in this post, we’ll answer the question: What is the Best CRM for Small Business? The CRM acronym stands for Customer Relationship Management. One of your most important jobs as a business owner is to stay in touch with the people that have invested in your small business – your customers.
If you’re wondering what CRM software to use, I’m going to tell you about my experience using one that has been especially great for small businesses. It’s one that has everything that we need and more. The good thing is, even though it’s a big company, the pricing is still reasonable for a small business like us.
A CRM (customer relationship management) software will help you manage customers and potential customers, freeing up your time and energy to focus on growing your business.
But, what is a CRM, what can you expect of a CRM software, and how do you pick the right one?
Lucky for you, we’re here to help you out. Keep reading for everything you need to know about how CRM systems can help and how you can choose the right CRM for you.
Plus, we share details on the 12 best CRM software for small businesses, so you can get started off right.
What Is CRM Software & How to Choose the Best?
Customer relationship management (CRM) software is an all-in-one tool to manage customer info, add notes, send emails, manage customer experiences/satisfaction, and so much more. And, you can do it all without leaving the CRM software platform.
As your business grows, manual processes become increasingly inefficient and costly. If you’re not careful, it could easily cost you customers and sales.
CRM for small businesses help keep everyone in your company on the same page, bringing marketing, sales, and customer support together with all the data they need to succeed in their roles.
There are tons of CRM software companies, so knowing what to look for in the best CRM software is super important. Here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Ease of Use: You’re going to be using your CRM software a lot, every single day. You’ll be living in it. If it isn’t easy to use, you won’t use it. And that won’t help you reach your goals.
- Cloud-Based Client Management Systems: Having a cloud-based CRM means your team will be able to access client details from anywhere, in real-time, increasing productivity. Nucleus Research found that 65% of companies using mobile-friendly CRMs exceeded their sales targets.
- Funnel Management: If you have a sales team, this one’s vital. You must be able to track your contacts all the way from “just browsing” to “brand evangelist” without missing a beat.
Now that we know what you’re looking, let’s look at the top choices of CRMs for small business.
Best CRM SWhat Is the Best CRM for Small Business
Before diving into the list of the best CRM software for small business, there’s one thing we need to mention: to use a customer relationship management tool, you first need to start the relationship with actual customers.
For that, there’s no better tool than OptinMonster:
OptinMonster is hands down the best way to generate new leads for your CRM.
That’s because it lets you build optin campaigns like popups, floating bars, fullscreen welcome mats, and more–even if you have zero coding experience or “tech skills.”
Everything starts with selecting one of OptinMonster’s pre-made templates:
These save you time, energy, and headaches in the campaign creation process. From there, making modifications to your campaign is easy.
To change any of your campaign’s text, for example, you can use OptinMonster’s inline editor:
Or maybe you’d like to add a new feature to your campaign, like an image, video, chatbot, or more. You can easily do so with a drag and a drop:
But biulding the perfect optin campaign is only half the battle. What’s the other half?
Showing it to the right people, in the right places, and at just the right time in their customer journey.
For that, you can use OptinMonster’s powerful targeting rules. Some of the most popular rules include:
- Exit-Intent® Technology: Display popups to re-engage users who are actively leaving your website.
- OnSite Retargeting®: Show fresh campaigns to returning visitors to prevent “popup fatigue.”
- Geolocation Targeting: Make your campaigns appear to users based on where they’re physically located.
These are just a few examples of OptinMonster’s targeting rules, though there are many others.
And now you may be wondering, “This is all great… but does OptinMonster really help get new leads?
In short, YES.
Just check out some of these success stories shared by real OptinMonster customers:
- Shotkit add’s 40+ NEW leads to their list every single day
- Crossrope explodes their email list by over 900%
- Adam Enfroy adds over 11,000 leads in just 1 year
You can achieve the same massive results by clicking below to start your 100% risk-FREE OptinMonster account today:Sign Up For OptinMonster Today!
