Top 6 CRM Solutions for Small Enterprises in 2024

• The finest overall choice blending pricing with cutting-edge tools: Freshsales
• Ideal for overseeing finances and cash flow: Pipedrive
• Optimal for advanced sales and marketing functionalities: EngageBay
• Superb for security and permissions: Capsule
• Greatest for a Starter Bundle tailored to small companies: HubSpot
• The top choice for managing projects: monday sales CRM

CRM software specially designed for small businesses aids in organizing and monitoring leads and customer interactions. These CRM tools provide a blend of fundamental and advanced CRM features to help businesses streamline their sales processes. Moreover, these tools are designed to be scalable, enabling them to adapt to the business’s growth.

CRM applications like Freshsales, HubSpot, and EngageBay offer free plans, which is particularly beneficial for small businesses with financial constraints. However, for companies with the resources and personnel, platforms such as Pipedrive, Capsule, and monday sales CRM are also viable options.

Comparison of Top CRM Solutions for Small Businesses

Small and medium businesses seeking CRM software desire a tool that offers accessibility to sales and marketing departments for improved visibility and team collaboration. This facilitates automation of processes and expedites deal closure.

CRM software inclusive of marketing tools or plugins assists small businesses in consolidating all their customer relationships, from generation to nurturing, within a single platform. Ensuring seamless integration with any additional software in their technology ecosystem, such as calendars or email services, is another pivotal aspect organizations should validate before opting for a software solution.

Characteristics

• Email templates: Establish designs for sales representatives to utilize and send to leads rapidly.
• AI-driven contact scoring: Receive scores on each contact based on demographic and purchasing behaviors.
• Product catalog: Form a catalog of all merchandise or services, fix rates and incorporate them into pipelines and transactions.

Pros and cons of Freshsales

Reasons for selecting Freshsales

Freshsales is top CRM software that is safe and dependable and enables robust teamwork between sales, marketing and support units. It furnishes AI-driven sales automations that can assess leads and then offer insights into the pipeline on whether the deal is feasible or inactive. The transaction administration, sales sequence and workflow tools simplify the organization of all customer connection data.

Although Freshsales does present a complimentary version of its CRM platform, attaining access to more sophisticated features requires a membership to one of the premium tiers. If you desire a more extensive free alternative with a larger allowance of users, I suggest investigating HubSpot initially.

Examine my Freshsales review for further insights into this CRM software.

Pipedrive: Best for managing finances and cash flow

Our star rating: 4.4/5

Along with Pipedrive’s advanced pipeline management tools, users can automate and streamline their finances with AI and app integrations. Small and midsize companies rely on predictive analytics around finances and cash flow, and the good news is Pipedrive can integrate with different accounting systems and software to automate invoices, schedule payments and even forecast revenue.

Pricing

• Essential: $14 per user per month, billed annually, or $24 per user when billed monthly. This tier comes with customizable pipelines, deal import and export, file attachments, calendar views and more.
• Advanced: $29 per user per month, billed annually, or $39 per user when billed monthly. This plan offers all Essential features, plus email templates, group emailing, meeting scheduler and more.
• Professional: $49 per user per month, billed annually, or $64 per user when billed monthly. All features mentioned are included in this plan, in addition to unlimited visual dashboards, custom permission sets, 24/5 live chat support and more.
• Power: $64 per user per month, billed annually, or $79 per user when billed monthly. This tier offers all Professional functionality, plus phone support, 200,000 open deals and more.
• Enterprise: $99 per user per month, billed annually, or $129 per user when billed monthly. This plan comes with all available features, including unlimited open deals, custom fields, reports and security alerts.

Characteristics

• Emailstrategies: Customize communications to clients that are planned to interact with them at the optimal time.
• Automated processes: Decrease time spent on administrative duties and increase time devoted to sales through automatic emails, connections, and more.
• Track conversations: Monitor interaction history with each contact, including phone calls, emails, and face-to-face meetings.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Pipedrive

Reasons for Opting for Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a well-liked CRM solution for small enterprises due to its user-friendly pipeline creation. Users can generate new or ongoing sales pipelines and then supervise customers from start to finish with beneficial automations and reports. Moreover, Pipedrive can integrate with and link to a diverse range of other business utilities in your technological arsenal, such as Slack, Zoom, Gmail, Trello, Microsoft Teams, and others.

Although Pipedrive’s premium schemes are priced moderately, I acknowledge that small businesses might prioritize a costless CRM over a paid one to commence; in that scenario, I advise exploring Freshsales or HubSpot.

To access additional details regarding this service provider, peruse our comprehensive Pipedrive review.

