91% of medium-sized businesses with 10 or more employees use CRM systems.
If you belong to the remaining 9%, we’ve got a list of 12 sales CRM tools to help you decide.
| Tool | AI | Customizable dashboards | Sales forecasting | Mobile app | Pricing (starting at) |
| Salesforce | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | $25 |
| Pipedrive | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | $14 |
| Hubspot Sales Hub | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ (BETA) | ✅ | $15 (for individuals) |
| monday CRM | ✅ (email) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | $12 |
| Insightly | ❌ (coming soon) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | $29 |
| Salesflare | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ (free template) | ✅ | $29 |
| Zoho CRM | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | $14 |
| Freshsales CRM | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ (only in Enterprise) | ✅ | $9 |
| Less Annoying CRM | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | $15 |
| Close CRM | ❌ (can be integrated) | ✅ | ✅ (template) | ✅ | $49 |
| Attio CRM | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | $29 |
| Zendesk Sell | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | $55 |
What is a CRM tool?
CRM, or Customer Relationship Management, is essentially dedicated to analyzing customers’ interactions and other data throughout the entire sales pipeline.
Therefore, a Sales CRM tool is software designed to manage this information for you and your business.
With these tools, you can store and organize customer data, track sales activities, and streamline communication with leads and clients.
By analyzing the stored data, most CRM tools can also give you insight into your sales forecast.
Investing and implementing a sales CRM tool in your business guarantees many benefits, including:
- Higher efficiency
- Better customer relationships
- More accurate sales forecasting
- Scalability
What features should a CRM have?
When you’re looking for a good CRM there are certain features that must be included, if not you might as well throw your money out the window.
Occasionally, platforms add many fancy features, but when it comes down to it, that’s all just bells and whistles.
You need a tool that will actually help you make your business more efficient.
Contact management
It’s a given.
A good CRM tool should effectively manage all of your contacts’ data in one place, and use automation to fill in the blanks.
Additionally, your CRM tool should also be tracking all interactions with your contacts, giving you a better sense of where they stand and their process with you and your business.
The benefit of an effective contact management system is that, at a glance, you can access their data in real-time, allowing you to fix any problems that may have occurred down the line and see what worked and what didn’t.
Bear in mind that not all CRMs track interaction, so if you want to have a broader sense of your contacts’ information, try choosing a tool that has this feature.
Sales pipeline management
A sales pipeline is a visual representation of the stages in your sales process, and classify your leads according to these stages.
Although the stages may be customized, the general stages are:
- lead generation
- lead nurturing
- lead qualifying
- product demo
- free trial
- proposal
- negotiation
- closing
These stages can be changed according to your needs and your particular stages. Aside from CRM you can access many sales pipeline templates too.
It’s a good idea to go for a CRM that has a clear and simple interface that will allow you to easily spot the information you need without having to scroll through your screen too much.
Good sales pipeline management will help you easily identify the approach you need to take with your leads at any given time.
Workflow automation
The primary mission of a CRM tool is to eliminate manual sales work, increase your efficiency, and move your leads through the sales pipeline.
So being able to automate your workflows is a must.
This will help you accelerate your sales, cut down on manual tasks, and ultimately leave no stone unturned.
Some workflow examples include:
- Onboarding
- Lead capturing
- Lead qualification
- Automate follow-ups
- Lead enrichment
These workflows can be set to occur with specific triggers to ensure you don’t miss out on opportunities. In most cases, you have workflow templates that you can personalize yourself, or build from scratch.
Task management
Task management in a CRM allows you to set specific courses of action for each lead and customer, these may include:
- Task assignment to your team members
- Setting deadlines
- Tracking leads’ and team members’ progress
- General organization
A task management feature in your CRM will ensure that everything gets done and no deals are lost due to missed deadlines or unassigned tasks.
Integrations with outreach tools
To make your CRM even more efficient, it’s important that it supports third-party integrations.
This will allow you to seamlessly send information automatically from one tool to another, allowing you to be on top of everything and not slip up.
Some integrations that are a must in your CRM are:
- Calendar integrations
- Email integrations
- Outreach tools
- Social media integrations
However, bear in mind that the more comprehensive your CRM is, the fewer integrations you’ll need.
Reporting, analytics, and dashboards
It’s important for your CRM to show you all of your KPIs so you can get a good sense of where your business is going.
A CRM dashboard centralizes all of your sales data and information. It presents your key metrics dynamically and interactively.
By investing in a CRM tool you can let the tool gather all of the information in real-time for you so you don’t spend hours of your time sifting through your data.