BONUS: Done-For-You Campaign Setup ($297 value)Our conversion experts will design 1 free campaign for you to get maximum results – absolutely FREE! Click here to get started →
With that in mind, let’s dive into our list of the best CRMs for small business.
Freshsales
Benefits:
Freshsales is a full-fledged sales force automation solution for sales teams. It provides everything a salesperson needs to— attract quality leads, engage in contextual conversations, drive deals with AI-powered insights, and nurture customer relationships.
With built-in email, phone, chat, and telephony, Freshsales empowers sales teams with more time for selling by automating the sales process and increases efficiency and productivity in their daily activities. With Freddy AI, salespeople can get insights into the best deals to go after and what actions to take and predict revenue with sales forecasting. Businesses can take the next step forward towards powerful pipeline management with Freshsales. Also, the option to use native CPQ makes generating and sharing quotes and other vital sales assets hassle-free.
Drawbacks:
Like many vendors, some of the better features are reserved for premium packages. Among these for Freshworks CRM are time-based workflows, some chatbot tools and advanced metric reporting. But overall, the free and basic plans are a decent place to start, and you can always upgrade.
Pricing:
- There is a Free Forever Startup plan
- Growth plan is $15 per user/month billed annually
- Pro plan is $39 per user/month billed annually
- Enterprise plan is $69 per user/month billed annually
Keap
Benefits:
Keap is a contact management and sales pipeline platform seriously geared towards helping small, self-employed, and even home-run businesses and e-commerce operations.
It all begins with populating a great leads database and keeping it organized. Gathering contact info is done by importing contact lists from other CRMs, scanning business cards, converting messy spreadsheets, simple manual entry, or setting up a custom form on your page. You can also add your own custom fields to the contact info.
For Keap, after getting the job done, and getting paid, it all stops—and restarts—with “staying connected.” This is their commitment to converting leads into satisfied customers who will not only come back, but spread the love through referrals.
Drawbacks:
There’s a lot of features, which can make Keap appear daunting at first (and you may not end up using a lot of them). Integrations are limited. The price-point can be a stumbling block for individuals on a small budget.
Pricing:
- Lite plan is $56 per user/per month, billed monthly.
- Pro plan is $105 per user/per month, billed monthly.
- Max plan is $140 per user/per month, billed monthly.
A free trial is available for the Lite and Pro plans.
Salesmate.io
Benefits:
Salesmate is a CRM system for salespeople who want to spend more time selling and less time learning to use new apps. It’s great for startups and small businesses, but it can also be used for real estate and construction industries.
This platform is always improving itself. It’s given its analytics and reporting a significant upgrade, with a more customizable and interactive dashboard. Salesmate has also added new tools for phone calling and deal management, as well as new mobile app improvements. New features on the horizon include live chat and DocuSign integrations.
Drawbacks:
Some of the customization features can be a bit lacking, especially when trying to create custom data fields. Also, you’ll need the pricier version for essential tools like email analytics.
Pricing:
- Starter version is $12 per user/per month, billed annually
- Growth version is $24 per user/per month, billed annually
- Boost version is $40 per user/per month, billed annually
Salesmate.io offers a 15-day free trial on all of their plans.
InfoFlo
Benefits:
This is a CRM that goes the extra mile for Microsoft Outlook integrations. It has highly-detailed customer management with custom fields, for more 360-degree contact views. There is a great set of telephony tools including SMS integration and full VoIP. With InfoFlo, you can choose whether it runs on the cloud or on-premise for added data security. Lastly, there is very competitive pricing if you go for the desktop version.
Drawbacks:
InfoFlo does have a ton of useful tools. One drawback, though, is you should be prepared to put in the time mastering them all. Regarding subscription downsides, the cloud requires a minimum of 3 users which is not great for companies that only need 1 or 2 users.
