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Home CRM Software

Best CRM Software for Small Business

From sales or marketing-focused tools to great free CRM options, we explain the best CRM choices for small businesses
Written by Conor Cawley
Updated on January 17, 2023

We've done the research and found that Zoho CRM is the best CRM 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
  • monday.com is a strong alternative if you're looking for a more customizable CRM 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.

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. Compare the latest pricing deals here or scroll on for our independent, expert reviews.

Our content is funded in part by commercial partnerships, at no extra cost to you and without impact to our editorial impartiality. Click to Learn More

In This Guide:

  • Top Small Business CRM Software
  • Benefits of CRM Software for Small Businesses
  • How We Rate CRM Software
  • Verdict
  • Frequently Asked Questions
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Plan
Price
Free Trial
Users
Storage
Rating
Based on usability, customization, functionality, pricing, and help and support
Email support
Phone support
Live chat support
Forum suppot
Lead scoring
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Try it
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BEST OVERALL
BEST VALUE

Pipedrive

Zoho CRM

Freshsales Suite

monday.com

Zoho Bigin

Hubspot

Zendesk

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Less Annoying CRM

Act!

Advanced

Professional

Growth

Pro

Express

Free

Sell Team

Essentials

Less Annoying CRM

Expert

$24.90/user/month

$23/user/month

$15/user/month

$16/user/month
(min 3 users)

$7/user/month

Free

$19/user/month

$25/user/month

$15/user/month

$45/user/month

14 days

15 days

21 days

14 days

15 days

30 days

30 days

14 days

Unlimited

Unlimited

Unlimited

Unlimited

5

Unlimited

Unlimited

10

Unlimited

Based on number of licenses

Unlimited

User: 20MB
Org: 10GB

2 GB

100 GB

1 GB

Unlimited

2GB per user

File storage: 1GB
Data storage: 10GB + 20MB per license

10 GB per user

6GB

3.9
4.6
4.5
4.3
4.3
4.2
4.0
3.8
3.7
3.2

8/5

8/5

Try Pipedrive
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Try Zoho Bigin
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Try Act! CRM

Top Small Business CRM Software Compared

The best CRM software for 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.

Good CRM 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.

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. Zendesk Sell – Best for fast-loading reports
  7. Pipedrive – Best security options
  8. Salesforce Essentials – Best for growing businesses
  9. Less Annoying CRM – Best for simple interface
  10. Act! – Best for contact information

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.

Zoho CRM
The best CRM available for small businesses
4.7
In Short

Pros

  • 15-day free trial
  • Fully customizable dashboard and interface
  • Includes sales, marketing, and service functionality

Cons

  • Small amount of storage
  • No spam prevention on web forms
  • Onboarding assistance costs extra
Gallery Click to expand
Try Zoho CRM

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. The Standard plan costs $14 per user per month, the Professional plan costs $23 per user per month, the Enterprise plan costs $40 per user per month, and the Ultimate plan costs $52 per user per month. This is considerably cheaper than industry-leader Salesforce, although the features aren't as advanced.

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.

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TRY FOR FREE
BEST FOR SMB

Free

Standard

Professional

Enterprise

Ultimate

Plus

Free

$14/user/month

$23/user/month

$40/user/month

$52/user/month

$57/user/month

3

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Unlimited

Unlimited

Unlimited

Unlimited

User: n/a
Org: 10MB

User: n/a
Org: 200MB

User: 20MB
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User: 50MB
Org (<200 users): 10GB
Org (>200 users): 15GB

User: 100mb
Org (<200 users): 10GB
Org (>200 users): 30GB

User: 1GB
Org: 5GB

Basic

Standard

Live chat, phone, email

Standard

24/7 live

24/7 live

Max 100

Try Zoho CRM for free today Try Zoho CRM

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.

