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6 Best Lead Nurturing Software for Sales & Marketing 2023

Name: Zoho CRM
Item: Zoho CRM
Rating: 4.4
Author: Eze Onukwube

Written By

Eze Onukwube

Aug 25, 2023

2 minute read

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Lead nurturing software are typically CRMs or marketing automation software that help sales and marketers attract, qualify, and engage leads to turn them into customers. The top software offer features like contact management, pipeline management, automated follow-ups, and drip marketing campaigns to guide prospects through the sales funnel and optimize conversion rates. To help you choose the right one for you, we’ve evaluated the best available options.

Here are the six best lead nurturing software:

Zoho CRM: Best overall CRM software for pricing and features (free starting price)
Freshsales: Best lead nurturing software for sales automation (free starting price)
HubSpot CRM: Best free lead nurturing software with upgrades (free starting price)
EngageBay: Best lead nurturing CRM software for user support (free starting price)
monday sales CRM: Best for an easy-to-use, visual sales pipeline (14-day free trial)
ActiveCampaign: Best for automated email nurturing campaigns (14-day free trial)

Per our evaluation, Zoho CRM emerged as the best lead nurturing software, offering the best scoring the highest for core features and customization and tying for cost and third-party integrations. Read more to see each option’s key features, pricing plans, and primary use case, or skip down to learn how we scored each lead nurturing software across six categories.

Note: All per-user prices are with a one-year commitment unless noted otherwise.

Zoho CRM: Best Overall Nurturing Software

Helps capture and nurture leads from multiple sources, such as email campaigns and websites.

Price Range: Free to $52 per user, per month (15- to 30-day trial)

Overall Rating

4.4

Core Features

4.7

Cost

4.7

Ease of Use

3.6

Customization

4.6

Integration

5.0

Customer Support

3.5

Pros

Excels at lead generation
Easy & intuitive to use
Free & flexible pricing

Cons

Setup process can be difficult
Limited customer services
Tutorials can be improved

Zoho CRM is sales software known for its multichannel marketing features that help generate and nurture leads. Its robust marketing integrations notify you when a lead engages with your social media, emails, or website, enabling you to respond immediately. You can identify leads who are most likely to convert using Zia AI, then build a relationship on their preferred platform, making Zoho CRM ideal for businesses that connect with leads via various online channels.

Although Zoho has robust core features and customization options, its user support isn’t top-notch. If you’re needing reliable customer service, try EngageBay, which won in this category.

Zoho CRM Pricing

Free Version: Supports up to 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
Access to Zoho One Marketplace Apps

Zoho CRM Key Features

Omnichannel Marketing: Automate lead capturing and campaigns across all channels.
Qualify & Convert Leads: Identify and nurture the right leads across the sales funnel.
A/B Testing for Newsletters: Discover which emails resonate with leads for campaigns.
Lead Scoring: Assign numerical scores to leads based on your ideal customer profile.

Freshsales: Best for Sales Automation

Allows businesses to engage, attract, nurture, and close leads using robust automations.

Price Range: Free to $69 per user, per month (21-day free trial)

Overall Rating

4.3

Core Features

4.2

Cost

4.7

Ease of Use

4.3

Customization

4.0

Integration

4.3

Customer Support

3.9

Pros

Very simple interface
Allows multiple pipelines
AI-powered sales tools

Cons

Reporting tools can be clunky
Limited marketing features
User support could be better

Freshsales is our top-rated CRM that helps improve lead nurturing by tracking and engaging leads throughout the sales pipeline. Automate and personalize your lead outreach via email, phone calls, and SMS, or run targeted campaigns for idle leads with its sales sequence feature. Set up time-based automations to send promotion emails on specific days or customize your nurturing efforts based on your leads’ activities and interactions with your website via Freddy AI.

While Freshsales has powerful workflow automations, it lacks the advanced marketing features that other CRMs offer. If having a free plan with robust sales and marketing tools is important for your team, look into Zoho CRM.

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
Integration with Freshworks’ free marketing and service platform tiers
Access to Freshworks Marketplace

Freshsales Key Features

Automation-Driven Lead Capture: Eliminate clunky, manual lead nurturing cadences.
Sales Sequences: Run and automate sequences of sales actions for a target audience.
Profile Enrichment: Automatically enrich your leads with social and publicly listed info.
Auto-Assigning Leads: Ensure your leads are directed to the right sales rep or team.