Characteristics

• Web Messaging: Chase up with online visitors immediately by engaging in personalized and exclusive conversations.
• Various sales pipelines: Establish multiple sales pipelines to monitor various prospects and projects efficiently.
• Assistance ticket organization: Keep and manage all assistance tickets and customer problems in one repository; thereby, facilitating quick ticket allocation by users.

Advantages and Disadvantages of EngageBay

Reasons for Selecting EngageBay

EngageBay presents various distinctive solutions, including CRM software, marketing platform, support software, live-chat software, and a comprehensive all-in-one platform merging each of these aspects. The pricing provisions for EngageBay’s CRM and Sales bay are competitive and come with multiple payment alternatives. All these aspects render the platform highly adaptable for a small business to decide precisely on the solution that fulfills their requirements.

Depending on your domain or platform proficiency, there may be other broad choices that can suit your necessities. For instance, if you are operating a legal firm, recruitment agency, or real estate business, Capsule offers tailored industry solutions.

To delve deeper into details about this CRM provider, peruse our EngageBay review.

Characteristics

• Client administration: Reduce manual input by synchronizing contacts in real-time with apps to view the latest tweets and invoice amounts from leads.
• One-time login: Access your dashboard by enabling SSO through Microsoft 365, QuickBooks, or Google Workspace.
• AI content helper: Generate expedited and relevant emails to send to clients with a single click.

Capsule advantages and disadvantages

Reasons for selecting Capsule

Capsule presents a straightforward CRM solution that provides a range of sales and marketing features at competitive prices. With both a complimentary plan and a standard 14-day free trial, small businesses have minimal risk in integrating Capsule into their existing sales procedures to evaluate its efficacy.

While Capsule delivers all the fundamental CRM features expected by any business, it is a small and easy-to-use solution. For those seeking more advanced features and extensions, I would suggest exploring Freshsales for its superior AI tools and reporting functionalities.

Visit our Capsule review for more insights about this provider.

HubSpot: Best offering a Starter Bundle for small business

Rating: 4.0/5

HubSpot provides a dedicated Starter Bundle tailored for small businesses and startups, granting them access to all HubSpot starter products at a reduced rate; this encompasses the Smart CRM starter, Marketing, Sales, CMS, Service, Operations, and Commerce hubs. This suite equips users with a wide spectrum of advanced tools for all pre- and post-sale activities within a single sales pipeline.

Pricing

• Free CRM: Cost-free for up to 5 users with contact management, quotations, live chat, and more.
• Sales Hub Starter: $15 per user per month on yearly billing, or $20 on monthly billing. The Starter package comprises all free features, in addition to basic automations, e-signature, conversation routing, and more.
• Sales Hub Professional: $90 per user per month annually, or $100 on monthly billing.plus a $1,500 single-time welcoming fee. This package consists of all Initial features and prospecting workspace, platbooks, forecasting, and more.
• Sales Hub Enterprise: $150 per seat every month, with an annual commitment and a one-time $3,500 welcoming fee. Participants of this package gain access to all Professional tools, along with advanced permissions, predictive lead scoring, conversation intelligence, and lead form routing.

Characteristics

• Call tracking: Prioritize sales calls and then make and record calls directly within the browser.
• Meeting scheduler: Distribute links internally or to clients that automatically synchronize with calendars to display suitable dates and times for everyone.
• Sales analytics and reporting: Obtain complete visibility into sales procedures and performances by monitoring goals, activities, and revenue.

HubSpot advantages and disadvantages

Reasons for selecting HubSpot

Another CRM provider widely recognized for its strong free version is HubSpot. CRMs offering a free tier typically restrict the number of users, often between two and three. In contrast, HubSpot’s free CRM allows for up to 5 users. While this exceeds the needs of a small business, they can still leverage the free access to CRM features and allocate funds for additional features.

Although HubSpot’s free tier is commendable, the premium tiers may seem expensive compared to other CRM solutions on the market. I recommend considering Freshsales as a primary alternative to HubSpot.

For more details, check out the complete HubSpot CRM review.

monday sales CRM: Ideal for project management

Our star rating: 3.5/5

Small to mid-size businesses can fully customize their project management with monday sales CRM. Organizations can visualize projects and deliverables through kanban-style boards and color-coded tags. Businesses can import their existing lead data into the software, and monday will merge duplicate data and start capturing new leads.