Freshsales Suite
Freshsales logo
Best combined Sales and Marketing CRM
4.5
In Short

Pros

  • 21-day free trial
  • Very quick and easy to use
  • Extensive reporting functionality
  • Good customer service options

Cons

  • Fewer customization options than competitors
  • Few social media integrations
  • Strict limit at 1000 for marketing action
Gallery Click to expand
Try Freshsales Suite

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. The Growth plan costs $15 per user per month, the Pro plan costs $39 per user per month, and the Enterprise plan costs $69 per user per month.

According to our research, the Pro plan is the best option for small businesses. The Growth plan from Freshsales Suite costs $39 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 $69 per user per month, which is why this option is the best bet for small businesses.

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Free

Growth

Pro

Enterprise

Free

$15/user/month

$39/user/month

$69/user/month

Unlimited

Unlimited

Unlimited

Unlimited

None

2 GB

5 GB per user

100 GB per user

20

50

100

Try Freshsales for free today Try Freshsales

monday.com

Best for customization

As a complete and fully functional sales CRM, monday.com provides some unmatched customizability when it comes to CRM. While that may sound intimidating to first-time users, monday.com combines this platform flexibility with some seriously intuitive design, so you won't be bogged down by complicated customizations. Suffice it to say, monday.com is a great, easy to use platform that will allow you to do what you need to do with a CRM.

monday.com CRM
Monday.com Logo
Vast amount of customization options
4.6
In Short

Pros

  • 14-day free trial
  • Exceptionally simple, modern layout
  • Highly customizable
  • Great selection of reporting tools

Cons

  • Limited marketing features
  • No centralized inbox
  • Limited customer support options
Gallery Click to expand
Try monday.com

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.com, like the ability to create web forms, create invoices, and send emails.

Even better, monday.com provides this at a very competitive price – making it a genuinely attractive option for businesses. The only real downside to monday.com 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.com pricing offers four different pricing plans, as well as a free plan. The Basic plan costs $8 per user per month, the Standard plan costs $10 per user per month, the Pro plan costs $16 per user per month, and the Enterprise plan does not provide publicly available pricing.

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.

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$0

$10 user/month

$14 user/month

$24 user/month

Custom

2

Unlimited

Unlimited

Unlimited

Unlimited

500MB

5GB

20GB

100GB

1000GB

Try monday.com for yourself today Try monday.com

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.

Zoho Bigin
Zoho Bigin Logo Small
Best entry-level CRM
4.3
In Short

Pros

  • 15-day free trial
  • Very low-cost platform w/ free plan
  • Fully customizable dashboard
  • Unique social media integrations

Cons

  • No live help or support
  • Limited marketing and lead gen features
  • No invoicing or quoting functionality
Gallery Click to expand
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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 two pricing plans, in addition to its free plan. The Express plan costs $7 per user per month and the Premier plan costs $12 per user per month.

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 options 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.

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BEST FOR SMB

Free

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$7 per user per month

$12 per user per month

15 days

15 days

15 days

1

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Unlimited

1 GB

1 GB

1 GB

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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.

Hubspot CRM
Hubspot Logo
Best free option
4.2
In Short

Pros

  • Free plan available
  • Provides sales, marketing, and service functionality
  • Tidy, easy to navigate interface

Cons

  • Limited customization
  • Basically no customer support
  • File storage limit to 5 documents
Gallery Click to expand
Try Hubspot CRM

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 CRM Profile

Hubspot Pricing for Small Businesses

Hubspot offers a whole bunch of pricing options for sales, marketing, and customer support. The Starter plan costs $23 per user per month, the Professional plan costs $90 per use per month, and the Enterprise plan costs $120 per user per month.

All that is pretty expensive, 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.

Learn more in our HubSpot vs Zoho CRM comparison guide

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(minimum 2 users)

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(minimum 10 users)

5 documents

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Zendesk Sell

Best for fast-loading reports

Zendesk Sell is the sales-focused CRM by Zendesk, one of our top-rated providers when it comes to CRM. Our research shows that this option has a few strengths, including its notable ease of use, even for beginners, its customizability, which is key for growing businesses, and its prices, which are reasonably competitive in the field.

