If you’re looking for CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software for your startup, a third-party review website like G2.com ought to help… Except that G2 returns a list of over 700 recommendations when you search for CRM. That’s an overwhelming amount, especially considering you need just one CRM tool.
To help you evaluate your options, I reviewed a range of CRM software and identified the best ones.
In this article, I’ll walk you through the seven best CRMs for startups, highlighting their pros and cons, what I like about them, and who they’re best for.
Table of Contents
- What Is a CRM for Startups?
- Why Do Startups Need a CRM?
- Benefits of Using a CRM at Your Startup
- Top Features of Startup CRMs
- 7 Best CRMs for Startups
Data gathered by CRMs include contact information, company details, location, lead source, calls, emails, pages visited, purchase history, support tickets, chat logs, and more.
The CRM serves as a central database from which all data is accessible to all departments and authorized team members.
Why Do Startups Need a CRM?
Building a successful startup involves handling large amounts of customer data. Many entrepreneurs default to spreadsheets or paper to track this data. While effective to an extent, these methods have limitations that make them unsuitable for startups with big growth ambitions.
Small- and medium-sized business (SMB) owners who enjoy using spreadsheets often realize they should have adopted a CRM software sooner.
Here’s an example:
If you’re still on the fence, below are three reasons to ditch spreadsheets and adopt dedicated CRM software.
Spreadsheet CRMs are Difficult to Scale
Spreadsheets might suffice for small teams with limited data but become a headache as your team grows and lead volumes increase. For instance, data integrity may go out the window when multiple team members edit the same spreadsheet. This is because of the basic access permissions (view, edit, and comment) which are inadequate for larger teams.
Also, the accidental altering or deleting of customer data may be difficult to avoid with spreadsheets. To ensure data integrity, some teams waste up to half their workday updating and maintaining spreadsheets.
One timesaving solution is to let each team member manage their own spreadsheets, but this creates another problem: data silos. Plus, you risk losing valuable leads and revenue when employees leave.
The fix is a CRM that brings all your data in one central location and provides granular user permissions.
For instance, HubSpot CRM lets you set object-specific permissions (e.g., contacts, companies, deals) that give you more control over who views, edits, or deletes specific records.
Spreadsheet CRMs Lack Crucial Advanced Functionalities
You can build a sophisticated spreadsheet CRM if you’re good with Google Sheets and automation tools like Zapier. Still, I’ve not seen a spreadsheet CRM that matches the comprehensive capabilities of dedicated CRMs.
For instance, the HubSpot CRM automatically logs any activities associated with a contact. This includes emails read, links opened, service tickets submitted, calls made and recorded, notes taken, and other such activities.
Since the activity log is centralized, every team member can see the complete interaction history and get the context they need to serve each customer effectively. If a sales rep calls in sick, their replacement can quickly catch up on an opportunity and continue the sales process seamlessly. It’s almost impossible to achieve this level of detail using spreadsheet CRMs.
The bottom line is this: no matter how good your spreadsheet CRM is, you may be holding your team back if you don’t switch to a dedicated CRM.
Dedicated CRMs Drive Higher Productivity Gains
A CRM lets you automate repetitive day-to-day tasks, such as lead assignment, task reminders, data enrichment, and reporting.
- Lead assignment. Automatically assign leads based on predefined criteria to sales representatives.
- Task reminders. Automatically create tasks for sales reps or other team members based on specific triggers, such as a lead reaching a particular stage in the pipeline. You can also pre-set automated reminders to ensure tasks are completed on time.
- Data enrichment. Automatically enrich contact data with information from third-party integrations.
- Reporting. Automatically generate reports based on various metrics and KPIs.
The result? You sell faster because your sales reps spend more time speaking to prospects and less on admin work. Other team members also have more free time to prioritize higher-value activities.
Pro tip: Don’t wait until your customer data and communications get messy before adopting a CRM. By then, you might have lost sales because of disorganization. Start with the free version of HubSpot’s CRM now, even if you don’t need all its features yet. This organizes your data and gives you a CRM your business can grow with.
