What Are the Best CRM Systems for Small Businesses?

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Based on our research, the best CRM platform is Zoho, specifically the Professional plan. It’s reasonably affordable ($35 per user per month), and comes with tools like a marketing email design editor, and invoice/quote creation, as well as the CRM staples.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) will help you automate your customer service team’s issue management efforts, and tailor your marketing campaigns for better results. CRM software also acts as a central hub for all your small business’s lead, deal, and client information, accessible any time, and from anywhere in the world.

Choosing to start using a CRM is the easy part. But choosing exactly which CRM is right for your small business? Well, that’s a little more difficult.

If you’re short on time and just want to begin comparing quotes, we can help with that too. Simply provide us with some details about your requirements, and the type of CRM software you’re interested in. In return, we’ll put you in touch with leading CRM suppliers, who’ll provide you with quotes tailored to your small business.

The best CRM for small business: Our shortlist

From our research testing, we know these are the best CRM for small business:

Zoho
Freshworks CRM
HubSpot
monday.com
Zendesk
Salesforce

Swipe right to see more

Zoho CRM	Freshsales CRM	Hubspot CRM	monday.com	Zendesk	Salesforce

4.7	4.7	4.3	4.2	3.9	3.8
Price Range $14 – $52 per user per month	Price Range $15 – $69 per user per month	Price Range $22.50 – $120 per user per month	Price Range $10-$24	Price Range $19-$150 per user per month	Price Range $25 – $75 per user per month
Free Plan	Free Plan	Free Plan	Free Plan	Free Plan	Free Plan
Try Zoho	Try Freshsales	Try HubSpot	Try monday.com	Try Zendesk	Try Salesforce
Best For Value for money	Best For Ease of use	Best For Marketing automation	Best For Managing projects and teams	Best For Lowest starting price	Best For Analytics

The Expert Market team is dedicated to providing unbiased rankings and information for small businesses, helping you make informed decisions with ease. To find the best CRM software for small businesses, we thoroughly tested 11 of the best CRM brands and whittled them down to just six.

We tested and evaluated them across five key categories and over 80 metrics, unpacking their features, value for money, customer support, pros and cons, and more. All scores on this page are decided by our team.

1. Zoho – Best for choice of features

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Zoho CRM

4.7

Pricing $14 – $52 per user per month

Try Zoho

Quick overview

Zoho is a powerful platform offering lots of features across sales, email, customer support, and more. Sure, the interface isn’t as jazzy, but it gets the job done. If you want to dive in and add lots of data to customize your database of accounts, contacts, and deals, Zoho will really come into its own. Free for up to three users, with paid plans starting at $14/user/month (billed monthly).

In our testing, Zoho impressed us with its 'Set Up Your CRM' checklist, and customizable layouts for Accounts, Leads, and Contacts. This platform is great value for money and offers the strongest selection of features of any CRM system we tested.

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Strengths

Free for up to three users

Easy to use and to set up

Great email marketing tools, plus web forms for collecting lead info

Weaknesses

Mobile app has quite limited functionality

Reduced customer support

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Zoho is the best CRM for choice of features, offering the highest number of features of any other platform we tested, scoring 3.7/5 for Features.

We particularly liked the Quick Create feature that enables quickly add lots of leads and come back to add more detailed information when you have more time to spare, helping you save time when you need to. And unlike Freshsales, you can create quotes and invoices, which is ideal for service-based small businesses.

While Freshsales offers slightly better marketing features, such as chat bots and marketing drip campaigns, Zoho still has the best features across sales, organization, email and customer support. We also found Zoho wasn’t the most intuitive platform at times, using unexplained jargon such as ‘Closed Won’ and ‘Closed Lost’, which isn’t ideal for less tech-savvy users.

However, it’s still fairly easy to use and customizable if you’re familiar with business software, scoring 4.1/5 for Usability.

Overall, if you’re ready to dive into Zoho’s wealth of features and make the system your own, you should reap plenty of rewards.

