Best CRM Apps | Top 10 Reviewed and Compared for 2023

The best CRM apps will propel your business’ growth as they help you keep track of your sales (and client funnel) and manage external business relations. With a CRM tool, you can streamline multiple tasks, including identifying new leads, optimizing your sales pipeline, and automating your marketing campaigns — amongst other things.

That said, given the number of options available, finding the best one for your business can become an uphill task. Here, we’ve ranked and reviewed the best CRM apps based on criteria such as pricing, third-party integrations, ease of use, reporting, and more. Dive in to learn how giants like Salesforce, Pipedrive, and Zoho CRM can help you.

Best CRM Apps in 2023 | Top 10 Shortlist

Salesforce stands out as the best CRM app in 2023 thanks to its impressive features, integration support, intuitive dashboard, excellent customer support, and exceptional lead tracking. See for yourself how it compares to our top picks:

1. Salesforce — Overall, the Best CRM App for Businesses of All Sizes | Try it Now with the 14-Day Free Trial.
2. Pipedrive — The Best CRM Software for Email Marketing and Management | Put it to the Test with the 14-Day Free Trial.
3. Zoho CRM — The Best CRM Mobile App with Advanced Filters for Excellent Lead Management | Test it Free for 15-Days.
4. Monday Sales CRM — Best Free CRM App with a Robust Sales Forecasting Tool | Try the Free Forever Plan Before Committing.
5. Zendesk Sell — The Best CRM System to Boost your Sales Team’s Productivity | Offers a Generous 30-Day Free Trial.
6. HubSpot — Leading Customer Relationship Management Tool to Simplify Pipeline Management
7. Freshsales — Free CRM Software to Create a Personalized Sales Experience for your Leads
8. Maximizer CRM — Leading CRM App for Retaining Existing Clients.
9. Less Annoying CRM — A Popular Beginner-Friendly CRM App for Small Businesses.
10. Oracle NetSuite — Quality CRM App for Automating Multiple Business Processes.

Best Customer Relationship Management Apps | Top 10 Reviewed

To help you make an informed decision, we’ll discuss our top 10 CRM apps in 2023 in more detail, including their best features, pricing, and pros and cons. Ready? Let’s dive right in.

1. Salesforce — The Best Overall CRM App for Businesses of All Sizes

Salesforce is easily the best CRM platform in the world; the primary reason is that it equips businesses with personalized expert guidance. Salesforce backs its decades-long experience with customer behavior in helping you build lasting client relationships.

With Salesforce, you’ll be able to manage the entire sales cycle from one place. From getting a new lead and overseeing their first purchase to maintaining their account history — its highly comprehensive dashboard will have a detailed overview of it all.

Instead of looking through tons of files and folders to create a detailed client profile, Salesforce already has it ready and available with a click.

To further centralize your business with processes, Salesforce lets you integrate your Gmail and Outlook accounts so that whatever emails you get there automatically show up on your Salesforce account too.

If you’re keen on supplying your business with the best premium tools, consider investing in Salesforce’s Premier Success Plan. Here, you’ll have a human expert and all the basic Salesforce features assigned to your account.

The expert will offer tailor-made CRM solutions that work best for your target audience. You’ll also get other benefits, such as custom-made resources and 24/7 assistance.

The best thing about Salesforce is it gives you extensive insights. From your sales cycles to the interaction with your leads, Salesforce will tell you how you’re performing and ways you can do better with a host of its robust AI tools constantly tracking your work.

For example, suppose you need insights into call duration and interaction frequency between your lead and the tea to gauge their interest level. In that case, Salesforce’s detailed analytics will come in very handy.

Pricing

Salesforce starts at just $25/user/month and, given its features, is easily one of the most value-for-money CRM solutions.

The Essentials plan will tag along with case management, service console apps, telephony integration, and more.

However, if you’d also like service contracts and web services API, get a higher-end plan. Besides this, you can also get add-ons, including Field Service Lightning and Digital Engagement.

Although a tad on the expensive side (the cheapest add-on is $50/user/month), these add-ons will do your business a world of good.

Enjoy all that Salesforce has to offer risk-free for 14 days with the free trial. If you like what you see, go ahead with a paid subscription — you won’t lose any money testing the tool.

2. Pipedrive — The Best CRM Software for Email Marketing & Management

Pipedrive is a CRM platform built for salespeople by salespeople. The minds behind this platform — having been sales representatives themselves — understand the world of sales and your needs better than any other platform.

