Top Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software For SMBs
Tanya Mishra
Content Writer - ReVerb
03.24.2023
This list compares 16 CRM software options for small and midsize businesses, covering who each CRM suits, its standout features and how it is priced.
According to a report by Nucleus Research, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) can deliver a strong return on every dollar spent.
Customer relationship management software is an application that streamlines an organization’s management process. It manages and stores all sorts of data from texts and emails to form submissions and documents in a single place, making it easy to look upon whenever required.
CRMs also provide a common space for business owners, project managers, sales representatives, and clients to interact virtually, saving time and resources and enhancing workflow efficiency.
There are different types of customer relationship management systems for companies of all sizes, including enterprise CRM systems and CRMs for small businesses. Enterprise CRM systems are used by big firms with a larger workforce and extensive customer base, while the latter provides a similar range of features but for smaller team sizes and sales volumes. However, most modern CRMs have common features like project management, sales tracking and analysis, email marketing, and more.
Today, the market offers numerous customer relationship management vendors, and choosing one that meets your business’s requirements may become quite overwhelming. Therefore, to help you out, we have compiled a list of the top CRM software for small businesses and larger companies, comprehensively covering their key info, features, use cases, and pricing.
CRM Software For SMBs At A Glance
The table below summarizes each CRM on this list, who it suits, its standout features and how it is priced, based on the details in each entry.
1. CRM
Best for
Standout features
Pricing model
1. Zoho CRM
Startups and SMBs
Workflow automation, analytics and reports, predictive sales
Free plan, then per-user tiers
2. Salesforce
Companies in industries such as retail, finance, education and healthcare
Process automation, quote management, opportunity management
Zoho CRM is the first choice of many startups and SMBs due to its impressive features and interactive UI, which makes it easy to use for beginners.
It offers a wide range of features, starting with Sales Force Automation to generate website leads and manage workflows. Another top-tier feature is Omnichannel, which lets you contact your leads through email, phone, social media, and other channels. Finally, its comprehensive AI support allows businesses to forecast sales and develop strategies to drive more growth.
Key features:
Workflow Automation
Analytic and Reports
Canvas Design Studio
Predictive Sales
Marketing Automation
800+ Integrations
Pricing:
Zoho offers a free plan for up to 3 users with limited features but enough to get started. Other plans include:
Standard: It costs $14 per user.
Professional: It costs $23 per user.
Enterprise: It costs $40 per user.
Ultimate: It costs $52 per user.
So, what are you waiting for? Accelerate your sales with Zoho CRM, one of the top CRM companies on the market.
Salesforce is among the most popular CRM systems in industries like Automotive, Communications, Retail, Finance, Education, Healthcare, and Public Sector. While Salesforce is widely used by enterprises, it also offers CRM solutions for small businesses.
Salesforce offers Contact Management as well as Lead Management, which helps to generate lists of contacts and hence provides proper insight strategies. It also provides a guided tour for small businesses to help them learn and grow.
Key features:
Process Automation
Quote Management
Opportunity Management
Reports & Analytics
Sales Cloud
Dynamic Dashboards
Email Services
Pricing:
Salesforce offers a 14-day free trial to get started. The paid plans are as follows:
Essentials: It costs $25/user/month (billed annually).
Professional: A complete CRM plan for any team size. It costs $75/user/month (billed annually).
Enterprise: It costs $150/user/month if billed annually.
Unlimited: It costs $300/user/month if billed annually.
Pipedrive is another go-to customer relationship management application for sales and marketing professionals. The reasons that contribute to its excessive client base are its seamless and clean interface and excellent pipeline management.
Its top-tier plan provides alerts about suspicious logins and data leaks on the website, making it security-focused. In addition, as a sales CRM, it offers functionalities such as contact management and communication data unification. What’s more, Pipedrive offers 300+ integrations for your ease.
Key features:
Robust customization
ML-powered Sales Automation
Workflow Automation
Visual Sales Pipelines
Activity Reminders
Reporting & Dashboards
Revenue Forecasting
Pricing:
Pipedrive offers an affordable starting plan along with a 14-day free trial. This is what makes Pipedrive a popular choice among small businesses. The paid plans include the following:
Salesmate is a top-rated CRM & automation software with a pretty-appealing interface. This CRM solution is best for small businesses looking to drive growth via SMS and phone marketing.
The application provides impressive engagement tools like smart emails, built-in calling, and a drag-and-drop email builder. Along with that, it offers extensive sales tracking mechanisms and tools.