Zoho's wealth of features includes a detailed sales pipeline

Zoho for small businesses: The verdict

Don’t let its simple, intuitive UI fool you – there’s a lot more to Zoho than meets the eye. With myriad integrations, a variety of plans to scale with your operations, and ‘Zia’ – the software’s conversational, AI-powered assistant – Zoho ticks all the boxes a small business CRM should.

2. Freshsales CRM – Best of ease of use. Great for solopreneurs. Best customer support. Free version.

Warning

Freshsales

4.5

Pricing Free – $69 per user per month

Try Freshsales

Quick overview

If you’re a small business looking for a good, affordable CRM system without all the bells and whistles, Freshsales will be right up your street. Get up and running in next to no time with an easy, useful dashboard, packed full of features you’ll actually use. Freshsales is popular across the board, but it’s the small businesses that sing its praises the loudest. Paid plans start at $15/user/month.

Freshsales is one of the best value for money CRM systems we tested, after Hubspot, offering a powerful platform that's easy to use. In our testing, we found it easy to set up email campaigns, and to import contact information from a variety of sources including CSV/Excel, Google Contact, or Outlook Contact.

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Strengths

Great for automating tasks such as logging phone calls

A simple software that’s easy to pick up, and won’t require much training

Free trial available

Weaknesses

Offers fewer third party integrations than competitors such as Zoho and Salesforce

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Freshsales is the most user-friendly CRM system we tested, scoring 4.7/5 for Usability. We found it quick and easy to set up email campaigns and subscriber information, and we enjoyed using the ‘Launchpad’ feature that helps you quickly identify the available options you have by using a keyword or two.

These features make Freshsales an excellent option for newsletter-based businesses, but ecommerce or subscription-based businesses may find it more difficult to customize the software to your needs, so we’d recommend Zoho with its impressive sales features.

Freshsales offers very little in terms of help and support (it doesn’t offer support tickets on its free or Growth plan), scoring 3.1/5, so it’s not the best option if you want issues fixed quickly.

However, Freshsales remains one of the best value for money systems we tested, with plans from $0 to $69 per month, per user, with some of the best features for email, organisation and contact management, scoring 5/5 in those three sub-categories.

Freshsales offers lots of prompts to ensure you don't get stuck

Freshworks CRM for small businesses: The verdict

Affordable, straightforward, and easy on the eye, Freshworks CRM is an ideal first CRM. There’s a free forever tier, after all, and round-the-clock weekday support is on hand to walk those small business owners with less CRM experience through any teething pains.

3. HubSpot – Best small business CRM for marketing automation. Ideal for creating and executing email campaigns. Free plan.

Warning

HubSpot

4.3

Pricing $9 - $120 per user, per month

Try HubSpot

Quick overview

Each of HubSpot’s packages for marketing, sales, and service teams start at a relatively budget-friendly $9 per user, per month. We recommend the Growth Suite, though – it includes HubSpot’s Marketing, Sales, and Service ‘Hubs’ in a single package, with a tasty discount to boot.

Upgrading any of HubSpot’s plans to the ‘Professional’ tier ($80 per user, per month for the Growth Suite) buys you task automation, as well as three standout features for marketing teams: A/B testing, website traffic analytics, and video hosting.

With a free plan, plus paid plans from just $9 per month, per user, Hubspot is ideal for businesses looking for unbeatable value for money. However, large businesses can opt for one of Hubspot's Enterprise plans, costing over $3,000 per month, per user. Needless to say, Hubspot scored 5/5 for Pricing in our testing.

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Strengths

Impressive free version available, along with a 30-day free trial

Offers discounts for startups

Weaknesses

No 24/7 phone or live chat support

It’s expensive!

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Hubspot is the best CRM system for marketing automation and email creation, scoring an impressive 5/5 for email features (the joint highest) and 3.0/5 for marketing features (second highest score, after Freshsales).

Why such high praise? In our testing, we loved its wealth of email creation and customization features, including the auto-save feature on the email design page which proved to be crucial in differentiating Hubspot from the other systems.

