Choosing the Best Sales CRM: 15 Popular Options Broken Down

Over the last decade, the landscape of sales has been changing, and companies have shifted to become more customer-focused. In fact, according to Salesforce, “46% of sales leaders say that deeper customer relationships are a key objective for sustaining success.”

In this age of client-focused sales efforts, a sales CRM (customer relationship management) is a critical tool to have. It enables sales teams to not only create deeper relationships with their potential clients but also sets them up for maximized productivity and helps drive increases in revenue.

Sales CRM technology has enabled businesses and their sales reps to continue to scale successfully. Consider these stats:

• 52% of high-performing sales reps classified themselves as power users that take full advantage of their CRM.
• 47% of CRM users in a poll stated that the technology improved both their customer satisfaction and customer retention significantly.
• 24% more sales pros meet their annual quotas when they have mobile access to a CRM.
• The average return on a CRM is $8.71 for every dollar invested.

As you can see, when it comes to getting ahead and expanding as a company, a CRM is vital for both inside sales and outside sales teams. However, there are also a lot of CRMs to choose from. Determining the best CRM for outside sales reps can feel like a tough feat to accomplish.

That is why we’ve created this handy guide to help you understand the difference between the two distinct categories of sales CRMs and find the CRM that is right for you and your business.

The list below summarizes some of the top CRMs on the market today to give you all the information that you need to know. Read on to find out what the popular CRMs are plus their pros and cons.

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Sales CRMs vs Traditional CRMs

In evaluating which option might be the best fit for your team, it is important to understand that all CRMs fall into two distinct categories: organization-wide and sales-focused.

CRMs that are for an organization-wide application focus on easy collaboration between teams in one centralized workspace, streamlining customer relationship management between customer support, sales and marketing. . They will have multi-departmental tools like customer service tickets, automated marketing email blasts, executive dashboards, etc. Because they are not built specifically with the sales rep in mind, these types of CRMs may not offer a ton of sales process-specific capabilities.

Sales-focused CRMs, on the other hand, are purpose-built for use by sales teams. These platforms may layer onto traditional CRMs to provide additional functionality to make sales reps more efficient. This is done by including features like sales deal tracking, geographic customer mapping, prospecting, cadence management, etc.

Evaluating your company’s needs in a CRM from the viewpoint of organization-wide use or sales-focused use will help pinpoint the best fit.

To help you do just that, we’ve included which type of usage each of the CRMs in our list is best for.

15 Top Options of Sales CRMs

Salesforce Small Business Solutions

Best for Sales-Focused Teams

From one of the most popular options available in the CRM world, Salesforce Small Business Solutions is a cloud-based CRM built with small businesses in mind. This platform has a suite of tools available to help you organize your business and sales processes and allow you to sell more efficiently.

Pros:

• Offers a wide range of features and is highly customizable, depending on your business’s needs.
• Their essential plan offers small businesses an extensive amount of services on a small business budget.
• Robust features like streamlined customer and prospect management, a 360-degree view of your sales data with in-depth reporting, AI-powered sales tools, and an impressive support team.

Cons:

• Growing businesses might outpace this CRM quickly. The Essential’s plan, which costs $25 a user per month, only goes up to 25 users. The Sales Professional plan is the next step up and does cost significantly more at $75 a user per month.
• Salesforce is not as mobile-friendly for outside sales reps as other software options and does not offer the level of sales automation on its own.
• The user interface can be somewhat clunky compared to other CRM options.

HubSpot Sales Hub

Best for Sales-Focused Teams

Another popular sales CRM option, Hubspot Sales Hub is a powerful sales-focused CRM with an easy-to-use platform. Your reps can interact with customers and prospects without wasting valuable time and resources. Hubspot will help your sales team deepen customer relationships, close more deals, more effectively manage your sales pipeline, and more.

Pros:

• The vast array of features helps support the needs of small to medium-sized businesses.
• They offer a free plan that is ideal for companies that have not used a CRM before and aren’t sure of what they need. Their free contact management application offers functionality like smart form lead capture, chat widget, and customer support ticketing.
• Email tracking and deal management features can help businesses land better sales.
• Hubspot also has extensive integrations for many additional features that may fit your business’ needs.
• Hubspot’s simplistic user interface is easy to learn and an excellent option for those who are new to CRMs.

Cons:

• While the free version has some functionalities, certain features are only available by purchasing a subscription to one of their paid packages.
• The packages start at $50 a user per month. Other CRMs offer a better price point for their starting package.
• HubSpot does lack some of the reports and sales workflow automation that other CRMs offer.
• Their mobile app lacks some of the functionality of the desktop version, which can be a significant problem for sales reps out on the road.

Bitrix 24

Best for Sales-Focused Teams

Bitrix is a low-cost, all-in-one CRM option for small businesses. This platform creates a contact base for your business where the history of contacts and interactions are managed and stored. This enables your team to utilize more effective lead management, engage with customers, and close deals.