HubSpot CRM: Best Free Option With Upgrades

Offers free sales and marketing tools to nurture leads with the ability to upgrade.

Price Range: Free to $1,200+ per month (Sales Hub)

Overall Rating

4.1

Core Features

4.4

Cost

3.3

Ease of Use

3.6

Customization

4.5

Integration

5.0

Customer Support

3.9

Pros

Sales & marketing tools
Powerful automation
Easy lead generation

Cons

Limited reporting features
Customization can be challenging
Upgrades tend to be expensive

HubSpot CRM is our best free CRM offering marketing and sales software with robust contact management features. Qualify leads through calls, emails, and live chat, and set up chatbots to automatically ask website visitors discovery questions. Track which channels drive the highest engagement with built-in analytics so you can optimize pages, offers, ads, and traffic sources. Upgrade to paid tiers for advanced tools like predictive lead scoring and automatic lead rotation.

Even though HubSpot’s free plan is flush with sales and marketing tools, upgrading to higher tiers can be expensive, and you’ll need to pay more for additional users. For a robust free version with affordable paid tiers, try Zoho CRM, which won for features and tied for pricing.

HubSpot CRM Pricing

Free Version: Supports unlimited users
Sales Hub Starter: $18 per month for 2 users
Sales Hub Professional: $450 per month for 5 users
Sales Hub Enterprise: $1,200 per month for 10 users
Additional users can be purchased for extra
Integration with HubSpot's free marketing, service, and operations platform tiers
Access to HubSpot App Marketplace

HubSpot CRM Key Features

Sales Qualified Leads: Ensures that leads are qualified before moving to the pipeline.
Pinpoint Lead Tracking: Monitor your leads by identifying the most engaged prospects.
Lead Targeted Campaigns: Target and address a prospective customer’s pain points.
Email Marketing: Send bulk and optimized emails for different platforms and devices.

EngageBay: Best for User Support

Provides reliable after-sales guidance via 24/5 live reps, plus phone and email support.

Price Range: Free to $110.39 per user, per month

Overall Rating

4.0

Core Features

4.2

Cost

3.6

Ease of Use

4.1

Customization

3.7

Integration

4.2

Customer Support

4.3

Pros

Robust all-in-one free plan
Discount for 2-year subscription
Flush with sales & marketing tools

Cons

Customization can be difficult
Automation requires upgrade
Not all tiers include phone support

EngageBay is all-in-one software for sales, marketing, and service that offers stellar customer support for salespeople and teams. It has great reviews from real users for having a responsive support team that you can talk to via 24/5 live chat, email, and phone. It also provides onboarding assistance to new users and has a comprehensive knowledge base with detailed documentation, tutorials, and FAQs so you can troubleshoot common issues.

While EngageBay has support solutions, you need to upgrade to more expensive tiers to get the best of its automation tools. If you’re looking for a CRM with robust sales at a lower price point, consider Freshsales.

EngageBay Pricing

All-in-One Free Version: Supports up to 15 users
All-in-One Basic: $13.79 per user, per month
All-in-One Growth: $59.79 per user, per month
All-in-One Pro: $110.39 per user, per month

EngageBay Key Features

Built-in Social Suite: Engage with your leads via Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Pop-Ups & Form Builders: Create email capture forms for inbound lead generation.
Marketing Automation: Automated text message and email marketing for nurturing.
Sales Pipeline Features: Advanced sales functionality like call records and reporting.

monday sales CRM: Best for a Visual Pipeline

Provides easy-to-use lead nurturing tools and a color-coded sales pipeline.

Price Range: $10 to $24+ per user, per month (14-day free trial)

Overall Rating

3.9

Core Features

3.6

Cost

3.4

Ease of Use

4.3

Customization

4.4

Integration

4.1

Customer Support

4.2

Pros

Easy to use & implement
Unlimited customizable pipelines
Robust project management tools

Cons

Limited marketing features
Expensive plans for larger teams
No built-in AI sales assistant

monday sales CRM is easy-to-use and customizable software offered by monday.com. It features unlimited custom pipelines, which you can manage simultaneously to visually track the leads in your sales process. Edit deal stages and add multiple columns using its colorful kanban-style boards, and share them with your team. You can use its sales pipeline templates to forecast revenue, generate insights, and learn where to focus your lead nurturing efforts.

