

10 Best CRM Software for Small Business Companies in 2023

To stay organized and elevate your business to new heights, streamlining CRM is an unbeaten resource in the corporate zone. That’s why you need to enlighten yourself with these current market leaders.

1. Zendesk Sell

It is a user-friendly CRM known for its sales automation and reporting capabilities. It streamlines sales processes, tracks customer interactions, and offers advanced analytics for informed decision-making.

Notable Key Features

• Contact Management: Easily organize and access customer information, interactions, and history in a centralized platform.
• Email Integration: Seamlessly integrate email communication within the platform, enabling efficient collaboration and communication.
• Sales Reporting and Analytics: Gain valuable insights through comprehensive sales reports and analytics, allowing for data-driven decision-making.
• Mobile App: Access Zendesk Sell’s features on the go through its user-friendly mobile application, ensuring sales teams stay productive anytime, anywhere.

Starting Price

Zendesk Sell’s starting price is $19 per user per month. At this price, users have access to features such as contact, task, and calendar integration, document storage, and email integration.

Free Trial

Zendesk Sell offers a 14-day free trial. During this trial period, users can explore the full range of features, including contact and lead assessment, email integration, sales reporting, and mobile app access.

Benefits

• Enhanced Collaboration: Facilitate seamless collaboration and communication between sales team members, improving teamwork and productivity.
• Centralized Data Management: Consolidate customer information, interactions, and sales data in one place, enabling better organization and easy access.
• Informed Decision-making: Leverage comprehensive sales reports and analytics to gain insights into performance, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions.
• Mobile Accessibility: Stay connected and productive on the go with the mobile app, allowing sales teams to access and update information from anywhere.

Drawbacks

• Limited Customization: Zendesk Sell may have limited customization options compared to other software. It can restrict certain companies’ specific requirements.
• Advanced Features at Higher Price Tiers: Some advanced features, such as advanced reporting or integrations, may require upgrading to higher-priced plans, potentially adding to the overall cost.

2. HubSpot CRM

Renowned for its comprehensive suite of marketing, sales, and customer service tools. HubSpot offers an all-in-one platform. It excels in nurturing leads, managing contacts, and integrating various business functions.

Notable Key Features

• Email Tracking and Templates: Track email interactions, create personalized templates, and automate follow-ups, enhancing communication efficiency.
• Deal and Task Management: Visualize and manage sales deals in a comprehensive pipeline, while assigning and tracking tasks to drive deal progression.
• Sales Reporting and Analytics: Gain valuable insights into sales performance, track key metrics, and generate custom reports to inform decision-making.
• Email Integration and Tracking: Seamlessly integrate email communication within the platform, providing a holistic view of customer interactions.

Starting Price

The starting price for their paid plans, which include more advanced sales and marketing features, is $50 per user per month. At this price, you gain access to features such as email marketing automation, contact and lead scoring, sales automation, custom reporting, and integration with popular third-party apps.

Free Trial

The free trial typically lasts for 14 days. During this trial period, users have access to the full range of features and tools available in the paid plan they select, enabling them to evaluate the platform’s capabilities and determine its suitability for their organizational needs.

Benefits

• Cost-effective Solution: HubSpot CRM’s free plan provides essential functionalities, making it a budget-friendly choice for small companies.
• Easy-to-use Interface: They offer an intuitive and user-friendly interface, enabling quick onboarding and adoption.
• Seamless Integration: It seamlessly integrates with other HubSpot products, such as marketing and customer service tools. It creates a unified platform for end-to-end customer interactions.
• Extensive Community and Support: HubSpot provides a vast community, resources, and support to assist users in utilizing this tool effectively and resolving issues.

Drawbacks

• Limited Advanced Features: It’s free plan lacks some advanced features like email automation or custom reporting, which might be necessary for more complex sales processes.
• Dependency on HubSpot Ecosystem: While beneficial for users of other HubSpot tools, businesses using different software ecosystems may find integrations and compatibility challenging.

3. Salesforce Sales Cloud

Salesforce, A leader in CRM, offers Sales Cloud with robust customization, sales forecasting, and AI-driven insights. It’s known for scalability, automation, and a vast ecosystem of integrations.

Notable Key Features

• Contact and Lead Management: Efficiently manage and track customer contacts and leads, enabling an effective sales pipeline.
• Opportunity and Pipeline Management: Visualize and manage sales opportunities through a customizable pipeline, ensuring a streamlined sales process.
• Sales Performance Tracking: Track individual and team performance metrics, enabling managers to provide targeted coaching and incentives.
• Sales Collaboration and Communication: Foster collaboration and communication among sales teams through real-time updates, shared calendars, and task assignments.

