The job of maintaining customer records can be a daunting task for any small business, but with the right tools and knowledge, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming.
I’ve tested dozens of types of CRM software during my years in corporate America, and have learned the essential features that can make them stand out.
CRM software can provide a simpler connection between brands and customers, thus presenting small businesses with the chance to boost sales and strengthen customer loyalty.
Welcome to my list of the best CRM software for small business in 2023.
Best CRM Software for Small Business
As I discover and test new CRM solutions, this list is constantly being updated.
This version is specifically geared toward 2023, with different software, priorities, and features than last year’s.
I made sure to pick CRM software that can help small businesses thrive in as many regards as possible, from customer communication to security.
Let’s get started!
With its incredible value and a straightforward interface, PipeDrive’s CRM system is unbeatable.
It houses plenty of features that cater to any industry, allowing you to smoothly manage the entire sales process on one unified platform.
You can easily track your progress with custom reports and reach your business objectives faster than ever before.
Additionally, for added convenience, their CRM software comes in an organized mobile app so you can take it anywhere with ease.
Why We Picked It
- 14-day free trial
- Intuitive but professional interface
- Clean and functional pipeline reports
- Leads inbox
- Improvement suggestions
- Email sync
Pricing
Pipedrive’s three pricing packages are tailored to fit the sales volume of any size organization, from Essential ($14.90/mo), Advanced ($24.90/mo) to Professional (49.90/mo).
With each package you’ll get access to active deals tracking, custom fields and detailed reporting – all scaled according to your needs.
Pros
- Very easy CRM system to set up
- Great customer service available 24/7/365
- Wide choice of integrations
Cons
- Advanced security only available in Enterprise package
Pipeline CRM, formerly known as Pipeline Deals, is one of the most adopted CRM software for small and midsize businesses.
It empowers sales teams across a breadth of industries to build game-changing relationships.
Pipeline CRM is designed to make sure you get the most out of your customer relationship management.
The user experience has been tailored for maximum sales potential, with customizable options and outstanding service from a dedicated support team.
No matter what industry or size business you’re in, Pipeline CRM has all the tools you need to be successful.
Why We Picked It
- Easy integration
- Email sync
- Personalized onboarding services
- Tons of account customization
- Mobile CRM platform
- Automations
Pricing
Pipeline’s CRM plans start at $25/mo for the Start Plan, designed for smaller teams.
This plan comes with one sales pipeline, 250 deals/account, unlimited file storage, and more.
Most of their CRM platform scalability lies in their pipelines.
Pros
- Affordable and flexible pricing
- Reliable CRM system
- Excellent customer support
Cons
- Minimal pipeline access on small business plan
Monday is a fantastic small business CRM software with features for sales teams that want to collaborate on one single system.
The Monday platform comes equipped with a highly efficient Kanban board feature which allows you and your team to visualize tasks, track progress, set due dates, comment on projects as well as attach documents in the same place.
This CRM solution is perfect for saving time and effort all around.
Moreover, its pricing plans are more economical than other CRM software when multiple users come into play, making it an even better investment.
Why We Picked It
- Email tracking, sync, and templates
- Custom dashboard with performance tracking
- Team performance reports and other team-oriented CRM features like goal tracking
- Easy data cleanup and inputs
Pricing
Start with Monday’s free CRM software plan and get unlimited contacts, pipelines, and more.
If you need access to additional features such as sales forecasting, upgrade your subscription to the Pro CRM plan for $24/seat/month.
Their most popular package is the Standard Plan at an affordable rate of just $14/mo per user annually.
Choose a plan that suits your needs by filtering how many team seats are required.
Pros
- Tailored towards your small business sales team
- Robust free plan
Cons
- Not as intuitive as some other CRM platforms
If you’re searching for ways to optimize your sales process without sacrificing the quality of customer relations, then ClickUp’s CRM software is here to help.
They offer a suite of advanced CRM features that will simplify and expedite onboarding, account management, order tracking, etc., all through their user-friendly platform.
Their customizable templates are suitable for any small business situation – recruiting teams, customer service departments , real estate companies – you name it.
Why We Picked It
- Easy-to-understand sales pipeline
- Manage deals
- Multiple visualization options: list, Kanban board, or tables
- 50+ widgets for lead management
- Dashboard
- CRM solution for variety of industries
Pricing
If you’re running a small team, Clickup has an unbeatable deal for you: their Unlimited plan is listed at only 5 per month, per user.
This package offers plenty of suitable features and tools that will help your business reach its goals.
