Best CRM For Small Business

We've done the research and found that Zoho CRM is the best option for small businesses, as it provides comprehensive marketing, sales, and service features at a reasonable price. Freshsales Suite is also a great option if you're looking for a dedicated sales channel, and monday.com is also a strong alternative if you're looking for a more customizable platform.

CRM software is a competitive field, with dozens of quality brands vying for small businesses needing a CRM solution. That makes it a buyer's market – as a small business, you can be extra selective and ensure you get the best CRM system for your specific needs.

Good CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software will allow you to ramp up your ability to convert leads, while cutting down on churn at the same time. It can help support teams to deliver solutions to customers, or it can help marketing teams to engage with new and existing customers. All of the above can be crucial for a small business looking to scale up.

The number of names in the CRM market – plus the array of features and add-on integrations – can be off-putting, but we are here to help your small business choose the best solution for your specific needs. Each CRM is different, with unique functions and potential extra costs – you can compare the latter using our handy CRM pricing quotes tool.

In This Guide:

• Top Small Business CRM Software Compared
• Benefits of CRM Software for Small Businesses
• How We Rate CRM Software
• Verdict: What is the best CRM for small business?
• Frequently Asked Questions

Top 9 Small Business CRM Software Compared

The top CRM tools for a small business include Zoho CRM, Freshsales Suite, and monday.com. Each has their own merits that may (or may not) make them ideal for your own business.

Below, we list the best CRM software providers you can choose. Each one has tiered plans that can help a small business scale and grow, so you can find affordable packages that may help you to start small.

1. Zoho CRM – Best all-in-one Sales, Marketing, Customer Service
2. Freshsales Suite – Best combined Sales and Marketing CRM
3. monday.com – Best for customization
4. Zoho Bigin – Best entry-level CRM
5. Hubspot Free – Best free option
6. Pipedrive – Best security options
7. Salesforce Essentials – Best for growing businesses
8. Less Annoying CRM – Most simple interface
9. Keap – Best for customer support

As you can see, there are plenty of options out there for small businesses, each with their own set of features, price points, and support options that can fit a particular company.

Here's our closer look at the pros, cons, and unique abilities of the best CRM software vendors available today.

Zoho CRM

Best all-in-one Sales, Marketing, Customer Service CRM

This is Zoho's main CRM platform, and our top-rated option for small businesses, according to our research. It's a bit on the expensive side, but provides a lot of features covering Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service. During testing, we found this platform to be quick and easy to set up and use, even for beginners. This platform is also very customizable, to the extent where you can create new object types, allowing you to store any type of information that's relevant to your business. All-in-all, this results in a very comprehensive CRM package.

It is difficult to label where Zoho CRM could even be improved honestly. Sure the price is high, but the additional investment can be justified thanks to the massive set of features and overall functionality of the platform. Simply put, this is the best CRM for small businesses.

Truly, the only downside to Zoho CRM is that it isn't exactly suited to the smallest of small businesses, given its larger feature catalog. If you need something a bit more budget friendly for your less demanding needs, Zoho Bigin is a great option for entry-level CRM use, and it's our fourth top-rated option overall.

Zoho CRM Pricing for Small Businesses

Zoho CRM offers four different pricing plans, in addition to its free plan: Standard, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. Our research shows that the Professional plan is the best option for small businesses.

The Professional plan comes in at $23 per user per month. Compared to the less expensive plans, it adds a wide range of functionality, without too much of a price jump. From sales features like macros and SalesSignals to the added automation functionality, this plan gives small businesses the power to really dig into their strategy without costing a fortune.

Another true benefit of this plan is that it unlocks a wide range of social media features which can greatly improve your overall experience. It includes data on Twitter and Facebook, as well as automated lead generation through your favorite platforms.

Freshsales Suite

Best combined Sales and Marketing CRM

Freshsales Suite is Freshwork's all-in-one sales and marketing product that is specifically aimed at small businesses. This platform has been found to have one of the best offerings, because it provides a great level of functionality within a straightforward, easy to use package. It also enables a good degree of customization and is reasonably priced.

