The 10 Best CRM Software for 2024

Sales performance management — You can set team and individual KPIs and monitor performance. You can even create incentive programs to help boost productivity.

Workflow automation — Automate your sales pipeline using a drag-and-drop function, including approval processes, sales discounts, marketing automations, and notifications

Einstein AI — Salesforce’s Einstein will inform your sales reps when it’s best to engage with different leads. It can also help them formulate convincing and engaging messages to help convert leads into paying customers.

Salesforce Sales Cloud offers five pricing tiers to suit a range of business sizes. Here’s more information on how much each plan costs and what it includes:

• Starter Suite — Contact, lead, task, account, and opportunity management, Gmail and Outlook integration, email productivity features, mobile app, and customizable reports.
• Pro Suite — Everything in Starter, plus individual buyer accounts, Salesforce meetings, Sales Cloud Everywhere, forecasting, Lightning App Builder, Flow Builder, and full offline mobile functionality.
• Enterprise — Everything in Pro, plus conversation and deal insights, opportunity scoring, pipeline inspection, waterfall charts, workflow and approval automation, and data synchronization.
• Unlimited — Everything in Enterprise, plus sales engagement and conversation intelligence, Premier Success Plan, Einstein relationship insights and forecasting, buyer assistant, email insights, and lead scoring.

Since Salesforce provides your teams with key information on every lead and customer, it’s the perfect tool to assist sales teams with moving prospects down the funnel. In addition to its well-designed and intuitive desktop platform, there’s also a user-friendly mobile app that allows your sales reps to work on the go and even offline.

That said, with plans starting at $25 per user, per month, Salesforce is not a great option for smaller businesses or those on a tight budget. It can also take some time to set up, so for a simpler CRM journey, we’d recommend a more lightweight platform such as monday CRM or Capsule.

Email tracking — Eliminate the guesswork of your email marketing strategy with HubSpot’s tracking feature. It’ll tell you when your emails have been opened or clicked. You can also save time with templates and AI-powered conversational intelligence to follow up and drive conversions.

Sales automation — Foster better consistency across your team with automated email responses and follow-up tasks for every team member to make sure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to customer communication.

Landing pages — HubSpot allows you to create and test landing pages within its free plan so that you can see which ones perform the best with your website visitors.

HubSpot offers four pricing tiers to suit a range of business sizes. Here’s more information on how much each plan costs and what it includes:

• Free Tools — Limited email reporting, email reply tracking, 1 email automation, Facebook Messenger automation, 2,000 email sends per month, Stripe payment processing, mobile app, ad targeting, list segmentation, 3 reporting dashboards, 100 products, ticketing,
• Starter Customer Platform — Everything in Free Tools, plus 1 million products, 10 reporting dashboards, 10 automations, HubSpot payments, up to 5 currencies, and watermark-free live chat.
• Professional Customer Platform — Everything in Starter, plus Salesforce, Google Search Console, and WhatsApp integration, SEO analytics, campaign management, A/B testing, omnichannel marketing automation, custom reporting, social media integration, unlimited automations, up to 30 currencies, and 300 fully customizable sales automations.
• Enterprise Customer Platform — Everything in Professional, plus additional ad audiences, marketing contact tiers, and active lists for segmentation, up to 200 currencies, up to 300 connected social media accounts, sensitive data, custom events and objects, and predictive lead scoring.

HubSpot easily offers the best free CRM plan that combines features from its different hubs — including Sales, Service, Marketing, and Operations. This makes it a perfect choice for startups and small businesses that can’t afford paid-for CRM software or only need a few basic features in the short term.

Since it’s fully scalable, it’s also ideal to start with HubSpot and then upgrade once your needs outgrow the limits of the free plan. Keep in mind that there is a rather sharp increase in pricing between the plans, though.

Appointment scheduling — Link your calendar with your Thryv CRM account to ensure you never miss a meeting or appointment. You can also share the appointment link with your client, helping decrease missed appointments.

Social media management — Many smaller businesses do not have the budget to outsource social media management. Luckily, you can use Thryv to generate high-quality AI content to post online. You can also manage your social accounts all in one place.

Email and SMS marketing — Using insights gained from your contacts, you can create and send email and SMS campaigns from within the Thryv platform.

Thryv offers two paid plans priced per location, and not per user. It also offers a free demo. Below, you’ll find details on each plan’s cost and inclusions.

