10 Best Sales CRM Software + Feature Comparison [2026]

Jeroen Corthout · Last updated: Sep 15, 2026 · Read as Markdown ·

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If you’re selling B2B, the key reason most companies need a CRM is to better follow up their sales leads.

Quick answer: Salesflare is my top pick for small and medium-sized B2B sales teams that want less CRM admin through automatic contact and activity capture. Choose HubSpot for a connected sales and marketing suite, Dynamics 365 Sales for complex sales processes in Microsoft 365, Close for calling-led outbound sales, or Pipedrive for straightforward visual pipeline management. Salesforce suits complex processes with dedicated implementation resources.

The benefits can be huge: even a small sales team (3 people) I recently talked to reported earning **$1 million per year more in sales (**💵 !) after getting their sales CRM in place.

Start with the buyer-fit table below to see which sales CRM matches the work your team needs help with. 👀

Then I’ll explain the feature checklist and compare all ten platforms using G2 review scores and pricing.

Let’s dig in! 👇

Which sales CRM should you choose?

What is a sales CRM?

A sales CRM is software designed to help sales teams manage customer relationships and streamline their sales process. It organizes all your customer data, interactions, and sales activities in one place, making it easier to track leads, follow up, and close deals.

Core features of sales CRM software

Here are 10 core features a sales CRM software platform can offer to help you better follow up your leads:

1. Visualize your leads in multiple drag-and-drop pipelines
2. Send automated email sequences until leads reply
3. Automatically enrich leads from both publicly available info and email signatures
4. Track the source (and lost reason) of your leads and analyze it
5. Get reminded to follow-up automatically when leads go inactive
6. Track leads with integrated email & website tracking
7. Get a live overview of what your leads are doing in an in-app notification center
8. Digitize business leads with a built-in business card scanner
9. Use email templates within your Gmail inbox to manage leads more productively
10. Manage your leads fully from your inbox with a handy email sidebar

There’s a lot of useful features in there that you won’t be able to get just from an Excel sheet 😄 I’ll detail below which of these features come with each sales CRM software.

Ranking sales CRM software: our methodology

If you’re looking for good CRM software to manage your sales leads, the above set of features can significantly boost your success rate and up your productivity.

To compile this ranking, I went through a list of around 800 possible CRMs to make a pre-selection. Then I tested and researched each of the 10 selected sales CRMs, checking which of them offer which features and detailing this for you below.

Next to this, it is important to keep the bigger picture in mind when comparing software, because you need to make sure your team will actually use the system as well. Getting a CRM that the sales team doesn’t use is pretty useless 😏

Because of that, I’ve included the current scoring for each software on G2 so you get a better idea of how they stack up. It’s broken down as follows:

• Ease of Use
• Ease of Setup
• Meets Requirements
• Quality of Support
• Ease of Doing Business With
• Ease of Admin

I’ve then taken the average of the G2 review score, and combined it with the sales CRM feature score, to calculate… the final score! 🥇

The 10 best sales CRM software ranked

Don’t want to read the whole comparison? 🤓

The top 10 best CRMs for sales in 2026 are:

1. Salesflare: 9.7/10 🏆
2. HubSpot CRM & Sales Hub: 8.3/10
3. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales: 7.3/10
4. Close: 7.1/10
5. Coevera: 7.1/10
6. Breakcold: 7.1/10
7. Freshsales Suite: 6.9/10
8. Pipedrive: 6.8/10
9. Salesforce: 6.1/10
10. Zoho CRM: 6.0/10

Want to dig into the details? Read on!

1. Salesflare: best CRM for B2B sales [9.7/10] 🏆

Best for: Small and medium-sized B2B sales teams that want less CRM admin. Salesflare automatically captures customer, contact and activity data, keeping the people and conversations behind each deal in view. That relationship context makes follow-up easier and is the foundation of Salesflare’s sales automation and AI.

Main trade-off: Purpose-built for B2B relationship sales; less suited to high-volume, transactional B2C sales.

If I ask our customers what they’re essentially using Salesflare for, the answer is usually: to better follow up our leads.

Our goal at Salesflare is to make following up leads super easy for you, without you having to input data to keep the system alive. And with a ton of built-in automation to make you more productive.

Salesflare (founded in 2014) is used by thousands of small and medium-sized businesses who sell to other businesses (incl. agencies, consultancies, development houses, tech companies, …). It’s top ranked across review platforms and is the #1 CRM software on Product Hunt, the leading community for product enthusiasts.

