7 Best Customer Database Software in 2024
and how to pick the one that’s best for you
Are you looking for the best customer database software platform?
There are 600+ out there today (!), so it can be hard to pick the right one.
That’s why I’ll clearly explain when to go with which customer database software. 👈
I’ll also compare the top choices by combining their review scores on several independent platforms. 🥇
Here we go 👇
Choosing and ranking customer database software: methodology
There are a three questions to consider when choosing a great customer database software:
- Does it work for your use case and business?
- Does it fit with the rest of your sales toolset?
- Is it a good customer database software?
To answer question 1, start from your exact use case and your type of business:
- Are you a small or medium-sized business (SMB) actively selling B2B? Salesflare will probably be best for you.
- Are you in real estate instead? Check out our review of Propertybase in this article.
- Are you in another type of B2C business and need something for sales? Have a look at Pipedrive or Freshworks CRM. (Or you can also check out these full lists of the best sales CRMs and best lead tracking software.)
- Are you an SMB but more focused on marketing automation? Have a look at HubSpot or ActiveCampaign.
- You want something that can do literally everything and is not built for anything in particular? Sounds like Zoho CRM Plus.
- Are you working for a company with 200+ employees? You’ll probably need an enterprise software like Salesforce.
To answer question 2, consider whether the customer databases / CRMs you are looking at are a great fit for your sales toolset. I have written dedicated breakdowns for the following:
And finally, for question 3, you can look for platforms that are well rated by their users across platforms. For this, check out the customer database software in this list and their global review ratings.
These global review ratings are obtained by combining three ratings into one:
- Product rating, from the #1 B2B software review site (G2)
- Mobile app rating, from the #1 mobile app store (Google Play)
- Email plugin rating, from the #1 email plugin marketplace (Google Workspace Marketplace)
That way you know you get a customer database that performs on all fronts. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The 7 best customer database software ranked
To compile this ranking, I went through a list of around 700 possible platforms to make a pre-selection. Then I tested every one of the 7 selected customer database software platforms first hand and researched them in detail for you below.
Don’t want to read the whole comparison? 🤓
The top 7 best customer database software in 2024 are:
- Salesflare: 9.7/10 🏆
- Salesforce: 8.7/10
- HubSpot CRM & Sales Hub: 8.6/10
- ActiveCampaign: 8.5/10
- Freshworks CRM: 8.3/10
- Zoho CRM Plus: 7.7/10
- Pipedrive: 6.6/10
Want to dig into the details? Read on! 👇
1. Salesflare [9.7/10] 🏆
Salesflare is a dedicated sales CRM that was built from the ground up to help your sales team build better relationships and sell more, while requiring very little of that dreaded data input.
It’s made to pull all the data together from where it already is (your Office 365 or Google email, calendar, phone, social media, company databases, email signatures, email & web tracking, …) and uses that to help you follow up your leads in a better way.
The flip side is that some companies are not used to sharing this much information within the team, although this has been changing dramatically in recent years, and Salesflare has introduced a new permissions system for companies who want to limit some of that newly created transparency.
“I have examined several CRMs. Signed up for Hubspot. Seemed good, but many limitations, and much less automation. Actually purchased a subscription for Salesforce. Seemed so cool, but a difficult integration with my Outlook for Mac Office 365, and a very large learning curve. Labor intensive data entry, compared to Salesflare. Salesflare seems much more intuitive and taking advantage of AI at tremendously affordable costs.” writes Rocco D., business developer at a building product company, about Salesflare.
Testing it out
When you start using Salesflare, the first thing you’ll notice is how little manual input is required. You connect your email, calendar, and social media accounts, and the customer database starts pulling in data automatically. Customer profiles are populated without you lifting a finger, from contact details to company information, and even social media insights.
You’ll appreciate how all your emails, meetings, and interactions are logged effortlessly. Every time you send an email or schedule a meeting, Salesflare tracks it, giving you a clear timeline of all communications. You can even see when leads open emails and click links, so you always know who’s engaging and when.
The interface is clean and intuitive, making it easy to see what’s happening with each lead. The automated follow-ups and reminders help keep you on top of your tasks without the usual clutter. Salesflare’s ability to automate repetitive tasks lets you focus on building relationships and closing deals, not data entry.
