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What we like best about Apptivo is its versatility — you can customize dashboards to suit a wide range of business types, so we’d recommend it for business owners with advanced and specific CRM requirements. With apps for all the functionality you can imagine, you’ll be able to stitch together a bespoke platform for CRM, including leads, customers, contracts, competitors, sales planning and territory management.

Apptivo also offers a suite of other features including finance, project management and inventory tools, so it can serve as an all-in-one marketing platform for your business with some tailoring to your specific needs.

If you want to build a custom suite of apps to manage your business, from customer relationships to finance, inventory and project management, Apptivo is a great choice. It offers plenty of features and functionality for a fair price as well as around-the-clock customer support.

Value

Pricing for Apptivo’s business management platform starts at $20 per user per month for the Lite plan. In our opinion, the offering at this price point is a little sparse. You only get 18 apps, 100 custom fields, 25 workflows and eight custom dashboards — making it useful for startups and small sales teams.

The Premium plan is the next tier, costing $30 per user per month but giving access to 46 apps as well as significantly more custom fields, dashboards and workflows, while the Ultimate plan at $50 per user per month adds even more. This is ideal for teams that will benefit from extra features like territory management, sales planning and a contact center. Custom pricing is also available on its Enterprise plan for larger businesses that need a custom solution.

Functionality

Our favorite thing about Apptivo’s CRM platform is its customization. You can create your own dashboard with only the apps you need to manage your business. While there are limitations depending on the plan you have, Apptivo’s platform can still be tailored to your needs. Many other CRM software providers offer rigid, one-size-fits-all interfaces in comparison.

Apptivo’s breadth of functionality is impressive, too, offering apps for leads, customers, contacts, competitors, territory management, sales planning and work orders. However, a drawback here is that not all apps are available on every plan, meaning you’ll need to upgrade for access to territory management and sales planning as well as other features like project management and finance.

Support

Apptivo offers 24/7 email and live chat support on every plan as well as 24-hour weekday support by phone, and you’ll also have access to Apptivo’s knowledge base, how-to videos, webinars and training support.

If you sign up for Apptivo’s Enterprise plan, you’ll have a service level agreement for customer support which is ideal for larger businesses. On the whole, this is an impressive level of dedication to customer support, so if you sign up to Apptivo you can be confident in knowing you’ll be able to get help when you need it.

Our editorial team created our expert opinion scores. The expert score contributes to 10% of the data-focused methodology, which underpins our Blueprint rating for each company. The expert score combines first-person experience, subject matter expertise and extensive research to develop these metrics as another source of truth for readers during their decision-making process.

Already renowned for its intuitive, visual and customizable project management software, Monday.com also offers its sales CRM platform with many of the same benefits. We’d recommend it for users who would benefit from the visualized workflow that Monday offers — all plans offer unlimited databases, seats, webforms, pipelines, boards and docs, as well as over 200 templates and unlimited items.

However, it is somewhat suited more to bigger organizations that can afford higher-tier plans for access to post-sales management and sales operations, among other capabilities. The basic plan lacks a few significant features, including lead, account, contact and deal management, no customer relationship capabilities, and no insights or reporting.

Monday’s project management tool is one of the best out there, so for anyone who appreciates how it works and what it can do for your business, it makes sense to use Monday’s sales CRM platform alongside it. With a range of useful features on higher plans that make it a good value for money if you’re willing to pay a premium rate, you’d be hard pressed to find a better platform for visually optimizing your sales workflow.

Value

One of the things we didn’t like about Monday’s CRM platform is the three-seat minimum, which turns even its relatively cheap $12 per user per month cost into a minimum charge of $36 monthly. And even then, this only gets you access to the Basic plan, which offers very limited features and no sales management.

If you’re willing to upgrade, the Standard plan ($17 per user per month) lets you manage leads, accounts, contacts and deals, and the Pro plan ($28 per user per month) adds a host of customer relationship features as well as insights and reporting which is where it starts to become a strong value for money.

Functionality

While Monday’s Basic plan only offers a small array of features, you’ll still get a database for unlimited contacts, as well as unlimited users, pipelines, boards and docs with over 200 templates. However, if you need your CRM software to be more than essentially just a database for contacts, the Standard plan gives you access to quotes and invoices, a host of productivity tools, more views and workload reporting capabilities.