It’s very tightly integrated with Gmail (also within Google Workspace) and Outlook, so you don’t need to switch between your inbox and sales software while tracking leads. Plus it adds some handy features like integrated email and website tracking, email templates, and email sequences.

“Salesflare brings an effortless CRM experience: without much work or effort our sales people can keep records on customers and opportunities updated and provide management with an accurate forecast. Tracking our sales efforts have never been easier. Furthermore this is the first CRM software our sales people actually really want to use and use (where all other software failed achieving this).” writes Frank M., Managing Director of an IT consulting company, about Salesflare.

Testing it out

When you test Salesflare, you’ll immediately notice the emphasis on automation and ease of use. The setup process is incredibly straightforward, and you can connect your email and social media accounts with just a few clicks. Once connected, Salesflare automatically pulls in data, creating comprehensive profiles for each contact without requiring manual input from you.

The automated data entry feature is a standout. Salesflare collects and organizes contact information, company data, and even social media profiles, ensuring you have all the details you need in one place. The email and meeting tracking is seamless. Every email you send and receive is logged automatically, with real-time updates on when your emails are opened and links are clicked. This feature helps you stay on top of lead engagement and prioritize follow-ups effectively.

Salesflare’s timeline view is another highlight, providing a clear, chronological overview of all interactions with your contacts. This makes it easy to keep track of your communications and never miss a beat. Additionally, Salesflare’s integrations with Gmail and Outlook mean you can manage your CRM without leaving your inbox.

Overall, Salesflare makes following up with leads effortless and highly efficient, thanks to its robust automation and user-friendly interface.

Scoring

Without further ado, here’s an analysis of how Salesflare stacks up:

Features Salesflare offers: 10/10

• Visualize your leads in multiple drag-and-drop pipelines
• Send automated email sequences until leads reply
• Automatically enrich leads from both publicly available info and email signatures
• Track the source (and lost reason) of your leads and analyze it
• Get reminded to follow-up automatically when leads go inactive
• Track leads with integrated email & website tracking
• Get a live overview of what your leads are doing in an in-app notification center
• Digitize business leads with a built-in business card scanner
• Use email templates within your Gmail inbox to manage leads more productively
• Manage your leads fully from your inbox with a handy email sidebar

Features Salesflare doesn’t offer: none

G2 review scoring:

• Ease of Use: 9.3
• Ease of Setup: 9.4
• Meets Requirements: 9.1
• Quality of Support: 9.7
• Ease of Doing Business With: 9.8
• Ease of Admin: 9.3

Final result:

• Sales CRM feature score: 10/10
• Average G2 review score: 9.4/10
• FINAL SCORE: 9.7/10

Pricing

Pricing to get all of the above (10 of 10 features) on the Salesflare Pro plan:

• $49/user/month (billed annually)
• $64/user/month (billed monthly)

Salesflare offers a free trial of up to 30 days.

Try Salesflare

Want to see it all in action? You can try Salesflare for free. 👈

It only takes a few minutes to start a Salesflare trial and start tracking your leads in a better way.

Try it for yourself to see how automatic data capture can make your day-to-day sales work easier.

Try it for free

2. HubSpot CRM + Sales Hub: best for sales & marketing [8.3/10]

Best for: Teams combining sales, marketing and service.

Main trade-off: Advanced sales features require a higher-priced plan and onboarding fee.

HubSpot is a marketing automation platform turned everything platform. It was founded in 2006 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 what you’re looking for.

“What I like best about HubSpot Sales Hub is its seamless integration with the HubSpot CRM. This integration allows sales teams to efficiently track customer interactions and manage contacts without needing to switch between different platforms, significantly streamlining the workflow.” writes Pierquinto M., founder of an education app, about HubSpot.

To get functionality that is comparable to what you’re getting with the other sales CRM software in this ranking, you need to get two HubSpot products: its CRM and its Sales Hub.

That makes the pricing to get all this handy functionality (8 of 10 features) quite steep, starting at $90/seat/month billed annually or $100/seat/month billed monthly, plus an extra required onboarding fee of $1500.

Testing it out

When I tested HubSpot CRM and Sales Hub, I was impressed by the extensive range of integrated tools that aim to create a seamless experience for managing sales, marketing, and customer service.

The first feature that stood out was the ease of setting up the CRM. The onboarding process was relatively intuitive, and the platform offered helpful prompts and tutorials that guided me through the initial configuration. This was helpful, because the software itself can feel quite overwhelming.

