6 Best CRMs for Startups in 2022 & Beyond

Freshsales is a contact management platform with plenty of cutting-edge solutions for startups to grow their operations quickly. It balances affordability with a rich set of lead-focused features like personalized lead engagement, lead scoring, and other free and paid tools to find new potential customers and scale the business. Growing startups wanting an affordable CRM that provides powerful features will enjoy using Freshsales.

Freshsales Pricing

• Free Version: Supports up to 3 users
• Growth: $15 per user, per month
• Pro: $39 per user, per month
• Enterprise: $69 per user, per month
• Free Trial: 21 days for all paid plans

Freshsales Key Features

• Customer Engagement: Freshsales’ customization allows you to nurture customer relationships with personalized engagement.
• Lead Scoring: The lead scoring tool (available at Growth and above) allows you to rank leads based on level of engagement.
• Versatile Across Different Industries: It’s one of the versatile CRMs and can be used in several industries.
• Freshsales for Startups Support: Includes mentorship, $10,000 worth of Freshsales product credits, and other resources.
• Event Tracking: Tracks the web pages that contacts are engaging, further segmenting the prospects based on behavior.

HubSpot CRM is an industry leader and one of the most innovative CRMs with a comprehensive free plan and premium upgrades. It provides a robust free pipeline tool as well as free features like live chat software that startups can use to connect with their online visitors in real time. Also included are seamless integrations with HubSpot's marketing and service platforms, giving you the ability to create landing pages, support tickets, and more for free.

HubSpot CRM Pricing

• Free Plan: Support for unlimited users, up to 1 million contacts
• HubSpot for Startups: Call for quote; must meet certain criteria
• Sales Hub Starter: $45 for up to 2 paid users
• Sales Hub Professional: $450 for up to 5 paid users
• Sales Hub Enterprise: $1,200 for up to 10 paid users

HubSpot CRM Key Features

• Free Live Chat Software: Provides free chat software that can be simply added to a website without integrations.
• Innovative Marketing Solutions: HubSpot CRM is popular for its expertise in inbound marketing and sales.
• From Freemium to Enterprise Pricing: Get the core features for free, with paid add-ons to extend functionality.
• HubSpot for Startups Discounts: The startups tier offers eligible startups up to a 90% discount on HubSpot products.
• Prospect Tracking: Track leads in real-time, and filter the most engaged prospects for efficient follow up.

Pipedrive is a deal-driven, easy-to-use CRM with a visual pipeline that helps startups see pipeline stages and keep close tabs on leads and potential deals. In addition to the core sales CRM features you'd expect, Pipedrive also offers add-on upgrades you can purchase separately so you only pay for what you need. These a la carte features include prospecting tools as well as marketing tools like email marketing and website visitor tracking.

Pipedrive Pricing

• Essential: $14.90 per user, per month
• Advanced: $27.90 per user, per month
• Professional: $49.90 per user, per month
• Power: $64.90 per user, per month
• Enterprise: $99 per user, per month
• Free Trial: 14 days

Pipedrive Key Features

• Lead Management Visibility: View the progress stages for every deal, along with details of the next action item.
• Sales Process Simplified: Move deals and contacts along the pipeline easily with just a click and drag movement.
• Lead Generation Automation: Add customizable chatbots to capture new leads with preprogrammed questions.
• Workflow Automation: Pipedrive allows you to automate repetitive tasks and standardized work processes to save time and effort.
• Add-On Upgrades: Pay for a la carte features like sales prospecting and digital marketing tools that help with lead generation and nurturing.

Zoho CRM is a widely known, full-featured CRM that specializes in multichannel marketing. It integrates seamlessly with all social media channels, allowing startups to grow their following and collect leads through social campaigns. Zoho inputs these new contacts into the CRM so users can then market to them through automated or manual emails. Startups that want to generate online leads and build a sales pipeline will benefit from using Zoho CRM.

Zoho CRM Pricing

• Free Plan: Support for 3 users
• Standard: $14 per user, per month
• Professional: $23 per user, per month
• Enterprise: $40 per user, per month
• Ultimate: $52 per user, per month
• Free Trial: 15 to 30 days for all paid plans

Zoho CRM Key Features

• Intelligent CRM: It comes with Zia, an AI assistant equipped with voice recognition to provide insightful sales and marketing metrics on command.
• End-to-End Customer Lifecycle: Zoho CRM helps you effectively manage your customer’s journey through several stages of the sales process.
• Consistent Omnichannel Impact: Showcase a uniform business presence across multiple channels.
• Portal to Social Media Channels: The Social tab allows you to engage with leads and customers through social channels directly from the CRM.
• Lead Generation: Zoho CRM provides effective lead generation across its multichannel touchpoints through conversations, sign-ups, and email marketing.

Insightly is a CRM that lets users manage post-sale project management processes. Once an opportunity is closed, it’s converted into a project without losing any data, notifying the appropriate sales reps regarding next steps and helping managers monitor all activity. Insightly is a great choice for startups that manage multiple ongoing projects for customers and want to ensure all steps are completed on time so they can build a great reputation.

Insightly Pricing

• Free Tier: Supports up to 2 users
• Plus: $25 per user, per month
• Professional: $49 per user, per month
• Enterprise: $99 per user, per month
• Free Trial: 14 days for all paid plans

Insightly Key Features

• Project Management: Insightly is equipped to help in complex marketing and sales campaigns with its data manipulation features.
• Lead Management: Lead routing with workflow automation to execute business logic and close more deals.
• Google Workspace Integration: Paid plans provide integration with popular Google Workspace products.
• Sell Smarter: Record and relationship linking to sell smarter by centralizing, mapping, and personalizing customer data.
• Opportunity Management: Grow the sales pipeline by tracking milestones and converting opportunities to on-time delivery projects.

Salesforce Essentials is the small business CRM product offered by Salesforce. Included in the CRM are two separate pipelines for managing leads and opportunities as well as robust custom reporting dashboards to stay on top of your sales process. Also included is a built in phone dialer to make business calls as well as internal communication and collaboration tools that help multiple reps work on the same account.

Salesforce Essentials Pricing

• Essentials: $25 per user, per month (up to 10 users)
• Free Trial: 30 days

Salesforce Sales Cloud Upgrade Pricing

• Professional: $80 per user, per month
• Enterprise: $165 per user, per month
• Unlimited: $330 per user, per month
• Free Trial: 30 days

Salesforce Essentials Key Features

• Built in Phone Dialer: Make and receive calls directly from within the CRM as well as log call notes and other helpful information.
• Multiple Pipelines: Separate leads and opportunities across two pipelines, each with unique stages for efficient management.
• Internal Collaboration Tools: Collaborate with team members using internal communication tools like a built in chat function.
• Robust Reporting Dashboards: Use prebuilt reports or create your own custom reporting and then include them in real-time sales dashboards.
• Upgrade Options: As your startup grows you can upgrade into Salesforce's traditional Sales Cloud for advanced CRM features and functionalities.