The list of its features is long and probably comprises every tool you may need to drive growth for your business.
Key features:
Lead & Prospect Management
Sales Pipeline Tracking
Meeting & Emails Scheduler
Sales Forecasting
Sales Automation
Sales Intelligence & Reports
700+ Integrations
Pricing:
Salesmate offers 15-day free access and up to 20% savings on its annual billings. The paid plans are the following:
Starter: This basic plan costs $12 per user/month.
Growth: This plan costs $24 per user/month.
Boost: Their most popular plan costs $40 per user/month.
Enterprise: This plan has custom pricing. Contact their sales team to get a quote.
Monday Sales CRM is one of the top CRM enterprise software offered by the famous project management platform Monday.com. It offers a Kanban-style board that lets you view all your tasks and collaborate with your teammates and clients in a single place. And integrating Monday with WhatsApp or Messenger like social platforms enhances Kanban boards by streamlining task updates, real-time communication, and automating workflows, keeping teams aligned and responsive.
This all-in-one sales CRM provides a full-service approach for sales and marketing with killer features like Sales Pipeline, Contact Management, and Activity Management. It also offers ready-made personalized email templates that autofill based on contacts’ details.
Livespace is a CRM designed for B2B sales teams looking to boost efficiency and predictability in their sales process.
Trusted by over 1200+ companies, Livespace stands out from other tools like Pipedrive and HubSpot by allowing you to accurately describe and continuously improve your actual sales process.
Thanks to this, sales managers gain complete control over their team’s activities, and sales reps achieve better results. As a result, your company can reduce chaos, predictably increase sales, and grow safely.
Key features:
Sales process management& customization
Sales process in-depth analytics
Communication & Calendar
Sales Automation
Task management for sales teams
Sales Reports
Knowledge management
Sales forecasting
Pricing:
Livespace offers an affordable starting plan along with a 14-day free trial. The pricing starts with 17 USD / seat and includes sales process customization that is a powerful tool specifically for non-tech SME businesses.
Base: $17/seat
Automation $34/seat
Growth $52/seat
Professional $87/seat
Livespace also offers custom implementation starting with a one-time payment of 600 EUR that includes consultancy, account, and sales process configuration.
NetHunt CRM is the best CRM for LinkedIn, and it is natively built into Gmail. Small and medium-sized businesses can start using it from day one, as NetHunt CRM is easy to set up and has an intuitive interface. It is perfect for first-time CRM users as you’re already working in your familiar Gmail environment and can intuitively navigate the system.
You’d think a highly customizable, scalable system with robust sales automation would be pricey, but here’s the kicker — NetHunt CRM is incredibly affordable. Let’s take a closer look at the features and pricing. Key features:
Native Gmail integration
Multiple native integrations with tools you already use and love (Google Workspace, social media, messengers, and VoIP services)
Ultracustomizable fields, tags, and pipelines for building automated workflows that fit your business processes like a glove
NetHunt CRM offers a 14-day free trial. No credit card is required.
Basic. Core CRM features at $24 per user/month (billed annually).
Basic Plus. Basic features plus mass email campaigns for $34 per user/month (billed annually).
Business. Perfect for businesses with diverse lead generation channels at $48 per user/month (billed annually).
Business Plus. Advanced features for enterprises at $68 per user/month (billed annually).
Advanced. Comprehensive CRM capabilities at $96 per user/month (billed annually).
By the way, if you’re a small business or a startup, NetHunt offers a two-year program with extensive assistance for startups three years old or younger.
Freshsales is a CRM enterprise system offered by Freshworks, one of India’s leading cloud-based SaaS companies. It offers a simple yet productive interface, helping even novices to adapt to the CRM software.
It offers impressive features like AI-powered deal insights, which help you close deals faster and shorten your sales cycle. It also provides email and SMS integrations to send customized emails and messages to your prospects.
In addition, Freshsales offers Contact Scoring, which helps you identify the most sales-ready prospects with the help of Freddy AI.
Key features:
Sales Forecasting
Workflow Automation
Multiple Sales Pipelines
Configure Price Quotes
Product Catalogues
Multi-currency and Multi-language
API access for customization
Pricing:
Freshsales offers free access for up to 3 users. However, to get more seats, you need to choose one of the paid plans, starting from Growth, which costs $15 per user/month, and going to Enterprise, which costs $69 per user/month if billed annually.
Zendesk Sell is one of the best CRM software allowing users to maximize productivity and drive growth and revenue. The program enables users to take data-driven actions with the help of its visible sales pipelines.