As mentioned previously, you’ll need at least the Pro plan for further insights and reporting and the full set of customer relationship features. Only the Enterprise plan offers advanced analytics, account management, client projects, sales collateral and sales documents.

Support

All of Monday’s sales CRM plans come with 24/7 customer support — you can access the support team through live chat or email, and you can also request a callback. You’ll also have access to a self-service knowledge base with a range of articles, guides and tutorials as well as live daily webinars.

However, if you sign up for the Enterprise plan, you’ll also get access to a dedicated customer success manager, tailored onboarding, training hours and personalized support (but you’ll need to meet the minimum spend threshold). The Enterprise plan also gives you a guaranteed 99.9% uptime as per a Service Level Agreement.

Our editorial team created our expert opinion scores. The expert score contributes to 10% of the data-focused methodology, which underpins our Blueprint rating for each company. The expert score combines first-person experience, subject matter expertise and extensive research to develop these metrics as another source of truth for readers during their decision-making process.

If your business has a significant online presence, you could benefit particularly from Nimble’s data enrichment and social media integration features. You’ll be able to import contacts directly from social media profiles and business websites with Nimble’s Prospector extension, making lead generation efficient and intuitive.

Messages from a range of social media profiles including Twitter, LinkedIn and Microsoft Teams all sync automatically in a single inbox, which is ideal for those who are especially active online. However, it’s important to bear in mind that Nimble only offers one tier of pricing at $29.90, which might be steep if you aren’t specifically taking advantage of its social media and lead generating features.

Not all CRM providers place as heavy a focus on social media integration as Nimble, so if this is key to your business and the way you generate leads, then you won’t find many better options. Many of its features are geared towards prospecting through online activity, so the relatively high price can be seen as more of a worthwhile investment if lead generation is your main focus.

Value

Nimble’s only priced plan costs $29.90 per user per month which is quite steep compared to other providers that offer multiple plans (often at cheaper starting prices). You can save by paying an annual price of $24.90 per user per month, but — given how much of a focus Nimble places on lead generation through online and social activity — it’s likely only worth paying the fee if your business has a significant presence on the web.

Also consider whether the limits on storage and number of contacts will be a meaningful limitation for your business — it could definitely be worth taking out the 14-day trial to see how useful the software is before committing.

Functionality

Nimble shines with its features geared towards amassing contacts and leads. You can import contacts automatically with data collected from social media, emails and online using the Prospector extension, centralize all communication in a single inbox and see a complete history of interactions on all platforms.

You can also create custom web forms to gather new leads and send group messages for efficient outreach, making it a useful tool for businesses looking for strong communication options. However, you might find Nimble less useful if you need a platform that offers support for the full spectrum of CRM activity, as it is comparatively weaker for sales, marketing and customer support.

Support

Customer support is an area that Nimble falls behind in, only offering inbound support through emails and live chat. While there’s no phone number you can call, you can arrange a free one-on-one call with the support team, either through a booking system or the online chat on their website.

Aside from that, you can also find help online through its support center with over a hundred articles and videos as well as daily Q&A sessions and weekly training webinars. While the lack of a phone number isn’t ideal, its live chat does at least offer quick access to the support team, but if you prefer speaking to a human immediately then you might be left wanting.

Our editorial team created our expert opinion scores. The expert score contributes to 10% of the data-focused methodology, which underpins our Blueprint rating for each company. The expert score combines first-person experience, subject matter expertise and extensive research to develop these metrics as another source of truth for readers during their decision-making process.

Salesforce is arguably one of the biggest CRM platforms around, used by major companies and organizations worldwide. And it’s these kinds of businesses that are Salesforce’s bread and butter.

While you get useful core features like lead, account and opportunity management on the Starter Suite plan, many advanced capabilities like forecasting, pipeline management and lead scoring are only available on upper tiers. Upgrading to these higher plans can be expensive, with the Enterprise plan starting at $165 per user per month, so smaller businesses with less advanced needs might find more economic options elsewhere.

Salesforce’s CRM software is powerful and pricey, and — while the features on offer are impressive — they won’t all be useful for everyone. We think Salesforce is better for businesses that are starting to or have already begun scaling up their operations — those who can afford to take out at least the Enterprise level plan and will get good value from the array of capabilities it provides.

