Best CRM For Startups to Scale in 2024

What is a CRM for startups?

A CRM is more than just software—it's an investment in your startup's growth. A CRM empowers your sales team to nurture leads and close deals faster by providing a user-friendly platform, affordable pricing, and comprehensive features. This powerful shift can transform customer record management into a streamlined and centralized system. 

Forget complex interfaces and lengthy setup times. Startup-friendly CRMs boast intuitive UIs that are easy to learn and navigate, ensuring everyone on your team can quickly adopt and derive value without needing technical expertise. Quick implementation is key for startups moving at breakneck speed. These out-of-the-box CRMs eliminate the need for lengthy

onboarding processes, allowing you to reap the benefits of a CRM almost instantly and accelerate higher adoption across your sales team.

Startup-focused CRMs offer affordable pricing plans that fit your growing needs, ensuring you have a powerful tool without straining your resources. You can now manage all stages of your sales funnel within a single platform. Easily generate leads seamlessly through web forms, gain a unified view of your prospects to assess their fit, prospect better through lead scoring and automate your outreach for faster conversion. With multi-channel engagement features, you can personalize communication across various channels and build stronger relationships with potential customers. 

Plus, with AI-powered insights guiding your sales pipeline, you can close high-value deals more easily. You'll have access to 24/7 expert assistance to ensure your team can maximize the CRM's potential and resolve any questions whenever they arise. 

What features should startups look for in a CRM?

When choosing a CRM for a startup, finding a system that accommodates your current needs and scales with the business's growth is crucial. The ideal CRM should streamline operations and provide insights that drive strategic decisions. 

Key features to look for include efficient lead management, comprehensive communication tools, detailed reporting and analytics, intuitive sales pipeline tracking, flexible integration, and customization options.

Lead management

Lead management helps startups capture, manage, and nurture leads until they become customers. CRM systems automate the process of identifying potential leads from various channels, organize them based on their stages in the sales funnel, and enable timely follow-ups. This feature is essential for efficiently maintaining an organized approach to scaling customer bases.

Communication tools

Effective communication tools within a CRM allow startups to engage and interact with customers and prospects seamlessly across multiple channels. Communication tools can include built-in phone, email outreach, live chat capabilities, and automated responses. Continuous engagement helps in improving conversion rates.

Reporting and analytics

Reporting and analytics offer insights needed to make informed decisions. A robust CRM offers customizable reports and dashboards that track key performance indicators (KPIs) such as sales trends, customer behavior, and campaign effectiveness. CRM analytics help startups better understand their market, optimize strategies, and forecast future sales.

Sales pipeline tracking

Sales pipeline tracking gives startups a visual overview of prospects' progress in the sales process. It allows teams to monitor deals in progress, identify bottlenecks, and prioritize efforts on the most promising opportunities. Effective sales pipeline management is crucial for forecasting sales and managing resources efficiently.

Cost

Finally, cost is a significant consideration for startups when selecting a CRM. Finding a solution that offers the necessary features within budget constraints without compromising on quality or scalability is essential. Many CRMs offer tiered pricing plans, free versions, or pay-as-you-go options to accommodate the financial realities of growing businesses.

Why can’t my startup use a spreadsheet instead of a CRM?

1. A spreadsheet can be duplicated, deleted, or even lost

When your team uses a list or spreadsheet to manage customer relationships, the document will likely be copied one more time by your team members. The result of this is confusion: no one knows which version is correct or which version is the latest. Even worse, the document may be lost or deleted by mistake.

2. Spreadsheets and lists can become confusing

A spreadsheet or list might work well in the early days of a start-up, but unfortunately, they don’t scale well. They get confusing fast as your team adds products, needs to sort by demographics, or needs to add new fields.

3. Spreadsheets aren’t secure

One of the worst things about being able to copy a spreadsheet is that those copies can end up anywhere. You don’t know who might get their hands on one. And if that spreadsheet or list has sensitive customer information, that is a disaster waiting to happen.

4. Spreadsheets offer limited pipeline visibility

A list is just that—a list. Without dashboards, you’re unable to see your pipeline at a glance, which means your team can’t see the complete picture: which deals are lagging, which need attention, and which are most likely to close.

5. There is no automation

Sure, a spreadsheet has formulas, but those can get complicated, and they can’t send an email out to a lead or assign a lead to the right rep. Without automation, someone has to do all that work manually.

6. Not everyone can see them

The sales spreadsheet may not be shared with marketing or any other departments needing visibility into the sales pipeline. This means you lack valuable information the marketing team has.