Starting Price

Salesforce Sales Cloud’s starting price is $25 per user per month. At this price, users gain access to features such as organizing contacts and leads, processing opportunities and pipelines, sales forecasting, and collaboration tools.

Free Trial

They offer a 30-day free trial to explore a considerable range of features. It includes sorting out contacts and leads, supervising opportunities and pipelines, sales forecasting, and sales performance tracking.

Benefits

• Customizable and Scalable: It offers extensive customization options and scalability, adapting to companies of any size and complexity.
• Advanced Reporting and Analytics: Leverage comprehensive sales reports, analytics, and dashboards to gain insights, track performance, and drive informed decision-making.
• Integration Capabilities: This service integrates seamlessly with a wide range of third-party applications, allowing businesses to create a unified ecosystem.
• Customer Relationship Management: This online product provides a holistic view of customer interactions, enabling personalized engagement and nurturing relationships.

Drawbacks

• Complexity and Learning Curve: Their extensive functionalities and customization options may require time and effort to master, leading to a steeper learning curve.
• Higher Cost for Advanced Features: Advanced features and functionalities, such as AI-driven insights or advanced automation, often require upgrading to higher-priced plans, potentially increasing overall costs.

4. Zoho CRM

Zoho offers a versatile CRM solution with customizable modules, AI-driven sales insights, and marketing automation. Its affordability and wide range of features cater to businesses of all sizes.

Notable Key Features

• Contact Management: Efficiently manage customer contacts, including their information, interactions, and history, in a centralized database.
• Sales Automation: Automate repetitive sales tasks, such as lead assignments and follow-ups, to streamline the sales process and save time.
• Analytics and Reporting: Generate insightful reports and analytics on sales performance, pipeline analysis, and forecasting for data-driven decision-making.
• Integrations: Seamlessly integrate with various third-party applications, such as email marketing platforms or customer support software, for enhanced functionality.

Starting Price

Zoho comes up with a starting price of $12 per user per month for this product. At this price, users have access to features like contact administration, sales automation, workflow automation, analytics and reporting, and integrations.

Free Trial

Their generous 15-day free offer is enriched with the opportunity to enjoy the full range of features. It includes contact administration, sales automation, workflow automation, as well as analytics, reporting, and integrations.

Benefits

• Customization: Tailor Zoho CRM to fit specific organizations’ needs through customizable fields, layouts, and workflows.
• Collaboration and Communication: Foster collaboration among teams with features like shared calendars, tasks, and document categorization, enhancing productivity.
• Mobile Access: Access it on mobile devices through the mobile app, allowing sales teams to stay connected and productive while on the move.
• Customer Support: Zoho offers reliable customer support through multiple channels, including phone, email, and an extensive knowledge base.

Drawbacks

• Learning Curve: Its extensive range of features may require time and effort to fully understand and utilize effectively.
• Limited Advanced Features: Some advanced features, such as AI-powered insights or advanced automation, may require upgrading to higher-priced plans, adding to the overall cost.

5. Pipedrive

Focused on pipeline assessment, Pipedrive aids in visualizing sales stages, ensuring deals progress smoothly. It’s valued for its simplicity, visual approach, and sales-focused features.

Notable Key Features

• Pipeline Management: Visualize and manage sales opportunities through a customizable pipeline, ensuring clear visibility of deals and their progress.
• Sales Reporting: Generate reports and analytics on sales performance, conversion rates, and other key metrics for comprehensive insights.
• Email Integration and Tracking: The Platform patched email communication, email interactions tracker, and automated follow-ups.
• Activity and Task Management: Track and manage sales activities and tasks, ensuring timely follow-ups and effective sales engagement.

Starting Price

The starting price is $15 per user per month. At this price, users have access to features like pipeline administration, sales reporting, email integration and tracking, sales forecasting, and sorting out activities and tasks.

Free Trial

They offer a 14-day free trial. During this trial period, users can explore the full range of features available in their chosen plan.

Benefits

• Sales Efficiency: Streamline sales processes, track activities, and automate tasks to improve overall sales team efficiency and productivity.
• Integration Capabilities: Pipedrive seamlessly integrates with various third-party applications, such as email clients and marketing tools, for enhanced functionality.
• Customization: Customize it’s fields, stages, and workflows to align with specific sales processes and business requirements.
• Sales Coaching and Insights: Gain valuable insights into team performance and provide targeted coaching based on data-driven analytics.

Drawbacks

• Limited Advanced Features: It may lack some advanced features compared to more self-contained solutions. It potentially limits functionality for enterprises with complex needs.
• Limited Customer Support: The customer support options may be limited, with slower response times or fewer channels available compared to other CRM providers.

