The 10 Best CRM for Startups in 2024 (Reviews & Pricing)

In this article, I’ll cover what CRM software does, and highlight the 10 best CRM for startups that you can try out today.

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What is CRM Software?

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software is designed to help your business manage all interactions across various channels with current and potential customers. It reduces the amount of chaos that can come from managing your leads, streamlines processes, improves customer relationships, and can ultimately enhance profitability. CRM software consolidates customer information into a single database so you can easily access and manage it. It includes features such as contact management, sales management, and more.

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Why does your Startup need a CRM?

1. Centralized Information: CRM systems store all customer information in one place, making it easy for your team to access and update customer data.
2. Improved Customer Relationships: By tracking interactions and understanding customer needs, you can provide personalized service and build stronger relationships.
3. Increased Efficiency: Automate routine tasks, set reminders, and streamline your workflow to save time and focus on what matters most—your customers.
4. Data-Driven Decisions: Use CRM analytics to gain insights into customer behavior, sales trends, and campaign effectiveness, helping you make informed business decisions.

What are the 10 Best CRM for Startups?

Attio

Key Features

• Fully customizable and real-time collaboration
• Dynamic reporting with real-time data
• Integration with email and calendar
• Advanced data synchronization

‍Pricing

• Starts at $29 per month per user
• Free trial available
• Free version available for 3 seats per month

Customer Ratings

4.8/5 ⭐️ (G2, 13 reviews)

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Attio G2 Reviews

• "Business development's best friend. Ease of use, flexibility, collaboration, accessing the information I need, when I need it.”
• Simple, Intuitive, Effortless... Magical! I've tested a lot of CRMs, and when I came to setting up my own business, it was time to find the best of the best. Attio fit that bill brilliantly...”
• Highly flexible and super user-friendly interface! Attio is an outstanding tool that has exceeded our expectations. It's incredibly easy to configure. The user interface is intuitive, user-friendly, and reminiscent of Notion. The Attio team, especially Alex, provided exceptional support during the onboarding process. It's the go-to CRM solution we highly recommend to businesses of all sizes - especially early stages startups that don't want to lose time with complex CRM. We couldn't be happier with the results!”

Pipedrive

Key Features

• Visual sales pipeline
• Activity reminders and goal setting
• Email integration
• Reporting and analytics

Pricing

• Various plans starting at $14 per user per month
• Free trial available

Customer Ratings

4.3/5 ⭐️ (G2, 1858 reviews)

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Pipedrive G2 Reviews

• “The Perfect CRM. I have all my leads, clients, and prospects in one place. I can communicate with my leads and prospects directly from my CRM. It is very compatible with many other softwares for integration as well. Just started using automations on it, and seriously didn't know what I was missing.”
• “Easy to use and teach! As someone who monitors sales people and my own role, I need an uncomplicated tool that gets the job done. With a few clicks, I know what my day looks like and who I need to make sure and contact. I have used it for my current role and recommended it to collegues at other companies.”
• “I love that Pipedrive is business-centric (rather than person-centric), I can easily add and format custom fields, and the built-in reporting functionality has almost everything I need out to the box for my team to manage their pipelines. I was able to easily implement and integrate Pipedrive with PandaDoc, Office 365, and Teams without the need for a technical resource or web developer. The customer support is very responsive and has helped when we've needed it. Pipedrive is our brain for sales now. We rely on it every day.”

HubSpot Sales Hub

Key Features

• Free CRM with essential features
• Email tracking and notifications
• Pipeline management
• Marketing, sales, and service tools integration

Pricing

• Free plan available
• Paid plans start at $20 per month

Customer Ratings

4.4/5 ⭐️ (G2, 11,289 reviews)