Benefits of Using a CRM at Your Startup
There are many benefits to using a CRM.
1. Enhances Data Organization
CRMs consolidate customer data in one location. This organization saves the time you’d otherwise waste gathering scattered data.
By centralizing information, CRMs also ensure everyone at your company has a uniform and complete view of the customer. This helps you avoid disjointed customer interactions. As an example, you won’t have a situation where multiple sales reps accidentally email the same lead. Why? Everyone can access prior interactions with the lead.
2. Enables Personalized Customer Experiences
According to a 2021 study by McKinsey & Company, 71% of customers demand personalization, and 76% get frustrated when it doesn’t happen. To deliver these personalized experiences, you need to know your customers intimately.
CRMs help by aggregating customer data and analyzing their interactions to draw insights. With this data, your marketing team can personalize emails and other content, your sales reps can anticipate customer needs and proactively pitch them, and your commerce team can personalize web content.
3. Reduces Missed Appointments and Lost Leads
Promising opportunities can slip through the cracks when you’re juggling many leads. I’ve experienced this situation firsthand. But with CRMs, this challenge disappears. CRMs let you automatically assign sales-qualified leads to team members and set automated task reminders based on deal stages or specific events.
For example, you can automate reminders for the assigned sales rep to send a LinkedIn connection request to a lead two days after initial contact. You can also automate reminder emails to a prospect a day before a meeting to reduce the risk of a no-show.
Pro tip: In the HubSpot CRM, we describe these automations as workflows. Besides reminding you of critical tasks, workflows help you establish a standardized sales process. Instead of each sales team member following their own (unproven) method for lead interactions, you can provide clear guidelines for advancing deals at each stage and accelerating your sales cycle.
1. Enables Lead Prioritization
CRMs help you identify high-potential leads by providing automated lead scoring capabilities. Lead scoring involves assigning a numerical value to a lead based on predefined criteria, such as downloading whitepapers, attending webinars, or engaging with marketing emails.
For example, a lead who frequently visits your pricing page and opens multiple emails gets a higher score than one who only visits your homepage. The higher the score, the more likely the prospect will convert. Sales reps get notified about high-scoring leads, allowing them to focus on promising prospects.
2. Increase Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)
Studies show that happy customers stay longer and buy more, which increases your customer lifetime value. A Gartner report revealed that satisfied customers are 82% more likely to repurchase when given a chance to switch. They’re also 86% likely to increase their spending with you. Conversely, a Zendesk study found that 73% of customers would switch to a competitor after more than one bad experience. CRMs provide the customer data you need to delight your customers.
Additionally, 70% of customers expect companies to collaborate on their behalf, and 68% are annoyed when their calls are transferred between departments, according to Zendesk.
Since a CRM gives every team member a complete view of a customer’s interactions with your company, it reduces the need for back-and-forth communication between teams.
Top Features of Startup CRMs
1. Contact Management
Contact management is the defining feature of a CRM. If your CRM cannot bring customer data into one central database, it’s not a CRM.
Ensure your CRM can automatically track all customer interactions from initial contact. This way, you develop a comprehensive understanding of your audience.
2. Ease of Use
Sometimes, the hurdle of implementing a CRM keeps startups from adopting one. To ease the pressure, choose an intuitive CRM. Your provider should also offer user guides to simplify implementation.
For instance, HubSpot provides resources to help customers learn and maximize the capabilities of HubSpot CRM. These include blog posts, free courses, videos, and a robust knowledge base.
3. Lead and Marketing Automation
Your CRM should help you easily capture and nurture leads. It should have a form builder for embedding forms on your website, a drag-and-drop landing page builder for creating attractive landing pages, ad management software so you can manage your social and Google ad campaigns in one place, and email marketing software that lets you segment leads and create personalized marketing campaigns.
