We’ve compiled a list of the top five CRMs that we recommend for small businesses. Choosing a Customer Relationship Management system or CRM for your small business is a very important decision to make. It’s best to do it early in your business, even if you only have a few customers, in order to have a system in place as your business grows. We always recommend setting yourself up for success before you are too busy to do it yourself! Learn more about CRMs in our Ultimate Guide to CRMs.
There are numerous CRMs to choose from and the selection process comes down to your needs, comfortability, and goals for the future. If you are planning to scale your business over the next five years, you’ll want to choose a CRM that can handle your growing business. Though you can always move platforms, it can be time consuming and costly to move once you are more established.
Some CRM companies offer more services than just contacts and sales pipelines. You can now schedule social media posts and advertisements, run email campaigns, manage projects, track team productivity, create invoices and get paid, and much more. There are even CRMs that will help you automate entire parts of your business to reduce task heavy projects with customizable automation.
Since there are so many to choose from, it was a hard choice which CRMs to add to this list. We have selected the best CRMs specifically for small businesses like yours. This article will help you compare platforms so you can walk away knowing you made the right choice.
Remember just about every system has a free trial period or live demo. We recommend utilizing these to find that CRM that feels most comfortable to you.
This site may contain links to affiliate websites, and we receive an affiliate commission for any purchases made by you on the affiliate website using such links.
Top 5 CRMs for Small Businesses
#1 Zoho One
Summary
Zoho started as a CRM and has now grown its platform to offer a complete suite of services. Zoho has a traditional CRM called Zoho CRM, plus they offer the Zoho CRM Plus, which includes nine products bundled:
In addition, Zoho now offers Zoho One, which is the service we will cover in this article. Zoho One offers a comprehensive suite of tools from sales and marketing to finance, HR and IT management.
Within the Zoho One suite, you can manage every part of your business. With sales automation tools, product customizations, automation and process management for teams, AI for leads, reporting and analytics, social media integration, marketing automation, inventory management, customer support, and marketing and sales you are ready for everything. In addition to the sales and marketing, which has vast possibilities, you also have tools for customer support, team productivity, finance, human resources and business process automation.
Zoho One Features:
- Workplace – Team management from anywhere
- People Plus – HR platform
- Finance Plus – Operation and finance management tool
- CRM Plus – Sales and marketing tool with Zoho AI
- Creator Plus – Low-code automation to create business apps
- IT Management – Internal IT management solutions
Zoho One Pros
- Zoho One integrates with several applications you may already use including Microsoft Office Suite, Google Suite, Slack, Amazon Business, DropBox, Evernote, OneDrive, and much more. The social media tool connects with Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google, so you can analyze data, schedule posts and more all within your CRM.
- You can do just about everything you need for your business all in one place.
- The suite is very user friendly and customizable.
Zoho One Cons
- Limited integrations between Zoho One features can be an issue. Some users complain about this when it comes to inventory management and project management. You can’t track the inventory used on a project.
- Some reports in the accounting features are not as customizable as some companies need.
Zoho Pricing
For smaller companies or those with a limited budget, Zoho One is our number one recommendation, plus through any link on our website, you can receive $100 off your first subscription!
- Entire Zoho One Suite:
- Flexible User Pricing – $90 per month per user or $75 per month per user with annual subscription (do not have to purchase licenses for all of your employees)
- All Employee Pricing – $35 per month per user or $30 per month per user with annual subscription (purchase licenses for all employees in company)
- Zoho CRM Plus: $50 per month per user
- Zoho CRM: $12-$45 per month per user (depends on features needed)
#2 Hubspot
Summary
Hubspot has Marketing, Sales, Service and CMS Hubs to help you automate and organize your business. You can get the Marketing, Sales and Service hubs for free, with limited features, though the CMS is a paid option only, with a 14-day free trial.
We love that Hubspot has so many free features at your disposal. For a small business just starting out, the free version has everything you need to start with marketing, sales and customer service. They have a huge resource library at your fingertips, which includes many helpful guides on anything related to marketing and sales.
Hubspot Features
Marketing Hub
This hub comes with a large amount of free features with additional paid features that provide you with more automation options, SEO, social media and more.
Free Features
- Email Marketing
- Forms
- Contact Management
- Landing Pages
- Live Chat
- Facebook, Instagram, Google, and LinkedIn Ads
- Traffic and Conversion Analytics
Sales Hub
The free Sales Hub has many features and the paid version has more automation options, advanced CRM, and email sequencing options.