Scoring
Salesflare’s G2 review scoring:
- Ease of Use: 9.5
- Ease of Setup: 9.5
- Meets Requirements: 9.3
- Quality of Support: 9.7
- Ease of Doing Business With: 9.9
- Ease of Admin: 9.5
Salesflare’s review ratings:
- Product (G2): 9.6/10
- Mobile app (Google Play): 4.8/5 → 9.6/10
- Email plugin (Google Workspace): 5/5 → 10/10
- FINAL REVIEW SCORE: 9.7/10
Pricing
Price of the Pro plan:
- $49/user/month (billed annually)
- $55/user/month (billed monthly)
Try Salesflare
If you don’t sell B2B (aka to other businesses) and don’t do active sales, one of the below customer databases might then be a better fit for you. But, if you do actively sell B2B, give Salesflare a try.
It only takes a few minutes to start a Salesflare trial and follow up your leads in a better way.👈
I guarantee you won’t find any better customer database software! 👌
2. Salesforce [8.7/10]
Salesforce is the biggest CRM company in the world, controlling about 20% of the market. Its stock ticker is even “CRM” and it was the pioneer in bringing CRM and customer databases to the cloud, so I definitely can’t compile a list of customer database software without mentioning it.
While, in the first few years of its existence, Salesforce was focused on small businesses, it has since shifted its focus on enterprises. This also immediately explains why it’s forte is extreme customizability (provided you pay a team of consultants to do that) and why it has positioned itself to be the one business software vendor that offers a solution to all your business needs.
Salesforce does still offer a solution to small businesses today, called Salesforce Essentials, a limited version of the full customer platform. Compared to other customer database software in this list however, it lacks in user friendliness and is not really customized for sales teams.
This frustration with Salesforce is actually one of the reasons why we started building Salesflare, and – perhaps not surprisingly – why many of our customers find Salesflare while looking for a better alternative.
If extreme customizability is however your thing, or you’re working at a corporate, Salesforce might still be the best choice for you. But before signing any contract, read this guide to the small print first.
“[I like the] simple and effective way of using Sales Cloud to manage our new business opportunities all in one place. Being able to link this to our Service Cloud and Marketing Cloud apps as well provides a full, 360 view of our customers, regardless of how and when they want to contact us.” writes Michael B., implementation manager at a national postal company, about Salesforce Sales Cloud.
Testing it out
When I tested Salesforce, I was immediately struck by its breadth of customization options. Setting it up, however, took some time. There were several steps involved, from selecting modules to customizing fields, and I had to rely on documentation and support resources to navigate it all. It felt powerful but a bit overwhelming.
Once everything was configured, though, the flexibility became apparent. I was able to tailor the pipeline and reporting features specifically to my team’s needs, linking it to other apps like Marketing Cloud and Service Cloud to create a complete picture of customer interactions in a central database. The level of integration between systems was impressive, but I also felt like I needed a dedicated admin to manage it.
Despite the learning curve, the reporting and automation tools made a real impact on our processes. The dashboards were fully customizable, and I could pull in data from different sources, making it easier to get a full view of our performance. That said, it’s clear that Salesforce is designed for larger teams with complex needs.
Scoring
Salesforce’s G2 review scoring:
- Ease of Use: 8.1
- Ease of Setup: 7.5
- Meets Requirements: 8.8
- Quality of Support: 8.2
- Ease of Doing Business With: 8.3
- Ease of Admin: 8.0
Salesforce’s review ratings:
- Product (G2): 8.2/10
- Mobile app (Google Play): 4.2/5 → 8.4/10
- Email plugin (Google Workspace): 4.7/5 → 9.4/10
- FINAL REVIEW SCORE: 8.7/10
Pricing
Price of the Pro plan (Salesforce Sales Cloud Pro Suite):
- $100/user/month (only billed annually)
3. HubSpot CRM & Sales Hub [8.6/10]
HubSpot is a marketing automation platform turned everything platform. It was founded in 2005 to make marketing automation easier.
Nowadays, HubSpot’s main selling point is offering an all-in-one solution, including marketing, sales, service and operations. If you don’t like using different apps and integrating them (using tools like Zapier and native integrations), then HubSpot might be the customer database software you’re looking for.
“The best thing is [the] option to view all the domains under one roof. Be it quotations, deals, payment links, support tickets, subscriptions, invoices etc.
