Best CRM Software of 2025

Keeping track of customer needs in an organized way, at scale, can be daunting. CRM software helps your team understand your customers’ needs better by establishing individual client profiles for each of them and then tracking all interactions they have with your team members. It can also help to improve customer experience by providing sales and marketing teams with valuable information on your customers, increasing their ability to capture new leads, drive conversions and close deals.

CRM software is intended to simplify the process of creating client profiles and tracking interactions with them. This image shows the contact board of monday Sales CRM, complete with a contact’s company, title, and phone number, along with their priority, their company’s lead type, and the date of a next scheduled interaction with the client. (Source: Monday.com) 

CRM, or customer relationship management, software is a computer program that can help your sales teams log communications with potential and existing customers, manage leads and sometimes build marketing campaigns. In other words, a CRM allows you to foster and maintain relationships with your customers.

Businesses use CRM software for various reasons. Initially, the CRM industry was geared primarily toward sales and PR professionals, offering a convenient way for them to store information and track communications with prospects and customers. Today, CRM solutions straddle several areas, such as marketing, analytics, communications and light project management. Some CRM systems even have built-in chatbots and calling capabilities, letting your team communicate with clients directly from the system.

Organizations that need a digital way to manage their customer pipeline, nurture client relationships, and coordinate between their sales and marketing teams use CRM systems. Usage spans sectors, from retail businesses to service companies and across both B2B and B2C enterprises.

Many CRM platforms come with third-party app integrations to extend their functionality and provide support to customers’ preferred tools. Pictured is a view of Zendesk’s app directory, which features integrations with a range of popular external tools. (Source: Zendesk)

CRM software provides a central digital location where your employees can log all customer communications, track sale deals and build marketing campaigns. This offers businesses a range of abilities and advantages. Below are some of the top benefits of using a CRM.

• Organize and maintain customer information. CRM software is ideal for companies that rely on up-to-date data to service their customers. This is the most basic yet essential benefit that CRM software can provide for your business — an easily accessible database of customer information.
• Streamline and scale your sales cycle. With the data you collect via your CRM system, you can streamline your sales process and cut out unnecessary steps. As the program tracks sales behavior and outcomes, you’ll see which types of communication work and which don’t. When you need to expand your sales process, a CRM solution can help with that, too.
• Build customer relationships. CRM software helps your team engage and build lasting connections with potential and existing customers. Using the data stored in your CRM, your team can track customer information and cater their interactions to meet each client’s unique needs and preferences.
• Automate your workflows. CRM software automates data entry and administrative tasks, allowing your team to focus on building meaningful customer relationships. CRM workflow automation also minimizes the potential for human error and makes your business operate more efficiently. [Find out the difference between automation and machine learning.]
• Forecast your sales. CRM software allows you to predict future sales based on past sales data. Sales reports generated by your CRM and the insights you glean from them are valuable for companies that want to project future needs and costs.

Most CRM software is priced on a per-user, per-month basis. Many businesses opt for annual billing to simplify the payment process and save money, as most CRM vendors reduce their monthly rates for clients who pay annually.

With that in mind, these are the general subscription costs you can expect when shopping for a CRM system.

• $0: Free CRMs are worth considering for brand-new businesses and independent contractors who are getting started with this type of platform. Most free plans include a very limited set of CRM features and user accounts. Ultimately, they can be a good way to learn how to organize customer outreach and begin using modern sales tools, but they’re not a long-term solution for most businesses.
• $10 to $15: Inexpensive CRMs are a great option for tiny businesses with modest needs. Many providers charge only $10 to $15 per user per month for these products. Affordable systems like these don’t usually require much in-house tech support to implement the CRM. If you want a fast CRM solution with just the essential tools and minimal hassle, this price range is a great place to find one. Just make sure the storage options meet your needs, as low-cost CRM software usually has caps on the number of customer records you can store.
• $20 to $40: For features beyond the basics and a broader range of integrations with third-party systems, a CRM in the realm of $20 to $40 per user per month will likely meet your needs. The majority of CRM software we reviewed falls into this price range because they’re designed to meet the needs of small and medium-sized businesses. As you consider platforms at this cost, check for limitations on the number of supported users and storage caps that could force you to upgrade to higher-priced plans.
• $50 to $75: CRM software that costs between $50 and $75 per user per month is typically intended for large businesses. Such solutions often include options to integrate with legacy systems and allow greater customization than less expensive CRM software. As powerful as they are, systems like these are not necessary for most small businesses.
• $250 or more: The most high-end CRM systems and their vendors often provide extensive training, customization and implementation services with the software. Another reason for the steep cost of these solutions is that they usually aren’t cloud-based services. Instead, they are hosted locally, which is helpful for organizations with unique security needs.