6. Insightly

This tool combines CRM and project management, supporting relationship-building while managing tasks. It stands out for its ability to seamlessly link projects and contacts.

Notable Key Features

• Contact and Lead Management: Manage customer contacts and leads efficiently, including their information, interactions, and history.
• Project Management: Track and manage projects within the platform, assigning tasks, setting deadlines, and monitoring progress.
• Email Integration: Integrate email communication within Insightly, enabling seamless collaboration and communication within it.
• Sales and Pipeline Management: Visualize and manage sales opportunities through a customizable pipeline, ensuring efficient deal progression.

Starting Price

Their starting price is $29 per user per month. At this price, the features are contact and lead processing, project handling, email integration, administrating sales and pipelines, and tasks and activity access.

Free Trial

It offers a 14-day chance to have free access to it. During this trial period, users can explore the full range of features available in their chosen plan.

Benefits

• Project and Sales Integration: They combine project management and sales functionality, allowing businesses to streamline their processes within a single platform.
• Collaboration and Communication: Facilitate collaboration among team members through shared calendars, document sharing, and task assignments.
• Customization: Customize fields, layouts, and workflows in the service to adapt them to specific organizational needs and processes.
• Reporting and Analytics: Generate reports and gain insights into sales performance, project progress, and other key metrics to drive data-driven decision-making.

Drawbacks

• Limited Advanced Features: It may lack some up-to-date features and integrations compared to more robust ones. It is subject to slight limitations to the scalability of complex business needs.
• Learning Curve: The interface and features may take some time to familiarize and fully utilize, requiring training and onboarding for optimal usage.

7. Freshsales

Part of the Freshworks suite, it’s known for its AI-based lead scoring, email tracking, and built-in phone features. It offers a user-friendly interface and integration options.

Notable Key Features

• Contact Management: Efficiently manage and organize customer contacts, including their information, interactions, and history.
• Deal Management: Track and manage sales deals through a customizable pipeline, ensuring effective deal progression.
• Email Tracking and Engagement: Track email interactions with prospects and customers, automate personalized email campaigns, and engage effectively.
• Sales Reporting and Analytics: Generate comprehensive sales reports and analytics, gain insights into performance, and make data-driven decisions.

Starting Price

The starting price is $19 per user per month (billed annually). At this price, users have access to features like contact administration, deal interaction, email tracking and engagement, sales reporting and analytics, and workflow automation.

Free Trial

You can enjoy an enormous opportunity of a 21-day free trial. Meanwhile, you can explore the full range of features available in their chosen plan, including contact and deal processing, email tracking, reporting, and automation.

Benefits

• User-friendly Interface: Freshsales offers an intuitive and user-friendly interface, allowing for easy navigation and quick adoption.
• Email and Activity Tracking: Track email opens, link clicks, and engagement with prospects, enabling personalized and effective follow-ups.
• Collaboration and Team Management: Foster collaboration among sales teams, assign tasks, and track progress, enhancing teamwork and productivity.
• Integrations: Integrate it with other business tools and applications, such as email clients or marketing automation platforms. The seamless data exchange and enhanced functionality would be a game.

Drawbacks

• Limited Advanced Features: They may have limitations in advanced features such as AI-driven insights or advanced automation, which can be found in more full-fledged solutions.
• Reporting Customization: While it provides reporting capabilities, customization options for reports may be limited compared to more robust ones.

8. Sugar CRM

This tool offers flexibility with open-source and commercial versions. The software is recognized for customization options adaptable to various business processes and industries.

Notable Key Features

• Account and Contact Management: Efficiently manage customer accounts and contacts, including their details, interactions, and relationships.
• Opportunity Management: Track and manage sales opportunities, ensuring clear visibility and effective deal progression.
• Sales Forecasting: Generate accurate sales forecasts based on historical data and trends, aiding in strategic planning.
• Customization: Customize fields, modules, and workflows to adapt this product to specific corporation needs and processes.

Starting Price

It offers various pricing options, including the Sugar Market Professional plan starting at $40 per user per month. At this price, users have access to features like sorting out accounts and contacts, managing opportunities, sales forecasting, workflow automation, and customization options.

Free Trial

Their typical free trial extends up to 7 days only. The exploration of the features is limited to this short timeline. During this period, you can get access to the account and contact admin, opportunity section, workflow automation, and customization options to experience the capabilities of the software.