I did also find that the integration with other tools could sometimes be a bit complex. While HubSpot offers a wide range of integrations, setting them up required careful attention to detail to ensure everything worked smoothly. Despite this, once set up, the integrations significantly enhanced the platform’s capabilities.

A major downside was the cost. To access all the features I needed, I had to subscribe to the Sales Hub, which made the overall pricing quite steep. Additionally, there was a significant onboarding fee, which might be a barrier for smaller businesses with limited budgets.

Scoring

Features HubSpot CRM + Sales Hub offers: 8/10

• Visualize your leads in multiple drag-and-drop pipelines
• Send automated email sequences until leads reply
• Automatically enrich leads from both publicly available info and email signatures
• Track the source (and lost reason) of your leads and analyze it
• Track leads with integrated email & website tracking
• Digitize business leads with a built-in business card scanner
• Use email templates within your Gmail inbox to manage leads more productively
• Manage your leads fully from your inbox with a handy email sidebar

Features HubSpot CRM + Sales Hub doesn’t offer:

• Get reminded to follow-up automatically when leads go inactive
• Get a live overview of what your leads are doing in an in-app notification center

G2 review scoring:

• Ease of Use: 8.7
• Ease of Setup: 8.3
• Meets Requirements: 8.6
• Quality of Support: 8.6
• Ease of Doing Business With: 8.7
• Ease of Admin: 8.6

Final result:

• Sales CRM feature score: 8/10
• Average G2 review score: 8.6/10
• FINAL SCORE: 8.3/10

Pricing

Pricing to get all of the above (8 of 10 features) on the HubSpot Sales Hub Professional plan:

• $90/seat/month (billed annually)
• $100/seat/month (billed monthly, but with annual commitment)

+ an extra required fee of $1500 for onboarding

HubSpot offers a free trial of 14 days.

3. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales: best for sales teams using Microsoft 365 [7.3/10]

Best for: Sales teams that need configurable processes, guided follow-up and detailed pipeline reporting.

Main trade-off: Sequences, reporting and the sales workspace take more configuration and administration.

Microsoft entered the CRM market in 2003, and Dynamics 365 Sales is now the sales application within its broader business software platform. It combines accounts, contacts, leads and opportunities with configurable sales processes and reporting.

Its focus is on giving sales teams a structured way to work. The Sales accelerator brings upcoming activities into a prioritized work list, while sequences guide reps through a series of calls, emails and other follow-up steps. Managers can tailor dashboards and reports to the way their team sells.

The connections with Outlook and Microsoft 365 are another reason to consider it, especially if your company already uses Microsoft software throughout the business. Dataverse and Power Apps give administrators room to adapt records, forms and processes beyond a basic pipeline.

That flexibility also makes Dynamics a bigger implementation project than many of the sales CRMs in this list. It makes most sense when you need those controls and have someone to maintain them; a small team mainly looking to keep track of leads and follow up will have a simpler start elsewhere.

Testing it out

When I tested Dynamics 365 Sales, I found the core opportunity management very capable. I could structure deals through different stages, keep the related account and contacts close by, and use dashboards and reports to get a much broader view of the pipeline.

The Sales accelerator was the more interesting part for day-to-day selling. It brings upcoming activities into a prioritized work list and lets you build sequences that guide reps through follow-up steps. Once configured, I could see this working well for a larger sales organization that wants everyone following a more consistent process.

The trade-off is that much of this power needs to be configured first. Building sequences, deciding what appears in the workspace and tailoring reporting is more involved than in a pipeline-first CRM like Pipedrive. Dynamics gives sales managers a lot of control, but that control comes with more administration.

Scoring

Features Dynamics 365 Sales offers: 7/10

• Visualize your leads in multiple drag-and-drop pipelines
• Send automated email sequences until leads reply
• Track the source (and lost reason) of your leads and analyze it
• Get reminded to follow-up automatically when leads go inactive
• Get a live overview of what your leads are doing in an in-app notification center
• Digitize business leads with a built-in business card scanner
• Manage your leads fully from your inbox with a handy email sidebar

Features Dynamics 365 Sales doesn’t offer in this comparison:

• Automatically enrich leads from both publicly available info and email signatures
• Track leads with integrated email & website tracking
• Use email templates within your Gmail inbox to manage leads more productively

Dynamics 365 Sales’ G2 review scoring:

• Ease of Use: 7.5
• Ease of Setup: 7.2
• Meets Requirements: 8.1
• Quality of Support: 7.5
• Ease of Doing Business With: 7.8
• Ease of Admin: 7.6

Final result:

• Sales CRM feature score: 7/10
• Average G2 review score: 7.6/10
• FINAL SCORE: 7.3/10

Pricing

Pricing to get all of the above (7 of 10 features) on the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise plan:

• $105/user/month (billed annually)

Dynamics 365 Sales offers a 30-day free trial.

