Every business can benefit from a great customer relationship management (CRM) software suite. But it’s particularly valuable for startups. In the early phases, you need to wear as many hats as possible while getting established. The right CRM can take some of the pressure off, freeing you to focus on building brand recognition, a customer base, and a solid revenue stream. The right CRM can help you more effectively find prospects and customers, manage fundraising efforts, build customer relationships, and remain organized on a daily basis. Even better, CRM software suites grow with you, making it easy to scale the software alongside your business.
Less juggling and more productivity—that’s what these five amazing CRM options for startups have to offer.
CRMDialer
Automate your busy work, make calls, and send texts right from the CRM and take in-call notes automatically with CRMDialer. This sales platform is designed to help businesses of all sizes communicate faster using various methods to best reach their customers, clients, and prospects. Other features include visitor tracking, online payment capabilities, and local presence, which customizes your outgoing number to the location you’re calling for improved answer rates.
In addition to the power-packed feature lineup, this CRM also offers a 14-day free trial and three paid plans. Each plan gives access to unlimited users for a simple monthly fee, with three different levels to grow with your business.
ClickUp
This startup management CRM software suite allows you to organize all accounts, get a holistic view of clients, and manage sales pipelines with automatic task assignments. It also offers features like dashboards to visualize key customer data and team performance quickly, reminders, the ability to send and receive emails, integrate with Zoom, use templates for account and customer management, and automate workflows.
One of the biggest benefits of this CRM is its "Free Forever" plan, which includes unlimited users. Additionally, it integrates with Google Apps, has a chat function for team collaboration, and supports multiple platforms, including Microsoft Windows, Apple, and Linux.
HubSpot CRM
HubSpot CRM is a popular option among businesses of all sizes. It has powerful tools to help you with marketing, customer service, sales, operations, and more. Its features include lead generation and more. HubSpot offers a free version for unlimited users and core features that include lead generation, sales tracking, website marketing, deal management, and landing page creation. Although it does offer many of the features you want and need, the free version does limit the number of calls, emails, and contacts you can add.
Premium plans are available in multiple levels, with many different products, plans, and bundles that can meet your business’s specific needs. HubSpot also offers a CRM geared specifically toward startups, with incentives that can take up to 90% off the cost of the first year.
Zoho CRM
If you're looking for a full lineup of features designed to support workplace collaboration — both in and out of the office — and an interface that you can customize, you might consider Zoho's CRM for your startup. You can customize the interface using Canvas and leverage the power of other Zoho tools that integrate with the system. These tools cover essential functions like finance and human resources (HR). In-CRM features include deal management, lead generation, analytics, pipeline management, and workflow automation.
Zoho offers a completely free option, along with several low-cost, startup-friendly plans. Anyone unsure can take this CRM software suite for a test drive for 14 days without any credit card required.
Insightly
This CRM streamlines all processes, but it truly shines when it comes to project management. Features like milestone tracking and process management help make sure your startup delivers on time every time. Additional features include task tracking, workflow management, lead routing, email marketing, calendar syncing, and visual reporting. It also integrates with popular apps like Slack and QuickBooks to help you do more all in one spot.
Insightly offers a free plan and a free 14-day trial. Paid plans start at a low per user, per month fee. Email support is included, but if you want support by phone, that will cost more.