7. You need several tools to do the job of one

When you use a list or spreadsheet to manage customer interactions, you also use various other tools: email, messengers, the phone, and other solutions. Your team is switching manually between tools, which is both a waste of time and a way that information can be lost.

8. Customer information is scattered across several solutions

Relying on multiple sales tools prevents customer information from being stored in one place. It’s in inboxes, email threads, and social media. Without a unified view of your customer, you’re lacking important information.

9. You are scoring your own leads

Do you know how good your leads are? With a spreadsheet or a list, you lack context. Your leads are just names in a list, and your sales team may waste time chasing deals that aren’t likely to close.

10. You can get a better tool at a reasonable cost

The best argument for using a spreadsheet or Notion to track customer engagement is price, but when comprehensive CRM options are available for as low as $9, it no longer makes sense to settle for a spreadsheet or list.

Why should startups use CRM software?

Startups generally rely on spreadsheets or use a basic lead tracking tool for managing contacts. They may also juggle different tools for emails, phone calls and analytics. With limited resources and faster lead flow, startups cannot afford a slow pace of sales operations. They need to focus on easy-to-use, quick-to-deploy software solutions that fit their budget. What if there was a way to have affordable and advanced contact management, lead tracking, pipeline management, and personalized outreach to help you fast track your early business status? Let’s review some of the positives of using CRM software for your startup:

1. Identify high-quality leads

Startups cannot afford to spend time on low quality leads that do not convert. A good CRM assists with better prospecting by allowing your team to profile the leads based on their conversation history, interest and other demographic data. You can also capture lead information using web forms that capture lead information and save it to your CRM, where a score is assigned to each lead based on their engagement with your business, telling you how likely a lead is to convert. 

This information means your salespeople are only spending time on the leads that are a good fit for your product rather than clogging your pipeline with deals unlikely to close.

2. See all your deals at a glance

As a startup, you need complete, real-time visibility into your pipeline. An AI-powered CRM gives you a visual overview of all the deals in the pipeline, with tags such as “likely to close”, “at risk”, and “gone cold”. Having this visual picture allows you to do the following: 

• Track the progress on each deal throughout the sales pipeline

• Gain a quick understanding of the status of deals

• Focus on the deals that will bring you the most profit

• Identify and resolve bottlenecks in the pipeline

• Determine which deals are likely to close and where you need to dedicate more resources

This lets you keep your pipeline healthy and moving forward.

3. Quick, automated responses

About 82% of buyers expect an immediate response from businesses. 

Even more concerning, 62% of buyers define “immediate” as 10 minutes or less. So, no matter how small your sales team is, your response has to be speedy. 

One of the benefits of a CRM is that it can help you keep up with customer expectations, leveraging a chatbot for immediate responses and simple conversations. 

For queries that require human intervention, the chatbot can direct the query to a specified sales rep. A CRM with an auto-assign feature can also help you organize your team by assigning certain leads to specific reps.

4. Improve conversion rates

As a startup, you constantly try to increase sales. A CRM can help you boost your conversion rate.

For example, by tracking your prospects’ behavior on your site, you can tell where they’re dropping off and where they are entering your sales funnel. You can use this data to minimize the drop-off points, improving your website experience for more conversions.

5. Break down silos

A good CRM provides a unified view of all customer activity and shows all data collected by a startup’s sales and marketing teams, including:

• Prospects’ behavior on your site and in apps

• Emails, call recordings, and chat conversations

• Marketing materials the customer downloaded and engaged with

• Each salesperson’s notes, upcoming appointments and meetings

• How likely they are to convert

• Suggestions for the next-best actions

This 360° view aligns sales, marketing, and support teams and allows everyone interacting with that customer to provide a consistent and personalized customer experience. 

6. Expand revenue by upselling and cross-selling 

It’s much harder to sell to a new customer than it is to sell to an existing customer; you’re 60-70% more likely to sell more to existing customers. They already know and trust your brand.

However, cross-selling and upselling only succeed when you target the right people. With a CRM giving you visibility on their level of engagement with your business, you can see who might be interested in buying more from you. For example, you can tell that a customer subscribed to your standard plan is likely ready to upgrade to a higher plane if they visit your pricing page.

7. Boost customer satisfaction

Customers expect a lot these days, especially from new startups without an established brand presence. They expect your team to know their business challenges and to personalize every interaction. A CRM can help your team do that by aligning all your teams, reducing response times, and helping your company speak with one voice.

