Investing in sales software for your business is crucial and risky. So we’ve prepared a list with the 12 best sales software and a checklist to help you choose the perfect one to fit your needs!
Software | Type | Pricing (Starting at) | AI | Reporting | Advanced Workflows |
lemlist | Prospecting | 39€ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Salesforce | CRM | 25€ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Freshworks | AI Sales | 9€ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Sender | Prospecting | 14.79€ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
Pipedrive | CRM | 14€ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Zoho CRM | CRM | 14€ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
PartnerStack | PRM | under request | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
PandaDoc | Sales Productivity | $19 | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
Kluster | AI Sales | under request | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
RevenueHero | Sales Productivity | $20 | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
Slack | Sales Enablement | 6.75€ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
Seismic | Sales Training | under request | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
What is sales software?
Sales software refers to a collection of tools and applications designed to streamline and automate various aspects of the sales process.
Generally, sales software will combine several essential sales tools in one platform to streamline the sales process.
These software solutions are used by sales teams and professionals to manage leads, track interactions with customers, forecast sales, analyze performance, and improve overall efficiency and productivity in sales activities.
Sales software comes in various forms, including standalone CRM systems, sales automation platforms, and comprehensive sales enablement suites.
Why should you be using sales software?
In order to properly conduct your business, investing in sales software is vital.
Why, you ask?
- Don’t get lost in time-consuming tasks that distract you from your actual sales
Your main goal in your business should be to make sales.
However, if you spend endless hours and resources on tracking your progress yourself, creating email lists, writing and sending emails, and all of those other tasks from the beginning and middle of the funnel, you won’t have much time to dedicate to your sales.
- Automate tasks
With sales software, get reports automatically, create email campaigns that will automatically stop when you receive a reply (or any other trigger that you choose), task management, lead management, and much more.
- Stay ahead of the curve
Let’s be honest, most of your competitors will most likely be using sales software and will be able to produce very high-quality marketing.
So, who do you think your leads will trust when the time comes for them to make a decision?
They’ll choose a modern approach that’s hands-on and misses no details.
- Reach more leads that will lead to client conversion along the sales funnel
By using sales software you are able to conduct a more detailed lead management and qualification. You’ll be able to target your ideal audience by creating your ICP, using advanced filters, lead databases, etc.
This way you won’t waste time with leads who are not qualified for your business.
- Get detailed insights into your performance
All good sales software will offer solid reporting and tracking that will allow you to pinpoint accurately where your business is performing as it should and where it needs more attention.
Reporting will also allow you to forecast the near future of your business allowing you to manage your business finances and develop risk management effectively.
Sales software vs sales tools
Essentially the main difference is that software is a combination of several tools, whereas tools may refer to just a particular feature or function.
Sales tools and sales software are related concepts that serve the common goal of improving sales effectiveness and efficiency, but they differ in their scope, functionality, and implementation.
- Sales tools
Sales tools refer to individual applications, platforms, or resources that assist sales professionals in performing specific tasks or activities within the sales process.
These tools can be standalone solutions or integrated into larger sales software systems, for example, email tracking software, prospecting tools, etc.
Sales tools focus on providing specific functionalities or capabilities to address particular needs or challenges faced by sales professionals. For example, email tracking tools help track email opens and clicks.
Sales professionals may choose to adopt specific tools based on their individual needs and preferences, and these tools may vary across different team members or departments.
- Sales software
Sales software, on the other hand, encompasses comprehensive solutions or collections of tools designed to support the entire sales process, from lead generation and prospecting to closing deals and managing customer relationships.
Sales software offers a broader range of functionalities that span the entire sales cycle. It includes tools for lead management, contact management, pipeline management, task and activity tracking, email integration, reporting and analytics, workflow automation, and more. Therefore, providing a comprehensive solution for managing all aspects of the sales process within a single platform.
It is implemented as an integrated platform that combines multiple tools and functionalities into a unified system, serving as a centralized hub for managing all sales-related activities and data, providing consistency and cohesion across the entire sales organization.
Sales software is usually adopted by entire sales teams or organizations to standardize processes and improve collaboration.
Types of sales software
Not all sales software is going to fulfill all of your needs. Therefore before you choose you should be clear on what you want or expect from these tools.
We’ve broken them down into 7 categories:
- CRM software
Customer Relationship Management refers to a technology system or strategy used by businesses to manage interactions and relationships with current and potential customers.
The primary goal of CRM is to improve customer satisfaction, retention, and loyalty by providing a centralized platform for storing customer data, tracking interactions, and facilitating communication.
A CRM system typically includes features such as contact management, lead management, sales automation, marketing automation, and customer service management. It allows businesses to capture and store customer information, such as names, contact details, purchase history, and communication preferences, in a centralized database.
