Best CRM for Small Business Owners in 2021

HubSpot is a veteran in marketing technology solutions, web analytics, and customer service. The company has been offering content management, lead generation, search engine optimization, analytics, and customer relationship management systems for over a decade. It also has a solid free CRM toolkit that’s complemented by excellent paid addons.  

Main Features

HubSpot offers some of the best CRM software for small business owners absolutely free of charge. To start with, there is a solid contact management tool that allows you to manage up to one million contacts with ease and includes unlimited user logins. Contacts can be sorted through a myriad of different filters and imported from .csv, .xlsx, and .xls files or through one of the many app integrations, which includes Google Mail and Microsoft Outlook.

You can easily track sent emails through the Activity feed or manage all of your Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Google ad campaigns through the Marketing tab. From here you can also create customizable emails and landing pages.

Widely regarded as the best sales CRM for small business owners, HubSpot allows you to track how prospects are being turned into customers through the Deals tab in the Sales section of your interface. It also offers highly useful ticketing tools that eliminate any hassle when handling customer complaints and questions.

In addition, HubSpot’s CRM service offers communication tools, including FB messenger integrations, automated email responders, and customized chat experiences for customers. But bear in mind that most of the advanced features are only available with paid plans.

Speaking of paid plans, HubSpot mostly charges for advanced automation tools such as sales forecasts, SEO, and other high-level analytics, automated email campaigns and lead scoring, and a service hub with more detailed metrics for measuring customer feedback.

User Experience

When it comes to the user experience, HubSpot offers a top CRM for small business owners. Registration is a breeze, and new users are given optional tutorials for almost every feature of the software. Mobile apps for iOS and Android systems are also remarkable, offering almost every bit of functionality as the web interface.

You can contact HubSpot staff by phone, email, or live chat, but response times aren’t particularly impressive, and unless you’re filing a complaint or inquiring about the price, you’re better off consulting one of the many well-written or interactive tutorials on the site.

Pricing

In addition to offering arguably the best CRM for a small business that’s attainable for free, HubSpot has three premium plans that build on this solid foundation.

The Starter plan costs $45 per month if you commit to annual payments. It allows you to get more detailed sales reports, use HubSpot’s VoIP calling functions directly from your web interface, and utilize the live chat functionality and basic automation tools.

The $450 per month Professional plan unlocks a variety of team management and email automation options, sales analytics, personalized outreach, and the option to use eSignatures for quotes.

The Enterprise plan costs $1,200 per month and offers even more advanced team management, revenue tracking, and predictive lead scoring tools. To get the best small business CRM software features at the most reasonable price, you can also sign up for one of the company’s bundles. The Growth Suite bundle costs $50/month and includes all the marketing, customer service, and sales software you need.

Zoho is an Indian software development company focused on web-based business tools, as well as marketing and IT management software. It was originally set up in 1996 under the name AdventNet. Its most advanced software package, Zoho CRM, was released in 2005, and the company was renamed Zoho Corporation in 2009. Today, it has offices in 12 cities around the world, serving over 50 million customers.

Main Features

You’ll find Zoho on pretty much any top 10 CRM list thanks to its many features for contact and lead management, sales automation, advanced AI-driven analytics, and multi-channel customer interactions. 

For starters, you can easily import your contacts from a variety of sources including social media accounts and use advanced filters to sort through them. The software also provides fantastic reporting tools for accounts, contacts, deals, leads, and sales, as well as advanced email autoresponders. 

AI-driven email and sales analytics with lead conversion and deal closure predictions help boost sales. Zoho also offers real-time sales notifications, process and inventory management, automated social media lead generation, workflow conversion, KPIs, and more.

CRM reviews for small businesses often highlight the importance of software integrations. This is another area where Zoho CRM doesn’t disappoint. Integrations are available with almost every important messaging, productivity, or finance-related tool, including everything from Google’s G Suite and Microsoft’s Office 365 to Xero and WhatsApp Messenger.

User Experience

Zoho has a classic look that some may call a bit dated. Nevertheless, getting around the web interface is a breeze, and there are excellent tutorials for new users. Mobile apps for both Android and iOS are highly rated and easy to use. As with any of the best CRM software for small business purposes, Zoho CRM allows you to customize everything from your dashboard to the email templates. 