CRM providers usually break down their services into packages that vary in features and costs. For example, a vendor may have multiple plans that range in price from $20 to $40 per user per month based on the tools included. Beyond this monthly subscription cost, there may be fees for additional users, more records, implementation, custom onboarding and phone support. Some vendors also offer add-on services (like Pipedrive’s lead-boosting tool) that, while appealing and valuable, can increase your expenses.

Not all CRM software is created equal. The steps below will help you choose a CRM system that suits your business and integrates seamlessly into your existing workflow.

1. Set a budget.

CRM costs range from free to upward of $1,000 per month, so it’s best to set your budget before you start shopping. Consider how much you can realistically afford to spend each month for this continuing service. As you search the market, eliminating CRM software outside your price range will help you narrow down your options before you drill down into feature sets and service plans.

2. Make a feature list.

The number of tools and functions in even the most basic CRM system can be overwhelming. For clarity, list the CRM features you must have and those that would be nice to have but aren’t crucial. This is a good time to survey employees in your company who will use the CRM. They may recommend features you hadn’t thought of or cross off ones you thought they would need.

3. Gather referrals from businesses like yours.

In a crowded sales technology market, choosing the right CRM can be daunting.  Recommendations from people who understand the needs of your industry from the inside are invaluable. If you don’t personally know anyone who can give you a referral, reading user testimonials on sites like TrustRadius can be helpful.

4. Assess the current market.

The CRM space changes rapidly as technology evolves, so high-profile solutions you’ve heard of in the past may no longer be the best choice. Small business advice websites like Business News Daily and trade publications are the best way to see what’s currently popular and what’s not. Look for recommendation guides like this one that can point you to the best products.

5. Test your top choices.

At this point, you should be able to narrow down the list of possibilities based on your budget, desired features, referrals and testimonials, and professional recommendations. You’ll have a sense of which CRM software has the most potential, so take each one of the remaining contenders for a test drive.

Most providers offer free trials, so try as many programs as your team is interested in before spending money on a permanent solution. Vendor sales reps are usually eager to answer any questions you have or show you a demo of their product, but remember that it’s their job to present their CRM in the best light possible. Using the software yourself is the best way to see if the performance matches the hype.

6. Make your decision.

Once you’ve done your due diligence, it’s time to make a final selection. Which CRM checked all your boxes and performed best under testing? It may take a while to arrive at this answer, but it’s time well spent on such an important investment.

When searching for CRM software, it’s important to know what kind of functionality you want and need. Here are the essential features you’ll find in most CRM systems.

Contact Management

Contact management tools allow you to collect information about your customers and build customer profiles. You can then segment customers into different client groups, identify patterns and trends across your customer base, and tailor your services accordingly. You can also use contact management features to communicate with customers and track all interactions.

Lead Management

As your business generates leads, you need ways to store and evaluate them. Lead management tools can help you develop a lead pipeline and qualify those leads. With lead scoring, you can identify which prospective customers are the most promising.

Deal Management

Your sales team will continually determine which leads to pursue, and you’ll need a way to monitor where each lead is in the sales process. Deal management features allow you to see which leads are in the closing stages and which opportunities need more effort.

Marketing Tools

The best CRM systems include marketing tools that aid sales conversion. Many programs, for example, include email templates that target prospects at different stages of the sales process or let you personalize messaging. Some integrate with social media platforms, allowing you to optimize your posts to better reach your desired audience. These features enable your marketing and sales teams to work toward shared goals. [Read related article: How CRMs Streamline Email Marketing]

Workflow Automation

Workflow automation features let your CRM conduct tasks without much (or any) employee involvement. For example, you could set the software up to automatically notify a sales representative whenever a customer fills out a form on your website. You can also customize triggers that send emails to clients, generate recurring reports and update customer records.

Reporting

Each CRM software provides reporting and insights differently, with some tools providing greater granularity or report customization features. In the above, a user generates a report using Pipedrive’s AI tool and selects from the provided prompt examples, including deals created within the past year. (Source: Pipedrive)

CRM reports break down your sales and marketing data to help you better understand and analyze leads, customer buying behaviors, the number of outbound calls your team makes and other vital metrics. Some CRM platforms offer more report types than others, with some allowing you to customize your CRM metrics and decide how you want the data presented, such as in bar graphs or pie charts.

CRM software and ERP, or enterprise resource planning, systems have some overlap and are sometimes mistakenly confused with each other. However, they have distinct differences.

ERP platforms are used to manage nearly every aspect of a business’s operations, including accounting, human resources, inventory and analytics. As such, CRM capabilities are often built into ERP software. An example of this is Oracle Netsuite, which is an ERP program that boasts CRM tools. Businesses purchase the core Netsuite platform and can add on the CRM module.

In contrast, CRM software focuses specifically on managing customer information, logging interactions with clients, storing sales-related lead details and coordinating marketing tasks. While some CRMs can integrate with accounting software and POS systems that feature inventory management tools, they are built specifically for sales and marketing use cases. This narrower focus compared to ERP software can be an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on your business’s needs.

