Read our independent editorial review of the best contact management software for salespeople, including the best use cases for each option.
Customer relationship management (CRM) software helps salespeople manage interactions with leads, prospects, and customers. The best CRMs allow you to store customer information, map sales processes, analyze data, collaborate with teammates, and help with things like reminders and task automation. To determine the top option for you, we reviewed dozens of products and scored each out of five to arrive at our overall list, including primary use cases for each.
Here are the top six CRM options for salespeople and teams:
Answer a few questions about your business, and we'll give you a personalized product match.
While all the options on our list scored well in specific categories as well as received high overall marks, we found the best CRM for salespeople to be Freshsales, scoring the highest for core features, ease of use, and customer support. Continue reading through our list to see how each CRM scored in all categories, or jump down to see how we evaluated each software.
Note: All per-user prices are with a one-year commitment unless noted.
Features an intuitive UI and advanced sales tools for an affordable price.
Price Range: Free to $69 per user, per month (21-day free trial)
Freshworks' Freshsales is a robust yet easy-to-use CRM offering core and advanced sales features for a competitive price. Its free tier offers contact management and tools like phone, web forms, live chat, and SMS. Upgrade for a well-designed pipeline interface and advanced features like custom reporting, workflow automation, sales forecasting, and AI insights — these tools even earned Freshsales our titles of best operational CRM and best analytical CRM.
While Freshsales is powerful and affordable, it lacks some marketing features and its free tier doesn't offer a visual pipeline. If marketing features are important to you, check out Zoho CRM. If you need a free and robust visual sales pipeline, check out HubSpot CRM.
If you'd like to learn more, take a deep dive by reading our editorially-independent Freshsales review. Otherwise, visit their site to take advantage of their free tier and free trial:
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Provides advanced sales tools and marketing features like social media lead management.
Price Range: Free to $52 per user, per month (15- to 30-day trial)
Zoho CRM is a sales pipeline software with AI-powered sales tools and leading marketing CRM and collaborative CRM functionality not typically found in its competitors. The free tier is basic, but you can upgrade into affordable paid tiers for sales features like forecasting and inventory management plus marketing features like social media management and email marketing. Zoho is highly customizable with a large number of app integrations and add-ons you can purchase.
While Zoho CRM may be robust, its user interface isn't the best. For a more intuitive and easy-to-use CRM, check out Freshsales for general sales or Pipedrive for their marketing add-ons.
To learn more about Zoho CRM and whether it's right for you, check out our in-depth Zoho CRM review. Otherwise, head over to their site below:
Visit Zoho CRM
Highlights a visual drag-and-drop interface with add-on features for sales and marketing.
Price Range: $14.90 to $99 per user, per month (14-day trial)
Pipedrive is an intuitive CRM that’s easy to use, providing a kanban-style drag-and-drop pipeline to manage leads and prospects. It offers a basic set of solid sales tools, but you can choose to pay for advanced add-ons, including LeadBooster (lead generation), Campaigns (email marketing), Web Visitors (visitor tracking), Smart Docs (esignatures), and Projects (project management). This lets you pay for the top-tier tools you need without upgrading your plan.
Although Pipedrive’s add-ons are robust, they can get pricey with monthly fees ranging from $6.70 to $41. If you're needing a pre-built suite of sales or marketing features, check out Freshsales for an intuitive yet powerful sales tool or Zoho CRM for its sales and marketing mix.
For a complete breakdown of Pipedrive, including whether it's right for you and alternative options, check out our Pipedrive review. Otherwise, visit their site directly:
Visit Pipedrive
Offers a great set of free sales and marketing features with the ability to upgrade into paid tiers.
Price Range: Free to $1,200 per month (Sales Hub)
HubSpot CRM is a top-rated free CRM option offering unlimited users and one million contacts you can nurture through your pipeline. In addition to free sales features like live chat, email, quotes, and calling, you also get access to the free tools in its marketing, service, and other hubs, which integrate within your CRM for added help desk and digital marketing functionality. Upgrade your CRM for advanced sales features like custom reporting and forecasting.
HubSpot's free tier is the best available, but its paid levels can be pricey for single users or those seeking a mix of marketing and sales tools. If you want inexpensive yet robust upgrade options, check out Freshsales for affordable sales features or Zoho CRM for marketing and sales.
For a closer look at HubSpot, check out our HubSpot CRM review, which includes an independent analysis and user roundup. Or, visit their site directly below:
Visit HubSpot CRM
Features a solid set of tools and integrations for internal and external project management.
Price Range: Free to $99 per user, per month (14-day free trial)
Insightly is a CRM solution with robust project management capabilities, specifically through its separate project pipeline and available integrations with productivity apps for customization. It features updated milestone tracking and has over 250 pre-built integrations with collaboration software like Slack and Asana. The best value for small-to-medium sales teams is the mid-tier Professional plan at $49 per user, which includes lead routing and custom BI features.
While Insightly is great for sales and ongoing project management, if you only need a CRM for its sales features, it may be better to explore one of the above options like Freshsales.
If you’d like to get a detailed view of Insightly CRM, read through our Insightly CRM review. Otherwise, go to their website directly:
Visit Insightly
Provides robust tools for sales teams working on long or more complex sales processes.
Price Range: $25 to $300 per user, per month (14- to 30-day free trial)
Salesforce Sales Cloud is a well-known CRM offering detailed contact records and separate pipelines to manage leads and opportunities. The platform also includes key communication features like a built-in phone as well as live chat, plus collaboration tools for internal communication within teams. Its fully-customizable reports and dashboards give insights for sales activity, performance, and forecasting via graphs, charts, trends, and more.
While Salesforce Sales Cloud has advanced features, it might be too expensive or complicated for some teams. For more affordable sales features, check out Freshsales, and for a mix of sales and marketing features, learn about Zoho CRM.
For a complete review of Salesforce and its tiers, check out our independent Salesforce review. Or, check out their website directly below:
Visit SalesforceIf you're able to narrow down your choices to a few top options but still need help deciding on the best CRM software for you, we have in-depth articles comparing and contrasting the best choices against each other. Check out our two-product comparative CRM articles below if you'd like a side-by-side analysis:
In the above articles, you'll get a complete breakdown of how each option stacks up against the other, including determined winners for key categories like pricing, CRM features, and ease of use.
In our editorially independent review of the best CRM software, we analyzed dozens of top options based on six weighted scoring categories. To determine our list, every possible CRM option was scored in each one of these categories to calculate a total score out of five. Only those scoring highly enough made our list. Also included in our analysis is a primary use case for each option.
With so many CRMs on the market, it can be daunting to go through every single one of them. Use our list to narrow your choices, and take our quiz for a personalized answer. If you still need to compare and contrast a few options, read our versus articles to make a final decision.
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