• Plus — Enhanced local listings on seven sites, landing pages, real-time analytics, AI-powered recommendations, and tracking for up to 3 competitors.
• Professional — Enhanced local listings on 40 sites, landing pages, optimization of online presence, real-time analytics, AI-powered recommendations, tracking for up to ten competitors, heat mapping on your websites, and a professional website with up to 15 pages.

Thryv is the ideal solution for local businesses as it offers promotional tools, like social media management, local online listings, and email and SMS marketing, which can help you establish a presence in your local area.

Location-specific businesses like real estate agencies could be a great fit for Thryv. What’s more, it offers a free plan, so you can access these benefits with zero financial investment.

During testing, I found that this CRM is relatively barebones, lacking advanced features like marketing, pipeline management, automation, and sales analytics. I wouldn’t recommend it for a business with a larger, more geographically distributed customer base. It’s more so a place to centralize your customer communications.

Email sync — You can sync your external Gmail or Outlook accounts to send and receive emails within monday CRM. This automatically logs all conversations so you don’t miss a trick. I also liked that you can choose from a library of email templates to save time.

Performance tracking — If you’re managing a team of sales agents, you can set team goals, generate in-depth reports with estimates vs. actuals, and monitor the performance of teams and individual sales agents

No-code automations — Automations are one of the most valuable time-saving features of CRM systems, but they can be complicated to set up. Luckily, with monday CRM, there are pre-built automations available or you can create your own in seconds using its drag-and-drop interface.

Monday CRM offers four pricing tiers to suit a range of business sizes. Here’s more information on how much each plan costs and what it includes:

• Basic — Unlimited customizable pipelines, contacts, and boards; templates for lead, contact, and deal management; mobile apps; and unlimited free viewers.
• Standard — Everything in Basic, plus advanced account, contact, and deal management, 2-way integration with Gmail and Outlook, AI email generation, activity management, quotes, invoices, and 250 custom CRM automations and integrations per month.
• Pro — Everything in Standard, plus sales forecasting, email templates, tracking and automations, mass emails, Google Calendar sync, and 25,000 CRM automations and integrations per month.
• Enterprise — Everything in Pro, plus lead scoring, advanced analytics, account management, enterprise-grade automations, integrations, security features, and HIPAA compliance.

Since it’s very easy to use, monday CRM is great for those just getting started with CRM, for larger teams, or businesses with a high staff turnover and need an easy-to-use system. Monday also offers one of the best mobile CRM apps, which is ideal for sales reps who need to access client information when on the move and attending appointments.

Pipeline management — You can create fully customizable sales pipelines to track the customer journey in a way that makes sense to you. Its interface is also incredibly clean, allowing you to extract data in seconds while staying informed with real-time reports to course-correct when necessary.

Email marketing — Pipedrive can integrate with your business inbox, track every email conversation, schedule and send mass email campaigns, and use ready-made customizable email templates.

Sales automations — Use the simple drag-and-drop UI to create advanced automations, eliminate repetitive tasks, and set up real-time notifications. You can save a ton of time with automations, freeing up space in your day to focus on more productive tasks.

Pipedrive offers five pricing tiers to suit a range of business sizes. Here’s more information on how much each plan costs and what it includes:

• Essential — Lead and deal management, customizable pipelines, products catalog, data import and export, merge duplicates, 3,000 deals, 30 custom fields, 15 reports, API access, and a mobile app.
• Advanced — Everything in Essential, plus 10,000 deals, 100 custom fields, 30 reports, 30 active automations, 1 active email sync, 2-way email sync, customizable emails, group emailing, automations, and Smart Contact Data.
• Professional — Everything in Advanced, plus 100,000 deals, 300 custom fields, 150 reports, 60 active automations, custom visibility groups and permissions sets, multiple email accounts sync, free Smart Docs add-on, AI sales assistant, unlimited dashboards, revenue forecasting, and 24/5 live chat support.
• Power — Everything in Professional, plus 200,000 deals, 500 custom fields, 250 reports, 90 active automations, 3 active email syncs, free Projects add-on, 24/7 live chat support, and phone support.
• Enterprise — Everything in Power, plus unlimited deals, custom fields, and reports, 180 active automations, 5 active email syncs, and security alerts.

Pipedrive’s lead generation tool, LeadBooster, is not included as standard, but you can add it for an extra $32.50 per month.

