CRM for Small Business: 17 Best CRM Software Options for Small Businesses

Keeping up with your customers is a huge part of running a successful business—and with technology growing to assist you in all areas of your business operations, there are more and more small business services available for customer relationship management. Customer relationship management for small business, or CRM, typically refers to the collection and analysis of customer data to help business owners manage their interaction with customers and optimize these relationships to promote business growth. CRM software for small business, therefore, allows business owners to digitize and automate these processes. 

If you’re looking to grow your business, you might consider utilizing a CRM system in order to make the most out of your customer relationships. Just like other small business software, however, there are numerous options on the market and the right CRM for your small business will depend on your specific needs. To help you sort through the decision-making process then, we’ll examine some of the best CRM software for small business—considering factors like features, cost, and small business specificity.

CRM Software for Small Business

Before exploring the different options for CRM systems for your small business, it’s important to establish what exactly is a CRM software and what you should look for when choosing one. As we mentioned, CRM software is a digital system that allows you to manage your customers, store information, and analyze your data to help your business and relationships with your customers to succeed and grow. This being said, the exact capabilities of a CRM software for small business can range. Depending on your specific business needs, it can simply serve as a contact hub to give you easy access to customer contact information, or it can manage more complicated tasks like sales reporting, marketing campaigns, and customer segmentation.

Like accounting software or other business tools, CRM software for small business can be cloud-based or on-premise. Cloud-based solutions are hosted by your software provider and eliminate the need for you to maintain your own server. Additionally, with cloud-based software, you have access to CRM for your small business wherever you have internet—whether that be at your home office or in your store. On-premise CRM software, on the other hand, is installed locally on your server and can only be accessed in that location. The cost of an on-premise CRM will be higher upfront, but if you think you’ll be using the same system for a long time and have suitable IT support available, may be worth the investment.

Best CRM for Small Business: What to Look for

As we’ve said, the best CRM for your small business will be the one that meets your needs and contributes to your business growth strategies. To determine if any CRM system is right for you, there are a few factors you’ll want to consider: cost, usability, functionality, and support.

CRM for Small Business: Cost

For small business owners, budget is key. If you’re going to be investing some of your finances into a CRM system, you want to keep cost top of mind. When looking into different CRM software options, therefore, you’ll want to compare the cost with functionality: Which CRM software for small business is cost-efficient but still provides the services you require?

CRM for Small Business: Usability

Customer relationship management for small businesses can be complex—and if you’re utilizing software to help optimize your CRM processes, you want to be able to use it easily and effectively. As with all types of software, some are more user-friendly than others, so when exploring different CRM options, you’ll want to see what customers say about the ease-of-use, taking into consideration, of course, your tech-savviness and that of your small business team.

CRM for Small Business: Functionality

You want your small business CRM software to do what you need it to do, after all, that’s why you’re looking for a software solution in the first place. When examining your options, therefore, you’ll want to know what your business needs ahead of time, so that you can compare those needs to what each CRM system has to offer. Generally, the capabilities of CRM systems for small businesses can be broken down as such:

• Contact management: organize names, addresses, and general contact information for customers
• Sales management: track sales deals at various stages of the pipeline and offer reports on sales performance and metrics
• Marketing automation: can help with web-based campaigns including email and social media marketing
• Customer service management: organize tickets to track and resolve customer issues

Additionally, when considering the CRM software needs of your small business, you’ll also want to see how each offering can be customized to your specific business, as well as if it can integrate with business tools you already utilize.

CRM for Small Business: Support

Once again, CRM systems for small business can be complicated, especially if your business processes themselves are intricate. When deciding on a CRM software, therefore, you’ll want to see what kind of customer support the provider offers you. Do you have access to support via email, phone, or live chat? What are the hours of the support team? How responsive are they? Along these lines, if you think you’ll need assistance getting your CRM software for small business set up, you’ll want to determine if the provider includes this type of customer support as well.

Best CRM Software for Small Business

With all of these factors in mind, we’ve created this comprehensive list of the 17 best CRM software options available for your small business needs, starting with the best overall and then continuing with the best value, best free, and finally, the most affordable. 