But if advanced capabilities are what you need to succeed in the long run, then opt for the Business Plan which costs just $12/mo per user—without sacrificing quality!
Pros
- Super affordable
- Great uptime
- Free onboarding training for beginner small business owners to understand their CRM systems thoroughly
Cons
- Potential for slow loading times
Zoho CRM software allows you to create personalized interactions with your customers across multiple channels with an AI-powered conversational assistant.
They offer small-business specific solutions with their Bigin by Zoho CRM tool.
Harnessing the power of Google Workspace and Bigin by Zoho CRM, you can now transfer all your customer data and calendar activities with unparalleled accuracy.
No more manual uploading or errors.
This CRM software is an excellent way to organize and expedite your business processes.
Why We Picked It
- Contact management
- Funnels for your sales team
- Easy pipeline management
- Great automation tools
- Task management
- Marketing tools
- Sales forecasting
- Great customer support
Pricing
Zoho CRM offers affordable CRM plans starting at $14/mo, then ranging to $23/mo for the Pro plan, $40/mo for the Enterprise plan, and $52/mo for the Ultimate plan.
If you just need sales-based features like marketing automation, reports, etc., their affordable Standard plan should have everything you need in a CRM software.
However, if you want to focus more on customer acquisition, try the Professional plan at $23/mo.
Pros
- Tons of app integrations
- Reliable analytics
- Wide selection of languages supported with their Zoho CRM automation
Cons
- Limited customer support
Insightly offers a unique Gantt chart view, which allows you visualize real-time insights into your projects and sales progress.
Insightly in generally an excellent option for small businesses trying to manage a variety of projects.
The CRM software allows you to track time and expenses without any hassle.
Plus, it enables you to customize fields, import data from other apps, receive notifications related to leads automatically – so that nothing slips through the cracks.
Why We Picked It
- Solid customer support
- Lead management
- Email automation
- Well-designed mobile app
- Real-time insights and customer data
Pricing
If you’re a small business looking to simplify your workflow and stay within budget, then the Insightly Plus plan is ideal.
For only $29/month, this entry-level subscription includes an extensive range of features that make it well worth the cost.
As part of the package, you’ll benefit from CRM tools for customer segmentation and lead tracking as well as project management capabilities like task automation and reporting.
Pros
- Highly intuitive lead management on any price plan
- Milestone tracking
- Free trial
Cons
- No scheduled email capacity on Plus plan
MemberMouse’s CRM software unique feature is that it allows you to sell not only products, but also subscription and membership-based services.
It’s a WordPress plugin, so it doesn’t come with the web hosting services of some other CRMs.
However, its affordable prices, intuitive setup, robust security, and wide swath of customizable features make it a compelling option for small businesses looking to track member and subscriber relations.
Why We Picked It
- Member-only content features, like pricing and newsletters
- Member management wth CRM tools
- Automate member engagement
- Robust reporting and analytics
- Easy installation with simple member import
Pricing
MemberMouse offers three plans: Builder ($29/mo), Advanced ($79/mo), and Premium ($199/mo).
These are all monthly rates: if you pay annually, you can save 17% on each package.
The cheapest package comes with five payment integrations, up to 5,000 members, an advanced checkout system, and more.
The main differences between the three price plans are the amount of members they can hold and the depth of their CRM features.
Pros
- 14-day free trial
- Scalability
- Easy setup
Cons
- Less payment integrations for eCommerce than other CRMs
Capsule is one of the best small business CRM software on this list.
That’s because it’s tailored specifically for companies with up to 1k employees, extra-small small businesses.
It’s renowned for its user-friendly and intuitive interface, as well as an expanding array of integrations including QuickBooks, MailChimp, and Google G Suite.
It comes with all you could need and unnecessary extras at an affordable price point, making it the ideal choice in today’s market.
Why We Picked It
- Clean contact management tools
- Customizable sales pipelines
- Insightful analytics and customer data
- All-in-one dashboard
- Large swath of add-ons
Pricing
Capsule has Professional, Teams, and Free CRM software plans that are tailored to the needs of your specific business.
For only $18/mo, $36/mo or even free (depending on the plan), you will gain access to their comprehensive key features as well as additional features per plan.
If the budget is tight at your company, look into taking advantage of their robust free plan – saving money has never been easier.
Pros
- Great customer support
- Free trial
- Small-business tailored
Cons
- No site management or consulting
What is a Small Business CRM?