Hubspot also makes it super easy to personalize emails, and to manage your marketing budget from within the platform. These are all brilliant features for building successful email marketing campaigns, especially with its integration with the design platform Canva.

However, in our testing, we also found there isn’t always on-screen guidance for absolute beginners, and you can’t upload a spreadsheet with more than one tab, which proved quite frustrating.

This is why Hubspot only scored 3.95 for Usability and 2.2/5 for Customization. If you want ease of use and customization, we recommend the intuitive Freshsales or Zoho CRM.

Hubspot makes it quick and easy to send creative and persuasive emails

HubSpot for small businesses: The verdict

HubSpot’s not cheap, and we can certainly see why this CRM’s price tag will dissuade some of the more thrifty small business owners out there.

Investment here, though – which you can make from $50 per month, or else stick with a free plan – scores you the finest marketing CRM features around… full stop!

Small businesses looking to graduate from Mailchimp and engineer email marketing campaigns with more serious firepower should look no further.

Likewise, small businesses looking to do more with their data, and reach their customers across new channels – social media, for instance, or via chatbots – will find plenty to love about HubSpot.

4. monday.com- Best for managing projects and teams. Most intuitive design. Highly affordable.

Warning

monday.com

4.1

Pricing $8-custom per user, per month

Visit monday

Quick overview

At $8 per user per month, the ‘Basic’ plan offers an app for both iOS and Android, as well as 5GB of storage and whiteboard collaboration. We’d recommend at least going for monday.com’s ‘Standard’ plan, though. It adds timeline and calendar views, advanced search functionality, and up to 250 app integrations – and, at just $10 per user per month all in, the plan’s not that much more expensive than its predecessor.

In our testing, we found monday.com was perfect for teams looking for lots of customization, and sales teams that want to keep track of deal progression quickly and easily. We particularly liked the separate dashboards for Leads, Contacts, Deals, and Accounts, which you can all customize.

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Strengths

24/7 customer support available, plus daily live webinars and a comprehensive knowledge base

Color-coded boards are refreshingly easy on the eye

Weaknesses

It doesn’t offer the same depth of features as an out-and-out CRM system does

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monday.com is the best CRM system for small businesses looking to manage projects and sales teams, offering lots of customization to help you manage tasks in a way that suits your needs, scoring top marks for Customization (4.7/5).

In our testing, we really liked how you can add different views of your projects, whether it’s tables, Gantt charts or Kanban boards, and how you can customize dashboards. In fact, you can personalize almost all items simply by clicking on them and typing a new name, updating that info across all your dashboards.

However, monday.com lacks marketing features like built-in email campaigns (you need to install Mailchimp), and website visitor tracking, which are all features you can get on Freshsales, Hubspot, and Zoho. This is why we scored monday.com a mere 2.3/5 for Features and 3.9/5 for Usability.

That said, if you’re moving from Excel especially, you’ll find monday.com’s customization a huge bonus as you’ll be able to get all the flexibility you’re used to.

monday.com prioritizes project management with user-friendly dashboards

monday.com for small businesses: The verdict

If you’re looking for a platform to stay on top of projects, collaborate seamlessly (and remotely!) with your team, and better manage workflows and processes, monday.com is for you. It’s easy to get the hang of and use, too, and the price point makes it an alluring proposition for smaller teams and solopreneurs.

Bear in mind, though, that it won’t bear phone integration, or the elaborate tracking and analytical tools that CRM offers.

5. Zendesk – Best for affordable price plans and reasonable customization

Warning

Zendesk

3.8

Pricing $19 - $150 per user, per month

Try Zendesk

Quick overview

Despite being the only CRM provider on this list not to offer a marketing product, Zendesk makes up for it with affordable, effective solutions for sales and service teams. ‘Sell’ starts from just $19 per user, per month, while ‘Support’ – Zendesk’s product for service teams – is available at the mouth-wateringly low price point of $5 per user, per month.