4. Close: best for cold calling [7.1/10]

Best for: Sales teams focused on calling-led outbound outreach.

Main trade-off: No native automatic lead enrichment or integrated website tracking in this comparison.

Close is a sales CRM company that grew from an outbound sales agency that specialized in outbound calling.

This history is still clear when you try Close today, as it’s more heavily focused than the other CRMs in this list on calling features like a power dialer and a predictive dialer.

The software works a little differently than most, as it doesn’t have “companies” as a concept and you need to create “opportunities” linked to “leads” instead. But once you get used to how it works, it’s relatively straightforward.

So, if calling a list of cold leads is what you do on a daily basis, this sales CRM might very well be what you’re looking for.

Testing it out

Using Close was a distinct experience compared to other CRMs, particularly due to its strong focus on outbound calling features.

The calling features, including the power dialer and predictive dialer, were impressive and streamlined the process of making large volumes of calls. This made it an ideal tool for teams that heavily rely on outbound sales efforts.

The email automation was another plus, allowing me to send sequences until a lead responded. This feature ensured that no lead slipped through the cracks and that follow-ups were timely and consistent.

On the downside, Close lacked some features like native automatic lead enrichment and integrated website tracking, which are available in other CRMs. These omissions meant that I had to rely on additional tools or manual processes to gather comprehensive lead information.

Despite these limitations, the ease of use and the strong focus on calling functionalities made Close a valuable tool for outbound sales teams, though the pricing was on the higher end, especially for smaller teams.

Scoring

Features Close offers: 5/10

• Visualize your leads in multiple drag-and-drop pipelines
• Send automated email sequences until leads reply
• Track the source (and lost reason) of your leads and analyze it
• Manage your leads fully from your inbox with a handy email sidebar
• Get reminded to follow-up automatically when leads go inactive

Features Close doesn’t offer:

• Automatically enrich leads from both publicly available info and email signatures
• Track leads with integrated email & website tracking
• Get a live overview of what your leads are doing in an in-app notification center
• Digitize business leads with a built-in business card scanner
• Use email templates within your Gmail inbox to manage leads more productively

G2 review scoring:

• Ease of Use: 9.2
• Ease of Setup: 9.1
• Meets Requirements: 9.1
• Quality of Support: 9.3
• Ease of Doing Business With: 9.3
• Ease of Admin: 9.0

Final result:

• Sales CRM feature score: 5/10
• Average G2 review score: 9.2/10
• FINAL SCORE: 7.1/10

Pricing

Pricing to get all of the above (5 of 10 features) on the Close Growth plan:

• $99/user/month (billed annually)
• $109/user/month (billed monthly)

Close offers a free trial of 14 days.

5. Coevera: best for sales management [7.1/10]

Best for: Sales managers who want detailed pipeline visibility.

Main trade-off: More interface complexity; no email sequences or automatic inactive-lead reminders in this comparison.

Coevera (formerly Pipeliner CRM) is a software company founded in 2011 with the goal of building better software for salespeople.

Although Salesflare hardly ever gets compared to Coevera by people who want to follow up their leads in a better way, I decided to include them in this comparison because of their clear dedication to sales management software.

“The best features are the visual sales pipeline and easy customisation, and also the multiple sales pipelines. The activity tracker allow us to convince the sales ops to make easy reports.” writes Alessandro R., co-founder of a financial services company, about Coevera.

The software covers 5 of the 10 features in this comparison, although it’s also a little dated and not too easy to use.

Coevera’s pricing rises quite steeply as you need more functionality, which probably makes it a better fit for mid-sized companies with deep pockets.

Testing it out

My experience with Coevera was mixed, with both positive highlights and some frustrations.

On the positive side, the visual pipeline management was a strong point. The drag-and-drop interface made it easy to move leads through different stages, providing a clear and organized view of my sales process. This feature is particularly beneficial for those who prefer a visual representation of their sales funnel.

