In our independent editorial review of retail CRM solutions, learn about the top options along with their primary use cases.
Sales pipeline software are CRMs offering visual, customizable pipelines that help salespeople manage leads, opportunities, and customer relationships throughout the sales process. The top pipeline software also provide sales forecasting and analytics tools, basic marketing functionality, workflow automation, and more. To help you choose the right one, we’ve developed our list of the best pipeline software available, including an overall winner.
Here are the six best pipeline software for sellers and teams:
While several sales pipeline software scored highly in one category or another, we found that the overall best option is Zoho CRM, scoring the highest for its core features and level of customization and tying for cost and integrations. Check out how each software scored across all six categories below, including a summary of features, pricing plans, and primary use cases. To see how we evaluated each option, jump down to our explanation.
Note: All per-user prices are with a one-year commitment unless noted.
The best sales pipeline software offer features such as:
Sales pipelines are visual representations of your sales process stages and where each lead is within them. Pipeline management tools help sales reps track these stages and identify bottlenecks and opportunities to close more deals.
Sales reps can qualify, analyze, and nurture leads using various strategies — for instance, they can use web forms to capture leads from landing pages, prioritize the ones most likely to close, then engage with them via email, phone, and more, tracking their activity along the way.
With this feature, sales reps can store and organize lead and customer data from different channels into a centralized location. Reps can also see a complete picture of a contact’s interactions, which helps them to meet the exact needs of their leads and prospects.
Sales automation tools help teams manage repetitive tasks that are essential to the sales process, such as sending follow-up emails, nurturing leads, and tracking opportunities. By setting up triggers or sequences, teams can automate manual tasks and focus more on increasing sales or refining sales strategies.
This feature helps sales teams predict future deals using historical data, current pipeline status, and external data sources. It enables teams to track individual sales progress and make informed decisions to improve sales strategies and meet their revenue goals.
To determine the best CRM software for salespeople needing to track their pipelines, we divided our scoring into six major categories, each of which included several weighted subcriteria. We then assigned scores for each subcriteria, which totaled an overall score out of five, and the sales pipeline software scoring the highest was identified as our winner. Finally, we determined a primary use case for each option that scored highly enough to make it onto our list.
The ability to view your sales pipeline will change the way you do business. It’s an important tool because it allows you to use data to determine how well your sales process is performing. And because a visual pipeline tracks sales activities, you can see which tasks are the most effective in getting a deal to close. Many CRMs include them as part of their suite of CRM features, but our list will help you find the one that will fit your needs and sales practices.