4. Pipeline Management
At a minimum, your CRM should have Kanban boards for visualizing where a prospect is in your deal cycle, call tracking software for logging and recording sales calls in your contact records, and an email template builder to turn your best emails into reusable templates.
5. Extensive Integration Capabilities
According to a 2021 report from software company Qatalog, workers lose up to 5 hours weekly toggling between apps to find information. CRM integrations help you avoid this loss by consolidating data and processes from your frequently used apps into a single platform. This way, you can extend your CRM’s functionality without switching between apps.
You might not know the apps you’ll need in the future. So, keep your options open by choosing a CRM that integrates with various apps.
6. Scalability
As your startup grows, your processes will become more complex, and you’ll need to handle an increasing volume of data and users without dropping performance.
A scalable CRM lets you add new users, expand storage, and incorporate additional features as needed. Look for a CRM that grows with you — i.e., supports your business goals, regardless of size. This prevents you from having to switch CRMs as you scale.
1. HubSpot
HubSpot is more than just a CRM, which 216,000+ customers in over 135 countries use. It’s a platform that centralizes everything you need to grow efficiently and deliver delightful customer experiences. In addition to its contact management capabilities, it offers six different products, which include:
- Marketing Hub: Offers features for lead generation and marketing automation, including a form builder, ad management, email marketing, and automation tools.
- Sales Hub: Features to drive productivity, engage more leads, close more deals, scale your team, and accelerate revenue growth.
- Service Hub: Offers tools to delight and retain customers such as live chat, help desk and ticketing, call tracking, and custom surveys.
- Content Hub: Provides tools to create and manage content at scale. Features include contact management software, lead capture tools, an AI blog writer, advanced analytics and reporting, content embedding, and A/B testing.
- Operations Hub: Provides tools to connect your apps, sync and clean customer data, and automate business processes, ensuring a smooth business and customer experience.
- Commerce Hub: Provides tools for billing and payment management in one place. Features include invoice creation, payment link generation, quote creation, revenue reporting, and QuickBooks integration.
All six products are built on and connected to our Smart CRM, so you can maintain a unified database. You can purchase any of HubSpot’s products independently, allowing you to focus on the features you need most.
HubSpot’s user interface is one of the best in the industry. Its all-in-one functionality and ease of use are why it’s popular among startup founders. Also, HubSpot integrates with 1,500+ third-party tools.
The most common complaint I hear from HubSpot users is about the significant price jump between our starter and professional plans. This concern is valid. However, users who switch to other all-in-one tools agree that those CRMs are less sophisticated.
Best for: Scaling companies that need advanced functionalities along with their CRM.
What I like: HubSpot can serve you no matter how big you become. It’s a favorite among startups, mid-market and enterprise businesses.
Pros of HubSpot
- Robust freemium plan. Includes features like contact management, basic email marketing, landing pages, deal tracking, live chat, and ticketing. Get started with the Starter Bundle, which includes a starter edition of each of our products.
- Vibrant community. Connect with other users and experts for tips on maximizing your CRM.
- All-in-one platform. Comprehensive solutions for marketing, sales, service, and operations.
- Extensive integrations. Compatible with nearly all major software.
Cons of HubSpot
- Best as an all-in-one tool. Becomes expensive if used as a point solution with only a few paid features.
- Pricing structure. Costs vary based on the number of contacts.
HubSpot Pricing
HubSpot has three pricing tiers for each of its Hubs and you can also create customized bundles based on your specific feature requirements.
