The 11 best CRM software for small and medium-sized businesses

To build this guide, we evaluated more than 50 CRM software products and selected only eleven.

The eleven software solutions we believe are best suited to small organizations that want to build real business processes.

Some of the software goes further than “just” commercial CRM, and offers marketing automation or customer service management features.

But all of them meet the essential criteria for a small structure: functional depth, bang for buck, and ease of use & set up.

How to pick the right CRM for an SMB?

In this section, I try to touch on the main questions you should ask yourself before shortlisting a few CRM solutions Features, prices, integrations, ease of use and set up are some of the criteria to look into.

CRMs that meet specific needs

The most critical issue in every CRM project is adoption. Before any feature, the CRM must allow your sales teams to perform the tasks they perform on a daily basis at least as well as the current solution does. Anything short of this, and the project will be a failure, no matter how big and ambitious it is.

CRM software must meet a few specific criteria:

• The main objective of a CRM for small and medium-sized businesses is usually to help identify new business opportunities. Its role is to gather information and make it accessible and readable.
• A good CRM is not only used to collect emails or phone numbers of a prospect. The tool must be able to highlight all the interactions observed, whether by phone, email, social networks or customer service.
• Free CRM software (it exists!) is not always a good solution. Tools like Excel, Trello or Notion are quickly outdated, and the others are often a little too limited for a slightly structured company.

Many (large) CRM software publishers now offer tools adapted to the needs of VSEs and SMEs. New products are coming to market with interfaces and features designed specifically for small businesses.

What features can I expect from a CRM for a small or medium-sized business?

There are several criteria to consider when selecting your CRM tool:

• Budget: Small businesses and startups have too little business to justify heavy investments in the latest artificial intelligence lead scoring technologies and other features that you will never use.
• The learning curve: the vast majority of SMBs have neither the time nor the resources to invest in training for an overly complex CRM. The ROI of the CRM project depends on successful adoption quickly and simply.
• The ability to customize the tool and filter: some CRMs analyze all interactions, even the most minor ones. This results in the generation of a large amount of data, which can take you away from your goal. A CRM tailored to small organizations will help you prioritize rather than lose your way.
• Integrations: a CRM that offers numerous integrations allows you to cross-reference the data retrieved by all of its tools, in order to get the best possible interpretation: plug and play. There is no need to invest in weeks of custom development, a good CRM will integrate in a few clicks.
• Customer service: VSEs and SMEs operate with a small staff. A CRM with enough support to get you up and running is probably a good idea.

The “big” players who offer a lighter version

CRMs like Salesforce and Adobe dominate the large enterprise market. The latter are turning more and more to the owners of SMEs and VSEs, who could eventually invest in their flagship solutions, more complete and complex.

They offer CRMs that, while adapted from the most comprehensive solutions, are better suited to their needs in terms of both features and functionality. Tools offered at new packages, matching the finances of small businesses.

For example, Salesforce offers a light version, specially designed to address the VSE / SME market. Be careful though, in our opinion, these solutions are not really adapted to the context of a small business, and often too expensive and too heavy to be competitive.

Beware of the illusion of free with Hubspot

Hubspot is clearly one of the most reputable software packages used by small and medium sized businesses, especially because they offer a free plan. Hubspot offers a very complete software, which integrates very well with the marketing tools of its suite. It’s super powerful, and when you’re a small team, it makes a big impact.

The “problem” is that prices are rising a bit fast, and it’s quite difficult to measure the loss of performance when you provide tools that are not adapted.

While staying on a free plan at all costs may be tempting, you may soon regret it. The free plan is great to start with, or for micro sales teams (1 or 2 people at the most) but if you are more and you really want to get a good ROI from your CRM, don’t limit your benchmark to the free plan.

The best CRM for small and medium-sized businesses: comparison table

A customizable CRM, Pipedrive is interesting for SMEs wishing to structure their sales processes. It is composed of many features to facilitate the management of the funnel.

Pipedrive works like an account management tool. You can accompany the entire sales process through a dynamic and user-friendly interface. Your sales teams can also take advantage of the well-developed mobile application.

Finally, Pipedrive offers several integrations, whether it be with Google and Microsoft productivity tools, newsletter tools or lead generation tools.