Pricing:
- Cloud Starter is $30 per user per month, 3 users minimum
- Cloud Advanced is $35 per user per month, 3 users minimum
- On Premise is $99 per user
All plans are basic with the option to select add-ons. For example, the Cloud Starter gets you 3 add-ons, while the Cloud Advanced gets you 5 add-ons. Additional add-ons can be purchased.
Really Simple Systems CRM
Really Simple CRM used to be just that: simple. But the software has grown and now includes a range of sophisticated CRM tools.
Really Simple Systems has a set of features for the standard three departments: marketing, sales and service. Marketing gets you lead management and campaign management. There’s also email marketing and automation. Sales tools include contact and pipeline management. It also does tasks, calendars and sales forecasting. Customer service has case management, SLAs and case reports.
Really Simple Systems has a free plan. For premium plans, the cost per user starts at $14 per month billed annually.
Really Simple Systems CRM is best for:
- Individual users
- Startups
- Small teams
- SMBs
- CRM tools
- Task management
Bigin by Zoho CRM
Benefits:
Bigin is a pipeline-centric CRM from Zoho that is built specifically for small and micro businesses. At $7/user/month, Bigin is the most affordable CRM system in the market.
Bigin’s makers consciously cut down on features that most small businesses will never actually use. Owing to which, Bigin stays minimal and intuitive throughout. Having said that, Bigin does offer all the essential features such as built-in telephony and email, multiple pipelines, workflow automation, activity management, and a fully-customizable dashboard to track key business metrics.
The multiple pipelines in Bigin let you customize each stage in your pipeline for different business operations. With a clear pipeline view, you can always keep track of open deals by stage and easily filter contact and company information. Bigin also carries the same pipeline view to their mobile apps, something the competition heavily lacks.
Bigin integrates with Google Workspace (Formerly G Suite), Microsoft Office 365, Mailchimp, Zapier and a host of other popular Zoho apps including Zoho Desk, Zoho Campaigns, and Zoho Forms. The mobile apps for iOS and Android are rated well and their macOS app was recently featured by Apple on the AppStore.
Drawbacks:
As businesses grow, their requirements become more complex, which might force them to look at higher editions of Zoho CRM (Starting at $12/user/month), which offers a fully-featured CRM that is customizable for businesses of all sizes and types.
Pricing:
Express edition:
- $7/user/month, when billed annually
- $9/user/month, when billed monthly.
Free edition: If you work just by yourself, Bigin has a free edition that should help you satisfy your basic CRM needs.
Bigin offers a 15-day free trial for new users. You can sign up without entering your credit card information.
Method:CRM
Benefits:
If you use QuickBooks and need a CRM that you can tailor to your needs, this is a good option. Method:CRM offers two-way, real-time sync with QuickBooks to eliminate double data entry. This is a great tool for managing your customers as it lets you view their estimates, invoices, and payments in one place.
Method:CRM works well for small businesses and is especially powerful for verticals such as construction, field service, manufacturing, accounting. Finally, it’s very useful for online customer payment processing and syncing data back to QuickBooks.
Drawbacks:
To get any of the sales pipeline management tools you need the Pro edition. For now, this isn’t an ideal CRM system if you don’t use QuickBooks.
Pricing:
- Basic contact management is $25 per user per month billed annually
- CRM Pro is $44 per user per month billed annually
You can try out Method:CRM for 30 days for free.
Daylite
Benefits:
Daylite is a CRM designed specifically for Mac, iPhone and iPad users. It’s a pretty good platform for startups and small businesses of up to 100 people looking to expand their client list and projects so they can scale.
The Daylite set of tools are divided into CRM features and project management tools. The idea here was to break down the old division between customer-facing tasks and internal ones. It isn’t just for sales and marketing. All departments can use it to stay informed of what’s going on with a project for a client.
