Zoho Management Engine
Jesper Sahu
The Forbes Advisor Small Business team is committed to bringing you unbiased rankings and information with full editorial independence. We use product data, strategic methodologies and expert insights to inform all of our content to guide you in making the best decisions for your business journey.
To find the best CRM services for small businesses, we considered over 25 of the leading CRM providers in the space and narrowed it down to 15, which we then evaluated across five key categories and 35 different metrics. Our ratings consider factors such as transparent pricing, pipeline and dashboard customization options, compatibility with third-party integrations, access to customer support and user experience. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.
Zoho CRM is a low-cost but high-value CRM that offers everything you need to manage your sales pipeline and grow your business. Its free plan allows businesses of all sizes to customize their process, create sales workflows and leverage powerful reporting. It also provides a full suite of apps that integrate with the platform for marketing, customer support, accounting, human resources and inventory management, provided you have a paid plan starting at $14 per month with annual billing.
For the most part, I find Zoho CRM to be very intuitive and beginner-friendly. The user dashboard is clean, clutter-free and well-organized, making it easy to locate different features and set up various pipelines and workflows. However, it is worth mentioning that it can be a bit of a challenge to use if you are making several customizations or building out very sophisticated workflows. In short, I find that it is an easy CRM platform for those looking to use something more or less out of the box.
Zoho CRM has one of the best free plans in the market, which, unlike other free plans, even includes workflows. However, it is still fairly limited in terms of storage, features and its three-user limit. Granted, its paid plans start at $14 per user per month with annual billing. This Standard plan includes multiple pipelines, task management, lead scoring, multiple currencies, workflow rules, email notifications, custom fields, email marketing tools and more.
Paid plans also include features such as custom dashboards, inventory management, advanced customization and scoring rules. You can also create a mobile app for your business in minutes using Zoho Creator. It allows you to access your business data from anywhere, directly from your Android and iOS devices.
See MoreSee Less Best for Teamsmonday sales CRM4.8Our ratings take into account a product's cost, features, ease of use, customer service and other category-specific attributes. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.Starting Price
More widely known as a project management solution, monday.com also has a high-quality CRM that is best for collaborative teams. It offers a Kanban-style board view of your tasks that helps you visualize your work and collaborate with team members by tracking the progress of projects, managing due dates, adding comments and attaching files. It also offers a long list of features, such as unlimited customizable pipelines, deal management, quotes and invoicing, sales forecasting and more, making it a versatile and feature-rich CRM.
Monday sales CRM is designed to help teams more effectively manage clients and collaborate on projects and deals. All plans include unlimited customizable pipelines, contacts and boards; helpful pre-built templates for lead, contact and deal management; access to the mobile app so you can take your CRM with you on the go and the ability to create a dashboard based on one board. Its mid and top-tier plans include extra features such as activity management, quote and invoices, sales forecasting, email marketing with built-in tracking, sales automations, lead scoring, account management and more.
Paid plans include features such as unlimited customizable pipelines, unlimited contacts and viewers, sales forecasting, sales analytics, automations and integrations. Its mid-tier Standard CRM plan for $17 per seat per month also includes quotes and invoices, activity management and custom automations. Its Pro CRM plan for $28 per seat per month also includes mass email to help businesses streamline their marketing communications, sales analytics for an in-depth look at sales performance data and the ability to create a dashboard that comprises up to 10 boards.
While monday.com generally has a good reputation for its project management software, it has an average rating on Trustpilot of 3.1 out of 5 stars from 3,000-plus reviewers. Granted, 75% of reviewers gave it a perfect 5-star rating and 18% gave it a 4-star rating, illustrating that despite its fairly low average rating, the vast majority of users give it top marks. While many users say monday.com is easy to use and that it offers what they need, others find that there are too many hidden fees and its features are too limited.
The flexible monday.com CRM is best for collaborative teams, especially those that need to work together on projects and tasks. The platform visualizes your work in Kanban-style boards and lets you track task progress and add due dates, comments and attachments.