Rates

PipeDrive offers four different plans:

• The Essential plan, at 12.50eu/month. This plan provides access to integrations and mobile applications. It allows you to create personalized pipelines and associate your mailbox. Regarding analysis and reporting, you have the possibility to create your own dashboard.
• The Advanced plan, at 24.90eu/month. This plan offers more advanced marketing features. You will have access to email templates, tracking and synchronization of emails. This plan also allows you to enrich your existing data, thanks to the extraction of data from LinkedIn in particular.
• The Professional plan, at 49.90eu/month. This is the ideal plan, in order to have a real view on the whole performance in progress. Customizable dashboards, reporting and personal, team or company objectives, this plan integrates additional sales features.
• The Enterprise plan, at 99.90eu/month. This is the most comprehensive plan offered by Pipedrive. You benefit, in addition, from an additional right of customization, from a revised security, from a help to the configuration / installation etc…

HubSpot is a great CRM option for growing SMBs that are looking to expand their operations. In 2014, a free CRM plan was launched that included basic tools and features:

• Organization of contacts
• Communication with prospects
• Scheduling appointments
• Management of service tickets

A simple to use, inexpensive tool with multiple integrations that can grow with your business. HubSpot CRM is a great alternative to Salesforce.

However, the free version has some limitations. Access to additional features can quickly become expensive. Finally, teams with significant customization needs may find the platform limited.

Rates

In addition to its free plan, HubSpot offers three different plans for its entire CRM suite:

• The Starter plan, at 41eu/month. This plan includes 1,000 marketing contacts, removal of HubSpot branding on various tools (forms, landing page), access to 25 segmented smart lists, team email or access to basic bots despite some limited functionality. Finally, you will have 10 dashboards and 10 reports per dashboard.
• The Pro plan, at 1474eu/month. This plan includes 2,000 marketing contacts. The user has access to numerous tools to automate and personalize lead engagement: lead scoring, social networks, video hosting and management, ABM tools, dynamic personalization and multilingual content.
• The Enterprise plan, at 3680eu/month. This plan includes 10,000 contacts. This plan includes many features including 33h calls, 50 dashboards, 50 sales pipelines and up to 1000 automation workflows to manage your teams.

While it is one of the dominant CRM tools for large organizations, Zoho CRM is also suitable for small and medium-sized businesses. CRM offers an impressive number of features and software!

The CRM has many functionalities, both in sales and marketing. These features, such as website visitor tracking, lead scoring or sales signals, make it easier for smaller organizations to streamline their sales processes.

The interface, reworked, is pleasant and simple to use. An effective tool, although it should be remembered that some of the more advanced features are only included in the higher plans.

Rates

Zoho CRM offers four pricing plans:

• The Standard plan, at 14eu/month per user. It includes lead scoring, automated scenarios, mass emailing and the ability to create multiple pipelines.
• The Professional plan, at 23eu/month. It includes the standard features plus Sales Signal and Blueprint. Among other features, you will find the integration of forms or the management of integrated stocks.
• The Enterprise plan, at 40eu/month. This package integrates Zia, Zoho AI, multi-user portal, command center, mobile SDK and MDM and allows for some advanced customizations. A tool rather adapted to growing SMEs.
• The Ultimate plan, from 52eu/month. It adds the advanced business intelligence solution, integrated with the Analytics tools.

Easy to use, Zoho Bigin is a CRM that is particularly well suited to small and medium-sized businesses. Compatible with all mobile devices, the tool can be used anywhere, at any time.

Quick to set up, it can be used in a few seconds. The present functionalities are specially adapted for small structures. They are quite limited but cover all the needs!

Rates

Zoho Bigin offers two billing plans:

• The Free plan: offers access to a single user. This one has 1GB of data storage, 500 records, a single web form, a pipeline and integration with Zoho Desk. It can also be used on cell phones.
• The Express plan: this plan is offered at 7eu/month per user. The user can make up to 50,000 records per month, has several pipelines, 5 web forms, IMAP email, custom dashboards. The tool also offers more integrations, to G Suite, Office 365 and Twitter among others.

NoCRM is an excellent lead management tool specially designed for your sales force.

A CRM that is different from the classic ones, that stimulates productivity, by allowing your sales team to create a lead in a matter of seconds. The sales cycle can then be managed from start to finish.

Perfectly adapted to VSEs and SMEs and simple to implement, it allows sales representatives to follow the status of the sales process, thanks to a pipeline that is very easy to understand. This way, you don’t miss anything and you don’t give up any leads! This will improve performance and efficiency.