When you factor in its advanced automation capabilities, Pipedrive becomes the ideal tool for sales teams handling a high volume of leads each day, such as recruiters. Pipedrive is my preferred CRM solution for tracking sales opportunities due to its clean and simple interface and focus on real-time updates, which are essential for staying on top of leads.

Since lead generation costs an extra $32.50 per month, it may not be the ideal solution for teams hoping for a tool to help them establish a customer base from scratch.

AI sales forecasting — Zoho’s AI assistant, Zia, can offer helpful insights including the status of every deal, the best time to make contact, and even assign sales reps based on the lead’s likelihood to convert. Overall, this can help you establish meaningful customer relationships and save you time chasing unlikely sales prospects.

Marketing automation — Run personalized marketing campaigns by using Zoho to segment your audience according to factors like age, location, and buying preferences. You can also gain insights into the performance of your campaigns to understand what works well so it can be repeated in future campaigns.

Powerful analytics — Ensure you’re making data-backed decisions by using Zoho’s in-depth reports and charts. You can also set KPIs to monitor your sales reps’ performance and keep everybody on track for successful quarters.

Zoho offers fourive pricing tiers to suit a range of business sizes. Here’s more information on how much each plan costs and what it includes:

• Standard — Basic modules for contact management, advanced filters, multiple pipelines, scoring, sales forecasting, email insights, multiple currencies, workflow rules, homepage customization, custom fields, reports, analytics app, social media integration, and mass emailing.
• Professional — Everything in Standard, plus automated follow-ups, custom dashboards, assignment rules for new leads, and CRM for Google Ads.
• Enterprise — Everything in Professional, plus multiple scoring rules, email parsing, data entry wizards, CommandCenter, page layouts, custom modules and buttons, translations, developer sandbox, anomaly detection, webform analytics, autoresponders, and a range of AI features, including conversational AI, email intelligence, and sales prediction.
• Ultimate — Everything in Ultimate, plus added business intelligence, analytics, and customizable features to better manage multi-department, multinational teams.

I found Zoho to be one of the best systems for large businesses as it offers an advanced CRM solution with automations, AI suggestions, and integrations to support highly performing sales teams. Zoho also supports a unified customer database, which means you’ll avoid data silos across larger teams and replace non-revenue generating tasks with automations.

Zoho CRM is also just one part of the larger Zoho software family. It also offers a recruitment platform, a VoIP system, and a project management system – this means you could easily invest in the whole suite of products to enjoy seamless integration across all tools.

AI content assistant — Capsule’s AI content assistant can help you write engaging copy for your email campaigns, website, and social media.

Workflow automation — You can also win back precious time for more productive, revenue-driving activities by automating repetitive tasks. What I liked about Capsule’s automations is the possibility to create chains of actions to automate an entire workflow.

Email marketing — Integrate your external Outlook or Gmail account into Capsule’s extra marketing tool, Transpond, to create, send, and track email campaigns.

Capsule offers five pricing tiers to suit a range of business sizes. Here’s more information on how much each plan costs and what it includes:

• Free — 250 contacts, 1 sales pipeline, 1 project board, 25 custom fields, 10 AI content edits, mobile app, API access, Zapier integrations and automations, and email sending.
• Starter — Everything in Free, plus 30,000 contacts, 50 custom fields, 1 shared inbox, 5 email templates, activity reporting, and key integrations, including Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.
• Growth — Everything in Starter, plus 60,000 contacts, 5 sales pipelines, 5 project boards, 150 custom fields, 1000 AI content edits, 3 shared mailboxes, 50 email templates, workflow automation, advanced sales reporting, and user roles & permissions.
• Advanced — Everything in Growth, plus 120,000 contacts, 50 sales pipelines, 50 project boards, 300 custom fields, 1000 AI content assists, 5 shared mailboxes, and 500 email templates.
• Ultimate — Everything in Advanced, plus 240,000 contacts, 100 sales pipelines, 100 project boards, unlimited custom fields, 10 shared mailboxes, 1000 email templates, implementation and data import support, custom training, dedicated account manager, and ongoing priority support

Capsule has everything you need to manage your customer interactions effectively, nothing more and nothing less. This makes it the perfect choice for those seeking a simple yet effective CRM system without unnecessary bells and whistles.

It balances online activities, such as email marketing and sales analytics, with ‘IRL’ customer relationship management, such as tracking phone calls and appointments, making it a great all-around sidekick for busy salespeople who don’t have time to spend onboarding a complex system like Salesforce.