On top of all that, Freshsales Suite provides good customer service options across all its plans and comprehensive reporting tools. It even provides a lead scoring algorithm which automatically scores your leads based on data from previous sales and information you can input yourself. This makes it easy to understand which leads you'll have the best chance of converting into customers.

Freshsales Suite Pricing for Small Businesses

Freshsales Suite comes in three different pricing plans, as well as a free plan: Growth, Pro, and Enterprise. According to our research, the Growth plan is the best option for small businesses.

The Growth plan from Freshsales Suite costs $15 per user per month. At a reasonable price point, this plan still offers a whole lot of functionality, including workflows, custom reports, and a visual sales pipeline, so you can understand how your customers interact with your business. The next most expensive plan comes in at a whopping $39 per user per month, which is why this option is the best bet for small businesses.

monday.com

Best for customization

In a lot of ways, monday works like an easy-to-use version of Microsoft Excel, in so much that its incredibly customizable. Because of this, it can be set up to work like a CRM platform, and a pretty good one at that. monday has capitalized on this by creating CRM templates, which take most of the effort out of setting it up yourself, making monday a unique combination of customizable and easy to use.

Whilst it wasn't built from the ground up as a CRM, it does provide a suitable level of CRM functionality for a small business. For one, you can edit almost anything – allowing you to fully tailor the platform to your business. There are also several dedicated CRM features available with monday, like the ability to create web forms, create invoices, and send emails.

Monday provides this at a very competitive price – making it a genuinely attractive option for businesses. The only real downside to Monday is help and support. Those having issues with the platform are left to rely on email, forums, and help articles, which isn't always ideal, but hopefully the general ease of use should suffice.

 monday.com Pricing for Small Businesses

Monday pricing offers four different pricing plans, as well as a free plan: Basic, Standard, Pro, and Enterprise. For small businesses, we recommend investing in the Pro plan for your CRM needs.

The Pro plan from monday.com comes in at $16 per user per month. Given that monday is one of the more affordable options on this list, the higher-tier plans make more sense, as they won't cut into your budget and still offer a lot. You'll get up to 25,000 automations and integrations, along with a dashboard that can combine multiple boards. Plus, with time tracking enabled, you can really turn monday.com into a full-on CRM with this plan.

Zoho Bigin

 Best entry-level CRM

This is Zoho's dedicated small-business CRM platform. Zoho have aimed this product at users taking their first steps from spreadsheet to CRM. As such, it is very-low cost, but still provides a good level of functionality. It was also found to be one of the more customizable platforms, allowing users to tailor it to their specific needs. All-in-all, this results in a very convincing small business CRM package.

Where Bigin can be improved is with aspects of usability. Most notably, the onboarding process had one of the more complicated data imports on the list. It also lacks any form of “live” help and support, leaving users to rely on email, forums, and help articles when they have a problem.

Zoho Bigin Pricing for Small Businesses

Zoho Bigin pricing is pretty basic. It offers one pricing plan, in addition to it's free plan. For your small business, we recommend you opt for the paid plan, which is dubbed Express.

The Express plan from Zoho Bigin costs only $7 per user per month. As one of the more affordable option on the list, Zoho Bigin is definitely an option for those just graduating from spreadsheets. It offers basic functionality that'll get you by.

You can test Bigin out with the free plan, but for business purposes, we highly recommend opting for the paid plan, as the free plan really lacks the functionality necessary to conduct business in a meaningful way. For example, you can only use the email features in the paid plan, which is vital to the success of any growing business.

Hubspot Free

Best free option

This is Hubspot's free platform, an all-in-one product providing sales, marketing, and customer service functionality. Rather than a dedicated small business platform, it acts as the “starting tier” of their paid products which specialize in one those aforementioned areas. Hubspot has actually provided a pretty comprehensive package that competes with the paid products listed here in terms of functionality. It scored well in usability due to its thorough onboarding process and tidy interface.