|
Product |
Starter |
Professional |
Enterprise |
||
|
Billed Monthly |
Billed Annually |
Billed Monthly |
Billed Annually |
Billed Monthly |
|
|
Marketing Hub |
$20/mo/seat |
$15/mo/seat |
$890/mo/seat |
$800/mo/seat |
$3600/mo/seat |
|
Sales Hub |
$20/mo/seat |
$15/mo/seat |
$100/mo/seat |
$90/mo/seat |
$150/mo/seat |
|
Service Hub |
$20/mo/seat |
$15/mo/seat |
$100/mo/seat |
$90/mo/seat |
$150/mo/seat |
|
Content Hub |
$20/mo/seat |
$15/mo/seat |
$500/mo/seat |
$450/mo/seat |
$1500/mo/seat |
|
Operations Hub |
$20/mo/seat |
$15/mo/seat |
$800/mo/seat |
$720/mo/seat |
$2000/mo/seat |
|
Commerce Hub |
Free. You’ll only be charged a fee on transactions processed. |
||||
There’s a one-time onboarding fee for the professional and enterprise tiers of the Marketing, Sales, and Service Hubs. For a detailed overview, please visit HubSpot pricing page.
Your startup can also get up to 90% off on your first year through the HubSpot for Startups program.
2. EngageBay
EngageBay is an all-in-one suite offering marketing, sales, and customer support software. Many of its users are small to medium-sized businesses. Like HubSpot, EngageBay offers a free plan and feature-rich paid plans, but it lacks some crucial functionalities.
Some of its users complain that its reporting feature is basic, lacking the customizable reporting and dashboard customizations that sales and marketing teams often need. Another user pointed out that it lacks email auto-save, so if your browser crashes, you’d lose your email.
Best for: Startups and SMBs seeking an affordable all-in-one solution for CRM, marketing, sales, and support.
What I like: EngageBay is a good alternative to brands who need a comprehensive all-in-one solution but cannot afford HubSpot’s professional plan.
Pros of EngageBay
- Comprehensive free plan. The free plan includes 250 contacts and useful features like segmentation, lead scoring, embed forms, an email template builder, a landing page builder, and a maximum storage of 500MB.
- Cost-effective. Pricing is much lower compared to other all-in-one platforms.
Cons of EngageBay
- Limited functionality. It lacks the features needed to fulfill complex business needs.
- Limited free plan. Access to crucial features are highly limited in the free plan.
- Relatively few integrations. Offers only about 80+ integrations.
EngageBay Pricing
EngageBay offers an 8% discount if you commit to annual billing, and a 15% discount if you commit biannually.
|
Product |
Basic |
Growth |
Pro |
|
All-in-one suite |
$14.99/per user/mo |
$64.99/per user/mo |
$119.99/per user/mo |
|
Marketing Bay |
$12.99/per user/mo |
$14.99/per user/mo |
$79.99/per user/mo |
|
CRM & Sales Bay |
$12.99/per user/mo |
$14.99/per user/mo |
$79.99/per user/mo |
|
Service Bay |
Free forever |
||
3. Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a sales-focused CRM. It offers a few add-ons for marketing and project management-related activities, such as its Campaigns, Web Visitors, and Projects add-ons. However, these add-ons fall short compared to the capabilities of all-in-one platforms like HubSpot.
Pipedrive lacks a quoting feature, its email marketing software is basic, and its search filters are limited. Some salespeople say its reporting feature isn’t sophisticated and its automations are limited and may require a lot of manual work.
For Pipedrive’s ideal customers, its simplicity is a desirable advantage, especially when you factor in its price point. But if you do a lot of demand generation, you could find Pipedrive inadequate.
Best for: Small sales teams looking for a simple and easy-to-use CRM with pipeline visualization tools.
What I like: I like its LeadBooster add-on, which lets you find leads from its database of 400 million profiles and 10 million companies.
Pros of Pipedrive
- Unlimited contacts. Offers unlimited contacts on all plans.
- Uncluttered interface. Its interface is clean and minimalist due to its focus on sales enablement.
- Good value for money. Offers a reasonable price point for the features it provides, without trying to be everything you need.
Cons of Pipedrive
- No free plan. Offers 14-day free trial, but no free plan.
- Lacks advanced features for growing companies. Difficult to scale sales on Pipedrive, especially for large businesses. It’ll require a lot of manual work, thereby increasing time spent on admin tasks.
- Not the best for marketing-related activities. Its marketing-related features are inadequate.