Setting up tasks and meetings directly from HubSpot makes it very efficient to use.” writes Shalini V., business developer at an IT services company, about HubSpot Sales Hub.
The flip side of the coin is that HubSpot’s software is extremely expensive. Yes, it’s customer database is free, but it’s only practically comparable to the others in this list if you buy it together with the Sales Hub. And if you want to actually reap the benefits of the all-in-one platform, you need to pay up for the other Hubs too.
On top of that, you’ll find that the different tools in the platform do not compare to their more polished, feature-rich and usually cheaper competitors.
Actually, if you have some ideas of what functionality you need (a customer database, lead forms, landing pages, automated emails or maybe newsletters, …), hit us up on the chat and we’ll help you come up with the perfect sales-marketing stack. I guarantee that it’ll be better and cheaper… and easy to integrate.
Testing it out
When I tried HubSpot CRM & Sales Hub, the setup process was relatively straightforward, especially compared to more complex customer database software. I appreciated the clean interface and how quickly I could start tracking leads. HubSpot has a lot of different tools under one roof, from CRM to marketing automation, and they were all neatly connected from the start.
The CRM itself felt more or less intuitive, and I particularly enjoyed the task and meeting management features, which made it easy to plan follow-ups and set reminders. It was nice to have all of my sales tools in one place, without needing to switch between different apps.
However, as I dug deeper, I noticed that many of the more advanced features required purchasing additional hubs, which can quickly add up. If you want to go beyond basic CRM functionality, HubSpot can get expensive fast. Plus it can become quite hard to navigate.
Scoring
HubSpot’s G2 review scoring:
- Ease of Use: 8.6
- Ease of Setup: 8.3
- Meets Requirements: 8.5
- Quality of Support: 8.5
- Ease of Doing Business With: 8.7
- Ease of Admin: 8.6
HubSpot’s review ratings:
- Product (G2): 8.5/10
- Mobile app (Google Play): 4.6/5 → 9.2/10
- Email plugin (Google Workspace): 4.0/5 → 8.0/10
- FINAL REVIEW SCORE: 8.6/10
Pricing
Price of the Pro plan (HubSpot Sales Hub Professional):
- $90/user/month (billed annually)
- $100/user/month (billed monthly)
+ an extra required fee of $1470 for onboarding
4. ActiveCampaign [8.5/10]
ActiveCampaign is an email marketing/automation platform, founded in 2003. It now brands itself as a customer experience automation (CXA) platform, to cover its expanding range of functionality.
ActiveCampaign added a sales-focused customer database to its offering in 2014, as a sales focused add-on to the rest of the platform. This integration between email automation and CRM is probably its main forte.
Setting up ActiveCampaign is not a light task and its software may become overwhelming, while the CRM aspect itself on the other hand will not be as feature rich compared to the other customer database software in this list.
When people compare ActiveCampaign to Salesflare, which also offers automated emails and email sequences, my advice is usually simple: if you’re an ecommerce company or B2C company, or you need very complex or very high volume email automation, ActiveCampaign is probably what you’re looking for. If you’re a B2B company with an active sales team and the need to automate more personal emails, then go with Salesflare.
Testing it out
Testing ActiveCampaign, I found that its strength lies in email marketing and automation. The customer database / CRM aspect, while decent, clearly felt like a secondary focus. Setting it up required some effort, especially when customizing the automation flows and integrating them with the CRM.
What stood out to me was the deep integration between the email marketing and CRM features. I was able to build complex workflows that automatically assigned tasks and leads based on how recipients interacted with our emails. This made it easy to nurture leads and move them through the sales funnel without much manual input.
However, the sales pipeline and contact management tools felt a bit basic compared to dedicated customer database software. If you’re primarily focused on email campaigns and automation, ActiveCampaign excels, but for deeper sales tracking and reporting, it lacks the level of sophistication some teams might need.