Lead generation — If you need to generate new sales opportunities, you can create landing pages, develop website forms, and set up a chatbot for your website to reliably convert website visitors into qualified leads – all from within Freshsales.

Auto-enrichment — With Freshsale’s powerful AI tools, leads and prospects are auto-filled using publicly available data. Fields like their job title, role, and company will be added to provide you with a complete picture of their profile.

Predictive scoring — Another AI-powered feature is scoring leads on their likelihood of conversion based on their interactions with your business and level of interest. This helps you focus your efforts on the leads most likely to turn into sales.

Freshsales offers three pricing tiers to suit a range of business sizes. Here’s more information on how much each plan costs and what it includes:

• Free — Free for 3 users, with Kanban boards, email templates, live chat, and a built-in phone.
• Growth — Kanban view; contact lifecycle phases; built-in chat, email, and phone; email templates; custom fields; basic workflows; product catalog; Freshworks Marketplace; 1 CPQ license; mobile app; and 24/5 customer support.
• Pro — Everything in Growth, plus AI contact scoring, advanced custom fields, auto-assignment, AI sales emails, AI text editing, multiple sales pipelines, AI deal insights, advanced workflows, and custom reports.
• Enterprise — Everything in Pro, plus field-level security permissions, custom modules, AI sales forecasting, developer sandbox, and audit logs.

Freshsales is one of the best CRMs for small businesses because it allows you to capture more leads via landing pages, web forms, and live chat. This can help you establish a stronger customer base, plus, it’s very affordable and even has a free plan.

Its helpful AI features fill in the gaps when your agents may not have time, making you more productive with less manpower. Additionally, it comes with handy mobile CRM apps for iOS and Android, which is ideal for busy salespeople who are in the field but still need access to a CRM database.

Email sync and tracking — Sync up your external email accounts so that Zendesk can automatically log and track all conversations. You can also use email templates to quickly run email campaigns and track their success by setting up alerts on email opens and clicks.

Call recording and scripts — If you manage multiple sales agents, you can help them close more deals by creating phone scripts that they adhere to. Zendesk also automatically records calls for sales coaching, ensuring consistency across the whole team.

Smart lists — Segment your leads and deals according to various differentiating criteria in real-time and personalize your marketing messages to better resonate with your audience.

Zendesk Sell offers three pricing plans. Below, I’ve outlined how much each plan costs and what’s included in each:

• Sell Team —  Up to 2 customizable sales pipelines, email and calendar integrations, task and appointment setting, and pre-built sales dashboards.
• Sell Growth — Sell Team plus up to 10 sales pipelines, call tracking and recording, custom sales reports, sales forecasting, and goals tracking.
• Sell Professional — Sell Growth plus up to 20 sales pipelines, lead and deal scoring, task automation, and permission-based access.

Zendesk is ideal for teams that make a lot of customer calls or run numerous email campaigns and need software that can help create, manage, and track these external communications in one place.

It tracks and logs all email communication, sends real-time notifications, and provides activity reporting so your sales agents know when to contact each prospect. There’s also a power dialer, allowing you to contact qualified leads in seconds. Every call is recorded, and your agents will have quick access to sales scripts, lead profiles, notes, and even call analytics to help them reliably close more deals.

Projects — Once you’ve closed a deal, you can seamlessly switch the deal into a project. This means you can immediately transfer all relevant details so that the next team has all the relevant information on the client.

Workflow automation — Insightly is another CRM that prioritizes your time by automating repetitive tasks to minimize human error and ensure consistency across the entire team.

Validation rules — Another excellent feature for maintaining consistency across data handling is validation rules. These ensure that all records are filled out correctly; for example, critical fields cannot be left blank, which can be important for data compliance.

There are three Insightly plans, with no option to take an annual contract. I’ve highlighted each plan below and the features each one includes:

• Plus — Lead and contact management, project management, advanced reports, and pre-built business dashboards.
• Professional — Everything in Plus, and lead assignment and routing, workflow automation, and custom page layouts.
• Enterprise — Everything in Pro, plus developer sandboxes, products, pricebooks, quotes, and comprehensive audit logging.

Insightly would work best for businesses that use a CRM for acquiring new projects or clients, as it allows you to switch into project management mode after scoring the client.

For example, if you’re an interior designer or at an ad agency, where you’ll continue working with your client beyond the point of closure, then Insightly’s project management tools could support the ongoing relationship.