Other great assets are the Daylite Mail Assistant, which integrates directly with Apple Mail (something very few platforms do). Daylite offers loads of customization options. These include a variety of ways to categorize and tag contacts, tasks, projects, deals, etc. It allows you to create custom and flexible reports, as well as administrative team and user permissions. Finally, as a Mac tool, it works with other Apple apps like Calendar, Contacts and even Siri.
Drawbacks:
Daylite only has one plan. This means there’s less flexibility in pricing and packages. Another limitation here is that it’s only meant to be a CRM and Project Management app for Apple users.
Pricing:
- Daylite is $24 per user per month, billed annually. Visit the vendor’s site for the most current prices or specials.
Daylite offers a 30-day free trial. It also includes a complimentary 30-minute onboarding call to help new users get started.
BenchmarkONE
Benefits:
BenchmarkONE is a very comprehensive CRM system for sales and marketing. It’s also great for email marketing automation to gather and qualify prospects. The sales automation features manage your pipeline and help win more successful conversions.
It’s great for small to medium businesses like agencies, private practices and consultants. It also offers very detailed analytics and reporting.
Drawbacks:
Teams with more than 5 people will need to take a more expensive plan. There are no customer support tools, so it’s not a truly all-in-one CRM.
Pricing:
- Free version is good just for 1 user
- Core $70 is for 2 users per month, billed semi-annually
- Pro $139 is for 5 users per month, billed semi-annually
- Enterprise $199 is for unlimited users per month, billed semi-annually
There are also 2 premium onboarding services valued at $199 (included with Core Plans) and $399 (included with Pro and Enterprise plans).
EngageBay
Benefits:
EngageBay bills itself as a HubSpot alternative, and sells three business process-orientated suites: Marketing Automation, Live Chat & Helpdesk, and CRM & Sales Bay. The last of these, CRM & Sales Bay, provides contact management tools designed for simplicity and company growth.
The platform provides multi-channel listening, aggregating contact info from across all your customer touchpoints. Track contact activity, web activity, email response, open and click rates, and more.
Integrates with Gmail, Office 365 or any other IMAP service, with two-way sync capabilities. Zapier, SendGrid, Mailgun, Xero, and Mandrill integrations allow you to connect your CRM with your other business processes and further streamline your operations.
Drawbacks:
Could use more native integrations with third-party apps. Email template options are limited in number and simplistic in style.
Pricing:
- A free plan is available, limited to 1,000 contacts and 1,000 branded emails
- Basic plan is $10.39 per user/per month billed annually, and $12.99 per user/per month billed monthly
- Growth plan is $19.99 per user/per month billed annually, and $24.99 per user/per month billed monthly
- Pro plan is $39.99 per user/per month billed annually, and $49.99 per user/per month billed monthly
Copper
Benefits:
Copper integrates with G Suite, which is great if you use Gmail all day every day. The platform installs in about five minutes. Once it’s up and running, you can look forward to features like automated data entry, smart identification, lead and customer tracking, plus optimization of sales contacts and opportunities.
The CRM offers an eye-pleasing sales pipeline for managing leads through the qualification process. Communications are improved with easy access to contacts via email, voice, and text, and the ability to use accurate voice transcription to log notes in-app.
You can improve management of teams and workflows with weekly pipeline progression reports using drag-and-drop functionality, custom filters, and alerts when deals might be going stale.
Drawbacks:
Copper is made out to be very user-friendly, and it is, but there is a bit of a learning curve. Be forewarned you’ll need to set aside some time to meaningfully implement it within your business.
Sometimes there’s issues with importing data from Excel, meaning you’ll be required to manually enter that information into Copper. Also, you currently can’t attach files to emails sent directly within Copper, requiring you to flip over to Gmail to send your message instead.
Pricing:
- Basic plan is $19 per user/per month, billed annually.
- Professional plan is $49 per user/per month, billed annually.
- Business plan is $119 per user/per month, billed annually.
Copper offers a 14-day free trial for all plans.