Our favorite Pipedrive feature is email tracking. Emails are often the first mode of contact with a lead, which makes it all the more essential to track them and get inside the mind of your potential clients.

With this feature, you can see who received your email, who opened it, and who clicked on the links you provided. This helps you in two ways:

This information will help you discard dead leads and close the good ones as quickly as possible. With that said, one of Pipedrive’s most unique features is the Contact Map.

Under this, you can integrate the Pipedrive app with Google Maps and see where each of your leads is located. This is a godsend for those running region-specific campaigns, as they’ll be able to filter customers quickly based on location.

Just like Salesforce, Pipedrive, too, offers additional sales assistance. Every user gets an expert who offers performance tips, points out areas that need more focus, and helps you lay down the next course of action.

Pricing

Pipedrive will cost you a mere $9.90/user/month (billed annually) to get started. With its basic Essential plan, you’ll get lead and deal management, customizable pipelines, lead inbox, deal rotting, and much more.

That said, there are limits on the number of open deals (3,000) and custom field limits (30) on the Essential plan. For more of these, plus additional features such as:

• • Customizable email templates
  • Group emailing
  • PDF format support

And plenty more — get a premium plan. We recommend the Professional plan. Unsure? Try Pipedrive now completely risk-free for a full 2 weeks to gauge if it’s worth your time and money.

3. Zoho CRM — The Best CRM Mobile App with Advanced Filters for Excellent Lead Management

Zoho CRM prioritizes automation and personalization, so your team has a unique and comfortable experience managing all your business’ leads and processes.

The platform’s standout feature is Scoring Rules, which rates all your leads based on their interaction with your brand and helps you zero in on the ones most likely to convert.

This means that your team can devote more energy and time to qualified leads instead of wasting their time on dead leads. Besides this, to help you save time, Zoho has various advanced filters to cut through the clutter and accelerate your search process.

For example, if you’re looking for a particular set of leads from a group of hundreds after a recent campaign, use Zoho’s advanced filters to only bring to the surface profiles that match your filter settings. Need we say more?

We do. Zoho CRM further simplifies your life with its built-in currency converter. Work freely with any customer or vendor from anywhere in the world without worrying about foreign transactions.

Its unique Email Parser feature makes managing your customer data easier than ever. Anytime there’s a new lead, Zoho CRM will automatically log all the information they share in the emails so that you don’t have to waste time typing it in manually.

Automated information updates also ensure you never miss any essential data about your lead.

Pricing

Zoho CRM’s Standard plan is only $14/user/month. It has enough features to cover the operations of a small to mid-size business, including predefined reports and dashboards, email templates, and custom fields.

If you’d like Zoho CRM to do more for you, opt for the Enterprise or Ultimate plan. The best part? Zoho provides a 15-day free trial — no credit card information needed either — so you can test it risk-free and see if it’s for you.

4. Monday Sales CRM — Best Free CRM App with a Robust Sales Forecasting Tool

Monday.com has over 1,270,000 customers across 200 business verticals, making it one of the most sought-after CRM platforms. Its secret to success lies in its flexibility. Every single CRM feature is designed with your needs and convenience in mind.

For example, whenever you interact with a lead, whether through a call, SMS, or email, Monday.com will log it instantly. This way, you have a thorough record of your lead communication.

If anything goes wrong with the deal, you can always come back and check if anything was lacking on your part, ensuring that the same mistake isn’t repeated the next time.

Along with tracking lead interaction, Monday.com also tracks the calls and emails sent by your team members to help you track their performance and gauge their capacity. This data will also help you effectively distribute workload among your team and avoid burnout.

To get more accurate reports on your performance as a company, utilize Monday.com’s sales forecasting tool.

It’ll let you set Close Probability (the probability of lead-to-customer conversion) and Deal Value beforehand so that you can later compare your forecast versus actual sales at the end of the month. This will help you understand how:

• • Accurate your predictions generally are
  • Far you fall behind your target
  • You can improve next month

With Monday, you can also set individual goals for teams in your company to boost performance, productivity, and accountability.

Pricing

Monday.com has a free forever plan that allows up to 2 users and 1,000 contacts. Although limited in features, it’s a good place for individuals and small businesses to start.

For a comprehensive and affordable CRM solution, we recommend Monday.com’s Basic CRM plan. For just $10/seat/month, you’ll get unlimited:

• • Customizable pipelines
  • Contacts
  • Boards
  • Free viewers

Depending on your requirements, you can also design a custom plan with Monday.com’s Enterprise CRM plan. Try Monday.com risk-free today with the 14-day free trial and find out if it matches your needs without risking a cent.