See MoreSee Less Best for Lead ManagementFreshsales4.8Our ratings take into account a product's cost, features, ease of use, customer service and other category-specific attributes. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.Starting Price
Freshsales is a top-rated CRM that stands out for its built-in lead capture forms. These forms allow you to easily gather information from potential customers on the web, track leads through your sales pipeline and convert them into opportunities and customers. Unlike many CRMs, Freshsales offers a free forever plan for up to three users and low-cost plans starting at $9 per user per month with annual billing.
See MoreSee Less Best for High-Growth BusinessesSalesforce4.6Our ratings take into account a product's cost, features, ease of use, customer service and other category-specific attributes. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.Starting price
To test drive plan features, take advantage of the free 14-day trial. Pricing starts at $25 per month when paid annually and goes up to $300 per month for the Unlimited plan. There are add-ons to extend the functionality of your Salesforce solution as you grow, which makes it a great option for companies that want to stick with the same CRM provider at all stages of growth.
Salesforce has a bad rating on Trustpilot of just 1.2 out of 5 stars from over 400 users. I certainly find it odd that such a large company with an arsenal of software products only has 400 reviews. Interestingly, 84% of reviewers gave it a 1-star rating, with many commenting that it is slow and cumbersome to use and that its customer service needs improvement.
See MoreSee Less Best for Budget-Strapped BusinessesAgile CRM4.5Our ratings take into account a product's cost, features, ease of use, customer service and other category-specific attributes. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.Starting Price
Agile CRM offers a large number of features despite its low price. All plans, including its free version, offer unlimited deals, tasks and documents; appointment scheduling; custom-deal milestones to help you better manage your pipelines; email tracking and two-way telephony.
Agile CRM uniquely offers behavior-based segmentation and it automatically tags and scores leads based on distinct activities, such as email interactions and website visits. This feature allows small businesses to strategically pinpoint the right audience segments, thus reducing the waste of resources on poorly targeted marketing campaigns. The real-time alerts about high-potential leads further help to streamline effort and focus.
What Agile CRM lacks in ease of use, it makes up for in price. Not only does it have a free forever plan, but it has one of the highest user limits with a 10-user maximum. Its free plan includes up to 50,000 contacts; unlimited tasks, deals and documents; custom data fields; lead scoring; appointment scheduling; email tracking and two-way telephony. For access to its suite of marketing tools and features, such as email campaigns, form and landing page builders, users will need to opt for its entry-level Starter plan for $8.99 per user per month with an annual subscription.
See MoreSee Less Best for Sales FunnelsApptivo4.5Our ratings take into account a product's cost, features, ease of use, customer service and other category-specific attributes. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.Starting Price
Apptivo is a CRM that includes all of the main features you would expect from a top-rated CRM, such as contact, lead, opportunity and task management; workflow automations; lead scoring and more. But it also offers more unique features, such as its sales funnel builder, which allows businesses to get an intricate understanding of their sales process, from lead generation to deal closure. Automated sales tools like email sequencing help sales teams by reducing repetitive tasks and ensuring consistent follow-up, making it easier to turn potential clients into long-term partners.
Like Agile CRM, Apptivo is not the most user-friendly CRM on the market, largely because its interface is dated. I find it to be generally clunky, not only involving a learning curve to use but also making it difficult to locate certain features and tools. Granted, it is a great solution for those with development experience looking to build out a highly custom CRM, as it is among the more flexible CRMs in the market.
Plans start at $15 per user per month with annual billing. This entry-level plan includes contact management, project management, up to 25 automated workflows, inventory management, multiple sales pipelines, referral tracking, a performance dashboard and more. However, its storage is limited to 1GB per user. Its mid-tier Premium plan costs $25 per user per month with an annual subscription and increases your storage limit to 3GB and includes additional features, such as ecommerce tracking, marketing automations and more integrations.
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