A CRM (customer relationship management) software is a type of technology that allows you to easily manage your current and potential customer interactions.
The goal behind CRM software is to foster deeper relationships with them and in turn improve the success of your small business.
Consider CRM software to be the ultimate answer for your sales team to maintain relationships with your current and prospective customers. This comprehensive solution takes care of all communication needs in one place.
Some main CRM features include:
- Providing increased sales
- Prioritizing top customers
- Improving customer communication across multiple channels, including social media
- Crafting marketing campaigns
- Securely storing customer and business information
What are the Benefits of CRM Solutions?
Employee Collaboration
The concept of collaboration in the workplace is nothing novel, constantly adapting to new technologies and trends that become available.
By utilizing collaborative CRMs, businesses are uniting their workforce to reach a collective objective: optimizing customer service for maximum client satisfaction.
Many of the CRMs on this list offer multiple team seats so you can share information and collaborate more efficiently.
Data & Analytics
By analyzing existing data from your CRM software, CRM analytics can offer valuable insights to inform future decisions in sales and other areas of your business.
These analytics tools can help your company prioritize top customers, provide visibility into extra-profitable deals, help you manage leads and increase customer experience, and give visual representations of key metrics.
These are essential CRM services for maintaing current buyers and keeping potential customers.
Marketing Automation
Harness the power of marketing automation to amplify your business strategy and take it to a whole new level.
Automated marketing tools not only enable you to segment leads, generate new ones, and nurture relationships with existing customers – but they also facilitate customer retention activities and account-based marketing techniques.
Get ready for an unprecedented level of efficiency in all areas of your business.
Reporting & Insights
With access to comprehensive and historical sales insights, you can make smarter decisions in your small business about what is and isn’t working.
CRMs offer organized data, reports, and insights at your disposal — often accessible through multiple different layouts.
Automated Processes
By employing CRM automation, manual and tedious tasks within customer relationship management can be streamlined.
The goal is that this can ultimately leading to more productivity on important and idiosyncratic tasks.
Automation simplifies the process of performing necessary yet repetitive actions for your business so that you can focus on other areas.
Contact Management
CRM systems massively speed up contact management.
Keeping track of contacts is a critical component of running any successful business.
Whether it be capturing contact details or monitoring their interactions, effective contact management can help you build meaningful relationships with your customers and nurture long-term growth.
This is an essential tenet of any basic CRM.
How to Choose a CRM
Understand Your Budget
Make sure you’re getting the best deal for your CRM by comparing its features and costs to other services.
It’s important to invest in valuable sales tools, but small business budgets can be tight.
I’d recommend not overspending for something that you could potentially do yourself, unless not doing so could seriously threaten your business.
Make sure to take into consideration how many of your team members will be using the CRM software — extra seats usually cost extra money.
Check all the Features
Make sure you know what you’re getting from your CRM, and do research to compare it with other software.
Look for unique features you can’t find anywhere else before financially committing to a CRM.
Get Your Teams Input
If you want a successful CRM experience, the entire team should be on board.
To ensure everyone is satisfied with their chosen system, provide them opportunities to try different services — if possible through free trials.
Encourage them to give feedback or share what they love about it so that making a commitment can come easily.
Bonus: Try for a Discount
Look for discounts on annual payments or monthly deals that lots of CRM providers offer.
It never hurts to save a bit of money!
CRM Trends for 2023
Artificial Intelligence
AI-powered CRM features are becoming increasingly common as we enter 2023, and they don’t seem to be going anywhere.
AI can enhance human-powered sales endeavors by completing menial tasks like data ingestion and retrieval.
This can save sales professionals and your small business a ton of time.
They can also perform transcriptions, narrow down ideal use cases, and more.
Automation is very useful, especially if you’re on a small team with limited resources.
Industry Specific CRMs
CRM solutions tailored to specific industries provide distinct and specialized features that are crafted with the industry’s unique business needs in mind.
Some examples of this are real-estate CRMs, healthcare CRMs, subscription-based CRMs — pretty much anything you can think of.
Industry specific CRMs offer the benefit of being able to choose features that you may specifically need, but that wouldn’tbe sold in a CRM software for just anyone.
Ideally, depending on your industry, this could make your job even easier.
CRM Software for Small Business Wrap Up
When it comes to selecting the right CRM software for your small business, you have a vast selection of options at your fingertips.
The best CRM software for small business must be equipped with the features and capabilities vital to establishing success in your venture.
I hope you now feel more confident about which direction take next on your journey towards growth!
Happy hunting.