5. Zendesk Sell — The Best CRM System to Boost your Sales Team’s Productivity

Zendesk Sell has been designed to help you with the fundamental building block of any successful business — team productivity.

To help your team work on the go, Zendesk Sell has an intuitive mobile app that can easily sync with the web and give you offline access to your data.

For example, if a remote worker suddenly loses a WiFi connection due to whatever reason, they can still carry on their work through offline access. It also offers a shared storage space for your team to keep the frequently or currently used files.

Each user gets 2 to 10GB of cloud storage, depending on your chosen plan. This way, you can ensure that all the confidential company data is stored on the cloud and not on your employee’s personal devices.

It’s a win-win for all parties — your employees don’t have to sacrifice their own device space for company work, and you can be assured that no terminated employee is leaving with a copy of your confidential documents.

Furthermore, Zendesk Sell’s advanced activity reports give you a deeper insight into your team’s overall performance and activities. For instance, you can check:

• • The number of leads handled in a day
  • How many emails get responded to
  • How many leads your team close

A better assessment of their group and individual performance will help you identify who your biggest assets are in the company and who needs more help to do better.

Pricing

Starting at $49/agent/month, Zendesk Sell is one of the pricier options on our list, but its rich catalog of features makes for a compelling package.

With the Suite Team plan, you get an industry-leading ticketing system, up to 50 AI-powered automated answers, 1,000+ apps and integrations, and much more.

If you’d also like advanced features, including customizable ticket layouts, private conversation threads, and up to 500 AI-powered automated answers, get a premium Zendesk Sell plan.

Get started with Zendesk Sell today without any financial commitment, thanks to its generous 30-day free trial.

6. HubSpot CRM — Leading Customer Relationship Management Tool to Simplify Pipeline Management

HubSpot is the best free CRM software. Since it’s part of HubSpot’s massive line of business tools, you can easily integrate your CRM platform with HubSpot’s marketing, operations, and customer service tools.

HubSpot simplifies pipeline management by letting you create a set template for every lead. For example, if you’re handling a target group from your recent campaign, you can create a playbook with:

• • Responses
  • Approaches
  • Closing strategies

For every employee to follow. This feature ensures that there’s no scope for error that could’ve otherwise cost you a valuable lead — this is because pipeline management removes the hassle of manual data entry.

So, suppose you add a new deal from an existing client. In that case, HubSpot will automatically update the information in your client database instantly so that each time you make a new strategy or decision for that client, you’ll always have updated data to work with.

With that said, our favorite feature of HubSpot CRM is the Meeting Scheduler. Talking to your leads to find a common free slot for a meeting can be a pain. With HubSpot, you can let your prospects automatically book a meeting by handing them your available slots.

All you have to do is integrate your Google Calendar with HubSpot and mark open slots for prospect interaction, where they can book a session with one or more members of your team — scheduling meetings has never been easier.

Pricing

HubSpot has a fabulous free plan with ample features, including a shared inbox, help desk automation, custom surveys, and more. For premium features and better support, sign up for a HubSpot CRM paid plan starting at just $45/month (billed annually).

It includes all the features you’d need to run a small, medium, or even fairly large corporation smoothly. Notable mentions include ad management, email reply tracking, 5,000 email templates, and support for up to 5 currencies.

Try the free plan now to get a sound idea of whether the platform is right for your needs.

7. Freshsales — Free CRM Software to Create a Personalized Sales Experience for your Leads

Freshsales helps you create a personalized sales experience to shorten the cycle duration and close more leads. You can create custom lifecycle stages for your contacts to better understand where the deal stands.

For example, you can create stages like “New Lead,” “Interested,” and “About to Close.’ This way, your team will be able to identify the clients that need a lot of persuasion and those that just need a little nudge to finalize the deal.

If you have a small team, you’ll love Freshsales’s bot named Freddy — a pro tool for handling fresh leads. Note that Freddy is only available on Freshsales’s paid plans.

There are tons of websites with a live chat option. However, the initial interaction is usually with a bot — in this case, Freddy — who:

• • Shows potential customers around the site
  • Offers them the right resources
  • Only connects to a live agent if they wish to move to the next step

This way, you’ll be able to filter uninterested leads, reduce the manual hours spent, and ensure that any interested lead gets instant replies. On top of this, in the Enterprise plan, you get a dedicated account manager.

