7 Best Collaborative CRM Software for 2023

Looking for the best collaborative CRM software for 2024? Check out our list of the top seven CRM solutions for teams of all sizes.

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Collaborative CRMs are software that help multiple departments at your company easily organize and share lead and customer data through specialized communication and collaboration features. The top collaborative CRMs offer tools for communication and document management as well as centralized data, activity tracking, and cross-platform compatibility. To help you choose the best CRM for you, we've evaluated quality options and their use cases:

The top seven collaborative CRM solutions include:

  • Freshsales: Best overall CRM for pricing, features, and support (free starting price)
  • Zoho CRM: Best CRM option for cross-functional collaboration (free starting price)
  • monday sales CRM: Best CRM software for an intuitive interface (14-day free trial)
  • Pipedrive: Best for shared sales pipeline filters and notifications (14-day free trial)
  • Bitrix24: Best collaborative software option for remote teams (free starting price)
  • Salesforce: Best option for internal and external collaboration (30-day free trial)
  • HubSpot CRM: Best free CRM option with premium upgrades (free starting price)

Our overall winner for the best collaborative CRM was Freshsales, which took first place in the customer support category and also tied in the features and pricing categories. However, all options on our list are quality CRMs. Continue reading to learn more about each option’s use case, pricing structure, and key features. Otherwise, jump down to see our scoring logic.

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

Freshsales: Best Overall Collaborative CRM

Offers multiple views and task management tools for an affordable monthly price.

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

Overall Rating star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Core Features star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Cost star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Ease of Use star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Advanced Features star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Customization star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Customer Support star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full

Pros:

  • Multiple pipeline views
  • Paid tiers include AI
  • Includes 3 free users

Cons:

  • Less useful for marketing
  • Few native integrations
  • No free sales forecasting

Freshsales is a sales-heavy CRM that helps you collaborate with your team via task management tools and multiple modern views offered in cost-effective tiers. Its free plan allows you to assign tasks, leads, and project deadlines to different reps and track their individual performance. See the current status of reps’ deals via timeline, funnel, classic, or compact view, as well as dig deeper into your teams’ recent interactions with a detailed activity timeline.

Freshsales is a solid tool to collaborate with your sales team and has earned our rating as the best overall CRM, but it's often not as great of a choice for those needing robust sales and marketing tools and collaboration. If this sounds like you, check out Zoho CRM instead.

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

  • Visual Pipelines: Monitor all active or stagnant deals in the view type of your choice.
  • Activity Timeline: View chronological interactions between leads and your company.
  • Summary & Details Sections: Find info of leads, contacts, or deals across touchpoints.
  • Highlight Cards: Provide actionable team insights for sales activities and sequences.

collaborative crm freshsales

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Zoho CRM: Best for Cross-Functional Collaboration

Unifies your sales, marketing, and service teams across multiple collaboration channels.

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

Overall Rating star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Core Features star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Cost star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Ease of Use star-fullstar-fullstar-full star-full Advanced Features star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Customization star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Customer Support star-fullstar-full star-fullstar-full

Pros:

  • Highly customizable platform
  • Wealth of advanced features
  • Multichannel marketing tools

Cons:

  • UI can be challenging to learn
  • Customer support often slow
  • Users can experience glitches

Zoho CRM is a sales and marketing platform that helps different teams centralize communication with collaborative tools. Request information from a coworker through one-on-one chat or post announcements and polls via your company-wide feed. Teams from various departments can also edit documents together in real time and coordinate how they want to set up workflows such as nurturing leads or closing deals with the journey builder.

Zoho CRM is a solid option for company collaboration, but its user interface could improve. If you’re looking for a cleaner, more intuitive platform with cross-functional collaboration, look into monday sales CRM, which won in the ease of use category and offers this feature.

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

  • Native Calendar: See your colleague’s availability and share events with your team.
  • Chat and Feeds: Send messages to one person, a group of people, or the company.
  • Notes & Tags: Add info or a file to a deal and tag a sales rep to keep them in the loop.
  • Document Library: Upload documents that your team can access or edit in real time.

Zoho CRM collaborative crm

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monday sales CRM: Best for an Intuitive Interface

Provides a user-friendly platform for reps to work together on deals and projects.