Pricing

• Free version: Basic CRM offerings exclusively available for students and nonprofit organizations upon application submission.
• Basic CRM: $12 per user per month billed annually, or $15 per user per month billed monthly. This level provides unlimited pipelines, boards, and contacts, along with templates for lead, contact, and deal management.
• Standard CRM: $17 per user per month billed annually, or $20 per user per month billed monthly. This includes advanced account, contact, and deal management, two-way email integration with Gmail and Outlook, and an AI email generator.
• Pro CRM: $28 per user per month billed annually, or $33 per user per month billed monthly. This tier includes sales forecasting, email templates with custom parameters, mass emails, and additional integrations.
• Enterprise CRM: Contact monday.com for a price quote. This level of service offers lead scoring, team goals, and advanced analytics.

Characteristics

• Time tracker: Monitor employee time spent on tasks and log-in history.
• Custom boards: Organize projects using various column types, colors, and pre-made templates.
• Project scheduling: View and organize projects by due date and status in one centralized hub.

Advantages and disadvantages of the monday sales CRM

Positives	Negatives
iOS and Android mobile app available. 14-day free trial. Unlimited contacts.	Lead scoring is only available in the highest paid tier. HIPAA compliance is only available in the highest paid tier. Free-for-life option is only available for students or nonprofits.

Reasons behind selecting the monday sales CRM

Monday sales CRM exhibits a high degree of versatility. It can aid small enterprises in managing both pre- and post-sales operations across various sectors and business scales. The platform also facilitates collaboration among representatives, teams, and departments by offering streamlined communication tracking, labels, tasks, and account histories.

In terms of pricing, monday sales CRM is quite competitive. However, its complimentary CRM is exclusively accessible to students or non-profit organizations that apply for the discount. Furthermore, monday sales CRM lacks robust lead nurturing capabilities. Therefore, if this is a crucial aspect for your business in utilizing a CRM, consider exploring HubSpot or Pipedrive.

Refer to our independent monday sales CRM review for further insights.

How can I select the most suitable CRM software for my small business?

Implementing top-rated general CRM software can represent a significant investment for small and mid-sized firms. Hence, when making a choice, it is advisable to conduct comprehensive research on the software to ascertain if it can deliver practical solutions for your entity. Commence by exploring the offerings from the providers listed, evaluate their free trials or demos, and outline their onboarding procedure with their internal sales departments.

The following inquiries should be addressed prior to committing to a paid subscription:

• Does this CRM tool seamlessly integrate with all my existing technological tools, such as Outlook for emails?
• Does this CRM tool provide the necessary marketing tools essential for my business?
• Does this CRM offer a no-cost version that includes all the required functionalities?
• Are the core sales features offered by this software advanced enough to optimize my sales process?
• Do we prefer an open-source CRM to allow for developer-friendly customizations?
• How rapid is the onboarding process for initializing the use of this tool?
• Can the CRM software expand effectively to accommodate the growth of my business?
• Does this CRM tool possess any specialization in my industry?

Evaluation methodology

To assess the CRM offerings of each provider from the perspective of a small or mid-sized business, a dedicated rubric with defined criteria for expected standards within the CRM industry was employed. Following this evaluation, an algorithm computes an overall rating for each CRM software, grading them out of 5 stars. Utilizing these ratings and highlighting the key features, an ideal use case is assigned to each software.

Here is a breakdown of the criteria utilized for scoring purposes:

• Price: Accounted for 25% of the total score.
• Core features: Accounted for 25% of the total score.
• Customizations: Accounted for 15% of the total score.
• Integrations: Accounted for 15% of the total score.
• Usability: Accounted for 10% of the total score.
• Customer support: Accounted for 10% of the total score.

Commonly asked questions (FAQs)

What is the average cost of CRM for small businesses?

Understanding CRM pricing is essential for small businesses. Establishing a reasonable budget for CRM software that encompasses base fees per user along with additional supplementary features is crucial. Typically, CRM providers offer varied tiers and billing cycles, either monthly or annually, tailored for businesses. Small enterprises should anticipate an expenditure ranging from $0 to $25 per user for CRM software.

Which CRM is most suitable for small businesses?

Based on my evaluation, the most suitable CRM for small businesses embodies a blend of marketing and sales functionalities that enable users to oversee their customers throughout the buyer journey—spanning from lead generation to deal closure and continuous support. Among the top CRM providers capable of achieving this are Freshsales, HubSpot, EngageBay, Pipedrive, and Capsule.

Is it advisable for small businesses to utilize CRM software?

The adoption of CRM software can bring substantial advantages to small businesses. Factors like budget and industry expertise should be taken into consideration; nevertheless, having a centralized system to manage customer data and interactions securely can prove invaluable for a small enterprise seeking growth. I strongly recommend adhering to and implementing best practices in CRM to ensure maximum efficiency.

About Author

AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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