Zendesk Sell
Zendesk Sell Logo Small
Solid feature set and team management infrastructure, but there are better options out there
4.4
In Short

Pros

  • 14-day free trial
  • Provides great security options
  • Offers good customizability
  • Lots of infrastructure to manage teams

Cons

  • Very few digital selling tools
  • No quotes or proposal features
  • No onboarding support for team members
Gallery Click to expand
Try Zendesk

Still, it has some weak spots too, with help and support leading the pack. With virtual no options for contacting the team, including no email, phone, or live chat, you're left to check out the knowledge base and community forum for all your issues. The security is also pretty weak, although Zendesk offers lots of integrations so you can fix that for a price.

Overall, we can really only recommend Zendesk Sell to actual sales teams that need a customizable option at a lower price. If you work in marketing or customer service, we highly recommend you stay away.

Zendesk Sell Pricing for Small Businesses

Zendesk Sell offers four different pricing plans for a wide range of business needs. The Team plan costs $19 per user per month, the Growth plan costs $49 per user per month, the Professional plan costs $99 per user per month, and the Enterprise plan costs $150 per user per month.

The best Zendesk Sell plan for small businesses is the Team plan, which costs $19 per user per month and provides a wide range of sales features to help your business. From extensive sales reports to live chat and forum support, you'll have a good idea of how your team is doing while saving some time. This plan also comes with 2GB of storage per users, which isn't much, but should be more than enough for small businesses.

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API
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Custom automation builder
BEST FOR SMB

Sell Team

Sell Growth

Sell Professional

Sell Enterprise

$19/user/month

$49/user/month

$99/user/month

$150/user/month

Unlimited

Unlimited

Unlimited

Unlimited

2GB per user

5GB per user

5GB per user

10GB per user

Check out Zendesk for yourself right now Try Zendesk

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.

Pipedrive
Pipedrive CRM logo
Excellent security and customer support options
4.6
In Short

Pros

  • 14-day free trial
  • Unlimited contact database
  • Includes comprehensive security options
  •  24/7 live support

Cons

  • Not a great value for money
  • Unable to create custom task types
  • Restricts web form creation to add-on
Gallery Click to expand
Try Pipedrive

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. The Essentials plan costs $14.90 per user per month, the Advanced plan costs $24.90 per user per month, the Professional plan costs $49.90 per user per month, and the Enterprise plan costs $99 per user per month.

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 plan unlocks a lot more automation and communication tools, which are integral to the effectiveness of a CRM.

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BEST FOR SMB

Essential

Advanced

Professional

Enterprise

$14.90/user/month

$24.90/user/month

$49.90/user/month

$99/user/month

Unlimited

Unlimited

Unlimited

Unlimited

30

60

90

  • Custom pipelines
  • Data import/export
  • Basic meeting scheduler
  • Contacts map
  • Sales Assistant AI
  • API access
  • Products catalog
  • Custom email templates and signatures
  • 30 workflow automations
  • Web-to-mobile calls
  • SSO (single sign-on) login
  • Smart contact data
  • Group emailing
  • Custom fields/reports
  • Revenue forecast reports
  • Team management tools
  • Team goals
  • Security dashboard, alerts, and rules
  • Unlimited user permissions
  • 24/7 phone support, not just chat
  • 100 workflow automations
Check out Pipedrive for your team now Try Pipedrive

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.

Salesforce CRM
Salesforce CRM Logo
Best for growing businesses
3.8
In Short

Pros

  • 30-day free trial
  • Tailored pricing plans
  • Provides sales and service functionality
  • Lots of analytics and data provided

Cons

  • Lacks basic marketing features
  • Limited help and support functionality
  • Busy interface can be hard to use
Gallery Click to expand
See your custom price quote

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.  The Essential plan costs $25 per user per month, the Professional plan costs $75 per user per month, the Enterprise plan costs $150 per user per month, and the Unlimited plan costs $300 per user per month.