Pros:

• Bitrix 24 excels at multi-channel communication. Video, chat, email, SMS, social, and intranet all integrate with not only the CRM, but can connect with a help desk, project management tools, a website builder, and marketing automation.
• Connecting with a customer is simple once all the various channels are connected. Simply click an option, add a recipient, and start a conversation.
• Bitrix 24 records everything in the contact’s timeline for consistent communication.
• Internal communication is simple, as well. It works similar to Slack for fast and convenient conversations between team members.
• Management can set tasks, record and send videos for sales coaching, create employee polls, and generate workflows.

Cons:

• Some users have voiced that this software is not user-friendly, and the user interface can feel busy.
• Some users may find that it is difficult to navigate.
• It is missing the level of email marketing functions that other CRMs provide.

Microsoft Dynamics 365

Best for Organization-Wide Applications

Trusted by many global businesses, Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a powerful mobile-friendly CRM that is great for users who don’t want to reinvent the wheel and would rather stick with a brand they know. If you’re familiar with Microsoft Office products (who isn’t familiar with these office computer staples?) or Sharepoint, Microsoft Dynamics 365 provides a simple continuation.

Pros:

• This CRM gives a 360-degree view of the customers and prospects, allowing your reps to engage customers more effectively than ever before.
• This CRM keeps your teams connected with built-in collaboration, empowers your reps to boost their productivity, and arms sales leadership with AI-powered sales insights.
• Dynamics is a hybrid data management system, which means that you can choose to save the information either on-premise or in the cloud. Information-sensitive businesses might prefer the option of saving their data at a secure location, making Dynamics a great choice for them.

Cons:

• Dynamics is best used with other Microsoft products, so it might not fit as well if you don’t usually purchase Microsoft.
• Users also reported that it lacks customization in some aspects.
• Dynamics 365 comes in at the higher end of the price range for CRMs on our list. For the full, powerful sales force automation capabilities and customization ability that most large sales teams need, you’ll be looking at the Enterprise level of pricing at $95 per month per user. So, it may not be a good fit for many small businesses.

Insightly

Best for Organization-Wide Applications

Insightly is a great CRM for project management and aligning your sales, marketing, and project teams on one unified platform. Thus enabling your sales team to take advantage of centralized customer data management and close more deals. Insightly’s workflow allows management to lead effectively and helps encourage collaboration between departments.

Pros:

• Insightly allows automation and customization options for special setup needs, repetitive tasks, and business processes, such as managing sales activities.
• Offers great security precautions with the use of permission settings, keeping one person’s mistake from weighing down the whole team.
• The platform offers sales leaders the tools they need to manage their teams effectively.

Cons:

• The CRM doesn’t offer as great of a visual experience compared to other CRMs that make projects easier to navigate.
• It also doesn’t provide quotes or order management without upgrading to its enterprise level.

Zoho CRM

Best for Sales-Focused Teams

Zoho is a powerful multi-channel CRM that pulls valuable customer data from multiple sources at the click of a button. It effectively keeps your team connected and organized, even on the go out in the field. The platform helps streamline your sales reps’ day-to-day tasks, enabling them to keep organized and stay productive.

Pros:

• Users can utilize the built-in AI-powered assistant Zia which will provide valuable sales intelligence.
• Zoho enables users to incorporate social media into their client relationships.
• The platform can be a good option for small sales teams and businesses since the lower-level plans do still offer valuable features.
• It is also one of the most reasonably priced CRMs on this list. Their packages range from free (for up to 3 users) to $52 a user per month for the Ultimate level. The standard package is $14 a user per month.

Cons:

• Zoho implementation seems to be tough in the beginning.
• Because of the large range of functions and capabilities, the platform can be overwhelming for new users.
• The software has limited usability without an internet connection.

Freshworks CRM

Best for Sales-Focused Teams

Freshworks (formerly Freshsales) is a customizable sales CRM that acts as a single data source for all of the most important sales data. The platform provides a 360-degree view of your team’s customers and prospects by capturing and combining customer experiences all in one place.

Pros:

• The feature-packed AI-powered CRM allows users to boost customer engagement, contact leads directly through the platform, and visualize the entire sales process for more valuable insights.
• Users also report that they have superior customer support.
• Freshworks does offer a 21-day free trial.
• Their priced plans include a range of additional valuable features, such as the Lead Gen Bot, and range from $29-$125 per user per month.

Cons:

• Freshworks lacks the functionality for managing inventory or catalog-style pricing, so it might not be ideal for retail or distribution teams who need to be connected to their inventory.
• Users also report that the internet connection can be slow.

ZenDesk Sell

Best for Sales-Focused Teams

A simple and customizable sales CRM that works for outside sales reps on the go, allowing your reps to win over more customers and close more deals.