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

Overall Rating star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Core Features star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Cost star-fullstar-fullstar-full star-full Ease of Use star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Advanced Features star-fullstar-fullstar-full star-full Customization star-fullstar-fullstar-full star-full Customer Support star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full

Pros:

  • Simple & clean interface
  • Unlimited custom pipelines
  • Colorful kanban boards

Cons:

  • No free-for-life version
  • Missing marketing tools
  • Lacking live user support

monday sales CRM is a highly visual CRM platform with collaboration tools and colorful boards that are simple to set up and use. Co-edit and share comments in real time with monday workdocs and easily embed dashboards and videos directly into the document with its drag-and-drop tool. Organize your deals or projects on kanban boards that allow you to tag assigned reps, color-code status, attach files, and set deadlines for each task or milestone.

Although monday sales CRM provides a clean and intuitive interface, it doesn’t offer a free version, which solopreneurs and small teams often need. For a user-friendly CRM with a free plan, try Freshsales, which ranks high in the ease of use category and offers visual pipelines.

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

  • Custom Pipelines: Visualize touchpoints with leads from awareness to deal closing.
  • Navigation Widget: Hover around kanbans, columns, and dashboards with this tool.
  • Time Tracking: Log and monitor how much time you spend on each task or project.
  • Sales Automation: Set up actions or triggers for tasks, deals, and project milestones.

collaborative crm monday sales crm

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Pipedrive: Best for Shared Pipeline Tools

Offers filters and notifications that help you stay updated within your team's shared pipeline.

Price Range: $14.90 to $99 per user, per month (14-day trial)

Overall Rating star-fullstar-fullstar-full star-full Core Features star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Cost star-fullstar-fullstar-full star-full Ease of Use star-fullstar-fullstar-full star-full Advanced Features star-fullstar-fullstar-full star-full Customization star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Customer Support star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full

Pros:

  • Affordable paid tiers
  • Deal-based workflows
  • Intuitive user interface

Cons:

  • No free-for-life plan offered
  • Reporting lacks filter features
  • Lack of native marketing tools

Pipedrive is an easy-to-use sales CRM offering advanced filters and notifications that turn your kanban-style pipeline into a strong collaboration tool. You can filter your team's pipeline by sales rep, deal status or stage, activity, and more, as well as save filter settings for the whole team — then click a deal to see the latest or planned activity and help the deal owner if needed. Multiple reps working on a deal can also set up email notifications for new activity or direct mentions.

While Pipedrive is a great tool to collaborate with your sales team on your shared pipeline, the only way to use the platform is to pay a monthly fee. If you'd prefer a free sales tool that still offers solid pipeline and collaboration features, check out Freshsales.

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: $99.00 per user, per month
  • Free Trial: 14 days
  • Pay for sales and marketing add-ons like Projects or Smart Docs

Pipedrive Key Features

  • Unlimited Pipelines: Customize the kanban-style drag-and-drop pipelines you need.
  • Mentions and Comments: Tag a sales rep to ask or tell them about new deal activity.
  • Email and Calendar Sync: Link with Gmail, Outlook, or iCloud, including group emails.
  • A La Carte Upgrades: Choose from five key add-ons for additional CRM functionality.

Pipedrive collaborative crm

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Bitrix24: Best for Remote Teams

Allows teams that work from home, office, or on the go to easily collaborate online.

Price Range: Free to $399 per month (15- to 30-day free trial)

Overall Rating star-fullstar-fullstar-full star-full Core Features star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Cost star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Ease of Use star-fullstar-full star-fullstar-full Advanced Features star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Customization star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Customer Support star-fullstar-fullstar-full star-full

Pros:

  • Supports unlimited free users
  • Built-in video conferencing
  • Internal & external workgroups

Cons:

  • Interface can be complicated
  • Automation requires upgrade
  • Limited mobile functionality

Bitrix24 is an online workspace that offers teams that work remotely digital tools for easier collaboration and communication. Reps can clock in and out with its worktime feature, and administrators can track their working hours and daily reports in return. Teams can also invite colleagues or external stakeholders for HD video conferencing and run remote sales cycles such as issuing invoices and receiving payments directly from the CRM via the Bitrix24 Store.