Overall Best CRM for Small Business

One of the most well-known options, Salesforce has been recommended multiple times as the best CRM software for small business by Business News Daily.^[1] Salesforce is an all-inclusive CRM for small business that allows you to track emails and meetings, manage leads, opportunities, and accounts, create custom dashboards and reports, and delivers social and email support. The Salesforce Essentials CRM includes guided onboarding and setup and accommodates sales and customer support for up to 10 users. For $25 per user per month billed annually ($30 on an actual monthly basis), you can customize Salesforce’s solution to your needs and scale your business with their other CRM tools. You can access the Salesforce cloud wherever you have internet, or on the Salesforce mobile business app.

If you’re looking for a best in class, all-inclusive CRM software with premium customer support, Salesforce is worth considering. The downside of this solution, however, is that it is on the pricier side and may be overly complex if your business is very small or streamlined on its own.

Best Value CRM for Small Business

If you’re looking for a cost-effective solution that can also provide you with a wide range of functionality, these are two of the best options:

Zoho CRM

For $12 per user per month, Zoho CRM is one of the most affordable CRM software options for small businesses. Zoho includes the full range of CRM functionality, with multichannel tools for process, pipeline, and team management as well as sales and marketing automation. Specifically, with the $12 per month Standard plan, you’ll receive email insights, workflow conversion, custom reports and dashboards, and more. Additionally, if you don’t need extended capabilities or users, you can utilize the Zoho CRM free edition, which includes three free users. The free edition contains CRM essentials like lead generation, documents, and mobile apps to accommodate smaller business owners.

Furthermore, Zoho CRM gives you the ability to integrate with any of the other related Zoho products, as well as apps from third-party providers. The customer service Zoho offers for their free plan is limited, but extends with the Standard and higher level plans. Overall, if you’re looking for a low-cost or even free CRM software for your small business, there’s no doubt that Zoho is a top choice.

Insightly

Similar to Zoho CRM, with the option to use their service for two users for free, Insightly is a great, affordable option for small businesses seeking a CRM system. With this base plan, you’ll be able to manage your customer contacts, sales, and projects in one place. In fact, Insightly is known for their project management focus as well as the usability of their interface. Although the free, two-user plan includes functionality for project, contact, task management, sales pipeline tracking, and bulk email campaigns, their paid plans further extend your capabilities. 

The Insightly paid plans start at $29 per month and provide more advanced tools for components like business intelligence and lead management. Additionally, on the whole, the Insightly CRM software is highly scalable, integrating with over 250 dozen small business applications, including QuickBooks, Dropbox, and MailChimp. The downside to this powerful CRM is that the free plan has limited functionality, compared to the paid offerings—which at one time began at a lower monthly cost and now starts higher than Salesforce Essentials.

Best Free CRM for Small Business

As a small business owner always thinking about cost, a free business tool is always an added plus–as long as it can give you the capabilities you need. If you’re interested in a free CRM for small business then, you might consider Hubspot.

Hubspot is a completely free CRM software that gives you access to unlimited users, data, and up to 1,000,000 contacts. Hubspot provides you with a dashboard to view your sales funnel and manage your pipeline, tracks your customer interactions automatically, and stores all interactions with a lead in one place. The Hubspot CRM also allows you to sync with Gmail or Outlook, as well as integrate with the other Hubspot tools for added sales and marketing functionality.

At the end of the day, Hubspot can give you the essential functions you need from a CRM software, for free—making it a great solution for small businesses. If you’re new to CRM software, therefore, and want to test it out without committing to a monthly cost, Hubspot is definitely worth considering.

CRM Systems for Small Business Based on Affordability

Once again, we know the importance of keeping your processes cost-efficient—and if you already spend business funds monthly for tools like payroll, accounting, or HR software, affordability might be your top concern when it comes to CRM. This being said, here are 14 additional top CRM software options for small businesses, grouped based on their cost.