Rates

NoCRM offers three pricing plans:

• The Starter Kit plan, from 10eu/month and per user (3 maximum). It allows you to have a first approach of the software by creating opportunities, by better managing your funnel or by improving your sales performance. However, this plan does not include the management of the after-sales process and the most advanced integrations.
• The Sales Expert plan, from 19eu/month and per user. It allows you to make your sales process more efficient, from prospecting to closing.
• The Dream Team plan, from 29eu/month and per user. Complete, it allows you to boost your sales strategy, better organize your teams and increase your revenues.

Suitable for VSEs and SMEs, Copper integrates perfectly with G Suite. Easy to install, you can quickly take advantage of automated data capture, intelligent identification, lead and customer tracking, and contact and sales opportunity optimization.

Copper allows you to synchronize your customer data from Gmail, to its platform, in order to optimize the follow-up of your leads. The CRM provides a nice sales pipeline for managing leads throughout the qualification process.

We appreciate the voice transcription feature, which allows you to quickly record notes in the application. Finally, from a reporting perspective, the tool generates weekly reports on the progress of the pipeline.

You can optimize it with drag-and-drop functionality, custom filters and alerts when transactions are in danger of becoming stale. This improves team and workflow management! Complete, Copper does have a learning curve and a price tag above what its direct competitors offer.

Rates

Three pricing plans are offered by Copper:

• The Basic plan, offered at $25/month per user (maximum 3). This is a fairly limited plan. It allows you to work with up to 2,500 contacts. However, you will not have access to integrations while reporting is rather limited.
• The Professional plan, starting at $59/month, per user. This is the ideal plan for growing structures. For 15,000 leads, it offers many features: G-Suite integration, contact enrichment, project management, multiple pipelines, workflow automation etc.
• The Busines plan, offered at $119/month per user, for an unlimited number of leads. You will have access to all of Copper’s features.

Less Annoying CRM is dedicated to VSEs and SMEs. The tool offers a unique package for the use of all its features (task management, contact tracking, leads etc.).

The features are fairly light but cover the sales process. You can manage your contacts and customers, track your prospects through pipelines and stay on top of events and tasks with the easy-to-use calendar and agenda.

Your emails received outside the CRM can be saved on it. Each user has a unique e-mail address. On the other hand, Less Annoying CRM offers very few integrations. Finally, the application sends you notifications via SMS or email, but not in the application.

Rates

Less annoying CRM offers a single price plan at $15/month per user. You can add or remove as many users as you want, at any time.

A powerful CRM, Nutshell offers an intuitive interface. It comes with several features, adapted to the needs of VSEs and SMEs.

You can create and access your customer conversation histories, use lead form integration to retrieve contact information for your leads, and segment leads and customers.

The Nutshell CRM features a map view of the funnel, integrated phone dialing and recording. The tool also offers a sales automation suite as well as customizable reporting capabilities.

Finally, although native integrations are missing, a Gmail Chrome extension is available. You can link your tasks to Calendar, write your notes or save and view your emails.

Rates

Nutshell offers two pricing plans:

• the Starter package, starting at $22/month per user. This plan allows you to manage your leads, synchronize your emails and your calendar. It also allows you to customize your unique sales pipeline and access reporting and sales forecasting.
• the Pro package: it is offered at $39/month per user. This plan is dedicated to sales teams wishing to have a CRM to optimize the process. Sales automation, unlimited pipelines, personalized email sequences, activity reporting, there is no lack of features.

Sellsy is a relatively comprehensive software package that offers a wide range of possibilities in terms of creating estimates and invoices, marketing and reporting. Features that meet the real needs of VSEs and SMEs.

Offering many integrations, it is also very easy to use since it is a webapp. You don’t have to download anything.

The customer service is accessible and responsive. The only drawback is its price, which can be a real brake, especially for small structures looking for an affordable solution.

Rates

Sellsy offers three pricing plans:

• The Essentials plan, offered at 37.5eu/month per user. It gives access to the creation of 3 profiles. You can use up to 5 pipelines and access support only via online chat. Finally, you have 50 electronic signature credits, 30,000 email credits and 500 SMS credits.
• The Advanced plan, at 75eu/month per user. This plan allows you to create up to 25 profiles. Here you have access to 50 pipelines, 200 signature credits, 120,000 email credits or 2,500 SMS credits. Finally, you have access to support, via chat or phone.
• The Enterprise plan, offered at 150eu/month and user. This plan offers many unlimited features, such as the creation of profiles or pipelines. You also have access to 300,000 email credits or 5,000 SMS credits. Finally, you have a dedicated account manager.