CRM Software: A Deep Dive into the Top 10 Players
Customer relationship management (CRM) software is a tool that helps salespeople and businesses manage interactions with prospects and customers. After testing 23 CRM platforms, our experts ranked Zoho CRM as the best CRM software, thanks to its robust features and exceptional value.
We came to this conclusion by analyzing 70 data points spanning multiple categories, including pricing, features and customer support. Below, you can see how 14 other platforms ranked, learn how to pick the best CRM platform for you and discover the benefits of using CRM software.
Table of Contents
Our Top Picks
The Best CRM Software of 2024
- Zoho CRM: Best for Features and Value
- Salesforce CRM: Best for Reporting and Analytics
- monday.com: Best for Project Management and Sales
- Apptivo: Best for a Suite of Business Apps
- Agile CRM: Best Free CRM
- HubSpot: Best CRM for Sales, Marketing and Service
- Bitrix24: Best for Large Teams
- HoneyBook: Best for Service Providers
- Nimble CRM: Best for Social Media Integrations
- Salesmate: Best for Built-In Calling and Text
- Zendesk Sell: Best CRM With Help Desk Integrations
- Pipedrive: Best for à la Carte Add-Ons
- Freshsales: Best for AI-Powered Sales Features
- Insightly: Best for Traveling Salespeople
Comparison Chart
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How Do We Test
Others We Liked
What To Consider
Most Frequently Asked Questions
What Is CRM Software?
CRM software is a sales pipeline and customer relationship tool that salespeople and businesses use to manage interactions with leads, prospects and customers. CRM software allows you to create a visual sales pipeline broken down by stages that mirror your overall sales process. It then offers features to help track leads and opportunities as they move through each stage of your sales pipeline toward deal close.
Start by creating a sales pipeline with individual pipeline stages. From there, set up actions or benchmarks that lead must meet to move from one stage to the next. Then, begin generating leads through inbound or outbound methods and track those leads through each stage of your sales process using your CRM. Some CRM tools even offer account management features to help you manage the post-sale customer relationship once a deal is closed.
In addition to the core sales pipeline management features mentioned, the top CRM software also include features such as reporting dashboards, workflow automations, collaboration tools, lead qualification, document management with e-sign capabilities, built-in telephony and industry functionality for niche-specific use cases. The right CRM software for you will depend on your specific sales process and the unique needs of your business.
Benefits of CRM Software
There are many benefits of CRM software related to the ongoing management of customer relationships as leads and prospects move through your sales pipeline. The top CRM software benefits include the following:
- Manage your overall sales pipeline: The number one benefit of CRM software is that it helps you manage your sales process with a visual pipeline broken down into specific stages. At each stage, leads must take a specific action or meet specific criteria in order to move to the next stage.
- Improve customer relationships: CRM software helps manage your overall customer relationships from lead generation to deal-close and beyond.
- Improve your customer service: Some CRM software providers offer account management features to help you or your team manage the post-sale customer relationship.
- Automate repetitive sales and marketing tasks: All of the top CRM software options include some level of workflow automation and project management capabilities. For example, you can set up automation triggers to send a prospecting email to a lead based on defined behaviors.
- Collaborate with team members: Most CRM providers help salespeople collaborate within their teams as well as help the sales and marketing teams collaborate with each other on lead generation and lead nurturing.
- Manage your marketing campaigns: There are some marketing CRM software available that can manage organic and paid marketing campaigns to help you better generate good-fit leads.
- Qualify good-fit leads: Lead scoring and lead qualification features are common amongst leading CRM tools, helping you automatically rate leads based on predefined criteria to qualify the best leads as prospects with a high likelihood of becoming a customer.
- Track key reporting metrics: Use pre-built reporting templates or create customizable reporting dashboards that track key performance indicators across individual salespeople as well as the overall team.
- Manage overall employee productivity: Track employee sales activity such as the number of calls made over a defined period of time to ensure salespeople are staying on task.
- Create and track important documents: Leverage document templates or create your own documents such as proposals and contracts. Some CRM software even includes e-signature functionality so you can get deals done more quickly and track signed documents directly from your CRM.
The overall benefits of CRM software are numerous and ultimately depend on the features included with your chosen CRM provider. Let’s now take a look at how to choose the best CRM option for you so you can take full advantage of these benefits.
How To Choose the Best CRM Software
The best CRM software includes all the core sales pipeline management features you’d expect as well as key advanced features for a reasonable price. When choosing the right CRM provider for your specific needs, make sure you not only assess essential, advanced and industry-relevant features but also pricing, ease of use and customer support. Let’s now take a look at how to choose the best CRM software for you:
Essential Features
Essential features are core CRM features that all providers offer. When choosing your CRM software, make sure that it includes the following as a baseline:
- Contact management: All CRM software should help you manage your sales and marketing contacts with basic contact records and customizable contact fields.
- Pipeline management: Visual sales pipelines with individual pipeline stages that mirror your specific sales process are core to all CRM software.
- Customizable dashboards: Your CRM tool should offer dashboards with pre-built templates and the ability to customize your dashboard layout and content to fit your unique needs.
- Reporting and analytics tools: All CRM providers include some level of reporting and analytics tools. Some offer basic reporting with report templates, while others offer customizable reporting dashboards that let you track your key performance indicators.
- Document management library: Your CRM should include the ability to manage important documents such as proposals. Some even offer e-signature capabilities to track and manage contracts from directly within your CRM.
- Third-party integrations: Does your CRM software include third-party integrations with important tools such as email applications including Outlook or Gmail?