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Hubspot G2 Reviews

• “What I enjoy best about HubSpot Sales Hub is its simple and user-friendly interface, all of the features are simple to explore and useful. Integrating HubSpot with other platforms, such as Hubspot Marketing Hub, produces a cohesive ecosystem that boosts our overall efficiency. I also like real-time tracking and reporting tools, which give significant insights into our sales success and consumer behaviour, allowing us to make data-driven choices. I use it on a weekly basis.”
• “We use this tool every day throughout our sales and marketing teams. We require complete transparency in our sales process; HubSpot has the reporting needed to accomplish this. Our reps have full access to their contacts and track activities efficiently. HubSpot also provides Lincoln Private Jets with the necessary tools to boost team effectiveness. With full reporting capabilities, HubSpot allows our business to track growth effectively with full transparency, which enables us to be nimble and responsive to market changes.”
• “For Gen Z people entering the sales world, we know one thing - good vibes are key, and HubSpot has good vibes. To translate, HubSpot has the best UI/UX. From the ease of tracking emails, calls, and more from my inbox, to monitoring deal status, to account management automations, this thing has it all. I managemy entire day through HubSpot, and it's made me a better salesperson, partially because I'm able to see data about my performance through the reporting feature, and make measurable, reasonable goals based on that data.”

Folk

Key Features

• User-friendly interface
• Customizable contact fields
• Task management

Pricing

• Starting at $18 per month per user
• Free trial available

Customer Ratings

4.4/5 ⭐️ (G2, 122 reviews)

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Folk G2 Reviews

• “The highlight of folk is its ability to efficiently organize potential speakers for our conference team. The platform allows us to add and manage relevant information such as emails and LinkedIn profiles, which greatly facilitates coordination and follow-up. In addition, the functionality of the canvas-like panels is exceptional, providing a clear and structured view that is essential for event organization. These visual tools allow you to sort speakers by topic, availability or interest, making planning more intuitive and less error-prone.”
• “The things I like the most about Folk are (1) very easy to import contacts through an excel or CSV file, (2) the display of contact / company views is very customizable, (3) I like that you can copy fields across cells as we do with excel and (4) the enrichment features as a whole specially to obtain people's e-mail address”
• “As a recent convert to Folk.app, I am thoroughly impressed by its user-friendly design and flexibility, which is a breath of fresh air in the CRM space. The intuitive interface makes navigating and efficiently managing contacts and workflows incredibly easy. The ability to sync contacts from various platforms, coupled with a one-click Chrome extension for easy data import, streamlines the process of building and maintaining a robust contact database. Folk.app's customizable and collaborative pipelines are a standout feature, allowing for seamless management of different projects and interactions.”

Zoho

Key Features

• Multichannel communication
• AI-driven sales assistant (Zia)
• Customizable dashboards
• Mobile CRM app

Pricing

• Plans start at $23 per user per month
• Free Plan available

Customer Ratings

4.1/5 ⭐️ (G2, 1,633 reviews)

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Zoho G2 Reviews

• “Zoho CRM Pricing is very low when compared to other CRM tools. The best feature of Zoho CRM is its low cost with more features. Also, Zoho CRM is very user-friendly when compared to other CRMs. All the features are up-to-date and every feature is unique in its way. Zoho CRM can be integrated with other tools like marketing automation tools, or sales automation tools, which is useful for maintaining all the records in the tool.”
• “What I like most about Zoho CRM is how easy it makes keeping track of everything. It's like having a super organized notebook where all my friends' contact information, important notes, and things I need to do are neatly sorted. It helps me remember things, like when to follow up with someone, and it even reminds me of important dates. Plus, it's really easy to use, just like playing with a fun app on my tablet!”
• “The zoho crm is one package deal for everything required for the lead management. From pre-leads to the conversion, each of the lead management process is done easily. I have integrated zoho crm with my website and there is seamless operations with my leads. I use zoho crm everyday in my day to day operations.”

Monday CRM

Key Features

• Visual project management
• Automation capabilities
• Customizable workflows

Pricing

• Plans start at $12 per month

Customer Ratings‍

4.6/5 ⭐️ (G2, 732 reviews)

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Monday CRM G2 Reviews

• “This program is incredibly user-friendly and offers a variety of support options for any questions you may have. There's a wealth of helpful videos that are easily accessible whenever you need assistance. The boards are highly customizable, allowing for versatile project management solutions, which is perfect for keeping our small office connected and informed about ongoing projects.”
• “This program is SO user friendly. If there is anything you have questions about, they have so many ways to help answer your questions. There are tons of videos available that are easily accessable for any help you need. The boards are very customizeable and there are so many things that can be done with just a single board. It is perfect for our small office to keep everyone connected and updated on projects.”
• “Very intuitive, and user friendly. Easy to create boards for individual processes, either from scratch, or by using an available template. Has helped us streamline and standardize functions that were previously being done differently in every division of our company. Seeing updates or changes in real-time means less confusion and more collaboration.”