Learn More: Copper
One of the most important aspects for any small business is customer relationships. Without customers, your business doesn’t exist. The more organized system you use to manage your customers, their needs, expectations, and how they are currently using your products will only help you build stronger customer relations. A modern CRM software can do all of that and much more besides.
A CRM (customer relationship management) software will help you manage customers and potential customers, freeing up your time and energy to focus on growing your business.
But, what is a CRM, what can you expect of a CRM software, and how do you pick the right one?
Lucky for you, we’re here to help you out. Keep reading for everything you need to know about how CRM systems can help and how you can choose the right CRM for you.
Plus, we share details on the 12 best CRM software for small businesses, so you can get started off right.
What Is CRM Software & How to Choose the Best?
Customer relationship management (CRM) software is an all-in-one tool to manage customer info, add notes, send emails, manage customer experiences/satisfaction, and so much more. And, you can do it all without leaving the CRM software platform.
As your business grows, manual processes become increasingly inefficient and costly. If you’re not careful, it could easily cost you customers and sales.
CRM for small businesses help keep everyone in your company on the same page, bringing marketing, sales, and customer support together with all the data they need to succeed in their roles.
There are tons of CRM software companies, so knowing what to look for in the best CRM software is super important. Here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Ease of Use: You’re going to be using your CRM software a lot, every single day. You’ll be living in it. If it isn’t easy to use, you won’t use it. And that won’t help you reach your goals.
- Cloud-Based Client Management Systems: Having a cloud-based CRM means your team will be able to access client details from anywhere, in real-time, increasing productivity. Nucleus Research found that 65% of companies using mobile-friendly CRMs exceeded their sales targets.
- Funnel Management: If you have a sales team, this one’s vital. You must be able to track your contacts all the way from “just browsing” to “brand evangelist” without missing a beat.
Now that we know what you’re looking, let’s look at the top choices of CRMs for small business.
Best CRM Software for Small Business
Before diving into the list of the best CRM software for small business, there’s one thing we need to mention: to use a customer relationship management tool, you first need to start the relationship with actual customers.
For that, there’s no better tool than OptinMonster:
OptinMonster is hands down the best way to generate new leads for your CRM.
That’s because it lets you build optin campaigns like popups, floating bars, fullscreen welcome mats, and more–even if you have zero coding experience or “tech skills.”
Everything starts with selecting one of OptinMonster’s pre-made templates:
These save you time, energy, and headaches in the campaign creation process. From there, making modifications to your campaign is easy.
To change any of your campaign’s text, for example, you can use OptinMonster’s inline editor:
Or maybe you’d like to add a new feature to your campaign, like an image, video, chatbot, or more. You can easily do so with a drag and a drop:
But biulding the perfect optin campaign is only half the battle. What’s the other half?
Showing it to the right people, in the right places, and at just the right time in their customer journey.
For that, you can use OptinMonster’s powerful targeting rules. Some of the most popular rules include:
- Exit-Intent® Technology: Display popups to re-engage users who are actively leaving your website.
- OnSite Retargeting®: Show fresh campaigns to returning visitors to prevent “popup fatigue.”
- Geolocation Targeting: Make your campaigns appear to users based on where they’re physically located.
These are just a few examples of OptinMonster’s targeting rules, though there are many others.
And now you may be wondering, “This is all great… but does OptinMonster really help get new leads?
In short, YES.
Just check out some of these success stories shared by real OptinMonster customers:
- Shotkit add’s 40+ NEW leads to their list every single day
- Crossrope explodes their email list by over 900%
- Adam Enfroy adds over 11,000 leads in just 1 year
You can achieve the same massive results by clicking below to start your 100% risk-FREE OptinMonster account today:Sign Up For OptinMonster Today!
BONUS: Done-For-You Campaign Setup ($297 value)Our conversion experts will design 1 free campaign for you to get maximum results – absolutely FREE! Click here to get started →
With that in mind, let’s dive into our list of the best CRMs for small business.