The built-in business card scanner was another useful feature, allowing me to quickly digitize new contacts. This functionality streamlined the process of adding new leads and saved a lot of manual data entry time.

However, I found the interface to be somewhat dated and cluttered. Navigating through the various features required more clicks than I would have liked, which occasionally made the workflow feel cumbersome. The user experience could benefit from a more modern and streamlined design.

Additionally, while Coevera offers a decent range of features, I noticed a lack of some automated functionalities that are available in other CRMs. For example, there were no automated email sequences or reminders for inactive leads, which are crucial for maintaining consistent follow-ups.

Pricing was another concern. As my needs would grow, the cost of additional features would increase significantly, making it a less economical choice for smaller teams or businesses on a tight budget.

Scoring

Features Coevera offers: 5/10

• Visualize your leads in multiple drag-and-drop pipelines
• Track the source (and lost reason) of your leads and analyze it
• Get a live overview of what your leads are doing in an in-app notification center
• Digitize business leads with a built-in business card scanner
• Manage your leads fully from your inbox with a handy email sidebar

Features Coevera doesn’t offer:

• Send automated email sequences until leads reply
• Automatically enrich leads from both publicly available info and email signatures
• Get reminded to follow-up automatically when leads go inactive
• Track leads with integrated email & website tracking
• Use email templates within your Gmail inbox to manage leads more productively

G2 review scoring:

• Ease of Use: 9.3
• Ease of Setup: 9.1
• Meets Requirements: 9.1
• Quality of Support: 9.1
• Ease of Doing Business With: 9.2
• Ease of Admin: 9.2

Final result:

• Sales CRM feature score: 5/10
• Average G2 review score: 9.2/10
• FINAL SCORE: 7.1/10

Pricing

Pricing to get all of the above (5 of 10 features) on the Coevera Business plan:

• $85/user/month (only billed annually)
• $100/user/month (only billed monthly)

Coevera offers a free trial of 14 days.

6. Breakcold: best for AI with multichannel [7.1/10]

Best for: Small sales teams selling across social and messaging channels.

Main trade-off: Automation centers on AI agents; no broader CRM workflow builder.

Breakcold is an AI native sales CRM built for teams that sell through conversations across different channels.

One of its differentiators is its multichannel CRM sync. Breakcold brings email, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and Telegram conversations together in the CRM, so you can manage relationships across the channels where your leads actually reply. It also syncs calls and meetings to the same customer context.

It has recently gone deep on AI-powered CRM automation too. Breakcold can use conversations to automatically create follow-up tasks and move leads through pipelines, while its MCP integration allows AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT to work with CRM data directly.

“It is a very unique way to leverage LinkedIn to prospect for clients,” writes Michael G., a small-business user, about Breakcold.

Testing it out

Breakcold feels a little different from some of the other CRMs in this comparison. It puts conversations and next actions ahead of database management, which suits teams selling across several channels.

Its CRM employees section is the main strength the company puts forward. In the CRM, you can hire, promote or fire CRM employees (AI agents) that handle tedious tasks such as updating the CRM, creating tasks and drafting follow-ups. However, it doesn’t provide CRM automation workflow features beyond those CRM employees.

Overall, Breakcold is better suited for small sales teams selling across different channels than for companies looking for a more comprehensive CRM. It automatically enriches people and companies and provides lead-source analytics, but lacks email-signature enrichment, native lost-reason tracking and website visitor tracking.

It is therefore most interesting for smaller sales teams focused on social and messaging channels, instead of teams that need a more well-rounded and mature CRM.

Scoring

Without further ado, here’s an analysis of how Breakcold stacks up:

Features Breakcold offers: 5/10

• Visualize your leads in multiple drag-and-drop pipelines
• Send automated email sequences until leads reply
• Get reminded to follow-up automatically when leads go inactive
• Get a live overview of what your leads are doing in an in-app notification center
• Manage your leads fully from your inbox with a handy email sidebar

Features Breakcold doesn’t offer:

• Automatically enrich leads from both publicly available info and email signatures
• Track the source (and lost reason) of your leads and analyze it
• Track leads with integrated email & website tracking
• Digitize business leads with a built-in business card scanner
• Use email templates within your Gmail inbox to manage leads more productively

G2 review scoring:

• Ease of Use: 9.0
• Ease of Setup: 9.2
• Meets Requirements: 8.9
• Quality of Support: 9.4
• Ease of Doing Business With: 9.4
• Ease of Admin: 9.5

Final result:

• Sales CRM feature score: 5/10
• Average G2 review score: 9.2/10
• FINAL SCORE: 7.1/10

Pricing

Pricing to get all of the above (5 of 10 features) on Breakcold’s only plan:

• $79.20/month (billed annually at $950.40/year)
• $99/month (billed monthly)

The base plan includes 1 seat, 2 connected accounts and 3,000 AI CRM actions. Additional seats and connected accounts cost $10/month each.