Upgrading to Zendesk’s ‘Growth’ tier ($49 per user, per month) adds reporting dashboards and advanced call analytics, plus sales goals and forecasting. The ‘Professional’ plan ($99 per user, per month) adds skills-based routing to your customer service team’s armory, while your sales hotshots will benefit from lead scoring, task automation, and extra sales pipelines.

In our testing, we found that Zendesk's all-in-one approach would suit growing businesses that don't want to skimp on a free plan. This platform is ideal for managers, marketing teams, customer care, and sales teams looking for customizable pipelines and data tracking.

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Zendesk offers price plans from just $19 per month, per user, which is why we scored it 4.5/5 for Pricing in our testing (the second highest score, after Hubspot.)

We also gave it the second highest Customization score (4.3/5), because we enjoyed how you can create your own sales pipeline, add internal notes to contacts and deals, and build your own sequences with automated emails. If you have some CRM software experience, you’ll enjoy Zendesk’s freedom.

However, we were disappointed by Zendesk’s lack of onboarding, live chat support, or phone support, unlike the supportive systems of Zoho and Freshsales. This is why we scored Zendesk just 1.4/5 for Customer Support.

That said, we found that Zendesk still offers tons of analytics to help you create customized reports, making it a good option for small businesses looking for low entry price points and an impressive level of customization.

Zendesk create email template for new customers

Zendesk offers lots of customization, especially when it comes to emails

Wait… what is VoIP?

VoIP is the name for the technology that allows small businesses to make and take calls over the internet, rather than with a conventional phone line. When CRM software has VoIP capabilities or integrations enabled, it means you can dial contacts and leads – providing their phone numbers are saved on the system – directly from within the CRM’s interface.

As you can imagine, it’s a pretty important feature!

Zendesk for small businesses: The verdict

A lack of marketing functionality hampers Zendesk’s capabilities as an ‘all in one’ CRM solution. But for sales and service teams, it has plenty to offer, and its renowned customer support will have small businesses singing.

Its service CRM solution starts at just $5 per user, per month, too – one of the lowest rates around.

6. Salesforce – Best for analytics. Most comprehensive all-round CRM, with 24/7 phone support available.

Warning

Salesforce

3.8

Pricing $25 – $300 per user per month

Try Salesforce

Quick overview

There’s a reason why, when googling CRM systems, you’ll find plenty of articles with titles such as ‘7 Best Alternatives to Salesforce’; it’s really set the bar high when it comes to CRM systems, and seems to have a plan to suit everyone. But when it comes to affordability and value for money, how does it stack up? Plans start at $25/user/month.

This CRM system is suitable businesses with lots of information to utilize. In our testing, we found Salesforce had intuitive reporting features, including email insight reports.

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Strengths

Good range of features that make it well-suited to medium-large businesses

Huge number of integrations available, including a number of Salesforce’s own. This makes it a really robust tool for marketing as well as sales

Free trial available

Weaknesses

One of the pricier systems around

Not the easiest to get to grips with quickly

Very small businesses should opt for a cheaper, easier product

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Salesforce is the best CRM for analytics, providing reports on deals, leads, and user activity, plus website visitor tracking and more (even Zoho doesn’t offer website visitor tracking).

In our testing, we especially liked Salesforce’s intuitive reporting feature that allows your business to cross reference data points like emails, tasks and call logs. This is why we scored Salesforce 5/5 for its features across Organization, Email, and Contact Management.

On the downside, Salesforces doesn’t support social media integration or the ability to visualize sales pipelines, which is why we gave it just 0.3/5 for Marketing features and 0.4/5 for Sales features.

Overall, Salesforce offers quite a straightforward CRM system with plenty of analytics options to help you identity areas to improve your small business.

Salesforce offers an impressive number of reports and analytics

Salesforce for small businesses: The verdict

The ‘catch’ with Salesforce is a simple one. The more advanced you need it to be, the more expensive it is.

However, it’s a drawback that also plays straight into the hands of small businesses. Because Salesforce starts at just $25 per user, per month, it’s not only affordable, but you can also be sure that you’re not paying for any features that you don’t need.