Free Features
- Contact, deal and task management
- Email tracking and notifications
- Email templates and scheduling
- Document sharing
- Meeting scheduling
- Gmail and Outlook integration
- Live chat
- Quotes
Service Hub
Service Hub is everything you need in a help desk with a variety of free features and even more paid. The paid features include more automation options, customer feedback and more!
Free Features
- Ticketing
- Team email
- Live chat
- Email templates
- Email and chat to ticket
- Ticket creation bots
- Meeting scheduling
- Reporting
CMS Hub
Lastly the CMS Hub is for content management to help you build a website that lands more visitors and converts. It includes features like blog and content creation tools, SEO and content strategy support, and lead generation tools.
Hubspot Pros
- Many free tools at your disposal.
- Hubspot is very user friendly and easy to learn.
- A great all-in-one option.
Hubspot Cons
- Though there’s many free features, the paid versions can get expensive very quickly, especially if you need features that are only offered in a higher package and their contracts are not flexible.
- Email marketing templates are difficult to modify with CSS knowledge.
- Reporting isn’t as vast as some may need.
- Technical support may cost you extra.
HubSpot Pricing
-
Starter: $45 per month at 1,000 marketing contacts
- Includes: Free tools plus, landing pages, ad management, live chat, conversational bots, forms, contact website activity, list segmentation, email health insights, email marketing, ad retargeting, and follow-up emails.
- Professional: $800 per month at 2,000 marketing contacts
- Includes: Starter plus, marketing automation, multi-language content, smart content and reporting, contact and company scoring, blog, SEO, social media management, ABM tools, A/B testing, ads optimization events, video hosting, website traffic analytics, Salesforce integration, calculated properties, campaign reporting, and custom reporting.
- Enterprise: $3,200 per month at 10,000 marketing contacts
- Includes: Professional plus, single sign-on, partitioning, hierarchical teams, user roles, field-level permissions, custom objects, adaptive testing, webhooks, programmable chatbots, multi-touch revenue attribution, behavioral event triggers and reporting, and predictive lead scoring.
#3 Freshworks CRM (formally Freshsales)
Summary
Freshworks has a series of products at your disposal, including marketing, sales, analytics and AI functionality. Freshworks CRM is focused on a four step process for sales and marketing, attract, engage, close and nurture. Their CRM tool has integration for all steps of the buyer journey providing you with everything from website analytics, chatbots, web forms, email campaigns, Freddy AI (an AI that helps you identify your best leads), personalized customer journeys, communication tools, deal insights, forecasting, and more.
Freshworks suite features:
- Freshdesk – Customer service and team support tool
- Freshservice – Internal IT management
- Freshteam – HR tool
- Freshsuccess – Software and subscription tool
- Freshworks CRM – Sales and marketing team tool
- Freshchat – Web, mobile, and social messenger tool
- Freshping – Website analytics tool
- Freshcaller – Cloud-based phone system
- Freshstatus – Hosted public status page
Freshworks Pros
- You have the ability to buy separate features, so you don’t have to use an all-in-one system if you don’t need or want it.
- It has a lot of integrations with other applications and within the Freshworks tools.
- Very user friendly and easy to learn.
- Pricing is fair even at the enterprise level.
Freshworks Cons
- Though Freshworks services are similar to Zoho One, you must purchase them separately.
- It can be hard to determine which plan to select for your small business.
- Users complain about their technical support being less than perfect.
Freshworks Pricing
- Growth – $29 per month per user
- Pro – $69 per month per user
- Enterprise – $125 per month per user
Other Features Available:
- Freshdesk – Free to $99 per month per user
- Freshservice – $19 to $109 per month per user
- Freshteam – Free to $200 per month depending on how many users and the features needed
- Freshsuccess – 2 options
- $79 per month per user + Platform at $499 per month: 10,000 accounts, 100,000 emails per month, 2 maintained integrations
- $129 per month per user + Platform at 749 per month: 200,000 accounts, 250,000 emails per month, 8 maintained integrations
- Freshchat – Free to $69 per month per user
- Freshping – Free to $36 per month depending on how many checks you want
- Freshcaller – Free to $69 per month per user, with additional fees for call charges
- Freshstatus – Free to $25 per month depending on amount of subscriber and the features needed
#4 SugarCRM
Summary
If you have a small business that is growing fast, you may want to consider using SugarCRM. The Sugar Professional CRM starts at $52 per month per user with a 10 user minimum, so you probably want to wait until you have a large enough team before you switch over to this platform.