Breakcold offers a free trial of 14 days.

7. Freshsales Suite: best for feature depth [6.9/10]

Best for: Teams prioritizing a broad sales feature set.

Main trade-off: A busier interface and no automatic email-signature enrichment in this comparison.

Freshsales Suite is a sales and marketing CRM from Freshworks, the company behind / initially called Freshdesk. Freshworks was founded in 2010 to provide a better, cheaper solution for customer service teams.

Freshsales Suite’s 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 competitor/predecessor from the same city, Zoho.

What makes Freshsales Suite strong is also its weakness: the interface is full of so many little buttons that common side-effects of using the platform include a mild headache, fatigue and dizziness. 😅

Testing it out

Testing Freshsales Suite provided a solid, albeit slightly overwhelming, experience.

The interface was packed with features, which at first glance seemed very promising. The multiple drag-and-drop pipelines allowed for detailed customization of the sales process, and the email sequences feature enabled me to automate follow-ups until a lead replied, which was a significant time-saver.

However, the plethora of buttons and options sometimes made the interface feel cluttered. There were moments when I felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of functionalities, leading to a steeper learning curve than anticipated. Despite this, once I got accustomed to the layout, the platform proved to be powerful and efficient.

One of the standout features was the live overview of lead activities. This feature provided real-time updates on what leads were doing, which was incredibly useful for timely follow-ups and understanding lead behavior.

On the downside, Freshsales Suite lacked some advanced automation features I had seen in other CRMs. For instance, there was no automatic enrichment of leads from publicly available information or email signatures, which would have added a layer of efficiency.

Pricing was fairly reasonable, but to access all the features, I needed to be on the Enterprise plan, which might be a bit pricey for very small businesses or startups.

Scoring

Features Freshsales Suite offers: 5/10

• Visualize your leads in multiple drag-and-drop pipelines
• Send automated email sequences until leads reply
• Track the source (and lost reason) of your leads and analyze it
• Get a live overview of what your leads are doing in an in-app notification center
• Manage your leads fully from your inbox with a handy email sidebar

Features Freshsales Suite doesn’t offer:

• Automatically enrich leads from both publicly available info and email signatures
• Get reminded to follow-up automatically when leads go inactive
• Track leads with integrated email & website tracking
• Digitize business leads with a built-in business card scanner
• Use email templates within your Gmail inbox to manage leads more productively

G2 review scoring:

• Ease of Use: 9.0
• Ease of Setup: 8.7
• Meets Requirements: 8.7
• Quality of Support: 8.8
• Ease of Doing Business With: 9.0
• Ease of Admin: 8.9

Final result:

• Sales CRM feature score: 5/10
• Average G2 review score: 8.9/10
• FINAL SCORE: 6.9/10

Pricing

Pricing to get all of the above (5 of 10 features) on the Freshsales Suite Enterprise plan*:

• $59/user/month(billed annually)
• $71/user/month(billed monthly)

* Sequences with stricter limits also available on Pro plan

Freshsales Suite offers a free trial of 21 days.

8. Pipedrive: best for smaller startups [6.8/10]

Best for: Small sales teams that want a simple visual pipeline.

Main trade-off: More manual relationship-data upkeep; no automatic inactive-lead reminders in this comparison.

Pipedrive is an easy-to-use and easy-to-setup sales CRM software for small businesses and startups, and is therefore compared to Salesflare very often.

The company was founded in 2010 to launch a counterreaction to enterprise systems like Salesforce, which are built more for enterprise needs than they are for sales teams. Pipedrive set out to change that.

While the company is focused on helping you manage your sales in a better way, it covers 5 of the 10 features in this comparison: it has since added automated email sequences on its Growth plan and higher, so I’ve updated the feature score here.

Testing it out

During my trial of Pipedrive, I was impressed by its simplicity and focus on sales pipeline management. The drag-and-drop interface for managing deals made it easy to visualize and move prospects through different stages of the sales process. This visual approach felt intuitive and helped me keep track of where each deal stood at any given moment.