These advanced plans 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 features 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

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BEST FOR SMB

Essentials

Professional

Enterprise

Unlimited

$25/user/month

$75/user/month

$150/user/month

$300/user/month

10

Unlimited

Unlimited

Unlimited

File storage: 1GB
Data storage: 10GB + 20MB per license

File storage: 10GB + 2GB per license
Data storage: 10GB + 20MB per license

File storage: 10GB + 2GB per license
Data storage: 10GB + 20MB per license

File storage: 10GB + 2GB per license
Data storage: 10GB + 20MB per license

$15 per user per month

Check out Salesforce Sales Cloud for your business now Try Salesforce

Less Annoying CRM

Best for simple interface

If you're looking for basic, Less Annoying CRM is as basic as it comes for this kind of software. No bells, no whistles, no complicated interfaces. Less Annoying CRM is aimed at providing a simple, uncomplex software that will help your small business run effectively.

To be clear though, Less Annoying CRM is definitely missing some key features. There's no lead scoring, no API access, and limited support, so you'll want to be sure this bare-bones option still fits your particular needs. If you love low prices and easy to use platforms though, this is definitely it.

Less Annoying CRM
Less Annoying CRM Logo
Most simple interface
3.7
In Short

Pros

  • Very simple, fast onboarding process
  • Phone support provided
  • Notably low cost option

Cons

  • Low level of customization
  • Incredibly stripped back feature list
  • Limited email functionality
Pricing
  • price tag icon
    $15 per user per month
  • price tag icon
    30-day free trial
  • price tag icon
    One plan, no hidden fees
Gallery Click to expand
Try for Free

Less Annoying CRM Pricing for Small Business

The price for Less Annoying CRM is also pretty basic, as there's only one plan to choose from. No need to do your research, you'll get the same across the board for a mere $15 per user per month and you can test out the platform before you make that commitment with a 30-day free trial, which is pretty generous compared to the average two-week offering from other competitors.

Less Annoying CRM Report

Act!

Best for contact information

Obviously, a lesser known CRM compared to some options on this list, Act! CRM is a solid option for small businesses, depending on what you need it for. The platform is primarily aimed at marketing businesses, as it offers some good email options that can get you started on your next campaign. It is pretty average overall though, as it doesn't offer any social, paid, or content marketing functionality, but for email, it gets the job done.

Act! CRM
Act! CRM logo small
Best for contact information
In Short

Pros

  • 14-day free trial
  • Robust contact information
  • Responsive email campaign building tool
  • Comprehensive chart builder

Cons

  • Pretty basic functionality
  • Few automation features
  • Restrictive campaign options
Gallery Click to expand
Try Act! CRM

The support is pretty good too, offering email, phone, and live chat responses, although you won't get them 24/7 unfortunately. If you're a customer service business looking for a CRM, we highly recommend looking elsewhere, as Act! doesn't have much to take care of your customers in that way.

Act! Pricing for Small Businesses

Like other options, Act! offers two different pricing plans. The Standard plan costs $30 per user per month and the Expert plan costs $45 per user per month.

The best Act! CRM pricing plan for small businesses, according to our research, is the Expert plan. This plan costs $45 per user per month and opens up the platform to offer custom reports, something not found in every CRM out there. You'll also get advanced features like a visual sales pipeline and a custom dashboard for robust analytics.

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BEST FOR SMB

Starter

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$12 per month

$30 per user per month

$45/user/month

Based on number of licenses

Based on number of licenses

Based on number of licenses

2GB

4GB

6GB

Live chat

Live chat & phone

Live chat & phone

50,000

50,000

50,000

Give Act! CRM a try for yourself today for free Try Act! CRM

The Benefits of CRM Software for Small Businesses

If you're looking for the best CRM software for small business, it's safe to assume that you'd like to know how CRM 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.

Using CRM data for team collaboration

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 the best CRM for small business 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.

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.