Key points of improvement for Hubspot Free would be the limited customization it provides users, which is to be expected with a free plan. It also has basically no customer support options aside from forums and help articles. Understandably, both of these are locked behind a paywall – encouraging users to pay for very expensive premium platforms which are – arguably – beyond the price range of a small business.

Hubspot Pricing for Small Businesses

Hubspot offers a whole bunch of pricing options for sales, marketing, and customer support, with the most affordable option still costing $45 per user per month, which is why we only recommend the Free plan for small businesses.

As you can imagine, the Free plan from Hubspot costs nothing forever, so you can start organizing your business without cutting into your budget at all. For a free plan, it's surprising robust, allowing for contact and ad management, live support chat, email scheduling, and ticketing. The only problem is that scalability means you'll have to pay a lot to upgrade, so make sure this is all you need in the long term.

Pipedrive

Best for security options

Pipedrive is a dedicated small business CRM platform aimed primarily at Sales teams as a solution for tracking business deals. Pipedrive isn't a particularly competitive platform compared to others on this list. It provides an average level of functionality whilst being one of the more expensive options.

While it is a bit expensive, you could classify Pipedrive as the premium option where you get both a competitive level of functionality and a good user-experience. With Pipedrive, tasks can be completed quite quickly within the platform, and its chatbot and web form functionality are the most straight-forward to use, especially when compared to Freshsales Suite and Hubspot.

Pipedrive Pricing for Small Business

Pipedrive pricing comes in four different plans: Essentials, Advanced, Professional, and Enterprise. For small businesses, we recommend the Advanced plan.

The Advanced plan costs $24.90 per user per month and offers core CRM functionality, along with API access, contacts maps, and a basic meeting scheduler. You'll be allowed up to 10,000 deals, which is more than triple the amount in the less expensive plan, so you don't have to worry about a harder limit. Plus, this more plan unlocks a lot more automation and communication tools, which are integral to the effectiveness of a CRM.

Salesforce Essentials

Best for growing businesses

This is Salesforce's starting tier for its Sales and Customer Service products. As such, it provides all-in-one Sales and Customer Service functionality but lacks Marketing features. Salesforce markets the Essentials plan as its product for small businesses but – like Hubspot Free – this works more like a stripped back version of their enterprise products. With that being said, in the context of small business CRM – it provides a competitive level of functionality.

Where the Salesforce Essentials plan is lacking is mainly on usability and price. Whilst, it did well overall in the usability testing, it would've scored significantly better had it not been for a poor user onboarding experience. It's also more expensive than other platforms, which are just as good for functionality and usability.

Salesforce Pricing for Small Business

Much like Hubspot, Salesforce offers a wide range of pricing options depending on what you're looking for. However, they can get pretty pricey and elaborate, which is why we only recommend the Salesforce Essentials for small businesses.

The Essentials plan costs $25 per user per month, putting it right at the top end of the spectrum for small business pricing. You'll get access to sales and service functionality, but unfortunately, all marketing feature are only available in an entirely different product. Still, the Essentials plan gives you the ability to track your customers, view analytics, and integrate with other tools, making it a viable option for small businesses that may need to scale up down the line.

Check out our Salesforce pricing page for more information on other products

Less Annoying CRM

Most simple interface

Less Annoying CRM presents itself as the straightforward solution to the overly-complicated world of CRM software. With this, it provides just one pricing tier and has a very stripped back set of features.

Is it less annoying than other platforms? In some ways, yes. It scored very well with usability, as it doesn't overfill the screen and provides big text and icons, making everything in the platform pretty easy to find and use. It also provided the most helpful onboarding experience where users are given in-depth, step by step instructions on how to import data.

To be fair though, Less Annoying CRM is extremely stripped down as far as features are concerned. Honestly, it isn't a huge step up from using spreadsheets to organize data but it still charges customers $15 per user per month. This could lead users to consider whether having a really simple interface is more worthy of investment than being able to create web forms and automations.

Less Annoying CRM Pricing for Small Businesses

As the name and extensive branding suggests, Less Annoying CRM offers only one pricing plan, and that's the one that we recommend for small businesses.