Pros:

• ZenDesk Sell is a great mobile app for sales reps that are often out of the office, still allowing them to keep an eye on the deals pipeline and activity.
• The platform offers mobile calling, call recording, and activity tracking directly through the app.
• This CRM makes up part of the ZenDesk suite, which also includes IT management, analytics, and a help desk.

Cons:

• ZenDesk Sell misses certain features, such as mapping, routing, marketing automation, and some productivity functions, that are found on other outside sales CRMs.
• The platform’s third-party integrations are somewhat limited compared to other CRM options.

Map My Customers

Best for Sales-Focused Teams

Map My Customers is the leading outside sales CRM that was purpose-built for field reps. This powerful platform can stand on its own as an all-in-one CRM, or it can provide an easy way to add valuable mapping, routing, and sales territory management features to popular CRMs. Map My Customers offers mobile-friendly native integrations with Hubspot, Salesforce, Zoho, and Microsoft Dynamics.

Pros:

• The CRM through Map My Customers was built for sales reps out in the field and their managers.
• It provides a comprehensive visual dashboard that gives a birds-eye-view of sales activity, offers cadence management so that hot leads do not fall through the cracks, and includes robust reporting capabilities that provide simplified views of crucial sales data for better insights.
• You also get the routing features that set Map My Customers apart from the competition. Sales reps can automate route planning for faster routes and less time on the road, enabling them to spend more time selling instead of driving.
• Reps can plan more intelligently and quickly with the Smart Planner functionality. Reps get smart recommendations for how to build their plan for the day/week, and then easily turn those plans into an optimized sales route in just a tap.
• The Map My Customers Weekly Scorecard feature updates leaders on their team’s sales performance directly in their inboxes. Every Monday, leaders receive a weekly email with their teams’ key sales stats. The Scorecard can be customized to see activities completed, companies added, and more. The Team Leaderboard shows who is the MVP and who needs more coaching.
• Also, unlike some other CRM integrations that can be tough to set up or require assistance to integrate, the Map My Customers integration is an entirely self-service one-way sync, making it easy to share your data from your CRM to Map My Customers. You can have your companies, people, deals, and activities sync daily, weekly, or monthly.

Cons:

• Map My Customers is ideal for outside sales and sales teams that are often on the road. So, inside sales may not be able to get as much use from the features our CRM offers.

Get a Hands-On, Guided Tour of Map My Customers!

Nutshell CRM

Best for Sales-Focused Teams

This CRM is an easy-to-use all-in-one sales solution that prioritizes sales management to get your team on the same page and selling more efficiently. Reps can automate tasks that can slow sales teams down and managers can get all the insights needed to optimize the sales process.

Pros:

• The CRM also has the feature known as Nutshell Maps, which allows your reps to visualize their prospects and customers geographically and schedule sales activities in an area in one click.
• Nutshell is great for managing sales teams. It offers customization, automation capabilities, and reporting options.
• The user-friendly software allows leaders to create pipelines for a streamlined sales process that keeps deals from going stale.
• They even offer customizable sales pipeline templates for users that need help creating an effective sales pipeline.

Cons:

• Nutshell is ideal for small teams, which means that growth is limited. Organizations may quickly outgrow some of their features and find that they need a new CRM.
• The mapping feature does not offer sales routing capabilities like some of the other platforms do.
• The CRM also offers limited social media access, which is not ideal as more businesses use social media to find and contact prospects.

Pipedrive

Best for Sales-Focused Teams

Pipedrive is a sales CRM that helps sales reps visually organize their business and help managers make data-backed decisions to improve sales processes. As a CRM with built-in pipeline management, users can manage leads and deals and track them along every step of the sales funnel in real-time. Sales teams can more effectively capitalize on opportunities and easily measure team and individual performance.

Pros:

• Offers an easy-to-use tool focused on visualizing the sales process and easily tracking contacts along the whole process.
• The platform offers a lot of customization capabilities. You can build multiple sales pipelines for your business and customize your pipeline stages for niche product and service scenarios.
• Pipedrive helps eliminate some of the daily repetitive admin tasks.
• With the Essential plan, you can use Smart Email BCC to sync your emails to Pipedrive. While users of the Advanced, Professional, and Enterprise plans get access to a built-in inbox and a higher-level automated email sync that is compatible with a wide range of email platforms.

Cons:

• The implementation process can be cumbersome for some users/teams.
• Pipedrive does not offer integrations with many of the larger-scale companies, like Oracle or SAP.
• The platform does not offer as many features or solutions to handle marketing needs as compared to other CRM options.

Monday.com Sales CRM

Best for Organization-Wide Application

Initially built as a project management platform, Monday.com now offers a robust, customizable sales CRM solution built into the Work OS. This CRM helps empower sales teams to take control of their entire sales process on one central platform, enabling them to be as efficient and effective as possible. This is all while still promoting collaboration across all of the organization’s teams (ie. marketing, customer service, etc).