Freshsales
Benefits:
Freshsales is a full-fledged sales force automation solution for sales teams. It provides everything a salesperson needs to— attract quality leads, engage in contextual conversations, drive deals with AI-powered insights, and nurture customer relationships.
With built-in email, phone, chat, and telephony, Freshsales empowers sales teams with more time for selling by automating the sales process and increases efficiency and productivity in their daily activities. With Freddy AI, salespeople can get insights into the best deals to go after and what actions to take and predict revenue with sales forecasting. Businesses can take the next step forward towards powerful pipeline management with Freshsales. Also, the option to use native CPQ makes generating and sharing quotes and other vital sales assets hassle-free.
Drawbacks:
Like many vendors, some of the better features are reserved for premium packages. Among these for Freshworks CRM are time-based workflows, some chatbot tools and advanced metric reporting. But overall, the free and basic plans are a decent place to start, and you can always upgrade.
Pricing:
- There is a Free Forever Startup plan
- Growth plan is $15 per user/month billed annually
- Pro plan is $39 per user/month billed annually
- Enterprise plan is $69 per user/month billed annually
Keap
Benefits:
Keap is a contact management and sales pipeline platform seriously geared towards helping small, self-employed, and even home-run businesses and e-commerce operations.
It all begins with populating a great leads database and keeping it organized. Gathering contact info is done by importing contact lists from other CRMs, scanning business cards, converting messy spreadsheets, simple manual entry, or setting up a custom form on your page. You can also add your own custom fields to the contact info.
For Keap, after getting the job done, and getting paid, it all stops—and restarts—with “staying connected.” This is their commitment to converting leads into satisfied customers who will not only come back, but spread the love through referrals.
Drawbacks:
There’s a lot of features, which can make Keap appear daunting at first (and you may not end up using a lot of them). Integrations are limited. The price-point can be a stumbling block for individuals on a small budget.
Pricing:
- Lite plan is $56 per user/per month, billed monthly.
- Pro plan is $105 per user/per month, billed monthly.
- Max plan is $140 per user/per month, billed monthly.
A free trial is available for the Lite and Pro plans.
Salesmate.io
Benefits:
Salesmate is a CRM system for salespeople who want to spend more time selling and less time learning to use new apps. It’s great for startups and small businesses, but it can also be used for real estate and construction industries.
This platform is always improving itself. It’s given its analytics and reporting a significant upgrade, with a more customizable and interactive dashboard. Salesmate has also added new tools for phone calling and deal management, as well as new mobile app improvements. New features on the horizon include live chat and DocuSign integrations.
Drawbacks:
Some of the customization features can be a bit lacking, especially when trying to create custom data fields. Also, you’ll need the pricier version for essential tools like email analytics.
Pricing:
- Starter version is $12 per user/per month, billed annually
- Growth version is $24 per user/per month, billed annually
- Boost version is $40 per user/per month, billed annually
Salesmate.io offers a 15-day free trial on all of their plans.
InfoFlo
Benefits:
This is a CRM that goes the extra mile for Microsoft Outlook integrations. It has highly-detailed customer management with custom fields, for more 360-degree contact views. There is a great set of telephony tools including SMS integration and full VoIP. With InfoFlo, you can choose whether it runs on the cloud or on-premise for added data security. Lastly, there is very competitive pricing if you go for the desktop version.
Drawbacks:
InfoFlo does have a ton of useful tools. One drawback, though, is you should be prepared to put in the time mastering them all. Regarding subscription downsides, the cloud requires a minimum of 3 users which is not great for companies that only need 1 or 2 users.
Pricing:
- Cloud Starter is $30 per user per month, 3 users minimum
- Cloud Advanced is $35 per user per month, 3 users minimum
- On Premise is $99 per user
All plans are basic with the option to select add-ons. For example, the Cloud Starter gets you 3 add-ons, while the Cloud Advanced gets you 5 add-ons. Additional add-ons can be purchased.