8. Improve sales efficiency

Startups with small sales teams don’t have time to spare on redundant tasks. A CRM can streamline your sales process by allowing reps to do all their work inside the platform and automating redundant tasks.

9. Fast decision-making

The analytics a CRM provides give you insights into your customers’ behavior, your sales team’s performance, and your pipeline. All of that information means you can make faster, more informed decisions.

10. Increased security

A CRM is designed to be secure and is a safer place for customer information than a document can ever be. The security controls used by a CRM can help you protect your business from fraud and other security threats.

The best CRM for startups (2024 comparison)

Startups face unique challenges when it comes to sales. They often operate with a small team, a small budget, and a lot of passion for their product. With that sort of do-it-yourself attitude, it’s tempting for startups to use spreadsheets to manage sales, but that’s not a good idea. Startups need to generate revenue quickly to scale, and to do that, they should use a CRM system that can keep up with your company’s growth.

1. Freshsales CRM

Freshsales is an AI-powered, easy-to-use CRM platform that helps your salespeople generate high-quality leads, manage customer records efficiently, visualize the sales pipeline, set up outreach, and automate sales activities. With Freshsales CRM, startups can organize better, sell smarter, close deals faster, and scale stronger.

Freshsales CRM is a compelling solution for startups seeking to streamline their sales processes and boost efficiency. 

Key features

Free plan for unlimited users: You might have a small sales team now, but as your business grows, you’ll want a CRM that can accommodate a larger sales team, possibly more than one sales team. Freshsales offers a free plan with advanced features for unlimited users.

Sales management: No need to use a spreadsheet or spend money you don’t have on an extensive CRM system. Use Freshsales to create, manage, and track the sales pipelines of all your sales teams. Forecast sales revenue, track sales goals, and use collaboration tools like Slack to communicate with your reps.

Built-in telephony: Your team needs to compete with large companies, so minimize the time they spend switching between apps with telephony. Every Freshsales plan, includes a built-in phone system.

Workflow automation: Every minute counts for a small sales Organization, so automate time-consuming tasks. Freshsales automatically assigns leads, contacts, and chat conversations to the right salespeople using defined criteria like skill level and bandwidth.

Pros and cons

Pros

• Sales Process Visualizations: Easily see your pipeline, all your deals, and what actions have been taken on each. 

• Integration: Integrate with all the apps you already use. 

• Customer Service: Our customer service will answer your questions, so you can get back to what you do best: sales.

• Ease of Use: Hit the ground running with our easy-to-use interface.

Cons

• Automation: Freshsales’s free version doesn’t allow for automated workflows; however, it still contains plenty of features for free users.

• Limited pipelines: Free users get just one pipeline, but higher-tier plans offer multiple pipelines. In the meantime, free users are able to get several views of their existing pipeline.

• Sales activities: Custom sales activities are only available to paid users, but free users can create custom fields.

Is there a free version?

Most startup CRM software does not offer a free plan. However, Freshsales offers a free Plan. The free version includes features such as contact management, deal management, and built-in telephony. 

Freshsales also offers a free 21-day trial that allows you to try out the premium features associated with other pricing plans. This way, you know what you’re getting into before paying for the product.

How is it rated?

8.2 out of 10 on TrustRadius

4.5 stars. 1075 reviews on G2

2. Bigin

Bigin by Zoho CRM is Zoho’s product for startups and small businesses who might not need a large, complex CRM platform. Rather than being a stripped-down version of Zoho CRM, Bigin is its own platform, designed specifically for smaller teams.

Key features

Mobile app: Bigin is a mobile-first solution designed to be used on a phone or tablet; however, many other CRMs offer a mobile app as well. 

Integrations: As with other CRMs, Bigin integrates with cloud-based workspaces such as Microsoft Office 365 and Google G-Suite, specifically with email and scheduling.

Pros and cons

Pros

• Mobile app

• Pricing

• Integrations

Cons

• According to customer reviews, Bigin customization

• Learning Curve: The product can take a while for users to learn.

Is there a free version?

Yes, Bigin offers a free plan, although it is only for one user and offers limited features. For more add-ons, you’ll have to upgrade to a paid plan. This can make Bigin a poor choice for startups with more than one employee.

3. Zendesk Sell

Zendesk Sell is a sales member of the Zendesk software family. Offering the sales team a view across the entire buyer’s journey, Zendesk Sell also offers analytics and options for customizations.