While monday sales CRM has highly visual pipelines, it lacks AI-powered features for robust automation and customization. For user-friendly software packed with AI tools, check out Freshsales, which offers Freddy AI.

monday sales CRM Pricing

Basic CRM: $10 per user, per month
Standard CRM: $14 per user, per month
Pro CRM: $24 per user, per month
Enterprise: Contact for quote
Free Trial: 14 days
Access to app marketplace

monday sales CRM Key Features

Unlimited Pipelines: Customize and manage multiple pipelines to fit your sales cycle.
Visual Boards: Use color-coded kanban boards to manage your lead nurturing efforts.
Lead Management Template: Store your leads and contacts using ready-made guides.
Customizable Dashboards: Gain insights into your pipeline and forecasting in real time.

ActiveCampaign: Best for Auto-Email Nurturing

Helps you launch robust drip campaigns with top-of-the line marketing tools for email nurturing.

Price Range: $29 per user, per month to $149+ for 5+ users (14-day trial)

Overall Rating

3.8

Core Features

4.2

Cost

3.4

Ease of Use

3.6

Customization

3.0

Integration

4.8

Customer Support

4.0

Pros

Robust email marketing
Built-in A/B testing tool
Strong email analytics

Cons

Limited custom dashboards
Can get pricey with more contacts
UI can be challenging for new users

ActiveCampaign is a lead nurturing email marketing software with marketing automation in one interface. Businesses can run highly effective, targeted email campaigns using templates and segmentation, which trigger automated, personalized emails to nurture leads. The platform also comes with built-in A/B testing so users can see what’s working in their campaigns, so ActiveCampaign is great for companies that nurture their leads largely through email.

While ActiveCampaign is a great automation platform and offers basic CRM functionality, it lacks the advanced features that true CRMs have. If your team needs a fully featured option, try Zoho CRM, which is one of our top email marketing software.

ActiveCampaign Pricing

Marketing Lite: $29 per month for 1 user
Marketing Plus: $49 per month for 3 users
Marketing Professional: $149 for 5 users
Marketing Enterprise: Contact for quote for 10 users
Free Trial: 14 days
Additional contacts can be purchased for extra

ActiveCampaign Key Features

Drag-and-Drop Email Builder: Create targeted content using flexible email templates.
Landing Page & Form Creation: Use pre-designed or custom templates and forms.
Email Marketing Automation: Design and send targeted email nurturing campaigns.
Custom Email Marketing: Optimize your email nurturing efforts with insights reports.

Top 4 Lead Nurturing Software Features

The top CRMs for lead nurturing offer these core features:

Store, organize, and track your leads’ information in a centralized location so you and your sales team can access it anytime.

How We Evaluated the Best Lead Nurturing Software

In our evaluation, we first identified the six weighted categories important to lead nurturing software and assigned each category key subcriteria. From there, we assigned each subcriteria a score out of five and summed them all together to give each option an overall score, including the identification of use cases. Take a look at our evaluation criteria below:

Evaluation Criteria

We first looked at each lead nurturing software’s core features, such as lead management, activity tracking, and CRM analytics, followed by their cost. Next, we looked into ease of use, customization, and third-party integrations. Customer support rounded out our scoring to ensure users have the information and help they need.

Methodology weights

Core Features 25%

Cost 20%

Ease of Use 15%

Customization 15%

Integration 15%

Customer Support 10%

Bottom Line: Best Lead Nurturing Software

Lead nurturing is essentially customer relationship management, but businesses can’t afford to waste time focusing on the wrong leads. Lead nurturing software zeroes in on the right leads, then enables teams to engage their audience with tailored lead-to-customer journeys. The top six lead nurturing software help you drive potential customers through the sales funnel. To know more about converting leads into customers, read our article on lead nurturing.

Eze Onukwube

Eze is a New Orleans-based writer, business software expert, and technologist holding a Master's Degree in communications. Apart from writing comparison guides, his multifaceted writing includes topics as wide-ranging as DevOps, cybersecurity, and more. He is a sports enthusiast who once considered a career in professional sports but says his talents never quite matched his ambitions.

6 Best Lead Nurturing Software for Sales & Marketing 2023

Top 4 Lead Nurturing Software Features

How We Evaluated the Best Lead Nurturing Software

Evaluation Criteria

Bottom Line: Best Lead Nurturing Software

Eze Onukwube

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