- AI sales
AI sales software refers to technology solutions that leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms in the sales process.
AI sales software offers detailed insights into predictive analytics used for lead scoring and sales forecasting, to look into your business’s future.
With this type of software, you will be able to automize repetitive sales tasks, like all email outreach, allowing for deep personalization that will make your emails stand apart from the crowd.
- Sales productivity software
Sales productivity software refers to technology tools and platforms designed to streamline and enhance the productivity of sales teams by automating tasks, organizing workflows, and providing insights to optimize sales processes. These software solutions aim to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and performance across various stages of the sales cycle.
Sales productivity software should include sold reporting and analytics so you are able to make your sales pipeline as efficient as possible.
Sales productivity software offers sales teams the tools and insights they need to work more efficiently, close deals faster, and drive revenue growth.
- Sales enablement software
Sales enablement software encompasses a range of functionalities aimed at improving sales effectiveness, efficiency, and alignment across the organization.
Key features of sales enablement software may include:
→ Content Management
→ Sales Training and Coaching
→ Sales Content Creation
→ Sales Playbooks
→ Sales Analytics and Reporting
→ Sales Enablement Automation
→ Integration with CRM Systems
→ Sales Collaboration and Communication
By providing access to relevant content, training, and insights, sales enablement software empowers sales teams to deliver value to prospects and customers throughout the buying journey.
- Customer success management software
Customer success management software is a specialized tool or platform designed to help businesses proactively manage and optimize their relationships with customers to ensure long-term satisfaction, loyalty, and retention.
It provides a centralized system for tracking customer interactions, monitoring account health, and delivering personalized support and guidance to drive positive outcomes for both the customer and the business.
- Sales training software
With so many new tools and software each dedicated to a specific task, sales reps can run into difficulty on the onboarding. Therefore we now have sales training software, designed to facilitate the delivery of training and development programs for sales professionals.
Key features of sales training software may include:
→ Learning Management System (LMS)
→ Interactive Course Content
→ Mobile Learning
→ Gamification
→ Personalized Learning Paths
By providing accessible, engaging, and effective training programs, these software solutions enable sales organizations to drive performance improvements, increase productivity, and achieve better business results.
- Prospecting
Prospecting software helps you, especially with lead qualification.
It allows you to reach the right leads and control all of your cold outreach efforts. Propecting software will allow you to reach your ideal leads with personalized messages across multiple platforms, automate all of your messaging, including follow-ups and will offer detailed reporting on how your outreach campaigns are doing.
12 best sales software
1. lemlist
Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Overview
lemlist is an all-in-one sales engagement software designed to help users find, engage, and convert their ideal buyers across multiple channels.
Some of its key features include:
- Highly advanced personalization
- Multichannel outreach
- Automation
- Email finder and verifier
- lead database
- Integrations with many apps
- Warm-up and deliverability booster
- Reporting and metrics
Want to learn more? Check out this video and see what lemlist can do for you ⬇️
Pricing
Free trial ✅
lemlist offers 4 different pricing plans, with a free plan and pricing starting at $55/month when billed anually.
In order to make your team more efficient and not have to invest in separate lemlist subscriptions, you can purchase additional sending emails for $9 per email and month.
lemcal is included in all tiers and lemwarm is included from Email Pro onwards.
You can choose between 3 different currencies: Euro, Pounds, and Dollars.
✅ Pros
- lemlist’s AI helps in creating highly personalized multichannel campaigns.
- Engage leads on their preferred channels, including email, LinkedIn, and more.
- Native integrations with popular CRMs like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive.
- Database with +450M people and 63M companies
❌ Cons
- Some advanced features are available only in higher-tier plans.
- Integration with certain third-party tools might require additional setup.
2. Salesforce
Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.5/5 (1,902 reviews) | Capterra 4.3/5 (312 reviews)
Overview
Salesforce is a leading cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform that helps businesses manage their sales, marketing, customer service, and other critical functions.
Salesforce offers a wide variety of tools and add-ons to improve your sales. These include:
- Sales engagement
- Sales team productivity
- Buyer engagement
- sales AI
- Sales analytics
- Einstein conversation insights
- Revenue intelligence and optimization
- Configure price and quote
- Sales performance and planning
Pricing
Free trial ✅
Salesforce Sales Cloud offers five payment tiers starting at 25€ and go up to 500€.
✅ Pros
- Strong reporting
- Wide range of integrations
❌ Cons
- Can be expensive for small teams or startups
- Large learning curve
3. Freshworks
Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.5/5 (7,279 reviews) | Capterra 4.5/5 (608 reviews)
Overview
Freshworks is an AI sales assistant software.
Some of their more prominent products include:
- Freshdesk: A cloud-based customer support software that offers omnichannel customer support, ticketing, and helpdesk features.