- VoIP or mobile telephony: Many of the leading CRM systems offer mobile or VoIP telephony systems so you can make and receive business calls directly from within the platform. Some will also include features such as auto dialing and call recording.
- Workflow automation: Top CRM software includes workflow features that help you automate repetitive tasks and manage ongoing projects. These workflow automation are offered both natively and through third-party integrations.
- Supports international businesses: If you have a business that deals in international currency, many CRM providers can help manage multiple currencies.
Advanced Features
In addition to the core CRM features offered by most providers, it’s also important to assess available advanced features to ensure that your chosen CRM tool meets your specific needs, such as the following:
- Team collaboration: Some CRM software excels at collaboration between team members. This includes both team members within the sales team as well as the collaboration between the sales and marketing teams.
- Generate quotes and estimates: Advanced CRMs also give you the ability to generate quotes and estimates based on things such as price books and more. This is especially useful if you offer multiple products or custom solutions.
- Sales territory management: If your sales team is assigned to specific territories, some CRM software can help with sales territory management.
- Client portals: These portals are secure areas within your CRM where a customer or agent can log in to their account and pay bills, see upcoming appointments, track important documents and more. This is particularly useful for businesses with account management needs.
- Account and client management: In addition to client portals, some CRM providers offer advanced account management features to help with ongoing client management.
- Sales forecasting projections: CRMs with advanced reporting features allow you to make detailed sales forecasts based on real data tracked within your CRM platform.
- Lead scoring: Some CRM software includes lead qualification features such as lead scoring that allow you to automatically score inbound or outbound leads based on pre-defined benchmarks. This is especially good for businesses that generate inbound marketing leads.
- Deal management: Leading CRM systems provide functionalities to help you with full-cycle deal management, including the tracking, maintaining and prioritization of deals in your sales pipeline.
- Migration: With growing and changing businesses, you might someday need to migrate to a new system. Choosing a CRM that will easily migrate is something to consider.
Industry-Specific Features
There are industry-specific CRMs available for those in niche-specific industries that require a unique set of features. Common industry CRMs include tools for call centers, financial advisors, real estate agents, mortgage providers and more. It’s important to assess the available industry features when choosing a CRM to ensure that your specific needs are adequately met.
For example, some CRM software offers call routing and call queue features perfect for contact centers with a lot of live telephone agents. Other CRM software focuses on the financial industry with the ability to send quotes and estimates, integrate with major financial tools, extra data protection, loan referral tracking, loan transaction tracking and more. Finally, some CRM systems help real estate agents manage both their listings and sales pipeline.
When choosing the right CRM for you, it’s important to assess your industry-specific needs and see if there are specific CRMs built to meet those needs. However, some more general CRMs can also offer advanced features that can work for your specific industry requirements. Ultimately, it’s important to assess all features offered so you can select the best CRM software.
Pricing
Make sure that the CRM software you choose fits within your budget. Most CRM software offers tiered pricing structures with a range of available features. Some CRMs include a free tier while others typically offer a free trial to test out the platform before you commit to purchasing. When assessing CRM software options, look at the available tiers and ensure the one you choose includes the features you need for a reasonable price. See our CRM pricing guide for more details.
Ease of Use
The right CRM software for you should be easy to use relative to its price and feature set. Some CRM providers offer intuitive user interfaces and robust knowledge bases that help you and your team become expert users more quickly. On the other hand, some CRMs are harder to use and require more support but may offer more advanced functionality. It’s important to test the product before you commit to purchasing to ensure it’s intuitive enough for you and your team.
Customer Support
All CRM providers offer a combination of customer support that includes email support, live chat, a customer service phone number as well as a knowledge base or blog. When choosing your CRM software, make sure that it has the necessary customer support to help you take full advantage of the product.
How Much Does CRM Software Cost?
CRM software providers typically offer a tiered pricing structure with three to four individual tiers offering various features at differing price points. Usually, the more robust the feature set the higher the cost. CRM software providers typically charge based on a per-seat basis and include both month-to-month options as well as annual plans offered for a discount. Annual plan pricing is often listed as a monthly cost but requires 12 months of payment upfront.
Most CRM providers will either offer a free tier or a free trial between seven to 30 days. Paid tiers start at $11 per month, per user on the low end and can get as high as $300 per month, per user for advanced tiers suitable for large businesses or teams. However, some CRM providers offer monthly or annual pricing that include more than a single user. For example, HubSpot’s most expensive tier for small teams is $1,300 per month, but includes five users.
Here’s a breakdown of the average CRM pricing plans you’ll find:
- Entry-level tier: Some offer their entry-level tier for free. Paid options start as low as $11 per seat and can get as high as $50 per monthly user. These entry tiers offer core CRM features such as pipeline management but may be lacking some advanced features.
- Mid-level tier: Mid-level tiers range from around $12 per monthly user to $100 per user, per month. These tiers often include additional features such as custom reporting dashboards and basic industry functionality but may be missing some advanced features.
- Premium tier: The highest-level CRM tiers can start as low as $20 per user, per month but can be as much as $300-plus for a monthly user. These advanced tiers give you full functionality, including team collaboration features and more.
When considering CRM cost, it’s important to assess it in terms of value for the features provided. It’s important to take full advantage of any free tiers or trials to test-drive a product before deciding to purchase.
Are there free CRMs available?
Yes, there are many CRMs that offer a free tier. However, these free tiers are basic and may not include the features you need. That said, they are helpful for testing out the product and assessing things such as its user interface and more. For more information, check out our article on the best free CRMs.
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