Scoring
ActiveCampaign’s G2 review scoring:
- Ease of Use: 8.7
- Ease of Setup: 8.5
- Meets Requirements: 9.1
- Quality of Support: 9.1
- Ease of Doing Business With: 9.2
- Ease of Admin: 8.7
ActiveCampaign’s review ratings:
- Product (G2): 8.9/10
- Mobile app (Google Play): 4.3/5 → 8.6/10
- Email plugin (Google Workspace): 4.0/5 → 8.0/10
- FINAL REVIEW SCORE: 8.5/10
Pricing
Price of the Pro plan (ActiveCampaign Pro plan with the cheaper version of the “Enhanced CRM” add-in that only includes “Pipelines”):
- $217/month (billed annually, with max. 2500 contacts & 3 users included)
- $246/month (billed monthly, with max. 2500 contacts & 3 users included)
5. Freshworks CRM [8.3/10]
Freshworks CRM is a sales CRM from Freshworks, the company behind / initially called Freshdesk. Freshworks was founded in 2010 to provide a better, cheaper solution for customer service teams.
Freshworks’ main selling point is its feature depth. It has also managed to offer this range of functionality through an easier to use interface than its competitors/predecessors from the same city (Chennai, India), Zoho.
The flip side here is that the customer database software does feel quite bulky and that the functionality feels like its built too fast to be really well thought through. If complex software frustrates you, it probably isn’t for you.
If you’re in for its most basic plan, the price-functionality ratio is comparable to the more normally priced customer databases in this list. The pricing however ramps up very quickly from there as you need more functionality (or more than 1 pipeline, 5 sequences, …).
Salesflare doesn’t often get compared to Freshworks CRM, but when it happens, it’s people weighing getting something that their team will love to use, against something that checks off a few more of the boxes on their specs list.
Testing it out
My experience with Freshworks CRM was a bit of a mixed bag. The interface was simple and clean, and getting started was easy enough. The software had a lot of depth in terms of features—almost too much at times. I found myself navigating through many layers of functionality, some of which felt unnecessary for my needs.
What I did enjoy was how customizable the sales pipeline was. I could easily adjust the stages to match my sales process and automate reminders and notifications, which helped keep everything on track. However, as I added more features, the system started to feel a bit bulky.
The software’s strength really lies in its ability to offer a lot of tools in one place, but it can also feel overwhelming if you don’t need all the extra functionality. For teams that want a versatile solution and don’t mind the occasional complexity, it’s a solid option.
Scoring
Freshworks CRM’s G2 review scoring:
- Ease of Use: 9.1
- Ease of Setup: 8.9
- Meets Requirements: 8.9
- Quality of Support: 9.0
- Ease of Doing Business With: 9.1
- Ease of Admin: 9.4
Freshworks CRM’s review ratings:
- Product (G2): 9.0/10
- Mobile app (Google Play): 3.8/5 → 7.6/10
- Email plugin (Google Workspace): 4.2/5 → 8.4/10
- FINAL REVIEW SCORE: 8.3/10
Pricing
Price of the Pro plan (Freshsales Pro):
- $39/user/month (billed annually)
- $47/user/month (billed monthly)
6. Zoho CRM Plus [7.7/10]
Zoho Corporation is a software development company, founded in 1996 (coincidentally in the same city as Freshworks above), which is behind an extremely wide range of software products.
It launched a customer database software product in 2005, which has historically been positioning itself as a cheaper alternative to Salesforce. And that’s immediately its biggest strength.
The pinnacle of its offering is Zoho One, which gives you access to 40+ of its “business apps” for $105/user/month (or $45 if you get it for ALL your employees). Talk about cheap!
The flip side is that Zoho’s products don’t feel user friendly. While the engineering team does churn out a lot features for a low price, the user experience is generally lacking.
Still, if you can’t resist a good deal, Zoho has a whole lot to offer you. Or, if you’ve already tried Zoho and didn’t love it, give Salesflare a try.
Testing it out
When I tested Zoho CRM Plus, I was immediately struck by the sheer number of features it offered for the price. Setting it up was fairly straightforward, but getting the most out of the system took time, as there were so many tools to explore.
Zoho’s integration with other apps in its ecosystem, like Zoho Projects and Zoho Desk, made it easy to keep a central customer database and manage everything from marketing to support in one place. That said, the user experience wasn’t as smooth as I’d hoped. Some of the tools felt clunky, and I had to spend extra time adjusting the system to make it work for my needs.
Still, for the price, Zoho CRM Plus delivers a lot of value, especially for teams that want an all-in-one platform without paying enterprise-level prices. However, if you find user experience and simplicity important, it might not be the best fit.