Additionally, CRM’s dashboards are customizable, so you can include the information and metrics that are relevant to you. Some CRMs go as far as including a “total” section for your data so you don’t even have to analyze all the metrics.
Aside from general analytics, try and go for a CRM that also offers sales forecasting. This will give you even better insights into your business’ performance and give you a realistic sense of what you can expect in the future, based on previous data.
No more being an optimist or a pesimist.
Mobile access
A good CRM allows you to check your data in real-time at any time and any place, so carrying that information on your mobile phone or tablet is also important.
By having access to your CRM on your mobile, you are able to experience more engaging communications and manage your data more effectively, therefore building stronger relationships with your leads.
According to a study, by using traditional CRMs only 22% of sales reps achieved their quotas, whereas with mobile CRM, the number goes up to 65%.
12 sales CRM tools
1. Salesforce
Ratings ⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.3/5 (20,174 reviews) | Capterra 4.4/5 (18,381 reviews)
Overview
Salesforce is a cloud-based CRM platform designed to help organizations manage customer relationships, streamline processes, and improve productivity.
Salesforce is an AI CRM and provides the help of AI assistant, Einstein 1.
Key features of Salesforce include:
- Lead tracking and management through the sales pipeline
- Account and contact management
- Sales process automation (data entry, follow-ups, and email reminders)
- Sales forecasting based on historical data, pipeline stages, and sales rep inputs
- Customizable reports and dashboard
- Mobile app
- Integration through the Salesforce AppExchange
You can connect Salesforce to lemlist and import your leads. Here’s how:
If you’d rather read, here is a lesson from the lemlist academy on how to connect Salesforce to lemlist.
Pricing
Free trial ✅
Salesforce Sales Cloud offers 5 different pricing plans that range from 25€ to 500€.
Although the Starter Suite plan is quite affordable, unfortunately, it is too basic, allowing only management for your account, contacts, leads, and opportunities.
In the remaining plans you can purchase whatever feature you need separately, which can scale up your total amount due.
✅ Pros
- New features are released regularly
- Simple UX
- Seamless integration
❌ Cons
- The mobile version is not intuitive
- UI needs updating
- Logs out multiple times
2. Pipedrive
Ratings ⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.3/5 (1,863 reviews) | Capterra 4.5 (2,970 reviews)
Overview
Pipedrive is a sales-focused CRM.
Pipedrive focuses on providing a visual and intuitive interface that allows salespeople to track leads, manage deals, and automate routine tasks.
This CRM is best suited for small and medium-sized businesses.
Pipedrive has recently added new AI-powered CRM features that will help you automate even more of your sales process.
With Pipedrive’s new AI you can:
- Identify patterns and recommend potential deals and next actions.
- Craft personalized emails from simple prompts
- Summarise multiple emails with the email summarization tool
- Streamline workflows
- Search for third-party tools easily
You can connect Pipedrive to lemlist. Visit the lemlist academy to find out how.
Pricing
Free trial ✅
Pipedrive offers five affordable pricing plans, ranging from 14€ to 99€.
Most AI features are available on the Professional plan and above.
✅ Pros
- Continual development cycles
- Solid customization
- Free onboarding
❌ Cons
- Reports have to be pulled manually, they are not sent automatically
- Integrations could be improved
3. Hubspot Sales Hub
Ratings ⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.4/5 (11,293 reviews) | Capterra 4.5/5 (4,150 reviews)
Overview
HubSpot Sales HubCRM is a part of HubSpot CRM.
HubSpot also includes Marketing Hub, Service Hub, Content Hub, Operations Hub, and Commerce Hub.
Some features include:
- Contact management with a centralized database
- Pipeline management with customized pipelines
- Email tracking and personalizable email templates
- Automated follow-ups
- Task and activity management
- Automated email sequences, lead nurturing campaigns, and follow-up actions based on predefined triggers and conditions
- Customizable sales reports and dashboards
- Wide integrations through App Marketplace
- Mobile app
HubSpot Sales Hub CRM is useful for all business sizes and offers a user-friendly interface, wide feature set, and it is scaleable.
You can connect HubSpot to lemlist to make managing your leads and campaigns easier.
Pricing
Free trial ✅
Aside from the pricing shown in the image below, there are four more pricing plans fitted for individuals to small teams including a free plan, Sales Hub Starter and Starter Customer Platform set at 15€, and the Sales Hub Professional for 90€.
Onboarding for Professional and Enterprise plans range between 1.470€ and 3,420€.