Not sure if our best picks above are the right fit for your CRM software needs? Consider these alternative options, which — based on our reviews and testing — also provide reliable and effective customer relationship management services.

Zendesk

Zendesk offers unique native integrations and customer service products to provide support through the entire customer life cycle. Zendesk Sell maximizes collaboration across departments, allowing sales, marketing and support teams to work together with the same centralized data and goals. This CRM provider unifies data from multiple customer touchpoints, preventing different departments from duplicating communications or missing context. Zendesk’s smart lists also help sales teams segment customers and filter leads, enabling marketing teams to monitor customer engagements and develop effective communications. Whether you’re using the basic plan or an upper-level package, you’ll be able to provide high-level customer support with all of the current and historical information you need at a glance. Read our full Zendesk review for more details.

HoneyBook

HoneyBook is a cost-effective CRM that offers a wide range of tools that not only support lead generation and nurturing but also existing client management functions. We liked that this platform includes invoicing and payment tools, giving businesses the option to forgo a separate invoicing platform. We also liked HoneyBook’s AI-powered automations, which make it easy to set up custom workflows and support your business’s unique sales funnel with the support of artificial intelligence. There’s no need for coding knowledge to do so, making HoneyBook a truly accessible tool for any entrepreneur or sales professional.

Insightly

Offering a unique and highly useful relationship-linking feature, Insightly CRM gives customers extra control over their sales operations. For small teams without the ability to manage all the details of sales processes, Insightly offers a dynamic and easily customizable solution. Administrators and sales representatives can build their ideal CRM dashboards to highlight particular contexts, metrics and workflows. While AI and predictive tools are available only with the most expensive packages, all of Insightly’s service plans allow you to create specific rules for common events that trigger actions within the sales process.

LessAnnoying

LessAnnoying CRM is an ideal tool for small businesses or startups that need basic, turnkey CRM functionality done well. LessAnnoying focuses on simplicity. The platform offers a straightforward interface and only one plan tier. Even so, LessAnnoying provides strong customer support. While barebones to start, LessAnnoying comes with native integrations for some of the most popular third-party tools, including Google, Mailchimp and Microsoft Outlook. In focusing on simplicity, LessAnnoying does lack some advanced features, customization options and data tracking that some teams may consider essential. However, for beginners, LessAnnoying provides a strong foundation.

Keap

With its user-friendly interface and simple setup, Keap is another appealing tool for businesses engaging with CRM software for the first time. Keap is designed to help users learn quickly without assuming they’re CRM experts. This all-in-one CRM platform stores all customer activity in a centralized space and automatically adds all customer interactions to grow your team’s ability to sell and offer support efficiently. Right from the dashboard, your team can text, email, book appointments, process purchases and add invoices with one click. To make building your business easier, Keap automates contact management intuitively from activities across multiple platforms. Designed to help grow your business, Keap provides premade and customizable templates for new pipelines and helpful video guides explaining the software’s capabilities. Without any coding experience, you can trigger automated actions to help turn leads into sales. Read our full Keap review for more information.

At Business News Daily, our team of small business sales and tech experts have been researching and testing CRM software for years, comparing some of the leading solutions across more than 20 key metrics. We considered 65 CRM software platforms and closely reviewed and tested 25 of them before selecting our seven best picks above. 

Below are the factors we considered when determining our best picks. Each is weighted according to how much the criteria typically influences business owners’ buying decisions.

• Pricing (30%): We considered not just the base cost of the software but also the number of pricing plans, per user fees, and add-on costs to determine which provide the most value per dollar.
  
• Features (25%): We particularly evaluated the dashboard and tested features like customer data management, workflow automation, sales pipelines, deal rot measurement and built-in communications tools. We also looked for AI tools such as predictive analytics or automated follow-up notifications.
  
• Usability (20%): We paid close attention to the ease with which the software could be set up, how intuitive we found the navigation and use of key features, and the training and informational resources available to new users. We also considered whether the software offered a responsive mobile app or mobile browser.
• Customer Support (15%): We examined the ease with which customers can contact the team in need of help. We reviewed customer feedback to determine how well the customer service team meets the needs of existing customers.
• Expert Insight (10%): Our product reviews are conducted by software and sales experts who are deeply familiar with CRM solutions. Given their institutional knowledge of different platforms and firsthand experiences using these programs, we take their judgment into account when determining our best picks.

In addition to scoring each CRM software we reviewed based on this criteria, we also determined the best use case scenarios for each. No two businesses are exactly alike, so we put ourselves in the shoes of different types of small business owners and identify the best CRM software for a variety of needs.

To learn more about how we review and test tech products and services for small businesses, read about our editorial process here.