Pipedrive Pricing
Pipedrive has five pricing tiers. You save up to 14% when you choose its annual plans.
|
Essential |
Advanced |
Professional |
Power |
Enterprise |
|
|
Billed Monthly |
$14/user/mo |
$29/user/mo |
$59/user/mo |
$69/user/mo |
$99/user/mo |
|
Billed Annually |
$12/user/mo |
$24/user/mo |
$49/user/mo |
$59/user/mo |
$79/user/mo |
4. Zoho
Zoho CRM, a sales-focused CRM, is one of over 40 cloud-based applications offered in the Zoho suite of products. You can purchase Zoho CRM à la carte or bundle it with other Zoho applications, which include accounting, project management, email management, inventory management, and several other software options.
For instance, the Zoho One package gives you access to the entire Zoho suite for a low price of $105 with a monthly subscription. Given its low price and robust offering, Zoho seems to be every business owner’s dream, but it comes with some trade-offs.
The most common complaint about Zoho is its poor customer support.
Best for: Startups and SMBs that use or plan to use other Zoho products.
What I like: Zoho CRM offers a lot of functionality for a reasonable price.
Pros of Zoho CRM
- Free plan. Offers a forever free plan for up to three users.
- Affordable (regional) pricing. Provides many valuable features for a low price. Prices are tailored to the market conditions of your location.
- One-stop shop. Aims to provide all the applications you need to run your business.
- Extensive integrations. Integrates with 800+ applications.
Cons of Zoho CRM
- Poor customer support. Some satisfied customers say Zoho’s support can be difficult to work with.
- Overwhelming features. Some first-time users find its features overwhelming. I also found its website confusing initially, because of the various offers and bundles available.
- Relatively limited functionalities. Some of its features, such as reporting, are basic compared to its competitors.
Zoho CRM Pricing
Zoho CRM offers a 15-day free trial on its four pricing tiers. You save up to 34% when you choose its annual plans.
|
Standard |
Professional |
Enterprise |
Ultimate |
|
|
Billed Monthly |
$20/user/mo |
$35/user/mo |
$50/user/mo |
$65/user/mo |
|
Billed Annually |
$14/user/mo |
$23/user/mo |
$40/user/mo |
$52/user/mo |
5. Monday
Monday.com is well-known as a project management tool. But in August 2022, it launched its sales CRM, which has become popular.
The most distinctive feature of Monday’s CRM is its colorful interface. It also includes essential sales CRM functionalities like lead and contact management, pipeline management, email synchronization and tracking, automation tools, sales analytics and forecasting, quote and invoicing capabilities, lead scoring, and more.
Though Monday.com has great reviews, some users note that, like most sales-focused CRMs, it lacks advanced functionality and may not be suitable for complex needs.
Best for: Small businesses that use or plan to use other Monday.com products like Monday Work Management and Monday Dev, its project management software for development teams.
What I like: The colorful interface makes it more pleasant to use.
Pros of Monday CRM
- Attractive interface. Features a clean and colorful interface.
- Reasonable integration capabilities. Integrates with 200+ apps, which is good enough.
Cons of Monday CRM
- No free plan. Offers a 14-day free trial on its plans.
- Complex pricing structure. Requires a minimum of 3 seats and doesn‘t allow you to add extra seats per user. Instead, its seat increments go from 3 seats to 5, then 10, 15, 20, etc. So, if you have 6 team members, you’ll need to pay for 10 seats.
- Lacks advanced features for growing companies. Medium and large organizations with complex CRM needs might find Monday limiting.