✅ Pros
- Prospecting dashboard offers a good overview
- Key metrics are summarized
- User-friendly interface
❌ Cons
- Expensive onboarding
- Add-ons may be added automatically
- No A/B testing on the platform
4. monday CRM
Ratings ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
4.6/5 (732 reviews) | Capterra 4.7/5 (387 reviews)
Overview
monday CRM is a dedicated sales platform that enables business owners, sales teams, and RevOps to manage the entire sales cycle from pre- to post-sales — managing all customer data in one centralized place.
monday CRM connects all company stakeholders.
Key CRM features available on monday CRM include:
- Mass emails & HTML editor
- Shared email inboxes
- AI email generator
- Funnel chart
- Leaderboard
- Mobile CRM experience
- Deal stages
monday CRM integrates with most sales apps and tools to ensure work is done as efficiently as possible.
Pricing
Free trial ✅
Monday CRM is one of the more affordable CRM software you can find in the market.
You can choose from four different pricing plans, ranging from 12€ to 28€ on the disclosed plans. You can also choose Enterprise CRM, although the pricing is under request.
✅ Pros
- Enhances team collaboration and account management
- Intuitive interface
- Affordable pricing
❌ Cons
- Limited marketing functionality
- There is no “undo” option
- Limited reporting and analytics
5. Insightly CRM
Ratings ⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.2/5 (894 reviews) | Capterra 4/5 (656 reviews)
Overview
Insightly helps teams build and convert sales pipelines, increase productivity, and build lasting customer relationships.
Insightly offers custom objects and apps to tailor workflows to your specific needs.
AppConnect integrates Inisghtly with more than 500 other apps.
Insightly CRM customers can add companion products for marketing automation, customer service, and integrations in the same platform.
Pricing
Free trial ✅
Insightly CRM offers three pricing plans, ranging from $29 to $99, Plus and Professional plans offer a free trial, although you will have to contact sales to be able to try Enterprise before committing to the plan.
Although pricing plans seem set, users have reported that your total may be higher as it is based on the number of leads you have in your lists.
✅ Pros
- Very customizable
- User-friendly software
❌ Cons
- Integrations could be improved
- Activities from teams are not easily tracked
- Pricing scales depending on the amount of leads
6. Salesflare
Ratings ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.8/5 (268 reviews) | Capterra 4.7/5 (137 reviews)
Overview
Salesflare is an intelligent CRM designed for medium-sized B2B businesses. It’s a zero-input sales pipeline tool that gathers your customers’ data, and automatically adds it to your address book.
Salesflare has a Chrome extension for LinkedIn that will find the email addresses you need and add them to your leads’ contact info.
It takes data from social media, company databases, phone, email, or calendar and hands it to you in automated customer timelines.
Salesflare also offers task reminders, visual pipelines, and insights.
Additionally, Salesflare integrates with +5000 other productivity tools.
Pricing
Free trial ✅
Salesflare offers three simple pricing plans ranging from $29 to $99.
However, there is an early-stage pricing under request which is said to be even more affordable. This second plan is designed specifically for early-stage startups.
✅ Pros
- Mobile app is easy to use
- Ideal for small and growing businesses
- Solid customization
❌ Cons
- Doesn’t have AI features
- UX could be improved
7. Zoho CRM
Ratings ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.1/5 (2,636 reviews) | Capterra 4.3/5 (6,749 reviews)
Overview
Zoho CRM is a cloud-based CRM tool that caters to mid-scale businesses to large-scale enterprises.
Key features include:
- Contact management
- Sales funnels
- Pipeline management
- Workflow automation
- AI-powered conversational assistant
- Task management
- Marketing campaign management
- Sales forecasting
- Customer support & service
- Inventory management
- Reporting & analytics
Zoho CRM aims to streamline business processes, improve customer engagement, and drive sales growth.
Pricing
Free trial ✅
Zoho CRM offers four pricing plans which start at 14€, ranging up to 52€.
To help you choose the right plan for you, Zoho CRM offers a quiz that will give you the right fit.
✅ Pros
- Very affordable
- Integration with marketing automation tools and sales automation tools
❌ Cons
- Cannot work on its own
- Performance is low during large datasets
8. Freshsales CRM x Freshworks
Ratings ⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.5/5 (1,175 reviews) | Capterra 4.5/5 (610 reviews)
Overview
Freshsales is an AI-powered CRM software said to offer a 360º view of contacts and accounts.
Freshsales CRM helps sales teams attract quality leads, engage in contextual conversations, grow sales pipeline, boost conversions, and power productivity.
Among Freshsales’ features you can find:
- Pipeline management
- Phone, email, and chat capabilities for customer engagement
- Advanced workflows and sequences
- Freddy AI
Freddy AI is Freshsales’ AI assistant that will analyze data to provide predictive analysis and advise the next actions. With Freddy AI you can also craft personalized emails and automate follow-ups.