Setting up Pipedrive was quick and relatively painless. The initial data import process was smooth, and I could easily map fields from my existing spreadsheets to Pipedrive’s structure. The integration with email was also seamless, allowing me to track conversations and sync schedules without hassle.

However, while the basic functionalities were strong, Pipedrive only unlocks automated email sequences from its Growth plan up, and it still lacked actual lead enrichment from public sources as well as integrated email & website tracking.

Pipedrive’s simplicity is both its strength and its limitation. It’s an excellent tool for straightforward sales processes but might require additional tools or integrations for more complex needs.

Scoring

Features Pipedrive offers: 5/10

• Visualize your leads in multiple drag-and-drop pipelines
• Send automated email sequences until leads reply
• Track the source (and lost reason) of your leads and analyze it
• Get a live overview of what your leads are doing in an in-app notification center
• Manage your leads fully from your inbox with a handy email sidebar

Features Pipedrive doesn’t offer:

• Automatically enrich leads from both publicly available info and email signatures
• Get reminded to follow-up automatically when leads go inactive
• Track leads with integrated email & website tracking
• Digitize business leads with a built-in business card scanner
• Use email templates within your Gmail inbox to manage leads more productively

G2 review scoring:

• Ease of Use: 8.8
• Ease of Setup: 8.7
• Meets Requirements: 8.5
• Quality of Support: 8.4
• Ease of Doing Business With: 8.7
• Ease of Admin: 8.6

Final result:

• Sales CRM feature score: 5/10
• Average G2 review score: 8.6/10
• FINAL SCORE: 6.8/10

Pricing

Pricing to get all of the above (5 of 10 features) on the Pipedrive Premium plan:

• $59/seat/month (billed annually)
• $79/seat/month (billed monthly)

Pipedrive offers a free trial of 14 days.

9. Salesforce Sales Cloud: best for large enterprises [6.1/10]

Best for: Large teams with complex processes and implementation resources.

Main trade-off: Substantial setup, training and ongoing administration.

Salesforce is by far the biggest CRM company in the world, controlling about 20% of the market in 2026. It was founded in 1999 in California by an ex-Oracle executive.

Salesforce offers a huge platform to enterprises that basically consists of a set of building blocks with which you can build anything, gives the possibility to customize everything, and the promise to connect to whatever other software you’re using.

A Salesforce implementation typically requires a consulting company to map the business needs and workflow, build all this in Salesforce, connect with other software, train the employees and follow up with additional changes afterwards.

While the software is not a great match for small and medium-sized businesses nor really built for sales follow up, no comparison is complete without mentioning the market leader.

Testing it out

When I tested Salesforce Sales Cloud, I was immediately struck by its comprehensive customization options. The platform felt more like a toolkit than a traditional CRM, allowing for an extensive degree of personalization. However, this flexibility came with a steep learning curve.

Setting up Salesforce required significant time and effort. It wasn’t just about entering data but configuring the system to align with specific business processes. I found myself frequently consulting the help documentation and community forums. The need for external consultants became apparent, especially for more complex configurations.

One feature that stood out was the reporting and analytics capabilities. The depth of data you can extract and analyze is impressive, albeit requiring a good grasp of Salesforce’s reporting tools. Integrating Salesforce with other systems was straightforward, thanks to its extensive list of available integrations, but again, setup was time-consuming.

Overall, Salesforce Sales Cloud proved powerful but demanded a significant investment in time and resources to get the most out of it.

Scoring

Features Salesforce Sales Cloud offers: 4/10

• Visualize your leads in multiple drag-and-drop pipelines
• Track the source (and lost reason) of your leads and analyze it
• Manage your leads fully from your inbox with a handy email sidebar
• Use email templates within your Gmail inbox to manage leads more productively

Features Salesforce Sales Cloud doesn’t offer:

• Send automated email sequences until leads reply
• Automatically enrich leads from both publicly available info and email signatures
• Get reminded to follow-up automatically when leads go inactive
• Track leads with integrated email & website tracking
• Get a live overview of what your leads are doing in an in-app notification center
• Digitize business leads with a built-in business card scanner

G2 review scoring:

• Ease of Use: 8.2
• Ease of Setup: 7.8
• Meets Requirements: 8.8
• Quality of Support: 8.1
• Ease of Doing Business With: 8.4
• Ease of Admin: 7.9

Final result:

• Sales CRM feature score: 4/10
• Average G2 review score: 8.2/10
• FINAL SCORE: 6.1/10

Pricing

Pricing to get all of the above (4 of 10 features) on the Salesforce Sales Cloud Pro Suite plan:

• $100/user/month(only billed annually)

Salesforce offers a free trial of 30 days.