Really Simple Systems CRM
Really Simple CRM used to be just that: simple. But the software has grown and now includes a range of sophisticated CRM tools.
Really Simple Systems has a set of features for the standard three departments: marketing, sales and service. Marketing gets you lead management and campaign management. There’s also email marketing and automation. Sales tools include contact and pipeline management. It also does tasks, calendars and sales forecasting. Customer service has case management, SLAs and case reports.
Really Simple Systems has a free plan. For premium plans, the cost per user starts at $14 per month billed annually.
Really Simple Systems CRM is best for:
- Individual users
- Startups
- Small teams
- SMBs
- CRM tools
- Task management
Bigin by Zoho CRM
Benefits:
Bigin is a pipeline-centric CRM from Zoho that is built specifically for small and micro businesses. At $7/user/month, Bigin is the most affordable CRM system in the market.
Bigin’s makers consciously cut down on features that most small businesses will never actually use. Owing to which, Bigin stays minimal and intuitive throughout. Having said that, Bigin does offer all the essential features such as built-in telephony and email, multiple pipelines, workflow automation, activity management, and a fully-customizable dashboard to track key business metrics.
The multiple pipelines in Bigin let you customize each stage in your pipeline for different business operations. With a clear pipeline view, you can always keep track of open deals by stage and easily filter contact and company information. Bigin also carries the same pipeline view to their mobile apps, something the competition heavily lacks.
Bigin integrates with Google Workspace (Formerly G Suite), Microsoft Office 365, Mailchimp, Zapier and a host of other popular Zoho apps including Zoho Desk, Zoho Campaigns, and Zoho Forms. The mobile apps for iOS and Android are rated well and their macOS app was recently featured by Apple on the AppStore.
Drawbacks:
As businesses grow, their requirements become more complex, which might force them to look at higher editions of Zoho CRM (Starting at $12/user/month), which offers a fully-featured CRM that is customizable for businesses of all sizes and types.
Pricing:
Express edition:
- $7/user/month, when billed annually
- $9/user/month, when billed monthly.
Free edition: If you work just by yourself, Bigin has a free edition that should help you satisfy your basic CRM needs.
Bigin offers a 15-day free trial for new users. You can sign up without entering your credit card information.
Method:CRM
Benefits:
If you use QuickBooks and need a CRM that you can tailor to your needs, this is a good option. Method:CRM offers two-way, real-time sync with QuickBooks to eliminate double data entry. This is a great tool for managing your customers as it lets you view their estimates, invoices, and payments in one place.
Method:CRM works well for small businesses and is especially powerful for verticals such as construction, field service, manufacturing, accounting. Finally, it’s very useful for online customer payment processing and syncing data back to QuickBooks.
Drawbacks:
To get any of the sales pipeline management tools you need the Pro edition. For now, this isn’t an ideal CRM system if you don’t use QuickBooks.
Pricing:
- Basic contact management is $25 per user per month billed annually
- CRM Pro is $44 per user per month billed annually
You can try out Method:CRM for 30 days for free.
Daylite
Benefits:
Daylite is a CRM designed specifically for Mac, iPhone and iPad users. It’s a pretty good platform for startups and small businesses of up to 100 people looking to expand their client list and projects so they can scale.
The Daylite set of tools are divided into CRM features and project management tools. The idea here was to break down the old division between customer-facing tasks and internal ones. It isn’t just for sales and marketing. All departments can use it to stay informed of what’s going on with a project for a client.
Other great assets are the Daylite Mail Assistant, which integrates directly with Apple Mail (something very few platforms do). Daylite offers loads of customization options. These include a variety of ways to categorize and tag contacts, tasks, projects, deals, etc. It allows you to create custom and flexible reports, as well as administrative team and user permissions. Finally, as a Mac tool, it works with other Apple apps like Calendar, Contacts and even Siri.