For CRM software specifically, our research looks at five different factors, including:

Usability

  • This area looked at how well each platform responds to typical user-behavior.
  • This assessment was carried out through hands-on testing where a participant was required to set up each CRM platform and then carry out tasks.
  • Each task was grouped into timed stages. Platforms were rewarded for enabling the participant to complete each task efficiently and without significant roadblocks.

Customization

  • This area looked at the extent to which each platform can be customized to accommodate their user’s specific needs.
  • Every organization will have existing processes. A CRM platform should be able to compliment these by enabling their users to reflect them within the system.
  • Customization can also enable users to gain more from a platform by allowing them to create workarounds for features which are not available.
  • Data was obtained through hands-on testing.

Functionality

  • This area looked at the number of features provided by each CRM platform.
  • The features have been divided into 9 categories. Platforms are rewarded for the number of features they provide to their users.
  • Data was obtained from hands-on testing and each vendor’s website.

Pricing

  • This area looked at the cost of each CRM platform.
  • Platforms were scored based on their cost in comparison to the general market rate of small business CRM software.
  • Data was obtained from each of the vendor’s websites.
  • Check out our CRM Pricing Guide for more information

Help and support

  • This area looked at the customer support options available in each platform.
  • Platforms were scored based on the number of support options they provided. Additional reward was given to platforms which provide a ‘live’ form of customer support such as live chat or a phone line.
  • Data was obtained from each of the vendor’s websites.
Made a decision on which CRM is right for you?

Use our comparison tool to find out how much each one will cost your business

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Verdict: What is the best CRM software for small business?

According to our research, Zoho CRM is the best option for small businesses, because it offers a lot of functionality for sales, marketing, and customer service companies, and it's easy and quick to use for beginners. It is a bit on the expensive side, but the added cost is definitely worth it given the level of functionality provided.

Other great options include Freshsales Suite — for its reasonable pricing and ease of use — and monday.com — for its modern, intuitive design and its notable customizability.

If you're interested in getting started with CRM software, we don't blame you. All these great tools represent the best of the best in the market, so take your pick and make productivity a priority at your small business today!

Compare CRM Plans

Frequently Asked Questions

Depending on your needs, CRM software can cost anywhere from around $12 per user per month to around $300 per user per month. Pricing depends on a wide range of factors, including the size of your company, features offered in the software, and what you need to use it for.

Our research shows that Pipedrive and monday.com are the easiest CRM platforms to use. Both offer an intuitive interface and flexible pricing, so even beginners can get the hang of it quickly without a lot of training.

Small businesses after a CRM have some great options, depending on their main requirements. For example, Salesforce is the best CRM for sales-focused teams, whereas HubSpot is the best marketing-focused CRM provider for small businesses. For a great-value small business CRM, Freshworks CRM is one of the best choices (it even has a free tier). Meanwhile, monday.com CRM is an outstanding choice for ease of use, and Zendesk is the best tool to go for if your business needs a support team-focused CRM platform.
About our links

If you click on, sign up to a service through, or make a purchase through the links on our site, or use our quotes tool to receive custom pricing for your business needs, we may earn a referral fee from the supplier(s) of the technology you’re interested in. This helps Tech.co to provide free information and reviews, and carries no additional cost to you. Most importantly, it doesn’t affect our editorial impartiality. Ratings and rankings on Tech.co cannot be bought. Our reviews are based on objective research analysis. Rare exceptions to this will be marked clearly as a ‘sponsored' table column, or explained by a full advertising disclosure on the page, in place of this one. Click to return to top of page

Written by:
Conor Cawley Writer

Conor is the Lead Writer for Tech.co. For the last six years, he’s covered everything from tech news and product reviews to digital marketing trends and business tech innovations. He's written guest posts for the likes of Forbes, Chase, WeWork, and many others, covering tech trends, business resources, and everything in between. He's also participated in events for SXSW, Tech in Motion, and General Assembly, to name a few. He also cannot pronounce the word "colloquially" correctly. You can email Conor at conor@tech.co.

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