The account manager will work with you to solve your platform-related issues and acts as a communication bridge between you and the Freshsales team, ensuring you get priority support.

That said, its free forever plan is one of the best in the industry and certainly adequate for individuals and small businesses.

Pricing

Freshsales has a comprehensive free forever plan with contact and account management, 24/5 support, a mobile app for on-the-go usage, and more.

However, we recommend getting a paid Freshsales plan because that’s where you’ll find Freddy — Freshsales’s much-acclaimed bot. The most affordable Freshsales plan is the Growth plan at just $15/user/month.

Besides a free plan, Freshsales provides a 21-day free trial on all its paid plans. Ample time for you to find out if the tool will be right for your business. No risk of losing any money, so try it today.

8. Maximizer CRM — Leading CRM App for Retaining Existing Clients

Maximizer CRM is one of the few platforms that’ll not only land new clients for you, but it’ll also do a fantastic job at retaining the existing ones.

It helps you create a strong customer relationship by studying your client base and identifying their exact expectations of you. Maximizer CRM also has a unique customer health analysis tool that shows you how your relationship with a customer is.

It basically monitors your interactions and their engagement level to check whether your relationship with the customer is stable or at risk. With an early warning that your customer might be losing interest, you can take the necessary steps to win them back.

A clutter-free and clean dashboard, along with real-time action alerts and up-to-date reports, helps you check if your team members are following the company guidelines on lead interaction.

If there are any outliers, Maximizer CRM will notify you right away so that you can take appropriate corrective measures. On top of this, to boost team productivity, Maximizer offers a host of tools and features, such as:

• • Email integration
  • Custom email templates
  • Task assignment and management
  • Quota tracking
  • Quick access to all essential deal information

Together, these features automate mundane processes to shorten the sales cycle and give you a bird’s-eye view of everything happening in your company.

Pricing

Maximizer CRM has pretty straightforward pricing. There are two plans; the cheapest will fetch you up to 10,000 contacts and 100Gb database size — as will the Sales Leader Edition plan at $75/user/month.

The second plan, however, will allow you to track and monitor your sales teams in a Kanban Board, plus deliver detailed insights into your company’s productivity and revenue with data visualizations.

There’s no free trial, but the live demo will give you a thorough walkthrough of the tool and its capabilities, so you can see in real-time whether it does justice to its relatively high price and if it’s right for you.

9. Less Annoying CRM — A Popular Beginner-Friendly CRM App for Small Businesses

Less Annoying CRM, as the name suggests, is a beginner-friendly CRM platform that likes to keep things simple.

Our favorite thing about Less Annoying CRM is that it lets you create detailed lead profiles. You’ll have a lead’s name, lead stage, and other essential information such as email, age, and location — all in one place.

Along with that, you can also assign your leads to groups such as “VIP leads” or “Re-targeted leads” to simplify the search process. Having a compact lead profile saves you the trouble of scampering essential customer data throughout the platform’s massive width.

Besides this, we also like how Less Annoying CRM doubles up as task management software. It directly integrates with your Google Account so that all your upcoming event details are imported and categorized as per the date on Less Annoying CRM’s dashboard.

The dashboard is where you can also add other tasks due on a given date. Together, it gives you a complete timeline of all your targets for the week in one place so that you don’t have to juggle multiple apps.

To improve team transparency, you can also share these task pages with anyone on the team to ensure they’re all on the same page.

Less Annoying prevents your leads from slipping through the cracks by maintaining an updated list of all the leads in your pipeline along with their interest level and priority so that each one gets a follow-up at the right time.

Pricing

Less Annoying CRM stays true to its name even with its pricing. There’s just one plan on offer at $15/user/month, and you can be assured that there are no hidden fees or contracts.

Now, if you’re planning to have over 10 users and would like first-hand assistance, you can reach out to Less Annoying via email, and they’ll help you with the onboarding process.

Find out if Less Annoying CRM is your cup of tea risk-free with the 30-day free trial. No credit card information is needed.

10. Oracle NetSuite — Quality CRM App for Automating Multiple Business Processes

Oracle NetSuite is perhaps the only CRM software that caters to all the departments involved in customer relationship management individually.

Customer Relationship Management involves marketing and sales teams reaching out to new leads and converting them into customers, and then retaining those customers with solid customer service.

