The 7 Best CRMs

Agile CRM has robust features and extensive automation capabilities, securing it as our pick for the best customer relationship management (CRM) system for all kinds of small businesses.

Even Agile CRM's free plan has a lot of features, including 50,000 contacts and companies, email tracking, and two-way email integration.

Paid plans offer a number of services, priced per user with discounts available for longer contracts. Marketing teams will particularly benefit from builder tools for multiple services, including forms, e-mail templates, and website landing pages. You can also automate marketing tasks and monitor social media.

Here's a breakdown of Agile CRM's plans and pricing:

Customer reviews for Agile CRM are mostly positive with many users praising the easy-to-use interface and ease of integration. But some users note that there is a lack of training for all but the most basic functions, and it can be difficult to navigate without help.

When it comes to business management solutions, Zoho is a name that needs no introduction. The company's portfolio includes everything from accounting tools to collaborative apps to payroll solutions. If you don't want the hassles of a self-hosted CRM solution, Zoho CRM is just what you need.

A multichannel online CRM, Zoho aggregates customer data from a variety of sources, including email, live chat, calls, and social media. Its SalesSignals feature provides real-time analytics and notifications for every customer. You can assign individual targets to each of your team members, and monitor their progress from a central dashboard.

Zoho CRM offers features to build and automate sales processes, and it even lets you create distinct portals for your customers. The REST API and its libraries make it possible to develop custom solutions and integrations.

Then there's Zoho Marketplace, which includes hundreds of extensions that can be added to the CRM dashboard to further increase its functionality.

Although most customer reviews are positive and praise the platform's ease-of-use, some users express frustration about their encounters with support staff while some are unhappy with the cost of add-ons and other services.

Growth-oriented small businesses will want to check out HubSpot because it's scalable enough to easily manage an increased influx of customer interactions. That's why it is our pick for scalability.

HubSpot offers an always-updated view of your company's sales funnel through a visual dashboard. Here, you can manage scheduled appointments, track performance against quotas, and more. The CRM automatically logs all customer interactions, including email, calls, and social media engagements, and the same can be easily synced to Gmail or Outlook.

Thanks to its timeline view, HubSpot makes it easy to follow up on all the interactions with any lead. You can schedule personalized email sets and get actionable insights about them. The marketing hub includes numerous tools that let you manage optimized landing pages, create email templates, and measure SEO-based return on investment.

As you'd expect, HubSpot works seamlessly with third-party services like G-Suite and Office 365.

Here's a breakdown of the plans and pricing available from HubSpot:

As you can see, the free plan offers a robust number of features. But if you're looking for more substantial features, HubSpot's paid plans are quite pricey compared to competitors.

Considering the many intertwined modules that make them work, the majority of CRM systems aren't exactly easy to get started with. However, there are exceptions, and Streak CRM is one of them.

So what exactly makes Streak perhaps the easiest to use CRM out there? It's built on an application that's regularly used by just about everyone who has an internet connection: Gmail.

Streak instantly transforms Gmail into a CRM powerhouse. Just install the extension, and you're good to go. Streak features easy collaboration and allows you to share everything from emails to notes with a single click. You can manage deals, support queues, and set up task reminders using Google Calendar. Features like Webhook API access, mail merge, tracking, and shared pipelines are also included in the mix.

Since it's based on Gmail, Streak works perfectly with the whole gamut of Google's other web-based apps. It can work with personal and school Gmail accounts, too. Streak has multiple templates tailored for specific usage environments like Sales and Product management.

Even though customer reviews note that Streak is a solid CRM tool, some lament that there's no actual dashboard because it's a tab in Gmail.

Not every organization requires all of its teams working on handling customer interactions and following up on leads. For many, it's just the sales department that's responsible for this. In such cases, going for a sales-oriented CRM system makes perfect sense, making Pipedrive perfect the best choice.

Pipedrive is a sales CRM built for minimum input and maximum output. Its primary interface is the pipeline, which allows you control complex sales processes. All the deals are categorized by sales stages. A statistics tool can be used to get a personalized analysis of sales, and the view has drag-and-drop support.

Pipedrive features email integration with full support for customized templates and detailed tracking. There's a preset activity type list, and you can create your own as well. You get reminders for overdue activities, as well as notifications for new tasks.

Thanks to its powerful open API, Pipedrive can be easily connected to other software and custom features developed for it. The Zapier add-on makes syncing data between multiple web apps a simple affair.

It's also possible to import existing data to Pipedrive and export its own to other software programs. Visual reports give you deeper insights and lets you customize reports to ensure you see the data you need.

And even though you can access everything the CRM has to offer free for 14 days, there's no pricing transparency, nor is there any transparency about paid plan features that you might not be able to access with the free version.

Budget is always a concern for small businesses. Finding a CRM solution that offers great features without costing a fortune is a must, and this is why Insightly is our pick for best value.

With a base price of $29/user/month billed annually, Insightly is one of the best values for CRM service out there. You get 100,000 records, 10Gb of storage space, and the ability to import 25,000 records per session. There's also task management, API access, and custom reports thrown into the mix. Insightly offers detailed report charts and the ability to connect to Microsoft's Power BI business analytics service.

For email marketing, Insightly lets you send up to 2,500 mass emails per day, and email scheduling is available as well. Users also have access to pipelines and activity sets, Google Contacts and Calendar sync, and more, making project automation easy.

As far as third-party integration goes, Insightly's open API allows seamless connectivity with services like PieSync, Adobe Analytics, and BambooHR.

And although most of Insightly's customer reviews are positive, some users mention the app could use some work and that the user experience is not always strong.

If you want the best CRM for your small business and money is not a constraint, look no further than Salesforce.

Undeniably the most popular name in the CRM industry, Salesforce has everything your business could ever need. Its Sales Cloud Professional edition offers features like rules-based lead scoring, campaign management, and unlimited custom applications. You also get account and contact management, as well as a customizable sales process.

Its mobile app allows you to keep track of customer interactions even on the go. The highly configurable dashboards and reports make it easy to get real-time insights.

For company-wide collaboration, Salesforce has full support for files and recommendations. Third-party integration is there, too, with both Google Apps and Einstein Activity Capture.

For company-wide collaboration, Salesforce has full support for files and recommendations. Third-party integration is there, too, with both Google Apps and Lightning Sync included.

As you can see, Salesforce has a lot to offer, but its prices are extraordinarily high for the industry. Even so, if your business can afford the luxury price tag, its services are worth it.