Drawbacks:
Daylite only has one plan. This means there’s less flexibility in pricing and packages. Another limitation here is that it’s only meant to be a CRM and Project Management app for Apple users.
Pricing:
- Daylite is $24 per user per month, billed annually. Visit the vendor’s site for the most current prices or specials.
Daylite offers a 30-day free trial. It also includes a complimentary 30-minute onboarding call to help new users get started.
BenchmarkONE
Benefits:
BenchmarkONE is a very comprehensive CRM system for sales and marketing. It’s also great for email marketing automation to gather and qualify prospects. The sales automation features manage your pipeline and help win more successful conversions.
It’s great for small to medium businesses like agencies, private practices and consultants. It also offers very detailed analytics and reporting.
Drawbacks:
Teams with more than 5 people will need to take a more expensive plan. There are no customer support tools, so it’s not a truly all-in-one CRM.
Pricing:
- Free version is good just for 1 user
- Core $70 is for 2 users per month, billed semi-annually
- Pro $139 is for 5 users per month, billed semi-annually
- Enterprise $199 is for unlimited users per month, billed semi-annually
There are also 2 premium onboarding services valued at $199 (included with Core Plans) and $399 (included with Pro and Enterprise plans).
EngageBay
Benefits:
EngageBay bills itself as a HubSpot alternative, and sells three business process-orientated suites: Marketing Automation, Live Chat & Helpdesk, and CRM & Sales Bay. The last of these, CRM & Sales Bay, provides contact management tools designed for simplicity and company growth.
The platform provides multi-channel listening, aggregating contact info from across all your customer touchpoints. Track contact activity, web activity, email response, open and click rates, and more.
Integrates with Gmail, Office 365 or any other IMAP service, with two-way sync capabilities. Zapier, SendGrid, Mailgun, Xero, and Mandrill integrations allow you to connect your CRM with your other business processes and further streamline your operations.
Drawbacks:
Could use more native integrations with third-party apps. Email template options are limited in number and simplistic in style.
Pricing:
- A free plan is available, limited to 1,000 contacts and 1,000 branded emails
- Basic plan is $10.39 per user/per month billed annually, and $12.99 per user/per month billed monthly
- Growth plan is $19.99 per user/per month billed annually, and $24.99 per user/per month billed monthly
- Pro plan is $39.99 per user/per month billed annually, and $49.99 per user/per month billed monthly
Copper
Benefits:
Copper integrates with G Suite, which is great if you use Gmail all day every day. The platform installs in about five minutes. Once it’s up and running, you can look forward to features like automated data entry, smart identification, lead and customer tracking, plus optimization of sales contacts and opportunities.
The CRM offers an eye-pleasing sales pipeline for managing leads through the qualification process. Communications are improved with easy access to contacts via email, voice, and text, and the ability to use accurate voice transcription to log notes in-app.
You can improve management of teams and workflows with weekly pipeline progression reports using drag-and-drop functionality, custom filters, and alerts when deals might be going stale.
Drawbacks:
Copper is made out to be very user-friendly, and it is, but there is a bit of a learning curve. Be forewarned you’ll need to set aside some time to meaningfully implement it within your business.
Sometimes there’s issues with importing data from Excel, meaning you’ll be required to manually enter that information into Copper. Also, you currently can’t attach files to emails sent directly within Copper, requiring you to flip over to Gmail to send your message instead.
Pricing:
- Basic plan is $19 per user/per month, billed annually.
- Professional plan is $49 per user/per month, billed annually.
- Business plan is $119 per user/per month, billed annually.
Copper offers a 14-day free trial for all plans.
Learn More: Copper
Conclusions
The best CRM software is the perfect solution for small business owners who want a robust customer relationship management tool, but don’t have a huge budget. Whether your company is a fledgling startup or a part of a long-established enterprise, you need to build and maintain strong relationships with customers.