The Less Annoying CRM plan costs $15 per user per month, which is honestly a bit expensive given the stripped down nature of the platform. Yes, you'll enjoy some serious ease of use, but it's a small step up from spreadsheets, so it might not be the best fit for businesses that need a more complicated set up. Still, if you want to get started with minimal learning curve, Less Annoying CRM is perfect.

Keap

Best for customer support

Keap is a CRM platform which positions itself as a sales and marketing solution – specializing in automation. However, its automation builder doesn't quite live up to the hype and it wasn't able to complete one of our automation tests to produce a task based on an “IF this then…” rule, where its competitors can automate different tasks based on a contact's details, such as industry.

Keap is also the most expensive solution we tested by a good margin, which doesn't bode well for small businesses on a budget. When compared to some of the more affordable (or even free) options on this list, Keap really has trouble stacking up. Still, if you're looking for a dedicated marketing option, it could be a good fit, as Keap provides more flexibility than other platforms when it comes to the number of people you can send email to at once.

Keap Pricing for Small Businesses

Keap offers three different pricing plans: Lite, Pro, and Max. If you're a small business, we definitely recommend Lite (with 500 contacts), as it's the only one even remotely affordable enough for smaller teams.

The Lite plan from Keap costs $56 per user per month, put it well ahead of the majority of this list as far as price is concerned. You do get a lot though, including all the CRM functionality you could want, plus email marketing, automations, and lead capture, among many others. You can even take advantage of payment options and invoicing, so you don't get bogged down by too many integrations. Still, that price point can be a dealbreaker, so make sure your budget can handle the added cost.

The Benefits of CRM Software for Small Businesses

If you're looking for CRM software, it's safe to assume that you'd like to know how it actually benefits your business. Suffice it to say, these providers aim to generally improve your sales, service, or marketing efforts, and they do so in a wide range of different ways.

Improve productivity

Whether you need a CRM platform for sales, service, marketing, or all three, the right provider will be able to improve productivity across the board through organization, automation, and collaboration.

It could be by increasing sales through more qualified leads and streamlining your sales funnel. It could be by saving service contacts and speeding up customer requests. It could even be by automating your marketing efforts, so you're gaining and retaining customers more often.

Plus, every growing organization will reach a tipping point where their customer data will grow too difficult to manage. At this point, relying on shared spreadsheets, sticky notes, or simply keeping everything in your head will likely lead to a loss of information which can be detrimental.

Simply put, CRM software is designed to improve productivity across your business by making life a bit easier when it comes to the smaller details, so you can focus on the big picture. Plus, with the average CRM providing $8.71 return on investment for every dollar, it's safe to say it's a no-brainer.

Robust analytics

When it comes to business, it's hard to know what's working and what isn't. However, in addition to providing all these streamlining features, CRM software typically comes with reporting and analytical tools that can help you understand exactly how to improve your business.

The numbers back up the importance of analytics as well. In fact, one study found that businesses that utilize some form of reporting tools see an 8% increase in revenue and a 10% reduction in costs. In so many words, you need to start analyzing your data and CRM software is a great place to start.

Streamlined communications

Keeping in touch with your team and your customers is arguably one of the more important aspects of running a business, and CRM software provides it in spades. Whether it be in-platform messaging or simply an effective email marketing tool, CRM can make communication easier on everyone involved.

Considering well-connected teams are 20-25% more productive, according to one study, it's safe to assume that getting on the same page with your team via CRM software can do wonders for your bottom line. And if you aren't trying to improve that, then what are you doing in business?

How We Rate CRM Software

At Tech.co, we take the ranking of business software like CRM very seriously. We aren't just picking numbers out of thin air – we're thoroughly and tirelessly researching and evaluating software based on a wide range of metrics, to make sure you have all the information you need to make the right choice for your business the first time.

For CRM software specifically, our research looks at five different factors, including usability, customization, functionality, pricing, and help and support options.

By providing our own independent research, we hope that users will be able to make smart, informed decisions about what kind of CRM software provider will work best for their particular needs.

Frequently Asked Questions