Monday CRM Pricing
Monday CRM has four pricing tiers. You save up to 34% when you choose its annual plans.
|
Basic CRM |
Standard CRM |
Pro CRM |
Enterprise CRM |
|
|
Billed Monthly |
$15/user/mo |
$20/user/mo |
$33/user/mo |
Custom pricing |
|
Total for 3 users minimum |
$45/user/mo |
$60/user/mo |
$99/user/mo |
Custom pricing |
|
Billed Annually |
$12/user/mo |
$17/user/mo |
$28/user/mo |
Custom pricing |
|
Total for 3 users minimum |
$36/user/mo |
$51/user/mo |
$84/user/mo |
Custom pricing |
6. Copper
Copper is similar to Pipedrive because it is sales-focused and light on features. However, it works best for teams that heavily use Google Workspace. It integrates seamlessly with Google tools, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Meet, and Drive. You can sync emails, add contacts, and create tasks without leaving your Gmail account. (CRMs like HubSpot and Zoho also provide Gmail integrations.)
Copper’s main strength is its balance of simplicity and functionality. It’s not cumbersome, and it offers enough features for sales-focused teams.
I don’t like that Copper lacks call tracking software on its web app. Additionally, its lower-tier plans are surprisingly limiting. Teams that need email tracking will have to purchase the relatively high-priced professional plan to access this functionality.
Best for: Startups that use Google Workspaces heavily and want a simple CRM.
What I like: As a Google Workspace user, it thrills me to know this tool is designed specifically for users like me.
Pros of Copper CRM
- Easy to use. Has an intuitive interface and feels like a natural extension of Google Workspace.
- Retroactively syncs email. Searches the emails of your team members for any messages sent to the contact in the past year and automatically adds them to the CRM.
Cons of Copper CRM
- Contact limits. Enforces contact limits on all its plans except the highest tier.
- Limited functionality. Overall features are limited and crucial features are high-priced.
- Poor fit for Microsoft Office 365 users. Office 365 users can only access Copper via web automation tools like Zapier and Integrately.
- Can be glitchy. Users say it sometimes gets glitchy and slow.
Copper CRM Pricing
Copper CRM has four pricing tiers. You save up to 15% when you choose its annual plans.
|
Starter |
Basic |
Professional |
Business |
|
|
Billed Monthly |
$12/user/mo |
$29/user/mo |
$69/user/mo |
$134/user/mo |
|
Billed Annually |
$9/user/mo |
$23/user/mo |
$59/user/mo |
$99/user/mo |
7. Salesflare
Salesflare is a CRM built for automation. Once you connect your email and calendar, it automatically adds contact information of people you’ve emailed and met with to your database. It then enriches this data with their phone number, social profile links, current role, and position, using information from previous interactions or public sources.
These automations are table stakes today, but they were uncommon when Salesflare launched in 2014. The founding idea for Salesflare was to reduce the need for manual data entry, which was prevalent with CRMs. Its legacy as an automation-focused CRM still endures.
Best for: Small and medium-sized sales teams that want to minimize time lost to manual data entry on their CRMs.
What I like: Salesflare balances functionality and simplicity with valuable features like website tracking, a LinkedIn sidebar and email finder, and lead scoring.
Pros of Salesflare
- Integrates with Google Workspace and Office 365. Provides full functionality to both Google and Microsoft users.
- Beginner-friendly. Offers just enough features to be useful without overwhelming first-time users.
- LinkedIn sidebar. Lets you add LinkedIn profiles to your database and find emails without leaving LinkedIn.
Cons of Salesflare
- No free plan. Offers a 30-day free trial, but no free plan.
- Limited functionality. Teams with complex needs will find it inadequate.
Salesflare Pricing
Salesflare offers four pricing tiers. The highest tier includes custom pricing for purchases of 5 users or more. You can save up to 15% by opting for annual plans.
|
Growth |
Pro |
Enterprise |
|
|
Billed Monthly |
$35/user/mo |
$55/user/mo |
N/A |
|
Billed Annually |
$29/user/mo |
$49/user/mo |
$99/user/mo |
Adopt Your CRM
With so many CRM options out there these days, I’m sure you’ll agree that there is a best-fit CRM for everyone.
You’re never too early in the game to adopt a dedicated CRM for your startup, so choose one now that will serve you well as you grow. And whatever you decide, don’t stick with spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are antiquated and they are no match for the benefits derived from a CRM.