Clickup

Key Features

• Task management
• Goal tracking
• Integration with various tools

Pricing

• Free plan available
• Paid business plans start at $12 per month

Customer Ratings

4.7/5 ⭐️ (G2, 9,547 reviews)

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Clickup G2 Reviews

• “ClickUp is a tool which gives us ease which using. We can easily navigate through tasks, setting up projects, and assigning tasks are incredibly intuitive, even for those who are new to the project management tools. It also gives us a user-friendly interface which is a game-changer for our team because it helps us seamlessly in the project management without any additional learnings. We regualarly/daily use this tool for our day-to day management. Additionally, it also gives us the ease of implementation and intergations with other CRMs as wells. I strongly recommended this tool to use for the project management.”
• “People can customize ClickUp to how it works for them. Maybe some team members like dark mode. Maybe people want to default to a different view. You can use it for EVERYTHING -- from a sales funnel to CRM to wiki to project management. Also it's pretty. :-) (... That matters!)”
• “I like how the workspace has so many different levels to it. From keeping up with tasks, to organizing clients in a CRM, and even automating our workflow, ClickUp is such a great tool for any business or brand. I also like how easy ClickUp is to use, even for a beginner, it's easy to pick up, and the ClickUp university is very helpful. My team uses ClickUp frequently (daily) for our entire business, and we even integrate our clients easily into our workflow.”

Sugar Sell

Key Features

• Sales automation
• Customer service automation
• Marketing automation

Pricing

• Plans start at $19 per user per month

Customer Ratings

3.8/5 ⭐️ (G2, 718 reviews)

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Sugar Sell G2 Reviews

• Sugar Sell can handle hundreds of Lead enquiries per day across all our Homebuilding brands. As a home builder servicing many different clients and brands, we can customise the flow using built-in Process Definitions logic to ensure the correct Enquiry falls in the hands of the right Sales Professional.
• Sugar Sell has a lot to offer, much of which can be customized and tweaked - even for those who aren't able to code. I constantly change various functions, screens, options, processes, etc. throughout the modules our team regularly uses and am able to do so quickly. Most changes immediately take effect, too.
• “The flexibility and customization options for Sugar Sell are almost limitless. With a beautiful and clean interface training and adoption were easy for our all of our users. When you implement Sugar they'll pair you with an implementation company that assists with getting the system tailored to your processes."

Close

Key Features

• Built-in calling and SMS
• Email automation
• Pipeline view

Pricing

• Plans start at $49 per month
• 14-day free trial available

Customer Ratings

4.7/5 ⭐️ (G2, 1072 reviews)

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Close G2 Reviews

• “The 2-way email sync between close and Gmail is awesome. Being able to send emails within close or Gmail with it all being shown in the CRM has been invaluable. Also being able to see if anyone from my team has had past conversations (and reply to those threads) give us the ability to make informed decisions.”
• “In our call center, we use Close as a CRM for multiple clients. We spend hours daily with this simple system. New employees can start working with Close within minutes. If something doesn't work or a feature is missing, the support team is very helpful and quick to assist. Useful suggestions are implemented promptly. Adding new customers is very quick and requires no extensive background knowledge.”
• It's really user friendly and I love that we can get transcripts of our calls, assign tasks, power dial and record calls. Customer support is always very quick to get back to me and I have seen some previous issues get fixed so I really appreciate that! When I first started using Close I would have to quit the application every 30-60 minutes and restart it becauase it would stop working and now I don't have to!”

Notion

Key Features

• All-in-one workspace
• Customizable templates
• Task and project management

Pricing

• Free plan available
• Paid plans start at $8 per user per month

Customer Ratings

4.7/5 ⭐️ (G2, 5455 reviews)

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Notion G2 Reviews

• “Notion keeps me sane. As a consultancy starting up and looking for new business while managing client projects, my Notion workspace allows me to keep track of my outreach (as a CRM), hold project deliverable files, take notes during meeting. The AI is a phenomenal tool from helping me brainstorm deck outlines to assessing interview notes for key themes.”
• “The dynamic way I can use Notion. I use it as my CRM, content calendar, project management tool, note taking, recipe book, and so much more. I can also tie each of those pieces of my life and work together which adds even more value to my use of Notion.”
• “Notion is easy to use and supports so many different use cases. From project management and CRM system to journaling, note taking, content planning and management.”