Key features

Marketing automation: Offers automation specifically for marketing, such as email marketing and lead management. This is available from other CRMs as well. 

Interface: Zendesk Sell offers visibility of customer interactions, a simple interface, as well as drag-and-drop analytics dashboards; however, other CRMs also offer the same ease of use with their interfaces.

Pros and cons

Pros

• User interface

• Sales process visualization

• Automations

Cons

• Customer support: Support can be slow getting back to customers. 

• Technical difficulties: Customers report glitches that slow down the CRM. 

• Learning Curve: Installation can be complicated for new users.

Is there a free version?

Zendesk Sell does not offer a free plan, but it does offer a 30-day free trial. The next pricing plan is priced at $19 per user per month. The cost adds up quickly as startups scale.

4. Pipedrive

Pipedrive’s claim to fame is that it was designed for salespeople by salespeople. This CRM’s interface is focused on the actions your sales team has to take to close deals. It also uses a visual interface to track deals in the pipeline. While it allows teams to tailor their experience using features like custom fields, many users complain about manual data entry, saying that Pipedrive’s automations don’t work. If automation is an important feature for your startup, you might want to look for other CRMs that offer better automation.

Key features

Activity-based: Pipedrive’s task management system is based on specific sales activities reps need to do, such as calls, emails, follow-ups, and demos. Other CRMs, however, allow for customization of sales activities. 

Templates: Pipedrive offers email templates to help sales teams quickly create email campaigns, although other CRMs offer more comprehensive templates. 

Pros and cons

Pros

• Sales process visualization

• Activity-based

• Collaborative

Cons

• Integration issues: Customers report integrations being buggy or not working.

• Not user-friendly: Customers describe the interface and dashboards as complicated and confusing. Startups may want to consider a CRM with a less complex interface.

Is there a free version?

No, Pipedrive doesn't offer a free plan. There is a free 14-day trial, but after that, pricing tiers start at $14.90 per user per month.

5. Copper CRM

Copper CRM is designed to integrate with sales teams that use Google Workspace, integrating with Google’s business tools, making for easy email integration and compatibility with Google Calendar and the Chrome browser. This means that contacts are automatically populated in the CRM. Additionally, the CRM integrates seamlessly with other Google offerings. However, it’s light on features that aren’t Google-related.

Key features

Google compatibility: If your sales team lives on Google Workspace, Copper CRM integrates quickly and easily, if not, however, you may want to consider another CRM. 

Simplicity: Copper isn’t complex, making it easy to use for reps, but its simplicity can work against it if your team needs more features. Other CRMs offer more functionalities and integrations. 

Pros and cons

Pros

• User-Friendly

• Organized data

• Collaborative

Cons

• Customer support: Customer support is reported to be unresponsive. 

Is there a free version?

No. Copper CRM doesn’t offer a free version, starting at $23 per user per month. Additionally, some of the features are only available with some of the more expensive plans.

6. Monday CRM

Monday Sales CRM is template-based, allowing users to customize their boards to meet their business needs. Monday also boasts automated workflows, although some users report that the automation doesn't always work.

Key features

Task management: Given that Monday is rooted in project management, it’s no surprise that it excels at task management and project management. However, other CRMs provide the same functionality with more of a sales focus. 

Dashboards: Monday CRM offers an array of templates to help customize your dashboards; however, those templates can be overwhelming for those who want a clean, easy-to-use dashboard.

Pros and cons

Pros

• Collaborative

• Organized data

• User Interface

Cons

• Takes time to set up: Installation and creating new automation workflows can be slow.

• Expensive: Customers must purchase at least 3 licenses, making Monday CRM an impractical choice for very small businesses. Startups may want to consider a free plan instead.

Is there a free version?

Not really. The only free Monday Sales CRM plans available are for students and nonprofits, although there is a free 14-day plan. The next pricing tier starts at $10 per user per month.

7. Hubspot

Hubspot CRM is a CRM that combines sales and marketing features, which makes sense, considering that Hubspot started as a marketing and content platform. HubSpot’s CRM platform offers automated email marketing, content management, project management, and customer support options.

Key features

Segmentation: Hubspot allows you to segment customers using criteria like behavior and demographic data. However, other CRMs offer greater ease of use. 

Analytics: Unsurprisingly, Hubspot’s built-marketing analytics are rated highly by users and can be useful to teams that need to manage both sales and marketing campaigns. That said, other CRMs also incorporate marketing analytics. 

