Top 10 CRM Platforms for Small Business in 2024
Track leads, manage customer relationships, and streamline your sales process with the best CRM software designed for growing businesses.
A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is a central hub for all your customer data and interactions. For a small business, it's a vital tool for ensuring no lead falls through the cracks and every customer feels valued. The right CRM provides clarity, automates follow-ups, and offers insights to help you grow. We've reviewed the top solutions that balance power with affordability and ease of use.
1. HubSpot CRM
HubSpot offers a famously powerful and perpetually free CRM platform that is perfect for small businesses. It provides all the essential tools for contact management, deal tracking, and reporting, seamlessly integrating with their broader suite of marketing and sales tools.
Pros
- Robust free-forever plan
- User-friendly interface
- Scales with your business
Cons
- Paid plans can become very expensive
- Contact-based pricing can add up
2. Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM is known for offering incredible value. It provides a feature set that rivals enterprise-grade CRMs at a price point that is highly accessible to small businesses. It's part of the massive Zoho ecosystem, allowing for deep integrations with other business apps.
Pros
- Excellent value for money
- Highly customizable
- Integrates with Zoho's suite of 40+ apps
Cons
- Interface can feel cluttered
- Can be complex to set up initially
3. Freshsales
Part of the Freshworks ecosystem, Freshsales is a modern, AI-powered CRM with a clean interface. It's designed for sales teams, with features like a built-in phone and email, lead scoring, and visual sales pipelines to help reps focus on the most important deals.
Pros
- Clean and intuitive UI
- AI-powered lead scoring
- Generous free plan available
Cons
- Reporting could be more robust
- Can get pricey as you add more features
4. Pipedrive
Pipedrive is built around one thing: the sales pipeline. Its highly visual, drag-and-drop interface makes it incredibly easy for salespeople to track deals through stages and focus on the activities required to close. It's a CRM by salespeople, for salespeople.
Pros
- Excellent visual pipeline management
- Simple and easy to adopt
- Prompts users to take action
Cons
- Marketing features are limited
- Less customizable than other CRMs
5. Salesforce Essentials
This is Salesforce's entry-level product, designed to bring the power of the world's #1 CRM to small businesses. It combines sales and service tools in one app and benefits from the security, reliability, and massive integration marketplace of the Salesforce ecosystem.
Pros
- Leverages the power of Salesforce
- Scalable as your business grows
- Massive AppExchange for integrations
Cons
- More complex than other SMB options
- User limits on the Essentials plan
6. Monday Sales CRM
Built on the flexible Monday.com Work OS, this product is tailored specifically for sales workflows. It offers visual pipeline management, contact and lead management, and email integration in the famously intuitive and colorful Monday interface.
Pros
- Very visual and easy to use
- Highly customizable
- Integrates with the wider Monday platform
Cons
- Not a traditional, dedicated CRM
- Lacks some deep sales features of rivals
7. Insightly
Insightly stands out by tightly integrating CRM with project management. This is perfect for businesses that run client projects, allowing them to manage a customer relationship from initial lead all the way through to project delivery and invoicing in one platform.
Pros
- Combines CRM and project management
- Good for B2B service businesses
- Strong workflow automation
Cons
- Free plan is very limited
- Interface is functional but not beautiful
8. Apptivo
Apptivo offers a suite of highly customizable business apps, with its CRM being a core component. It's a great choice for businesses with unique workflows that need to tailor their software extensively. Its pricing is also extremely competitive.
Pros
- Extremely customizable
- Affordable and transparent pricing
- Part of a large suite of business apps
Cons
- User interface feels dated
- Can be complex to configure
9. Less Annoying CRM
This CRM does exactly what its name promises. It's built for solopreneurs and very small teams who find other CRMs to be bloated and complex. It offers simple contact management, calendaring, and lead tracking with dead-simple, affordable pricing.
Pros
- Incredibly simple and easy to use
- Simple, low-cost pricing
- Excellent customer support
Cons
- Lacks advanced features and automation
- Does not scale well for larger teams
10. ClickUp
While primarily a project management tool, ClickUp offers a surprisingly robust and customizable CRM. Using its powerful custom fields and list views, you can build a flexible sales pipeline that lives in the same place as all your team's other work, creating a truly unified workspace.
Pros
- Fully customizable CRM capabilities
- Integrates sales with project management
- Excellent free plan
Cons
- Requires manual setup and configuration
- Lacks dedicated sales features like phone integration