Not just that, Zendesk Sell offers integrated support and ticketing mechanisms to address your customers’ queries seamlessly. It also allows full API integrations for customization and a Zendesk app framework where one can build their apps.
NetSuite by Oracle is among the most popular enterprise CRM solutions helping businesses engage with clients and leads, partners and suppliers in a single place.
The program provides uninterrupted customer relationship management services with its top-edge features – Sales Force Automation (SFA), Workflow Automation, and Quote Management.
Key features:
Order Management & Fulfillment
Marketing Automation
Customer Service Management
Reporting and Analytics
Sales Forecasting
Partner Relationship Management
Pricing:
NetSuite offers a custom price model for its CRM services depending on your team size and feature requirements. Contact them today to get pricing details.
HubSpot CRM is known as one of the best CRM tools for small businesses and startups. It offers a free CRM tool for companies just getting started with limited yet enough features to master the art of customer relationship management.
Additional HubSpot’s features are Contact Management, Quote Management, Meeting Scheduler, and much more in the basic plan itself.
Key features:
Sales Automation
Sales Forecasting
Multiple Currencies
Sales Sequences
Custom Email & SMS Templates
Performance Metrics
Reporting Dashboard
Pricing:
Apart from the free plan, it offers 3 paid plans:
Starter: It starts at $45/month (billed annually and covers min. 5 paid users).
Professional: It starts at $450/month (billed annually and covers min. 5 paid users)
Enterprise: It starts at $1200/month (billed annually and covers min. 10 paid users).
Vtiger is the top CRM software for selecting a value-for-money customer relationship management system. It offers class-apart CRM features for not just sales and marketing but for industries such as Real Estate, Pharma, SaaS, and Legal.
It provides all sorts of services ranging from Sales Automation and Enablement to Sales Analytics and Engagement. Along with all the on-platform features, it allows you to integrate with more than 500 business applications to help you convert your leads to your customers.
Key features:
Drag-n-drop Email Templates
Pipeline Management
Performance Insights
Communication & Collaborations
Helpdesk Automation
Marketing Automation
Pricing:
Vtiger offers a free (One Pilot) plan for businesses just getting started, limited to 10 users and 3000 records. It also provides One Professional Single App and Standard Plan, which cost $20/user/month and $30/user/month.
When it comes to choosing the right CRM solution for your business, Apptivo CRM stands out as a reliable and powerful option that caters to the needs of startups and SMBs alike. With its extensive range of features and user-friendly interface, it’s no wonder that many businesses turn to Apptivo as their go-to CRM solution.
One of the standout features of Apptivo CRM is its comprehensive sales force automation capabilities. From lead generation to managing workflows, this feature empowers businesses to streamline their sales processes and boost productivity. The CRM’s omnichannel functionality is another crucial aspect, allowing you to communicate effortlessly with leads via email, phone, social media, and various other channels.
Apptivo CRM also excels at providing valuable insights and analytics to drive informed decision-making. By leveraging the power of artificial intelligence, businesses can forecast sales trends, identify opportunities, and develop winning strategies to fuel growth and success.
Key features:
Marketing automation capabilities
100+ integrations
Robust workflow automation
Seamless customization
Smooth sales and lead tracking system
Intuitive dashboard with multiple app access
Pricing:
Apptivo CRM offers a range of plans to suit different business needs. The free plan is a great starting point, offering limited features for up to three users. For more comprehensive functionality, you can consider the following plans:
Starter: Priced at $10 per user per month
Premium: At $15 per user per month
Ultimate: Designed for enterprises, priced at $25 per user per month
Apptivo CRM is the solution you need to supercharge your sales efforts. Remember, the success of your business relies on efficient customer relationship management, so choose Apptivo CRM today and unlock your sales potential.
TeleCRM stands out as a specialized CRM tool tailored for telecalling and WhatsApp marketing. It provides an integrated platform to manage leads, sales teams, and customer interactions seamlessly across the entire sales workflow. Here’s a detailed breakdown of its key features and pricing:
Key Features:
Lead Management
Team Management
Sales Growth
Customer Retention
Upsell/Cross-sell
Referral Generation
Pricing:
TeleCRM offers customized pricing based on the features and team size required. To get a personalized quote, visit TeleCRM.