Replies to emails can take a little longer, but you can reach Zoho’s customer support team through a dedicated phone line or even get in touch via social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Alternatively, there are excellent guides and tutorials available on the website.

Pricing

Zoho offers basic contact management with social media integrations, a call log, and workflow rules (alerts, tasks, and field updates) for free. There are also four paid plans. The Standard plan costs $12/user/month and offers some of the best CRM tools for small business owners in this price range, including sales forecasting, customizable dashboards, and mass email. 

The other three plans are Professional for $20/user/month, Enterprise for $35/user/month, and Ultimate for $45/user/month. These include features such as Google AdWords integrations, inventory management and workflow automation tools, advanced AI-driven analytics, more customization, and a larger number of email notifications per day (free version is capped at 150 emails per day, while the Ultimate version supports up to 50,000).

Constant Contact is a household name in email marketing and CRM software for small businesses. The company was launched in 1995 and has since joined the Endurance International Group, an IT services giant with over five million clients worldwide. They offer some of the best CRM systems for small business owners currently available on the market, but it can get pretty expensive for larger companies with lots of clients.

Main Features

Constant Contact is primarily an email creation and automation service, but its CRM products also include excellent contact and event management tools, eCommerce and reporting features, and great third-party integrations.

Starting with contacts, you can easily import them from productivity and email services such as G Suite and Outlook. You can also sort through them using multiple filters or employ interest tags to track their interests and tailor advertising campaigns accordingly. It’s possibly the best CRM system for small business owners that want a hands-off approach to email marketing, allowing automation of several tasks such as tracking emailing list unsubscribers or bounced mails and sending automated email replies.

The handy drag and drop interface of the software allows you to create much more than emails. There are templates for social media content, advertisements, surveys, landing pages, events, and even online storefronts. 

Real-time data reports can help you track all sent, bounced, opened, and clicked emails. Meanwhile, eCommerce features such as cart abandonment notifications and purchase confirmations help you track how well your products are doing. While it may not be the best CRM software for small businesses when it comes to third-party app integrations, there are over 20 integrations with popular platforms such as Facebook, G Suite, Outlook, WordPress, and QuickBooks. 

User Experience

Everything from the registration process to creating campaigns, surveys, events, or even websites and online storefronts is a simple and intuitive process, with plenty of help available if you need it. The web interface is mobile-friendly, but you can also choose dedicated smartphone and tablet apps, which are very well designed for both Android and iOS systems.

A lot of CRM reviews for small business-oriented solutions point to issues with customer support, and we’ve seen this with Zoho and HubSpot. Unfortunately, similar problems plague Constant Contact, as customer support can be especially slow to respond to emails. On the upside, you can also reach customer service by phone or live chat, and there are also excellent community forums available.

Pricing

Unlike some of its competitors, Constant Contact offers no free plans. The best you can hope for is a 30-day free trial on one of the two offered packages.

The cheaper Email plan costs anywhere between $20 and $335 per month, depending on the number of contacts you have (from 500 to 50,000), while the Email Plus plan starts at $45. 

From a small business CRM comparison standpoint, at over 10,000 clients you are better off using the Email Plus plan, as the prices for both plans even out by that point. You’ll get all of the features from the basic Email plan plus email automation and advanced eCommerce and marketing tools.

Finally, you can get a 10% discount by paying six months in advance, 15% if you pay annually, and 30% if you run a nonprofit organization.

Freshworks is relatively new to the world of CRM software for small businesses. Its parent company opened its doors in 2011 but only released their CRM tool Freshsales in 2016. In October of 2020, the tool was expanded and rebranded into one of the best CRM apps for small business management on the market called Freshworks CRM.

Main Features

To begin with, Freshworks CRM makes it incredibly easy to add and manage contacts, lists, and accounts. You can import contacts from .csv and xlsx file formats and track everything from basic user information to their lead scores and interaction history. 

This AI-driven lead scoring and client communication tool can rank prospects through their level of engagement and analyze past interactions to make predictions about leads turning into customers. It can also suggest engagement strategies that you can pass on to your sales team.

As with the best CRM programs for small business owners, Freshworks also offers workflow automation tools such as email autoresponders, marketing segmentation, and sequences as well as automated marketing and sales campaigns through the Journeys feature.