Benefits

• Customization and Flexibility: It provides extensive customization options, allowing companies to tailor the CRM to their unique requirements and workflows.
• Sales Process Streamlining: Automate repetitive tasks, streamline sales processes, and ensure efficient deal interaction, resulting in increased productivity.
• Customer Insights: Gain a comprehensive view of customer interactions, preferences, and history to personalize engagements and nurture relationships.
• Integration Capabilities: Their integration with a variety of third-party applications facilitates seamless data exchange and providing a unified business ecosystem.

Drawbacks

• Learning Curve: The extensive features and customization options may require time and training to fully understand and utilize them effectively.
• Pricing Structure: The pricing structure, particularly for advanced features and editions, may be complex and may not be suitable for all budgets.

9. Agile CRM

This software is known for its marketing automation and customer support tools alongside traditional CRM functions. It’s praised for its holistic approach to customer engagement.

Notable Key Features

• Email Marketing and Automation: Create and automate personalized email campaigns, track email performance, and engage with prospects effectively.
• Sales and Deal Management: Track sales opportunities, manage deals through a customizable pipeline, and monitor progress for efficient deal closure.
• Customer Support and Helpdesk: Provide customer support and manage tickets through an integrated helpdesk, ensuring timely resolution of issues.
• Reporting and Analytics: Generate detailed reports and analytics on sales performance, customer behavior, and campaign effectiveness for data-driven decision-making.

Starting Price

They offer various pricing plans, with the Starter plan starting at $14.99 per user per month (billed annually). At this price, users have access to features like contact and lead register, email marketing and automation, sales and deal section, customer support and helpdesk, and reporting and analytics.

Free Trial

Its free trial offer is limited to a typical 14 days of access to the full range of features without any cost. The general access is up to the sections including contact, email marketing, sales, customer support, and reporting.

Benefits

• All-in-One Solution: It combines multiple functionalities into a single platform, eliminating the need for separate tools and ensuring a unified customer view.
• Marketing Automation: Automate marketing campaigns, lead nurturing, and customer engagement to save time and improve marketing effectiveness.
• Customer Support Integration: Seamless integration of customer support and helpdesk features allows for efficient ticket supervision and customer issue resolution.
• Robust Analytics: Gain insights into sales performance, customer behavior, and marketing effectiveness through comprehensive reporting and analytics.

Drawbacks

• Complexity for Simple Needs: Their extensive deliverables and capabilities may be overwhelming for businesses with limited sales and marketing requirements.
• Limited Advanced Features: It may lack some features synchronized with the current time compared to more comprehensive solutions. It can limit functionality for businesses with complex needs.

10. Drip CRM

Focused on e-commerce and marketing automation, Drip helps segment and engage customers through personalized campaigns. It’s notable for its email marketing features and integration capabilities.

Notable Key Features

• Lead Scoring and Segmentation: Assign scores to leads based on their interactions and behaviors, enabling effective lead nurturing and targeted campaigns.
• Customer Segmentation: Segment customers based on various criteria, such as demographics or purchase history, for personalized messaging and offers.
• Visual Workflow Builder: Build visual workflows to automate sales and marketing processes, ensuring consistent and efficient operations.
• Reporting and Analytics: Track campaign performance, measure engagement metrics, and gain insights into customer behavior for data-driven decision-making.

Starting Price

It offers various pricing plans, with the Basic plan starting at $19 per month for up to 500 contacts. At this price, users have access to features like email marketing automation, lead scoring and segmentation, customer segmentation, visual workflow builder, and reporting and analytics.

Free Trial

Their free trial for the full range of features extends to a maximum of 14 days. The chosen plan typically includes email marketing automation, lead scoring, customer segmentation, workflow builder, and reporting.

Benefits

• Advanced Email Marketing Automation: Automate email campaigns, segment subscribers, and deliver personalized content based on user behavior.
• Targeted Marketing Campaigns: Leverage lead scoring and customer segmentation to deliver tailored messages and offers. It improves the desired conversion rates to a great extent.
• Data-Driven Insights: Gain detailed reports and analytics on campaign performance, customer behavior, and engagement metrics. It aids in decision-making even with complex situations in the long run.
• Integrations: It integrates with popular e-commerce platforms and other third-party applications. It enables seamless data synchronization and enhanced functionality.

Drawbacks

• Limited CRM Functionality: It primarily focuses on email marketing automation. That’s why its CRM part may be more limited compared to the other dedicated CRM platforms.
• Pricing Structure: As the number of contacts increases, the pricing can become significantly higher, making it less cost-effective for businesses with larger contact lists.

Wrapping Up

When choosing the best CRM software for a small business, evaluating specific needs and budgetary constraints is essential. After going through all the above tools, you can give HubSpot CRM a try. It is well enough for small companies due to its user-friendly interface. Most importantly, their exceptional value aligns top-tier capabilities with a budget-friendly approach.