- Freshservice: An IT service management tool that includes ticketing, asset management, and incident management.
- Freshsales: CRM that helps businesses manage their interactions with current and potential customers.
Each product from Freshworks focuses on simplicity and usability while offering comprehensive features tailored for small to mid-sized businesses.
Pricing
Free trial ✅
Pricing tiers vary depending on the “fresh” product you decide to purchase for your business.
The pricing shown in this article belongs to Feshales and starts at 9€. While the Growth plan offers many useful tools and features such as email templates and basic workflows, you don’t get AI assistance.
✅ Pros
- Good integration
- Multichannel
❌ Cons
- Integration is problematic
- No built-in way to review all tasks for a group of individuals
4. Sender
Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.4/5 (52 reviews) | Capterra 4.6/5 (151 reviews)
Overview
Sender is an Email marketing software designed to help businesses create, send, and track email campaigns.
Among its tools, we find:
- Email Campaign Creation
- Contact Management
- Automation
- Personalization
- A/B Testing
- Analytics and Reporting
- Integration
- Compliance
Sender aims to empower businesses to create effective email marketing campaigns that drive engagement, nurture leads, and ultimately, generate revenue.
Pricing
Free plan ✅
Sender offers 4 different payment plans to choose from, including a free plan that does not expire as a free trial would.
The free plan no longer offers the resend email option.
✅ Pros
- Intuitive and smooth UI
- Easy to use drag and drop builder
❌ Cons
- Templates are very limited
- Billing system is not efficient
5. Pipedrive
Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.2/5 (1,810 reviews) | Capterra 4.6/5 (2,946 reviews)
Overview
Pipedrive is a CRM software designed to help sales teams manage their sales processes and grow their businesses.
It provides a user-friendly interface and a range of features tailored to streamline sales activities, track deals, and improve sales performance.
Some key features of Pipedrive include:
- Pipeline Management
- Contact Management
- Deal Tracking
- Activity Management
- Email Integration
- Reporting and Analytics
- Automation
- Mobile App
Pipedrive is designed to be intuitive, customizable, and scalable, making it suitable for sales teams of all sizes across various industries.
Pricing
Free trial ✅
Pipedrive offer 5 payment plans ranging from 14€ to 99€.
AI Assistance is offered from the Professional plan onwards.
✅ Pros
- Integrates with many other software
- Solid reporting
❌ Cons
- Limited customization
- Calendars cannot be overlapped for viewing
6. Zoho CRM
Ratings ⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.1/5 (2,596 reviews) | Capterra 4.3/5 (6,671 reviews)
Overview
Zoho CRM is a cloud-based CRM platform.
It is designed to help businesses of all sizes manage their sales, marketing, customer service, and inventory activities in one centralized system.
Zoho CRM offers features like:
- Sales automation
- Marketing automation
- Omnichannel
- Analytics
- Sales enablement
- Predictive sales
Pricing
Starting at €14 per month, Zoho CRM offers simple and affordable plans.
Free trial ✅
✅ Pros
- Easy-to-use interface
- Customizable modules
- Affordable prices
❌ Cons
- Integration issues
- Problems with customer service
7. PartnerStack
Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.7/5 (594 reviews) | Capterra 4.6/5 (88 reviews)
Overview
PartnerStack is a partner relationship management (PRM) platform designed to help businesses manage and scale their partnerships and affiliate programs.
It provides many tools and features to streamline partner onboarding, communication, tracking, and rewards management, including:
- Partner Onboarding and Management
- Campaign Tracking and Attribution
- Performance Analytics:
- Reward Management
- Communication and Collaboration
- Integration
- Compliance and Security
PartnerStack aims to empower businesses to build and manage successful partner programs that drive growth, expand reach, and maximize revenue.
Pricing
PartnerStack does not disclose its pricing as its pricing is personalized based on your needs.
Simply fill out the form and receive your quote.
✅ Pros
- Has an affiliate program
- Clean UI
❌ Cons
- Slow onboarding
- Reporting could be improved
8. PandaDoc
Reviews⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.7/5 (2,347 reviews) | Capterra 4.5/5 (1,093 reviews)
Overview
PandaDoc is a software platform designed to streamline the process of creating, sending, and managing documents for businesses.
It offers features for:
- document creation
- electronic signatures
- document tracking.
The platform also allows for electronic signatures, making it easy to get documents signed quickly and securely.
Additionally, PandaDoc provides analytics and tracking capabilities, allowing users to see when recipients open, view, and sign documents.
Pricing
PandaDoc offers three paid plans, starting at $19 per month.
Although the Essentials plan is pretty solid, CRM integrations are included in the Business and Enterprise plans.