Pros:

• The CRM from Monday.com is very easy to use, even for less tech-savvy team members.
• The platform allows reps to easily capture new leads, manage contact information, track deals, build deeper customer relationships, and more.
• Time-consuming manual admin tasks can easily be streamlined with no-code automations.
• The platform offers an extremely intuitive interface that also integrates smoothly with the most popular work tools.

Cons:

• This platform offers limited sales-specific CRM features compared to other options, especially for outside sales teams.
• Monday can quickly become costly for small sales teams.

Keap

Best for Organization-Wide Application

Keap (formerly known as Infusionsoft) is a cloud-based sales and marketing automation solution that offers sales CRM capabilities, marketing automation features, and e-commerce functionalities all in one place. This platform helps small businesses from various industries streamline sales efforts and manage their customer experiences from all angles.

Pros:

• Keap provides a contact management and sales pipeline tool that is tailored for small businesses, freelancers, and self-employed individuals.
• The platform offers a high level of customization, allowing users to easily make adjustments for their specific business processes.
• Users can build their lead database by easily importing spreadsheets, shifting contacts from another CRM, or even scanning business cards.

Cons:

• Keap has many available features, which means it can have a significant learning curve initially.
• Compared to other options, this platform can be slightly expensive, especially for individuals and small startup teams that are on a tight budget.
• Keap does not offer the level of available integrations with other tools that some of the other sales CRM platforms do.

Capsule CRM

Best for Sales-Focused Teams

Focusing on streamlined organization, Capsule is a highly customizable, cloud-hosted, sales CRM application. The platform not only offers contact management but also a combination of sales activity management, calendar management, and pipeline/funnel management. Capsule helps teams improve the organization of tasks, build better relationships, and increase sales.

Pros:

• Capsule offers a clean user interface with almost zero learning curve.
• Users can easily find key information and instantly find out what’s going on with the sales pipeline (lead generation, customer data, bids, proposals, etc.) and exactly what needs to be done and when.
• Contact lists can be imported from Outlook, Gmail, CSV spreadsheets, and database files.
• Capsule’s free version (capped is two users) offers sufficient functionality for solo business operators or those with one partner.
• The Professional version features integration capabilities with G Suite, Mailchimp, Zendesk, Twitter, and Zapier, helping your team capture leads and collect information from across your other tools.

Cons:

• The free plan is limited to 250 contacts, so some users may find themselves having to commit to a paid plan fairly quickly.
• In order to auto-generate and track contacts from email, users have to remember to BCC them to your Capsule Dropbox, which is easy to forget.

Copper

Best for Organization-Wide Application

For use across sales and marketing teams, Copper (formerly known as ProsperWorks CRM) is a mobile-friendly productivity CRM software designed specifically for companies that use and love Google Workspace solutions like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Sheets. Teams can manage their contacts, emails, deals, and more all in one place, enabling an optimized focus on building valuable business relationships.

Pros:

• Because all of the most important information can be imported directly from the Google Workspace tools, Copper eliminates much of the manual data entry that bogs teams down.
• The platform offers a highly visualized sales pipeline that enables teams to manage and track leads throughout the entire sales process.
• Users can easily access contacts via email, text in-app, and voice search, and voice transcription capabilities enable reps to take notes while out in the field.
• Reps can use custom filters and alerts to stay on top of the most important deals.
• Weekly reports on pipeline progression help improve team workflow and communication.

Cons:

• Even though Copper offers a user-friendly interface, there is a learning curve to getting used to the software’s functionalities.
• Users can’t attach files to the emails sent in Copper. To do that you have to switch over to Gmail.
• This is not the best choice in sales CRM for teams with complex sales cycles or a broad network of reps.
• The provided tutorials do not also answer troubleshooting needs.

Driving CRM Engagement & Usage Upon Implementation

Once you have chosen the CRM that best fits your organization, the next step is to implement it across your entire sales team. Any CRM or sales tool is only as good as the information that is feeding it behind the scenes. This will be why it is crucial to drive engagement and usage of the CRM from your sales team. The more your sales team is using the CRM the more effective a tool it will be for everyone. For tips and tricks on driving engagement and usage of your new sales tool or CRM listen to the Field Sales Leadership Guide Podcast.

Find the Right Sales CRM for You and Your Team Today

In today’s business environments, a sales CRM solution is an essential tool for business growth. Thankfully, there is no lack of options when it comes to choosing the right one for you and your sales pros. No one CRM is perfect for everyone, so taking the time to understand what each one offers is critical. Finding a good fit for your team will enable them to optimize sales efforts and improve your business’ bottom line.

Take one of these sales CRMs on a test drive today and help supercharge your team’s sales efforts!