Each of these teams has different needs, and NetSuite caters to them perfectly. For example, the different teams will have different goals, so NetSuite’s built-in analytics and insights tools let them track their progress differently. Here’s how:

In addition, NetSuite will also help you identify which of your prospects are more likely to convert to a lead by matching their interaction pattern with known buyer-readiness conditions, ensuring that you’re giving attention to the right people.

Plus, with NetSuite, you can boost customer satisfaction by automating case management. Let your customers directly submit their queries and concerns online and give them automated updates on the case status so they don’t have to email you asking for progress.

While you review each case, your customers get access to a rich knowledge base where they might find the solution to their queries. With fast and effective service, your client retention rate will only increase.

Pricing

Oracle NetSuite provides a custom plan for every user to give them exactly what they need. The subscription starts at $99, but the total price is arrived at by adding the following:

Contact NetSuite’s team, design your own plan, and get a custom quote; plus you can test out the live demo to judge the tool’s suitability for your business.

Best CRM Apps | Top 10 Compared

Here’s a table highlighting the key differences between the best CRM apps in 2023 that’ll help you arrive at the best CRM software for your needs quicker:

The Key Benefits of CRM Apps for Businesses

Are you still wondering why you need one of these CRM apps for your business? Here are some indispensable reasons.

Boost Productivity

Any technology that can assist you or your employees speed up any time-consuming routine can increase productivity. Slow processes like entering data and looking up contacts have become much easier with the help of CRM.

You can automate all user information for services, sales, and marketing. This can increase productivity by allowing your staff to concentrate on other tasks.

Protect Data Privacy

With CRM software, you can protect sensitive client data. Examples include:

• • Receiving and recording users’ consent to save and use their information
  • Managing email communication settings
  • Notifying new contacts about data storage
  • Setting up rules to update databases

You can also configure restrictions so that only authorized staff members can access the data while closely monitoring a single channel for any breaches. Better data management reduces the possibility of errors, saves time, and it builds customer trust.

Automate Sales Processes

With a CRM, your team won’t ever have to spend time keeping track of calls, emails, meetings, and interactions since the system will automatically gather and combine this data.

CRM software automates key sales operations, including following up with leads, scheduling appointments, and doing post-sales activities. You may also monitor the status of various projects, assess team members’ performance, and keep tabs on your goals.

Analyze your Forecasts and Data

While measuring your company’s progress is essential, it can also be challenging. CRM software may help monitor and evaluate your growth, current marketing initiatives, and potential future forecasting.

You can use this knowledge and incorporate it into your upcoming campaigns and how you target your audience since you have data available on trends and opportunities.

Go Mobile

One of the most important advantages of a CRM app is the ability to access customer data from anywhere, at any time. You can respond to questions, take calls, and complete deals from anywhere with a mobile CRM.

Access a cloud-based SaaS CRM from a tablet, desktop, or smartphone at all times to take advantage of valuable features.

How to Choose the Best CRM App | Factors to Consider

How did these 10 apps make it to our list? Let’s consider the key aspects you need to consider when choosing the right CRM app for your business.

Ease of Setup

Finding a CRM with an easy setup is helpful, regardless of your business size. Startups have busy schedules, so mastering a new system may slip by the wayside.

Meanwhile, enterprise businesses require something their staff can use easily, so they don’t miss a beat. So select a simple CRM to set up so you can start using it straight away.

We recommend testing the CRM app before committing, using the free trials and demos on offer with leading tools.

Integration

Most businesses rely on multiple applications to carry out their daily activities. Selecting a CRM that can integrate with other critical company systems is important.

For instance, you can integrate your CRM system with e-commerce platforms, email, accounting software, and other programs. Don’t forget to think about the tools you’ll develop as well.

Pricing

Your resources are most likely restricted if you’re a small startup or developing firm. Unlike large corporate firms, you don’t have $3,000 per month to spend on the software tools your company needs to grow.

And thus, price becomes a concern. You want to discover the best CRM for your small business without going over budget. We’ve ensured that we included CRMs for various budgets — plus, there are some free options available too.

Support

It would not be smart to ignore your CRM solution provider’s after-sales process. You’ll depend on the provider for customer service and assistance for as long as you use the tool.

Help desk teams and customer support must be accessible round-the-clock by all channels and means — phone, tickets, email, live chat, social media, mobile, etc.

Online Reviews

Looking at online reviews is an excellent way to narrow your search for the best CRM software. We’ve helped by including leading pros and cons for each of the market’s top 10 CRMs.

CRM FAQs