EviView is a powerful Operational Excellence Platform built for pharmaceutical and biotech companies to streamline and standardize batch record reviews, quality assurance, and regulatory workflows. It enhances visibility, accountability, and collaboration across departments to support compliance and efficiency goals.
vcita is an all-in-one CRM and business management solution designed for coaches, consultants, and small businesses who want to streamline their daily operations. Its simple interface, powerful automation tools, and built-in client portal make it a strong choice for managing appointments, payments, and client communications from one centralized platform.
One of vcita’s standout strengths is its AI assistant, BizAI, which helps automate repetitive tasks, draft replies, and optimize workflows. This allows coaches and service providers to save time while delivering a more efficient, engaging client experience.
Key features:
Client Management
Online Scheduling & Calendar Sync
Invoicing & Online Payments
Automated Reminders & Follow-ups
Client Portal
Email & SMS Campaigns
AI-powered BizAI Assistant
Reporting & Analytics
Mobile App Access
Pricing: vcita offers a 14-day free trial to explore its features. Paid plans include:
Essentials: Starts at $29/month (billed annually)
Business: $54/month (billed annually)
Platinum: $93/month (billed annually)
Whether you’re a solo coach or part of a growing team, vcita helps you automate admin work, improve client relationships, and run your business more efficiently – all from one powerful platform.
How CRM Software Is Priced
Most CRM software is sold as a subscription billed per user (or per seat) per month, with lower rates for annual billing. Vendors usually offer several tiers, and each step up unlocks more automation, reporting, custom fields, integrations and user permissions. Several tools on this list, including Zoho CRM, HubSpot Sales Hub, Vtiger and Apptivo, offer a free plan for small teams, while most others offer a free trial.
The main cost drivers are the number of users, the tier you need for automation and forecasting, paid add-ons such as calling, AI features or extra storage, and implementation or data migration work. Enterprise suites such as Oracle NetSuite are usually priced by custom quote. If you plan to customize a platform heavily, budget for setup help as well; our list of top Salesforce consulting companies covers partners who handle that work.
How To Choose CRM Software For A Small Business
Map your sales process first. List your pipeline stages, lead sources and handoffs, then check that the CRM can model them without workarounds.
Check the integrations you already rely on. Email, calendar, phone, accounting and marketing tools should connect natively or through a reliable connector.
Test ease of use with your team. A CRM only works if reps keep it updated, so run a trial with real deals before you commit.
Look at the tier you will actually need. Compare the plan that includes your must-have automation and reporting, not just the entry price.
Plan for growth. Choose a CRM that can add users, pipelines and permissions as the business scales, so you do not have to migrate again in two years.
There is no single best CRM for every small business; the right choice depends on your sales process, team size and existing tools. Zoho CRM, HubSpot Sales Hub, Pipedrive and Salesmate are popular with small teams because they are quick to set up and scale with paid tiers. Shortlist two or three and test them with real deals during a free plan or trial.
Is there a free CRM for small businesses?
Yes. Several CRMs on this list offer a free plan, including Zoho CRM (for a small number of users), HubSpot Sales Hub, Vtiger and Apptivo. Free plans usually limit users, automation and reporting, so they suit very small teams or a first trial of CRM software.
What is the difference between a CRM for SMBs and an enterprise CRM?
A CRM for SMBs focuses on fast setup, simple pipelines and per-user pricing for smaller teams. An enterprise CRM supports larger workforces and customer bases with advanced customization, complex permissions, deeper analytics and integration with ERP and other back-office systems. Many modern CRMs offer both through different plan tiers.
What is the most popular CRM software?
Salesforce is widely described as one of the most popular CRM systems and is used across industries such as automotive, communications and retail. Among small businesses, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM and HubSpot Sales Hub are common choices. Popularity is a useful signal, but the right CRM is the one that fits your sales process, team size and budget.
What is the best CRM for beginners?
It depends on how your team already works. On this list, Zoho CRM is described as easy to use for beginners, NetHunt CRM suits first-time users because it runs inside Gmail, and Freshsales offers a simple interface that helps novices adapt. HubSpot Sales Hub, Zoho CRM and Freshsales also have free plans, which lets a new team try a CRM before committing.
Conclusion
Proper management and record of data of their clients and partners are essential for businesses. This helps them track their sales and revenue and ultimately figure out strategies to bring more growth. And an appropriate sales-centric CRM can help you achieve right that.
Therefore, choosing a proven and scalable customer relationship management tool is vital to improve sales and drive more business growth. We hope this list comprising some of the best CRM systems helps you find one.
If you want us to feature your CRM software in this list, submit your request via email. After a thorough evaluation, we’ll decide whether it’s an appropriate addition.