✅ Pros
- Useful templates
- Quick setup system
❌ Cons
- Challenged filing organization
- Little customization
9. Kluster
Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.5/5 (279 reviews) | Cuspera 4/5 (49 reviews)
Overview
Kluster is a sales forecasting software and pipeline management system designed to help sales teams optimize their processes, improve performance, and drive revenue growth.
Its main features include:
- Pipeline Management
- Forecasting and Analytics
- Performance Tracking
- Lead qualification
- Workflow Automation
- Integration
Pricing
Pricing is under request and is not disclosed.
✅ Pros
- Accurate forecasting
- Solid performance tracking
❌ Cons
- Large learning curve
- Syncing with Salesforce tends to lag
10. RevenueHero
Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.8/5 (86 reviews) | Glassdoor 4.8/5 (6 reviews)
Overview
RevenueHero is an inbound revenue acceleration product that manages instant meeting scheduling and lead routing of all levels of complexity for B2B revenue teams.
RevenueHero integrates with your lead capture form to qualify leads and schedule meetings between them and the appropriate representative on your team in real-time.
RevenueHero helps teams reduce sales cycles and improve delivery times to potential customers.
Some features include:
- Sales Coaching and Training
- Sales Performance Analytics
- Pipeline Management
- Activity Tracking and Engagement
- Sales Content Management
- Integration
Pricing
Revenue Hero offers two different plans, one for your outbound activities and one for your inbound ones.
✅ Pros
- Easy to use
- Helpful Support Team
❌ Cons
- Lacks the option to configure independent widget layouts
- User experience can be difficult to navigate
11. Slack
Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.5/5 (32,446 reviews) | Capterra 4.7/5 (23,186 reviews)
Overview
Slack is a communication and collaboration software that will help you open lines of direct communication with your team members, leads and clients.
Here’s how you can use Slack in sales:
- Team communication
- Real-time messages
- Integration with CRM
- Sales alerts and notifications
- Document and file sharing
- Coordination of sales meetings
- Track sales performance
- Knowledge sharing and collaboration
- Customer service and participation
- Comments and exchange of ideas
Slack can serve as a central hub for sales teams to communicate, collaborate, and stay informed on all aspects of the sales process. By leveraging its features and integrations, sales teams can improve efficiency, productivity, and teamwork, ultimately driving better results.
Pricing
Slack offers four different paid plans, although users have stated that the free plan is quite limited.
Free plan ✅
✅ Pros
- User friendly
- Allows multiple channels
❌ Cons
- The free plan is quite limited
12. Seismic
Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.7/5 (1,501 reviews) | **Capterra 4.7/5 (204 reviews)
Overview
Seismic is a sales enablement and training software designed to help organizations improve sales effectiveness and drive revenue growth.
It provides a centralized hub for creating, managing, and delivering sales content, as well as tools for sales enablement, content management, and analytics.
Key features include:
- Content Management
- Content Creation
- Sales Enablement
- Content Delivery
- Analytics and Reporting
Seismic is designed to streamline the sales process, empower sales teams with the right content and tools, and drive better outcomes for organizations.
Pricing
Although Seismic does not disclose their pricing at this time, according to Vendr, you can negotiate the pricing and get discounts by commenting to an annual plan, or depending on your user volume.
✅ Pros
- In-app chat for customer support
- Ability to track the usage of content and learning
❌ Cons
- Finding the exact information/resource you need is challenging
- No integration with OneDrive
What should a good sales software have?
As promised, we’re going to leave you with a little checklist to help you choose the perfect sales software that will skyrocket your business.
- [ ] Lead Management
Capturing, organizing, and prioritizing leads, as well as tracking their interactions and progress through the sales pipeline.
- [ ] Contact Management
Storing and managing customer and prospect contact information, including communication history, preferences, and demographics.
- [ ] Pipeline Management
Visualizing and managing the sales pipeline, including tracking deals through various stages, identifying bottlenecks, and forecasting revenue.
- [ ] Task and Activity Management
Scheduling, assigning, and tracking tasks, appointments, and follow-ups to ensure timely and effective engagement with leads and customers.
- [ ] Email Integration
Integrating with email platforms to centralize email communication, track email interactions, and automate email workflows.
- [ ] Integration Capabilities
Integrating with other business tools and systems, such as marketing automation software, customer support platforms, and accounting software, to facilitate seamless data exchange and workflow integration.
- [ ] Reporting and Analytics
Generating reports and analyzing sales data to gain insights into performance metrics, identify trends, and make informed decisions.
- [ ] Workflow Automation
Automating repetitive tasks, such as lead assignment, email follow-ups, and data entry, to streamline processes and improve efficiency.
Key Takeaways
There’s no doubt that investing in a sales software would be your smartest move, but the key lies in choosing the best sales software.
Start your 14-day free lemlist trial today and don’t just take our word for it!