Value

Salesforce’s Starter Suite plan costs $25 per user per month which isn’t exactly cheap as far as starter plans go, and the features you get are fairly limited too. While it can be a good option for beginners, you might find cheaper and more beginner-friendly options out there.

Where Salesforce’s value becomes more apparent is on its upper-tier plans. For those willing to invest heavily in CRM for their business, the Enterprise plan ($165 per user per month) and the Unlimited plan ($330 per user per month) both offer powerful capabilities, including pipeline management, advanced customization and automation. There is also a 30-day trial available for those wanting to explore whether it’ll be worthwhile before committing.

Functionality

Salesforce is not short on features for those willing to invest. All plans come with lead management features such as assignment and routine, mass emails and campaign management. You’ll also get customizable reports and dashboards — as is standard with many CRM tools — and opportunity management features that allow you to track key deal details.

However, many capabilities are only available on higher plans or for an extra fee. You’ll need to pay at least $165 per user per month for pipeline management features while lead scoring is only included as standard on the Unlimited plan at $330 per user per month.

Support

You’ll have access to 24/7 technical customer support with all plans, but you’ll also have the option of upgrading your customer success plan for advanced customer support options. The Premier plan gives you access to Salesforce experts, while Signature customers can also call an emergency dedicated hotline for assistance.

Additionally, Salesforce also provides knowledge base articles in an online help center as well as interactive Q&A sessions, and — if you upgrade your success plan — you can get discounts on instructor-led classes through its Trailhead Academy. You can access Salesforce’s customer support team by phone, email or live chat, and you can also request a callback.

Our editorial team created our expert opinion scores. The expert score contributes to 10% of the data-focused methodology, which underpins our Blueprint rating for each company. The expert score combines first-person experience, subject matter expertise and extensive research to develop these metrics as another source of truth for readers during their decision-making process.

With its useful free toolkit and easy-to-use interface, Hubspot’s CRM software is our pick for beginners looking to introduce a more structured approach to customer relationship management. It’s not as feature-rich as other providers, but there’s enough in the way of basic functionality — and if you’re new to CRM, it won’t feel as overwhelming as other platforms.

However, if you’re looking for a more complete approach to CRM, then you’ll likely need some of the features locked behind upper tiers (which are relatively expensive by comparison). In this case, you might prefer CRM software designed for advanced users with fewer limits and more functionality.

Hubspot is an ideal platform for beginners with a free toolkit that works as a starting point for businesses expanding their customer relationship management workflows. Other platforms will offer more features and fewer limitations, but not many have a free plan with enough to get by. And, if it works for you, then you might find upgrading to be worth it.

Value

Hubspot’s free plan is one of the best available in terms of what you get. It includes user and contact management, one shared inbox, 200 notifications per month for email tracking and three dashboards — for no cost at all.

Upgrading to the Starter plan costs $20 per user per month (or $15 if you commit to a full year) and adds extra functionality that can be useful once you’ve got to grips with the software. However, we don’t recommend Hubspot if you need more advanced features, as its next highest tier costs $100 per user per month and in our opinion isn’t much of a standout compared to other providers who offer similar features for less.

Functionality

Hubspot’s free CRM tools boast a decent level of functionality. You can have up to five users, and you’ll get five email templates, user and contact management, one pipeline per account and up to 100 products.

Alongside useful integrations for Slack, Facebook Messenger and a range of apps from the marketplace, an email template builder, live chat software and an AI email writer mean there’s more than enough for startups and beginners to get going. The Starter plan represents a sensible upgrade if the platform works for you, adding email notifications, more dashboards, another pipeline per account and up to one million products.

Support

All of Hubspot’s CRM plans have access to the community help center online, however, other customer support options are only available to paid plan members. Email and chat support are both available on all paid plans, but you’ll need to subscribe to the Professional tier for phone support, which isn’t ideal as this costs $100 per user per month.

This could be enough to put people off the platform as phone support can be important, especially if you’re just beginning your CRM journey. It’s worth noting that Hubspot provides real-time updates about outages on its website, and also offers support on X (formerly known as Twitter).

Our editorial team created our expert opinion scores. The expert score contributes to 10% of the data-focused methodology, which underpins our Blueprint rating for each company. The expert score combines first-person experience, subject matter expertise and extensive research to develop these metrics as another source of truth for readers during their decision-making process.