10. Zoho CRM: best for all-in one business software [6.0/10]

Best for: Budget-conscious teams that also want other business apps.

Main trade-off: More manual lead upkeep; advanced functionality can require additional modules.

Zoho is a true household name in the CRM industry, so I couldn’t omit them from this ranking.

Zoho launched its small business CRM product in 2005 and has historically been positioning itself as a cheaper alternative to Salesforce. That is immediately its main selling point.

If you’re looking for a CRM solution, Zoho has many tiers (and products even: Zoho CRM, Zoho CRM Plus, Zoho One, …). Most of the four features below come on Zoho CRM’s Professional plan, which offers the lowest pricing of the platforms in this comparison.

Testing it out

When I tried out Zoho CRM, the first thing I noticed was its affordability and the broad range of features offered even at the lower pricing tiers. The user interface was clean and intuitive, making it relatively easy to navigate and set up without needing extensive training.

I appreciated the workflow automation capabilities, which allowed me to automate routine tasks with ease. Setting up workflows was straightforward, and I could quickly create rules to automate lead assignment and follow-ups. The AI-powered Zia assistant provided useful insights and suggestions, adding a layer of intelligence to the CRM usage.

One downside I experienced was the occasional lag in performance, particularly when running complex reports or loading large datasets. Additionally, while Zoho CRM offers many features, some of the more advanced functionalities required additional modules, which could increase the cost.

Overall, Zoho CRM presented a lowly priced offering, making it a strong contender for small to medium-sized businesses.

Scoring

Features Zoho CRM offers: 4/10

• Visualize your leads in multiple drag-and-drop pipelines
• Track the source (and lost reason) of your leads and analyze it
• Digitize business leads with a built-in business card scanner
• Manage your leads fully from your inbox with a handy email sidebar

Features Zoho CRM doesn’t offer:

• Send automated email sequences until leads reply
• Automatically enrich leads from both publicly available info and email signatures
• Get reminded to follow-up automatically when leads go inactive
• Track leads with integrated email & website tracking
• Get a live overview of what your leads are doing in an in-app notification center
• Use email templates within your Gmail inbox to manage leads more productively

G2 review scoring:

• Ease of Use: 8.3
• Ease of Setup: 8.0
• Meets Requirements: 8.4
• Quality of Support: 7.7
• Ease of Doing Business With: 8.0
• Ease of Admin: 8.0

Final result:

• Sales CRM feature score: 4/10
• Average G2 review score: 8.1/10
• FINAL SCORE: 6.0/10

Pricing

Pricing to get all of the above (4 of 10 features) on Zoho CRM Professional plan:

• $23/user/month(billed annually)
• $35/user/month(billed monthly)

+20% if you want to get “Premium support” (i.e. comparable support to what you get in other places)

Zoho CRM offers a free trial of 15 days.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which CRM is the best for sales?

In this ranking, Salesflare comes out as the best CRM for B2B sales teams that want to follow up leads more consistently, with less manual data entry. HubSpot is stronger if you want sales and marketing in one larger platform, Close is a better fit for outbound calling-heavy teams, and Salesforce is better suited to large enterprises with complex customization needs.

Which is the #1 CRM software?

Salesforce is widely recognized as the #1 CRM software by market share. In this ranking, however, Salesflare comes out #1 for small and medium-sized B2B sales teams that want easier lead follow-up with less manual data entry.

What are the 3 types of CRM?

The three types of CRM are Operational CRM, Analytical CRM, and Collaborative CRM.

Operational CRM focuses on automating and improving business processes such as sales automation, marketing automation, and customer service.

Analytical CRM focuses on analyzing customer data to gain insights and make data-driven decisions.

Collaborative CRM focuses on facilitating communication and collaboration between different departments and teams to enhance customer interactions and relationships.

Is Salesforce a CRM?

Yes, Salesforce is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software. It is one of the most popular and widely used CRM platforms globally. Salesforce offers a wide range of features and functionalities to help businesses manage their customer interactions, sales processes, marketing campaigns, and customer service activities.

That’s all I have for the 10 sales CRM software platforms!

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