Low-Cost CRM Software for Small Business

• Copper, formerly PropserWorks CRM, is great for contact management. Services with Copper include email integration, opportunity management, and lead tracking. This CRM software has beneficial productivity tools and is particularly beneficial for businesses who want to integrate with the Google Enterprise suite. The Copper Basic plan starts at $19.
• Less Annoying CRM is a simple CRM built for small businesses, according to their website. Less Annoying CRM is cloud-based, easily customizable, and provides a dashboard with an overview of contacts, projects, files, and pipeline information. This CRM starts at $10 per user per month.
• Freshdesk offers affordable customer service support management. The free plan provides email, phone, and social channel support with unlimited agents and knowledge base access. Paid plans from Freshdesk increase your abilities and start at $19 per user per month.
• CallProof is designed for streamlining the sales process, especially for teams that use sales professionals out in the field who utilize mobile apps and web-based applications. Plans from CallProof start at $10 per user per month, billed annually. 
• Base CRM was designed specifically to enhance productivity, processes, and pipeline visibility for sales teams. With Base CRM, you can have contact management, sales tracking, and reporting tools in one place. You also can connect with customers by phone or email, manage tasks and appointments, and keep tabs on your team’s performance. Base plans start at $19 per user per month.

Average-Cost CRM Software for Small Business

• ClaritySoft is a great value, all-inclusive CRM offering account and contact management, sales forecasting, orders, project management, email templates, and more. The most basic level “Sales” plan from ClaritySoft costs $39 per user per month. 
• PhaseWare Tracker is a customer support service with both cloud-based and on-premise solutions. This CRM system is scalable to your business with customizable screens and dashboards, self-service portals for clients and a knowledge management suite. Cloud-based PhaseWare plans start at $49 per user per month.

High-Cost CRM Software for Small Business

• Infusionsoft by Keap offers three plans, starting at $199 per month—and while that may seem steep, for businesses looking to scale largely and quickly, Infusionsoft provides advanced marketing and sales automation tools as well as landing pages, unlimited emails, and CRM essentials. 
• Contractor’s Cloud is, as per the name, a CRM software built for streamlining processes for contractors. Contractor’s Cloud includes features for customization, scheduling, documentation, financials, production, and more. Although the Basic Contractor’s Cloud plan costs $50 per user per month, the initial activation cost is high: $950.
• PlanPlus Online offers sales CRM and business workflow management with their software, as well as productivity solutions for individual leaders and sales professionals. The CRM system for businesses combines CRM with a productivity engine and includes collaboration, sales, marketing, and project management features. The PlanPlus Online CRM system costs $500 per month when billed monthly or $5000 when billed annually. 

Quote Based CRM Software for Small Business

• Sprinklr offers marketing, advertising, research, care, and engagement products to help businesses manage their customer experience. Used by some of the world’s biggest brands like IBM and McDonalds, you have to contact Sprinklr directly for a demo or pricing information.
• The Oracle NetSuite CRM is an enterprise solution built to cater thousands of customers across a wide variety of industries. This system incorporates CRM, business management, financials, and ecommerce into one suite. You can contact the NetSuite sales team for a quote based on your business needs.
• SmartSupport from Safe Habor is a knowledge base platform that gives you the ability to manage the full range of support requests—from community forums to email support to troubleshooting guides. For pricing information on SmartSupport, you have to contact Safe Habor directly.
• Marketing 360 has CRM software built into their business marketing platform. The Marketing 360 CRM allows you to manage your contacts, tasks, calendar, and team, all while connecting with your Marketing 360 marketing tools. Although the Marketing 360 website says their CRM software is free, you have to submit your business’s information for specific plans and pricing details.

The Bottom Line

As you can see, there are numerous options to choose from when it comes to the best CRM software for small business. Ultimately, the CRM system that’s right for you will depend on your business’s particular needs and what you value most in your platform. This being said, however, the most effective way to decide on a CRM for your small business is to specify your desired features and budget ahead of time and see which of the options out there fulfill those requirements. If you can, enroll for a free trial or demo of the CRM software at the top of your list—this way, you can get a better sense of how the system operates, what it can do, and if it will truly give you the functionality you need for your business’s customer relationship management.

Article Sources:

1. BusinessNewsDaily.com. “Salesforce Review“