Best Sales Apps for Small Businesses

Best CRM apps

There are many benefits of customer relationship management (CRM) software, but the right CRM for your business depends on your needs and budget. Here’s an overview of two excellent options to consider. 

Zoho CRM

Summary: Zoho provides outstanding features, including artificial intelligence, single-click dialing, customer portals and collaboration tools. Our Zoho CRM review explains why this CRM platform is an excellent option for small businesses and organizations with remote teams. 

Pricing: Zoho’s monthly subscription tiers are priced per user per month and reflect a discount for annual billing. 

• Standard: $14
• Professional: $23
• Enterprise: $40
• Ultimate: $52

HubSpot CRM

Summary: HubSpot is an intuitive CRM platform that’s easy to set up and customize. Our HubSpot CRM review details its numerous integrations and top-notch CRM analytics and reporting tools.  

Pricing: These HubSpot monthly prices reflect a discount for paying annually.

• Free Tools: Free (foundational tools to get small businesses started)
• Starter: $15 
• Professional: $1,080 

Best team communication and collaboration apps

The following apps support team communication, including among sales teams, in the office or remotely.

Slack

Summary: Slack is a great team instant-messaging tool for one-on-one chats, group discussions and team meetings. It also includes file storage and video chat tools. 

Pricing: These Slack monthly prices reflect a discount for annual billing.

• Free: Free (limited tools)
• Pro: $7.25
• Business+: $12.50
• Enterprise Grid: Custom pricing

Microsoft Teams

Summary: Microsoft Teams is a video conferencing and team messaging app that allows for screen sharing, file sharing, shared workflows and more. It comes with all Microsoft 365 plans.

Pricing: Microsoft Teams is part of the Microsoft 365 suite, so it’s free for Microsoft 365 users.

Best task and project management apps

These task and project management apps are great for your sales team and other departments, including marketing.

Basecamp

Summary: Basecamp is an excellent project management tool that can help you send notifications, create message boards, store files and much more. Basecamp is also considered among the best project management apps for teams.

Pricing: Basecamp has two paid tiers:

• Basecamp: $15 per user per month (pay as you go; includes 500GB of storage)
• Basecamp Pro Unlimited: $299 per month (billed annually) or $349 (billed monthly); unlimited users, 5TB of storage and priority customer support

Trello

Summary: Trello is a project management app with extensive customization features. It allows you to manage projects or tasks with user labels, integrations, visual tracking and more.

Pricing: The Trello pricing below is per user per month and reflects a discount for annual billing.  

• Free: Free; 10 boards per team and unlimited storage (10MB per file)
• Standard: $5; unlimited boards and unlimited storage (250MB per file)
• Premium: $10; all Standard plan benefits, plus admin and security features
• Enterprise: $17.50; all Premium plan benefits, plus unlimited workspaces and more

monday

Summary: monday’s work management platform simplifies project management, collaboration and portfolio management. More than 200 ready-to-go templates and workflows are available, and you can track project progress with color-coded labels.

Pricing: These prices reflect a discount for annual billing. 

• Free: $0 (two users) 
• Basic: $9 per user per month
• Standard: $12 per user per month
• Pro: $19 per user per month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Best note-taking apps

The following note-taking apps can help sales teams take, organize and sync notes.

Evernote

Summary: Evernote is a note-taking and note-creation app that offers syncing between devices, annotations, presentation mode and more. Higher-level Evernote tiers include collaboration features.

Pricing: The following prices are monthly. (Check online for discounts.)

• Basic: Free
• Personal: $14.99
• Professional: $17.99
• Teams: $24.99

Notes Plus

Summary: Notes Plus is a handwriting recognition app with features that include palm rejection, shape recognition and text exporting. You can also set the color and style of your handwriting so your text appears more familiar to you.

Pricing: Notes Plus costs $12.99; it’s a one-time purchase, not a subscription.

Best document management apps

Document management apps are valuable for sales teams that are striving to create a paperless office. 

Microsoft SharePoint

Summary: Microsoft SharePoint supports seamless collaboration with features such as folder sharing, information rights management, team sites, file sync and co-authoring for your reports, archives, documents and other content. 

Pricing: Microsoft SharePoint has two options. Prices shown are per user per month and reflect an annual subscription. 

• SharePoint (Plan 1): $5
• Microsoft 365 Business Standard: $12.50 

M-Files

Summary: M-Files is a document management app that’s renowned for its ease of use. Our M-Files review details the app’s features, including version control, workflow automation, optical character recognition and image scanning. 

Pricing: All M-Files pricing plans are customized. Contact the company for a quote. 

Types of sales apps

There are multiple categories of apps that can help sales teams streamline their operations and improve communication. 

• CRM apps: CRM apps streamline sales, marketing and customer service work. The best CRM platforms are customizable to suit your business’s specific needs.
• Team communication and collaboration apps: Collaboration tools and communication apps facilitate quicker, more organized team interactions. They help managers and team members connect, work together and stay on the same page. 
• Task and project management apps: Project management software helps you divide your team’s tasks into projects, set deadlines and specify individual team member assignments.
• Note-taking apps: Note-taking apps include platforms for creating and organizing traditional text notes. They also include some of the best handwriting recognition apps, which convert notes taken by hand on mobile devices into legible text.
• Document management apps: Proper digital document management and organization technology are crucial in today’s cloud-centered world. The best document management software makes it effortless to create, edit, store, archive and retrieve documents.
• Travel apps: The best business travel apps help professionals streamline work and travel plans and stay productive while on the go.
• Presentation apps: PowerPoint isn’t the only game in town. A wide variety of business presentation tools beyond PowerPoint can help you create engaging visual presentations to wow clients. 

Sales apps can fill a gap

Whether you’re looking to streamline sales, improve customer relations or revise team processes, sales apps can help. However, it’s crucial to understand your needs when you’re adding new tools. Match any potential sales app’s features to your business’s requirements, and find a solution that works within your budget. 

Apps can help you elevate your processes and gain new customers. It’s all a matter of doing your research and choosing the right ones.

Jane Godiner contributed to this article.