How to choose the best CRM solution for your startup

The amount of options out there can be really overwhelming. All of these CRM tools are very similar. So how can you choose? We got you. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you choose the best CRM solution for your startup.

1. Identify Your Needs

Start by listing what you need from a CRM. Consider features like contact management, sales tracking, marketing automation, customer support, and analytics.

Align your CRM choice with your business objectives. Do you want to improve sales efficiency, enhance customer service, or streamline marketing efforts?

2. Set Your Budget

Determine how much you’re willing to spend. CRM solutions range from free versions with basic features to premium plans with advanced capabilities.

Focus on the value a CRM provides rather than just the cost. Sometimes, investing a bit more in a feature-rich solution can pay off in the long run.

3. Research and Compare Options

Research various CRM solutions and compare their features. Look for reviews, case studies, and user feedback.

Based on your needs and budget, create a shortlist of potential CRMs. Some popular options include Salesforce, HubSpot CRM, Zoho CRM, and Pipedrive.

4. Consider Usability & Training Support

Ensure the CRM is user-friendly and easy to navigate. A complicated system can lead to low adoption rates among your team.

Check if the CRM provider offers adequate training resources and customer support. This can be crucial for a smooth implementation and ongoing use.

5. Check for Integration Capabilities

Ensure the CRM integrates seamlessly with your existing tools and software, such as email, marketing platforms, and accounting software.

Consider potential future tools you might use and check if the CRM can integrate with those as well.

6. Evaluate Customization and Scalability

Look for a CRM that can be customized to fit your specific business processes and workflows.

Choose a CRM that can grow with your business. As your startup expands, your CRM should be able to handle increased data and additional users.

7. Take Advantage of Free Trials and Demos

Most CRM providers offer free trials or demos. Use these opportunities to test the CRM with your team and see if it meets your needs.

Involve your team in the trial process and gather their feedback. Their input can be invaluable in making the final decision.

8. Consider Security and Compliance

Ensure the CRM has robust security measures in place to protect your customer data.

Check if the CRM complies with relevant regulations and standards, such as GDPR, especially if you handle sensitive customer information.

9. Look at Customer Support and Community

Evaluate the support options available, such as live chat, email support, and phone support.

A strong user community and extensive knowledge base can be very helpful for troubleshooting and learning best practices.

10. Make Your Decision

Compare the shortlisted options based on the criteria above. Weigh the pros and cons of each CRM.

Choose the CRM that best aligns with your startup’s needs, budget, and future growth plans.

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FAQ about Best CRM for Startups

Which CRM is best for startups?

• The best CRM for startups varies based on needs, but popular choices include HubSpot CRM for its free plan and ease of use, and Zoho CRM for its affordability and comprehensive features.

Do startups need CRM?

• Yes, startups need CRM to manage customer relationships, streamline sales processes, and improve customer service, which are crucial for growth and efficiency.

Which CRM is best for B2B SaaS startups?

• For B2B SaaS startups, Salesforce and HubSpot CRM are excellent choices due to their robust features and scalability.

Is Zoho CRM really free?

• Yes, Zoho CRM offers a free plan with basic features, but more advanced features and higher user limits require a paid plan.

What is the best CRM for startups on Reddit?

• Reddit users often recommend HubSpot CRM for its free plan and user-friendly interface, and Pipedrive for its sales-focused features.

What is the best free CRM for startups?

• HubSpot CRM is widely regarded as the best free CRM for startups due to its comprehensive free plan and easy integration with other tools.

What is the best CRM for fundraising?

• For fundraising, CRM software like Salesforce and Insightly are often recommended because of their robust tracking and reporting features.

What is the best CRM for founders?

• Founders often prefer HubSpot CRM and Pipedrive for their ease of use, customization options, and ability to scale as the business grows.

What are the top features to look for in a CRM?

• Look for contact management, sales automation, email integration, reporting and analytics, and mobile accessibility.

How can a CRM benefit a startup?

• A CRM can improve customer relationships, streamline sales processes, enhance marketing efforts, and provide valuable insights through analytics.

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