And, as your small business grows and your data, reporting, and contact management needs balloon, you can upgrade the CRM to fit the scaling dimensions of your operations accordingly.

The sparkling interface, drag-and-drop pipelines, and lack of contact limits are just a bonus!

How did we find the best CRM for small businesses?

We thoroughly tested 11 of the best and most popular CRM software, then weighted our research categories to find the best six CRM systems for small businesses. After finding all the information we need, our team of writers used the research to create fair and balanced reviews, helping you make the best decisions for your business. The criteria we reveiwed include:

Price: The platform with the best value for money scores the best
Customization: What does the platform allow you to toy with in order to make it suit your business?
Features: The platforms offering the biggest variety of features are given a better score than those with fewer tools and features.
Help and Support: We looked at the support options available to see how quickly or easily they could resolve your issues.
Usability: We looked at which CRM system make it quickest and easiest to get tasks done.

After factoring in all this information from our testing, alongside the weighted scores they received, we then calculated a final overall score for each CRM platform out of five.

Verdict

Zoho is the best CRM for small businesses because it offers the strongest features of any platform we tested, scoring top marks for its features in sales, email, organization, customer service and contact management, which are essential features for small businesses to grow.

Zoho is also easy to use, scoring an impressive 4.5/5 for Usability, and offers reasonable pricing with a free plan, plus paid options from just $20 per month, per user. However, we actually found Freshsales slightly more intuitive and affordable than Zoho in our testing, but they’re both excellent platforms for small businesses.

For more information on how Zoho and Freshsales can help your small business grow, check out their respective websites.

Frequently asked questions

Why is CRM important for small businesses?

CRM is important for small businesses because it helps you efficiently manage customer interactions, track sales opportunities, and build stronger customer relationships. It enables your business to organize and analyze customer data, improve customer service, increase sales effectiveness, and make data-driven decisions to drive growth, which are all crucial for the success of any small company.

What should I consider when choosing a CRM for my small business?

Consider factors related to your specific business needs, such as pricing, customization, ease of use, sales and marketing features, or customer support. You should also consider the system’s integration capabilities with third-party software. Assessing these factors will help you find the best CRM that aligns with your needs and maximizes its effectiveness for your small business.

Is there a CRM that offers a free or trial version for small businesses?

Yes, many CRM providers offer free or trial versions for small businesses, including HubSpot, Zoho, and Freshworks CRM. These free plans often have limitations in terms of features or user count, but they can be a great starting point for your small businesses to test the CRM’s suitability before committing to a paid plan.

How user-friendly are these CRMs for small business owners with limited technical expertise?

The best CRM systems for small business are designed with user-friendliness in mind, catering to users with limited technical expertise. Some systems, such as Zoho and monday.com, often provide intuitive interfaces, customizable dashboards, and simplified workflows, while other CRM providers may offer user guides, tutorials, and customer support to help you navigate and make the most of the system, regardless of your level of experience.

Are there any hidden costs or additional fees associated with CRM for small businesses?

Just like any business software, some CRM systems may have additional fees for advanced features, integrations, extra users, storage, or customer support. We always recommend, to avoid surprises, to thoroughly examine the pricing model and ask about any potential hidden costs before selecting a software. However, most systems are relatively transparent with pricing.

Can I scale up or down my CRM subscription as my business grows or changes?

Yes, the best CRM providers offer flexible subscription plans that allow you to scale up or down as your needs change, or as your small business grows. You can typically upgrade to higher-tier plans with additional features and user licenses to accommodate business growth, but you can also downgrade or adjust your subscription if you need.

Do these CRMs offer mobile apps for managing customer relationships on the go?

Yes. Many CRM brands offer mobile apps that allow you to manage customer relationships from anywhere in the world, as long as there’s an internet connection. These mobile apps provide access to essential CRM features, such as contact management, lead tracking, task management, and communication history, making it easy for small business owners and its teams to stay connected and productive while working remotely or traveling. This flexibility has become essential with the rise of remote working.