Pricing
Free trial ✅
You can try Freshsales for free for 21 days, but if you’re ready to commit to a paid plan, you can choose between three different plans.
Although it is cheaper to commit to an annual plan, monthly billed plans range from 11€ to 71€.
Bear in mind Freddy AI is only available in plans Pro and Enterprise.
✅ Pros
- Intuitive user interface
- Integration with Aircall
❌ Cons
- Analytics have a slow refresh rate and cannot be done manually
- Software may glitch at times
9. Less Annoying CRM
Ratings ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.9/5 (590 reviews) | Capterra 4.8/5 (595 reviews)
Overview
Less Annoying CRM is a simple CRM designed for small businesses and teams that do not need an extensive list of features.
This software provides basic features such as:
- Contact management
- Lead management
- Follow-up reminders
- Pipeline management
- Shared scheduling
- Automated reminders
- Real-time updates
- Flexible reporting
Pricing
Free trial ✅
In their mission to keep things as simple as possible, LACRM boils it down to one pricing plan set at $15 per user. Additionally, you can add as many users as you need.
✅ Pros
- User-friendly
- Mobile version is simple and clear
❌ Cons
- Basic software, not suitable for advanced or large teams
- Cannot incorporate multiple calendars
10. Close CRM
Ratings ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.7/5 (1,076 reviews) | Capterra 4.7/5 (160 reviews)
Overview
Close CRM is a sales engagement CRM.
Among its standout features, we can find calling, SMS, Zoom, and email and calendar integrations.
Other useful features Close CRM offers are:
- Sales pipeline management
- Email personalization, scheduling, and tracking
- Task management
- Customizable reports and analytics dashboards
- Integrations (Zapier, HubSpot, Calendly, Gmail…)
- Mobile app
Close CRM is also known for its user-friendly interface.
Pricing
Free trial ✅
Aside from the free trial, Close also offers an on-demand demo so you can see if Close is the right CRM for you before getting started.
Close CRM’s pricing ranges from $49 to $139 and has three different plans: Startup, Professional, and Enterprise.
✅ Pros
- Allows for multichannel communication
- Mobile app is undergoing improvement
- Simplicity in distinguishing stages of the sales cycles
❌ Cons
- Does not allow conference calls
- Basic workflow triggers
11. Attio CRM
Ratings ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.8/5 (13 reviews) | Product hunt 5/5 (73 reviews)
Overview
Attio CRM is designed for fast-growing startups who need scaleable software.
With Attio you can syn your product, billing, and relationship data into a single workspace, and create custom objects that match your business’ data structure.
Aside from other features, Attio offers:
- Workflow automation
- Team collaboration
- LinkedIn extension
- Gmail extension
- Mobile app for iOS and Android
- Note-taking
Users particularly like the clean and simple interface.
Pricing
Free trial ✅
With Attio, you can choose from 4 different plans, including a free plan with basic features that can still be quite useful to manage your business’ data.
Paid plans then range from 29€ to 119€ per month, billed annually.
✅ Pros
- Intuitive UI
- Great reporting
- Allows for team collaboration
❌ Cons
- Needs more integrations
- Added cost for workflow credits
12. Zendesk Sell
Ratings ⭐⭐⭐⭐
G2 4.2/5 (483 reviews) | Capterra 4.3/5 (156 reviews)
Overview
Zendesk Sell is a cloud-based CRM platform that is available in +30 languages.
With its productivity tools, advanced analytics, and a full customer view from sales to service, Zendesk Sell can help your sales team from one tool.
It also supports integrations with +1,000 other platforms.
Pricing
Free trial ✅
Zendesk Sell offers four pricing plans which start at 55€. For its highest tier, pricing is under request.
Custom analytics and the AI add-on are only available on Suite Professional and Suite Enterprise plans, although AI agents are available on all plans.
Bear in mind that pricing could scale when including add-ons.
✅ Pros
- Strong automation capabilities
- All of the leads’ information is added to the lead page
❌ Cons
- High learning curve
- Integrations can be tricky
Key takeaways
We’ve given you our insights, now it’s your turn to choose the perfect CRM for you.
Here’s a little checklist that will help you remember the most important features that make a CRM effective.
- [ ] Contact management
- [ ] Sales pipeline management
- [ ] Workflow automation
- [ ] Task management
- [ ] Integration
- [ ] Analytics
- [ ] Mobile access
Don’t forget to give free trials a go and request demos whenever you can!