Scoring
Zoho CRM’s review scoring:
- Ease of Use: 8.1
- Ease of Setup: 7.6
- Meets Requirements: 8.2
- Quality of Support: 7.4
- Ease of Doing Business With: 7.9
- Ease of Admin: 7.8
Zoho CRM’s review ratings:
- Product (G2): 7.8/10
- Mobile app (Google Play): 4.2/5 → 8.4/10
- Email plugin (Google Workspace): 3.5/5 → 7.0/10
- FINAL REVIEW SCORE: 7.7/10
Pricing
Price of the Pro plan (Zoho CRM Plus):
- $57/user/month (billed annually)
- $69/user/month (billed monthly)
7. Pipedrive [6.6/10]
Pipedrive is a dedicated sales CRM. It was founded in 2011 in Estonia as a counterreaction to enterprise systems like Salesforce, which are built more for enterprise needs than they are for sales teams.
Pipedrive’s power is its simple and well considered user experience, especially when it comes to its older functionality. It makes data input and keeping track of activities easier, albeit still very manual.
Its main weakness is that it has become a bit stale, with a more limited mobile app, lacking basic automation (e.g. of data input), a wonky email integration, and a set of more recent functionality that is not as thoughtfully built anymore.
At some point in time, we positioned Salesflare as “Pipedrive without the typing” (check this TechCrunch video for instance). We did this because like Salesflare, Pipedrive is built for sales teams, is easy to use, and easy to set up.
The main difference is that, unlike Pipedrive, Salesflare was built from the ground up to automate your team’s data input, which also makes it easy to keep it alive / up to date… so you can reap all the benefits you’d expect to get from a customer database software. Because, after all, a customer database is only useful if you keep using it.
Testing it out
Pipedrive was quite simple to set up and use. The first thing that stood out to me was how streamlined the interface was. I could immediately see my pipeline, drag and drop deals, and set up custom stages in just a few clicks.
The platform is clearly designed with salespeople in mind, and I appreciated how easy it was to track activities and leads without getting bogged down in data entry. The email integration worked well for basic tracking, although it lacked some of the deeper automation features I’ve seen in other customer database software.
That said, while Pipedrive’s simplicity is its strength, it also feels a bit limiting if you’re looking for more advanced features or automations. It’s great for small sales teams that need a straightforward, easy-to-use customer database, but larger teams or those needing more complexity might outgrow it quickly.
Scoring
Pipedrive’s G2 review scoring:
- Ease of Use: 8.9
- Ease of Setup: 8.7
- Meets Requirements: 8.4
- Quality of Support: 8.4
- Ease of Doing Business With: 8.7
- Ease of Admin: 8.6
Pipedrive’s review ratings:
- Product (G2): 8.6/10
- Mobile app (Google Play): 3.3/5 → 6.6/10
- Email plugin (Google Workspace): 2.3/5 → 4.6/10
- FINAL REVIEW SCORE: 6.6/10
Pricing
Price of the Pro plan:
- $49/user/month (billed annually)
- $64/user/month (billed monthly)
FAQ
What is customer database software?
Customer database software is a tool that helps businesses store, manage, and analyze customer data, such as contact details, purchase history, and interactions. It centralizes customer information in one place, enabling companies to improve relationships, sales processes, and customer service.
What is the best customer database?
The best customer database depends on your business needs. For B2B sales teams, Salesflare is highly rated for its automation and ease of use. For larger enterprises with more complex requirements, Salesforce is a popular choice due to its customization and scalability.
What are the three types of customer databases?
The three main types of customer databases are: 1) Contact databases that store basic customer information, 2) Transactional databases that track customer purchases and interactions, and 3) Behavioral databases that analyze customer behavior, preferences, and engagement.
Which database software is used to keep customer records?
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software, such as Salesflare, HubSpot, and Salesforce, is commonly used to keep customer records. These systems help businesses manage contact information, interactions, and customer data in a centralized platform.
Is CRM a customer database?
Yes, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software functions as a customer database by storing and managing customer information. It also includes tools to help businesses track and improve customer interactions and relationships.
How can I create a customer database?
To create a customer database, choose a CRM or database software that fits your needs, such as Salesflare or HubSpot. Import customer contact details, purchase history, and other relevant data into the system. Once set up, you can easily manage and update records as you gather new customer information.
That’s all I have for the 7 best customer database software platforms!
Want to dig deeper into the differences? Just ask our team using the chat on salesflare.com. We’re here to help 😄
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