What’s great about SugarCRM is that it’s highly customizable, so you don’t have to fit a mold. From the start, you can set up your CRM to meet the needs of your business and your team. Sugar CRM is commonly used in the information technology and computer software industries.
SugarCRM Features
Like the other platforms, SugarCRM has a few different features within its suite including Sugar Market, Sugar Sell and Sugar Serve. They are all part of the CRM package and provide you with a plethora of tools.
- Sugar Market: This marketing automation solution provides you with drag and drop campaign builders, lead nurturing, analytics and reporting tools. It includes SEM, SEO and social media integration where you can track where your leads come from and create landing pages to track lead generation.
- Sugar Sell: They boast that Sugar Sell will integrate with anything and that it’s extremely fast and lean. This is incredibly powerful when working in a fast-paced environment like the IT world. The reports and analytics are top notch and the automation is extremely helpful.
- Sugar Serve: Sugar service is for customer satisfaction with a self-service portal, agent workbench and real-time reports and dashboards. You can monitor response and resolution times during the customer service phase and track your customer’s satisfaction.
- Sugar Enterprise: Fully customizable CRM system designed for large enterprises.
- Sugar Professional: A CRM tool designed specifically for small businesses.
SugarCRM Pros
- SugarCRM is highly customizable with robust reporting capabilities.
- It has great integrations with other applications.
- It is very user friendly and easy to learn.
SugarCRM Cons
- Initial set up can be time consuming and complex.
- SugarCRM has less features than other products and can get pricey.
- Mobile app does not match the desktop version.
- Some customization options are not available.
SugarCRM Pricing
- Sugar Market – starts at $1,000 per month for 10,000 contacts
- Sugar Sell – starts at $80 per month per user with a 10 user minimum
- Sugar Serve – starts at $80 per month per user with a 10 user minimum
- Sugar Enterprise – starts at $85 per month per user with a 10 user minimum
- Sugar Professional (CRM) – starts at $52 per month per user with a 10 user minimum
#5 Keap
Summary
Like the other platforms listed, Keap also offers several features under its umbrella. We recommend starting with Keap Grow until your business expands to the point you need more services.
Keap Grow has easy automation that allows you to save tons of time on repetitive tasks and helps you create processes for sales and marketing. The CRM has some great integrations including Microsoft Office Suite, Quickbooks, Shopify, Google Suite and more. It’s extremely user friendly and helps you manage more than just your clients.
We love that they offer a business phone line as many small business owners start by using a personal phone. Also with that phone line comes text messaging. This is extremely important as SMS messaging is on the rise in many industries.
Keap Features
Keap Grow
- CRM
- Automation (easy)
- Email Marketing
- B2B Capabilities
- Invoices and Quotes
- Appointments
- Mobile App
- SMS Messages & Keap Business Lite
- Reminders & Reports
- Internal Forms (basic)
Keap Pro
Everything in Grow plus:
Keap Max
Everything in Plus plus:
Keap Max Classic (Formerly InfusionSoft)
Everything in Max plus:
- Opportunity records
- Lead Source Tracking
- Sales Round Robin
- Shopping Cart
- Order Forms
- Custom User Roles
- Affiliate Management
Keap Pros
- Keap has a very simple and easy to use email builder and good email analytics.
- The campaign builder functionality is really easy to use and efficient.
- Many rave about it’s marketing automation features being some of the best.
Keap Cons
- Not always intuitive to use and for basic use it can be cumbersome.
- Can have a steep learning curve for some.
- Some complain that it has less customization than other CRMs.
Keap Pricing
All plans include a suite of features, CRM, payments, unlimited emails, sales and marketing automation, lead capture, data migration support, email marketing, mobile app, and top rated support.
- Keap Lite – $79 per month
- Great for small businesses with a CRM, automation, email marketing, and payments.
- Keap Pro – $149 per month
- Good for growing businesses that need more customizable features including automation, repeatable sales processes and marketing campaigns.
- Keap Max – $199 per month
- Best for larger and established businesses and teams who need a CRM, secure payments, ecommerce, and advanced automation possibilities.
- Max Classic (formerly InfusionSoft)
- When you have a much larger, established business that needs more advanced ecommerce and sales team management.
Now that you have our top 5 recommended CRMs for small businesses, you are well on your way to improving your marketing, sales and business processes. If you have further questions or would like to talk more about CRMs, contact us today for a complimentary consultation.
Disclaimer: Centify is an affiliate partner of ZohoOne. Our links provide those interested in their products with $100 off their first subscription.