Although Bitrix24 is great for online collaboration, it has limited mobile application features, which might affect reps on the go. If you need a CRM with an accessible online workspace and a robust mobile app, check out Zoho CRM, which is one of our best mobile CRMs.

Bitrix24 Pricing

  • Free Version: Supports unlimited users
  • Basic: $49 per user, per month for 5 users
  • Standard: $99 per user, per month for 50 users
  • Professional: $199 per user, per month for 100 users
  • Ultimate: $399 per user, per month for 250 users
  • Free Trial: 15 to 30 days
  • Access to Bitrix24.Market

Bitrix24 Key Features

  • Unlimited Tasks & Projects: Create as many tasks, subtasks, or projects as you need.
  • Company Chat: Communicate and share files with colleagues via private or public chat.
  • Knowledge Sharing: Build your company’s own knowledge base or multimedia center.
  • Online Time Clock: Track your working hours, schedules, tasks, daily reports, and more.

collaborative crm bitrix24

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Salesforce: Best for Internal & External Collaboration

Offers Chatter, a social networking tool to collaborate with your company, vendors, and clients.

Price Range: $25 to $500 per user, per month (30-day trial)

Overall Rating star-fullstar-fullstar-full star-full Core Features star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Cost star-fullstar-full star-fullstar-full Ease of Use star-fullstar-fullstar-full star-full Advanced Features star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Customization star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Customer Support star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full

Pros:

  • Chatter feature fully available
  • Advanced & AI sales tools
  • Highly customizable pipelines

Cons:

  • Can be a glitchy platform
  • Pricing can get expensive
  • UI takes getting used to

Salesforce Sales Cloud is a fully customizable CRM with robust collaboration tools that help you work with your team, other departments, and even vendors and customers. Leverage Chatter, a real-time enterprise social network, to connect external data to internal systems so you can easily update sales opportunities, approve project funds, and launch campaigns. Chatter is also mobile-ready, so you can keep track of discussions and developments within the mobile app.

Although Salesforce comes with feature-rich tiers, its pricing is still more expensive than other CRM platforms. If you're looking for a reasonably priced collaborative CRM that offers the same features as Chatter, consider using Zoho CRM.

Salesforce Sales Cloud Pricing

  • Starter: $25 per user, per month
  • Professional: $80 per user, per month
  • Enterprise: $165 per user, per month
  • Unlimited: $330 per user, per month
  • Unlimited+: $500 per user, per month
  • Free Trial: 30 days
  • Access to Salesforce AppExchange

Salesforce Sales Cloud Key Features

  • Chatter: Collaborate internally and externally via Salesforce's social network platform.
  • Salesforce Files: Work together on key documents, videos, and presentations for deals.
  • Topic Pages: Automatically collect the most recent content from Chatter discussions.
  • Email Integrations: Sync with Outlook or Gmail to send emails from within your CRM.

Salesforce Essentials collaborative crm

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HubSpot CRM: Best Free Collaborative CRM

Includes key collaboration tools in its free tier, with additional functionality offered in upgrades.

Price Range: Free to $1,500+ per month (Sales Hub)

Overall Rating star-fullstar-fullstar-full star-full Core Features star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Cost star-fullstar-full star-fullstar-full Ease of Use star-fullstar-fullstar-full star-full Advanced Features star-fullstar-fullstar-full star-full Customization star-fullstar-fullstar-fullstar-full Customer Support star-fullstar-fullstar-full star-full

Pros:

  • Highly useful free version
  • Auto-logs sales activities
  • Robust contact management

Cons:

  • Clunky reporting tools
  • Upgrades get expensive
  • No free team assignment

HubSpot CRM is a sales, marketing, and service CRM offering robust team collaboration features. In the free tier, you'll receive crucial tools like team email, shared inbox, Slack integration, and reporting dashboards that your entire team can access. Upgrade to Sales Hub for advanced collaboration functionality like the ability to assign teams to a deal and to create sales automations to notify your organization when a deal enters a new pipeline stage.

HubSpot's free tools make it the best free CRM, but when you upgrade for more functionality, you might end up paying for users that you don't need. To start with a free plan and upgrade at a per-user cost, take a look at Freshsales for sales only or Zoho CRM for sales and marketing.