There are also native integrations with a host of Freshworks apps such as Freshdesk and Freshcaller, which enable you to integrate helpdesk and customer support features. Moreover, the software supports a host of third-party integrations with popular productivity and communication apps.

User Experience

While Freshworks CRM may not be the best CRM for small business owners who like to get an overview of their entire campaign from one window, it’s a great solution for people who value simplicity. The main dashboard mostly informs you about past and upcoming appointments and activities, while key analytics, metrics, and sales forecasts are displayed in separate sections.

Mobile apps are very highly rated on both mobile marketplaces thanks to their well-designed UI and powerful features that mimic all of the main functions of the web interface.

Customer support is excellent. In addition to offering perhaps the best simple CRM for small business purposes, the company has plenty of useful articles on its site and a team of agents that quickly responds to both email and phone queries. Best of all, these services are available to all customers, regardless of their chosen pricing plan. 

Pricing

Freshworks doesn’t offer a free package for its small business CRM tools, but there is a 21-day free trial that allows customers to test out all of the features before making any financial commitments. The three paid plans are Growth, Pro, and Enterprise. As is the case with many of the top CRMs for small business owners, each plan comes with additional features and support for more active contacts, marketing journeys, workflows, and sales sequences.

The Growth plan costs $29/user/month and offers predictive contact scoring with the Freddy AI, phone calls through Freshcaller, custom reports, and dashboards, as well as a handy mobile app.

The $69/user/month Pro plan adds several more AI-driven features such as the lead generation bot, more advanced tracking tools, and behavioral segmentation and enables you to create a product catalog. 

If you’re wondering what is the best CRM for a small business, check out the vendor’s Enterprise plan. For $125/user/month, you get the most advanced AI-driven metrics, forecasting insights, custom domains for different company departments, the largest number of active contacts (5,000), marketing journeys and workflows (100), and sales sequences (25).

The California-based EngageBay has been around for over a decade. Launched in 2006, the company experienced stellar growth, thanks largely to its extensive CRM systems for small business owners, scalable enough to accommodate both medium and large-sized corporations.   

Main Features

EngageBay may not be the best CRM for small business owners, but it’s certainly one of the most comprehensive ones. The software can be broken down into three core components: CRM and Sales, Marketing, and so-called Service Bays.

With CRM and Sales, contact management allows you to import contacts from .csv files and organize them manually or by using dynamic lists. This aspect of the software handles appointment scheduling and various sales automation features. It also tracks all customer interactions and lets you see a deal pipeline that includes both closed and lost leads.

Marketing Bay provides some of the best web–based CRM for small business purposes but also scales well for larger corporations. One of its best features is multichannel marketing automation, which allows you to simultaneously target audiences through emails, site messages, SMS, and push notifications. There are tons of great templates available, and the software even supports video marketing and landing page creation. 

Finally, Service Bay is an exceptional helpdesk service with a live chat and ticketing system that’s completely free for all EngageBay users.

User Experience

EngageBay can seem overwhelming at first, but the software is very logically laid out. The top navigation bar takes you through the Marketing, Sales, and Service areas, as well as a dedicated live chat dashboard that not only allows you to directly communicate with customers but also keeps a record of all past communications.

EngageBay also has a strong contender in the best CRM app for small business race, with its Android and iOS productivity apps mirroring all of the web interface’s functionalities including live chat.

Finally, the company’s customer support team is available to help all users through email or live chat, while Growth and Pro plan subscribers can enjoy phone support, a dedicated account manager, and onboarding support.

Pricing

The company offers four plans: a free plan and three paid packages. Even with the free one, you get access to the basic sales CRM and marketing features, autoresponders, sequences, lead grabbers, and landing page creation. There is also a live chat and a free helpdesk as well as 1000 lifetime contacts and branded emails.

But to get the best CRM for small businesses, you’ll want to upgrade to a paid plan. The Basic package costs $8.99/user/month if you sign up for two years and supports up to 15,000 contacts and 10,000 branded emails while adding features such as lead scoring and SMS marketing.

The Growth plan will set you back $29.99 but ups the number of contracts to 50,000 and the number of branded emails to 25,000 while adding various automation features and custom domains.

Finally, for $47.99/user/month on a two-year Pro plan, you can get advanced analytics tools, unlimited contacts, and 50,000 branded emails, advanced team management features, and a dedicated account manager.