Pros and cons

Pros

• Sales Process

• Organization

• Sales Team Support

• User-Friendly

• Collaborative

Cons

• Slow: The interface and integrations can be sluggish.

• Learning Curve: Setup can be clunky.

• Expensive: Smaller businesses may not be able to afford this product and should look for a free plan. 

Is there a free version?

Hubspot offers a free plan with limited features, including list segmentation, five email templates, telephony, and integrations. The next pricing tier-up is priced at $30 a month. This means startups can’t really get a feel of the CRM until they pay for it.

8. Insightly

Insightly is a platform that offers a robust set of lead generation tools, as well as email marketing, custom dashboards, and analytics.

Key features

Lead routing: Assign leads to the right salespeople as soon as they come into the CRM. An automatic lead assignment is available from other CRMs, however. 

Email marketing: Send emails in bulk, track messages, and create emails right inside the CRM. Integration with email is also available from other CRMs. 

Pros and cons

Pros

• Sales Process

• User-Friendly

• Collaborative

• Navigation

• Organization

Cons

• Customization: It can be difficult to customize Insightly without help from customer support. 

• Learning Curve: Learning the CRM takes time. 

Is there a free version?

Insightly offers a free plan, but it’s only for two users and supports just 10 emails a day. The next pricing tier-up is priced at $29 per user per month.

9. Salesforce Essentials

Salesforce Essentials is a pared-down version of the larger Salesforce CRM, aimed at startups and small businesses, offering access to the Salesforce technology stack at a fraction of the price. This version of Salesforce is, however, limited to just ten users.

Key features

Easy set-up: Unlike its massive older sibling, teams can set up this version of Salesforce without calling in outside experts. However, several other CRMs are lauded for greater ease of use. 

Access to the Salesforce ecosystem: If you can’t afford Salesforce, normally you don’t get access to all its add-ons and partners. Essentials allows small businesses entry to the Salesforce world but that world is not everything: many other CRMs offer large libraries of integrations. 

Pros and cons

Pros

• Sales Process

• Sales Team Support

• Organization

• User-Friendly

• Collaborative

Cons

• Limited Features: Features are minimal compared to paid versions and other CRMs. 

• Expensive: While Salesforce Essentials is less expensive than Sales Cloud, it’s still pricey for small businesses that might be better served by a free CRM.

• Not scalable: Salesforce Essentials allows up to five agents, but once more agents are added, the next tier is priced at $80 per user per month, making it impractical for startups. 

Is there a free version?

Salesforce Essentials starts at $25 per agent per month. The company offers a 30-day free trial, but no free plan. If your startup scales, the next tier up is significantly more expensive.

10. Pipefy

Automations are central to Pipefy, which is not, strictly speaking, a CRM. Instead, Pipefy is a workflow management platform that can be made into a CRM using a template.

Key features

Automated workflows: Automation is Pipefy’s bread and butter. Its fast-to-deploy, no-code, automated workflows help take complex, tedious tasks off the shoulders of your team. Simpler automations, however, are available from more sales-focused platforms. 

Pros and cons

Pros

• Several Functionalities in One App

• Saves Time

• Automated Workflows

Cons

• Limited features: Fields have limited functionalities and could use a custom fields feature. 

• Learning Curve: Users report a steep learning curve when learning how to use Pipefy.

• Not a CRM: At its heart, Pipefy seems designed for automation, not sales. 

Is there a free version?

Pipefy offers a free plan for small teams and individuals. The next tier-up is priced at $25 per user per month.

11. Bitrix24

Britrix24 is not truly a CRM. Instead, it’s a business management workspace that includes a CRM functionality. Other tools include task and project management tools, chats, video calls, website builder, telephony, as well as CRM marketing and analytics.

Key features

Customizable: As an open-source solution, Bitrix is highly customizable, but it is not a true CRM.

A unified solution: With several functionalities, Bitrix24 is a good solution for a small business that needs several kinds of business management software in one package. Other businesses may be better served by a true CRM.

Pros and cons

Pros

• Collaborative

• Several functionalities in one app

• Saves time

Cons

• Slow: Users report a slow mobile app, as well as glitches in the platform. 

• Not User Friendly: The user interface is not intuitive, resulting in a long learning curve. 

• Customization: Customizing the interface is difficult and can take a long time.

Startup CRM ratings and reviews

Source: G2

How much does a startup CRM cost?

CRM platforms are available at several price points. The cost can range from $9 per user a month to more than $300 per user per month, depending on the software itself, the features you need, and the package you select.