HubSpot CRM Pricing

  • Free Version: Supports up to 2,500 users
  • Sales Hub Starter: $18 per month for 2 users
  • Sales Hub Professional: $450 per month for 5 users
  • Sales Hub Enterprise: $1,500 per month for 10 users
  • Additional users can be purchased for extra
  • Integration with HubSpot's free marketing, service, and operation platform tiers
  • Access to HubSpot App Marketplace

HubSpot CRM Key Features

  • Team Email: Link team email addresses to a shared inbox for easier collaboration.
  • Knowledge Base: Access free online courses, video tutorials, and how-to guides.
  • Automation: In Starter, auto-create tasks and notifications when deals progress.
  • Teams: In Professional, organize sales reps into teams to collaborate on deals.

HubSpot CRM collaborative crm

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Top 5 Collaborative CRM Features

The key features below are included in the top collaborative CRMs:

Centralized Data

Activity Tracking

Communication Tools

Document Management

Cross-Platform Compatibility

By making customer data and deal statuses readily available for all employees to view and keep updated, your company can come off as highly organized to your leads and clients and communicate with them effectively.

When you log calls, emails, and other interactions with leads and current customers, it's easier for your coworkers to take over and understand what their experience has been so far, then seamlessly continue their interaction or journey.

Tools such as one-on-one chat, direct mentions or tags, or a company-wide network provide ways for your team to quickly message each other and streamline all communication.

Tools to help you create and file key documents can help your team edit and share proposals, contracts, invoices, and anything else that multiple employees in the company would benefit from accessing.

Because many sales reps are often on the road, having a CRM that can be accessed from desktop, mobile, or tablet is crucial so everyone can collaborate in real time.

How We Evaluated the Best Collaborative CRM Software

In our evaluation, we used six key criteria consisting of more specific subcriteria to review some of the biggest and most popular collaborative CRM software. After assigning a score out of five for each criteria, we added up the total scores to determine the overall winner. The CRMs that scored the highest made our list, then we used our research to assign a primary use case to each according to what it does best.

Evaluation Criteria

We gave the most consideration to core features and pricing because the top options should offer a solid set of standard CRM tools and collaborative features across reasonably priced plans. We then looked into ease of use so the entire team could utilize them, followed by advanced features and customization. Finally, we assessed each CRM’s user support solutions.

Core Features:
25%
Cost:
20%
Ease of Use:
20%
Advanced Features:
15%
Customization:
10%
Customer Support:
10%

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What Is Collaborative CRM & How Does It Differ From Traditional CRM Software?

A collaborative CRM helps reps and teams manage communication and collaboration across multiple departments that interact with the same customers and share data. Traditional CRMs focus heavily on client-facing processes with the goal of improving customer relationships and driving revenue, but collaborative CRMs are integral for teams to manage nurturing processes together, allow cross-functional communication, and easily collect collateral and documents.

How Can I Determine Which Collaborative CRM Software Is the Most Suitable for My Business’s Collaborative Needs?

Collaborative CRMs are ideal for team-based environments where multiple teams or departments interact. Evaluate the different reps, teams, and even external stakeholders you’re working with to identify which tools would actually help you to work together more effectively. Also assess the resources available to you, including your budget and your team’s technical know-how, so you can narrow down a list of options that are affordable and easy to use.

Are There Industry-Specific Collaborative CRM Solutions Available for Businesses With Unique Needs?

Collaboration is vital in every business with teams working together, but industry-specific companies need a suite of niche features so they can be more effective in their field. While most software offers standard CRM functions, industry-specific solutions provide distinct tools such as asset management for creatives, progress trackers for construction, a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-compliant platform for healthcare, and more.

Bottom Line: Best Collaborative CRM Software

Whether you’re empowering internal sales and marketing teams or building partnerships with vendors and stakeholders, the best collaborative CRMs give you tools to communicate and share key info. There are plenty of worthy CRMs available that offer conventional solutions for the typical business model or customized approaches for industry-specific companies. For more on how collaborative CRMs stack up against other types, check out our guide on the four types of CRMs.

This article was written by J.R. Johnivan and updated by Kezia Jungco.

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