Check out our independent editorial review of the best crm software for sales professionals, including use cases for each option.
Zoho CRM is great for lead nurturing and marketing and has a free-for-life version. But the downside is that the most useful features are in the paid tiers, and it’s not the best for uploading data. So it’s worth a look at what other CRMs are available that offer calendar and email syncing, mobile apps, and other integrations. We examined similar CRMs to determine the seven best alternatives, including an overall winner, if Zoho isn’t your team’s best fit.
Here are the best Zoho CRM alternatives for salespeople:
Zoho is a good CRM option with its large catalog of tools and customization options. But for some companies, all of Zoho’s functionalities aren’t needed — especially across departments — and are often difficult to configure. Add a big learning curve, and now you’re wondering what else is available. To help, we scored alternatives based on integrations, affordability, advanced features offered, and customer support.
Per-user pricing is based on an annual commitment unless otherwise noted.
As we tallied the results, a clear winner emerged across all criteria, scoring the best in several categories. That CRM was HubSpot, which scored the highest for general features and tied with several others in advanced features and ease of use. Read on for how all the evaluated CRMs fared as alternatives to Zoho CRM.
HubSpot is the best free sales tool to manage pipeline activity, store data, and log tasks, with options to unlock capabilities.
Price Range: Free to $1,200 per month (Sales Hub)
Budget-friendly HubSpot CRM offers powerful ways to track a prospect from first touch to paying customer. The free plan helps sales reps with its ease of use and clean interface. Add-on features like custom reports and sales forecasting are available with Sales Hub, which integrates with other hubs (e.g., Marketing, Service) for additional fees. HubSpot works well for small businesses that need a free option with the opportunity to upgrade in the future.
Pipedrive allows sales reps to see exactly where their prospects are in the pipeline for better targeted outreach.
Price Range: $12.50 to $49.90 per user, per month (14-day free trial)
Pipedrive is an intuitive CRM offering a highly visual sales pipeline with drag-and-drop functionality. It also syncs calls, appointments, and emails across devices and allows reps to see where their prospects sit in the sales funnel from anywhere. This makes it a great option for teams needing a Zoho alternative with an easy-to-use sales pipeline tool.
Freshsales specializes in high engagement with customers through AI and customer service automations.
Price Range: Free to $69 per user, per month (21-day free trial)
Freshsales provides straightforward management software for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Its artificial intelligence sales assistant analyzes past sales data, activity, and engagement for forecasting and insight. The insights are helpful in decision-making and for closing deals. And when the pipeline is full of pending deals, this intel is invaluable for prioritizing. SMBs will like the visuals of deal statuses for more focused engagement.
Insightly CRM delivers visual customer management software to streamline complex sales and marketing projects.
Price Range: Free to $99 per user, per month
Insightly specializes in increasing productivity with project management tools accessible through its popular interface. Project management allows salespeople to more easily guide the sales process through the most complex business deals. Everyone involved in the deal has at-a-glance information on tasks and collaboration so the deal stays on track. Having built-in project management tools also helps SMBs scale faster and more efficiently.
Less Annoying CRM aims for simplicity, offering an all-in-one app with single-tier pricing that includes all features needed.
Price Range: $15 per user, per month (30-day free trial)
Less Annoying CRM is a straightforward software solution with simple pricing and essential tools like contact management, lead and pipeline management, calendar and task management, and mobile access. It’s affordable and flexible, and it offers high-value features. Contacts can easily be uploaded from spreadsheets or Google Sheets, so small teams and bootstrappers can get set up fast with zero hassle.
Salesforce Essentials is the small business solution that brings the power of Salesforce to smaller teams in an easy-to-use app.
Price Range: $25 per user, per month (14-day free trial)
The same intuitive interface and technology stack that makes Salesforce a strong product is available in Salesforce Essentials. This scaled-down version also offers helpful mobile apps and effective contact management through calendar and email integrations. Salesforce Essentials provides smaller businesses, sales teams, or entrepreneurs access to powerful features once reserved for big players.
Copper CRM is designed for companies that rely on Google Workspace (e.g., Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Calendar).
Price Range: $25 to $119 per user, per month (14-day free trial)
Copper CRM is an easy-to-use solution good for SMBs to manage leads and relationships via Google. Copper seamlessly integrates with Google Workspace tools. In Gmail, it logs emails and creates reminders for follow-ups so you’ll never lose track of contacts or deals. It also prepopulates contact data, making adding new leads simple. Companies already working with Google apps will find Copper easy to launch and integrate into their sales efforts.
While many consider Zoho to be the best CRM software available, it won’t tick every box for every organization. Or, you may not want to pay for an upgraded tier to unlock only another feature or two. Zoho will also cost you in time to customize it the way you need it. Fortunately, there are many solid CRMs in the market, all offering an array of features at different price points. Our list of the best alternatives should help you find a solution to fit your exact needs.
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