Best CRM for Startups: Guide and Reviews

Salesflare even integrates with your existing email, like Outlook and Gmail. If you’re new to CRMs, you’ll find its interface intuitive, which means less time learning and more time doing. In addition to the above, we also considered factors like customer support, documentation, and customization options. The unified inbox allows you to read, manage, and respond to customer messages across all your communication channels in one place, including telephone, email, live chat, and social platforms. Robust customer support and comprehensive training resources provided by the CRM vendor play a pivotal role in successfully implementing and utilizing the software. Stay updated with the latest features and enhancements offered by the CRM provider.

• It also helps you discover where you can improve and what aspect you should focus on next.
• Having a CRM solution that can run effectively on tablets, smartphones, or convertible 2-in-1 devices has a definite advantage for small business users.
• For tracking leads and categorizing them based on engagement and other factors that influence how likely they are to convert.
• The most common standard here is representational state transfer (REST).
• This saves users from switching back and forth between their Gmail inbox and other CRM tools.

We’ve put together a handy CRM comparison page that can give you more information about how these providers match up against each other on everything from features to pricing. Zoho CRM also has a free plan, but like Zoho Bigin, it’s a bit too limited to be a viable, long-term solution for your business. We’d recommend simply using it to test out the software before option for a paid plan that fits your needs. All that to say, Zoho CRM is excellent if you can afford it, but other options on this list are a bit more cost-friendly to startups. With all this in mind, startups are encouraged to choose their CRM carefully.

Solutions for every business

Freshsales‘ main goal is to help you improve the lead generation process and close deals faster. It achieves this by blending CRM functionalities with various marketing and customer support tools. The platform provides a plethora of automation tools for marketing and sales, with a straightforward drag-and-drop interface for creating custom automation. As for the platform’s CRM, Keap is an excellent option for startups looking to automate their sales process and streamline their workflows.

AI recruiting software can help reduce hiring bias by providing objective-based results to enable recruiters to match the ideal candidate to the right role. Combining an AI recruiting tool with automation also leads to an improved candidate experience, as applicants receive quicker responses and more personalized communications. Lastly, if the budget is of no concern to you, SugarCRM, Insightly, Close, and Keap are your options. Sure, they are expensive, but they have the features, integration capabilities, and customization options to back the price tag up. If you’re interested in free packages, Streak, Bitrix24, HubSpot CRM, ClickUp, and Agile CRM are what you should look at.

Top 22 CRM Tools for Business Growth in 2023

Before joining the team, she was a Content Producer at Fit Small Business where she served as an editor and strategist covering small business marketing content. She is a former Google Tech Entrepreneur and she holds an MSc in International Marketing from Edinburgh Napier University. Lastly, we included our expert opinion based on a great deal of first-hand experience using these different CRM services across several different use cases. We also considered factors such as ease of use and value for price based on the quality of the available features. The return on investment from selecting the best CRM software can be massive.

One such trend is the tendency for customers to prefer cloud-based CRM systems, which have already had a visible impact on the industry. All of the CRM systems in our most recent tests are available as cloud-based subscriptions, and many aren’t available any other way. This model, also known as software as a service (SaaS), has several advantages over traditional, on-premises software, including lower upfront costs and greater scalability and flexibility. It lets you identify prospects for up-sell or cross-sell, convert existing customers to new products or services, target new marketing, or track invoices. The software is also a fail-safe because it prevents multiple salespeople from chasing the same prospect. Choosing the right CRM software dramatically improves your team’s collaboration and productivity at the same time that it’s increasing sales.

Zendesk Sell — The Go-To Customer Service Platform

Insightly offers an intuitive CRM application that lets you better connect with your customers and create unforgettable experiences. Zoho CRM allows you to convert more leads, engage with your customers, and quickly grow your company’s revenue. You can instantly collaborate with all your colleagues, assign them tasks, and share key data across your organization. With Salesforce, you get access to a free 30-day trial, where you can collaborate with your team, automate your workflow, and create track quotes efficiently.

Most customers still expect to interact with you via email, but social media is fast becoming a game-changing technology for interacting with customers. Understand how your company interacts with customers over email and make sure your CRM software complements that relationship and doesn’t hinder it. A fully optimized CRM should automatically capture data from email interactions, not force your employees to do that manually. If you’re already a Zendesk customer, this is probably the CRM for you.

How We Chose the Best CRM for Startups

The technology encompasses many areas, including predictive analytics, machine learning and language processing. Companies have been adopting more AI technology to streamline internal and external processes and improve the customer’s experience with the business. For pricing, we considered the cost per user per month for each paid plan, minimum user requirements, introductory pricing, the availability of free trials, free trial length and money-back guarantees. No matter what your focus is, make sure robust data security and customer support features are on the must-have list. Required software security features are two-factor authentication, encryption and advanced user permissions.

This cutting-edge feature allows Zoho users to design their own CRM interface based on their own preferences and requirements using an intuitive drag-and-drop editor. And lastly, there’s the HubSpot Academy, which provides unlimited free access to training materials to help you to get the most out of your CRM and bring your team up to speed. There are a few reasons we think HubSpot is the overall best CRM for startups. Firstly, there’s the HubSpot for Startups program, which provides startup-friendly onboarding and tailored training, plus hefty discounts of up to 90% for eligible ventures in the first year. This can help keep costs low so you have more of your budget left over to spend on growing your business.

CRM Best Practices for Every Business to Drive Sales (

All-in-one work app including CRM for teams to organize, collaborate and grow. Easy to implement CRM tool that helps focus on activities that close deals. If you want a cost-effective, end-to-end solution with a broader feature set, you can’t go wrong with Salesforce Essentials.

Using this approach, enterprise CRM players set themselves up for two benefits. And second, they’re able to develop an on-ramp to their flagship products as these customers grow. That’s even more valuable now that most CRM companies revamp these platforms into software hubs that let them sell additional sales and marketing software. These new tools plug into the CRM’s framework and customers use them via the same UI. Freshsales is an outstanding entry-level CRM for early-stage businesses, but it also offers a reasonably deep feature set for people who already have some experience with CRM. It provides an AI assistant, integrations with other business software, and customization options for people who have specific workflows in mind.

Oracle NetSuite — Manages Your Front-and-Back-End of Operations

Setup may take time and dedicated staff with at least basic programming knowledge, but once you’re up and running, users say the navigation is user-friendly and intuitive. Additionally, scalability is essential, crm for startups ensuring the CRM system can accommodate the company’s growth and evolving needs without compromising performance or efficiency. Stress the importance of data accuracy and consistency within the CRM system.