The 10 Best CRM for Startups

If you are a SaaS startup looking for a CRM, then Salesforce CRM is worth checking out.

Salesforce has features such as opportunity management, partner management, sales forecasting, and more. 

Within the Salesforce platform, a comprehensive contact manager ensures streamlined customer information and evaluates leads for optimal success rates.

Salesforce's AppExchange is a vast marketplace of pre-built integrations and apps specifically designed to enhance CRM functionalities. As a SaaS startup, you can use this ecosystem to integrate your CRM with other essential business tools and automate various processes, saving time and increasing efficiency.

You can also access a reporting tool and dashboard for real-time insights into performance. Salesforce provides marketing and sales automation solutions and serves as the essential CRM tool for your SaaS team.

The best things about Salesforce are:

• Using Einstein Activity Capture eliminates the need for manual data input.
• There is a strong focus on providing robust user support and comprehensive training.
• The Salesforce platform offers an extensive App Exchange with a wide range of integrations.
• It provides sales-focused tools for efficient lead and contact management.
• Salesforce offers features that include organising customer data and tracking sales activities.

It has a well-designed dashboard that displays all your data, allowing for easy access and analysis. The flexible pipeline features accommodate various working methodologies, while intelligent alerts inform you of important updates. 

In addition to its native integrations, Salesforce provides access to the App Exchange, which hosts thousands of third-party apps for enhanced functionality and customisation.

If you need a CRM to handle and manage multiple pipelines simultaneously, then PipeDrive is worth checking out.

PipeDrive has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy for you to create and manage pipelines effortlessly. This streamlines the pipeline management process and allows you to focus on your core business activities without getting stuck in complex processes.

Pipedrive has a feature known as deal rotting, which notifies you when a deal becomes inactive. Automated workflows and AI-driven sales assistance help you take proactive measures to revive the deal.

With Pipedrive CRM, you can effectively organise and streamline your leads through customisable visual pipelines, optimising your chances of closing more deals. 

You can create tailored visual pipelines to suit your unique needs. For example, you can have a separate pipeline for direct sales with various stages—"initial contact," "demo scheduled," "proposal sent," and "negotiation."—and another pipeline to manage channel sales. 

The best things about PipeDrive are:

• You can use custom reports and visual dashboards to monitor your team's progress.
• Effortlessly manage your daily tasks by viewing them either in a convenient calendar format or as a comprehensive to-do list.
• Create personalised email templates or select from a range of pre-designed templates to save time and streamline your communication with clients.
• You can tailor the CRM to suit your specific needs through customisation options. Modify pipelines, labels, fields, and more to reflect your unique sales process. You can add, edit, and reposition customer stages to align with your workflow.
• Maximise your return on investment through effective sales forecasting. Efficiently plan your sales strategies by prioritising high-value activities, focusing on deals with a higher likelihood of closing, and identifying new opportunities to pursue.

As a startup, managing customer information can be challenging while focusing on scaling your startup.

BIGContacts is an easy-to-use CRM that tracks all emails and communication, providing a unified view for the entire team.

The platform has customisable email templates, automated workflows, and email tracking functionalities. This feature lets you personalise your email campaigns and measure your marketing efforts' effectiveness.

It also helps you clearly identify and rank your prospects based on how interested they are in your product or service. You can then use this information to tailor your follow-up emails accordingly and increase your chances of conversion.

The best things about BIGContacts are:

• With BIGContacts, you have the ability to capture, arrange, and categorise contacts through custom fields, tags, and lists.
• You can easily create recurring tasks, determine their priorities, assign them to team members, and synchronise them with your contacts.
• It has automated drip campaigns to ensure that the right message is delivered based on the behavior and actions of your contacts.
• The sales pipeline is customisable and features a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface.
• Reports and analytics tools are available to help you analyse data, gain valuable business insights, understand customer behavior, and identify trends

If you need a CRM for social media marketing, then Nimble CRM is worth checking out. 

Nimble CRM seamlessly integrates with popular social media platforms, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram, which allows you to easily track and manage interactions with customers and leads across multiple social media channels. 

It has great contact management features that allow you to efficiently capture, organise, and segment contacts using custom fields, tags, and lists. By having a well-organised contact database, you can effectively target and engage with your audience, leading to higher conversion rates and better ROI on social media marketing efforts.

Nimble CRM has built-in social listening capabilities that enable you to monitor and track conversations about your brand, competitors, and industry on social media platforms. This feature provides you with valuable insights into customer sentiments and preferences, allowing you to tailor your social media marketing strategies accordingly. 

Additionally, Nimble CRM makes it easy for you to engage with customers and prospects directly, fostering meaningful relationships and improving brand reputation on social media.

The best things about Nimble CRM are:

• Social Media Integration
• Contact Management
• Task Management

Nimble CRM is ideal for small startups with 1-4 users who are seeking to enhance their customer engagement levels through focused marketing campaigns. 

With its integrated time tracking and SMS automation features, Nimble helps you to effectively manage your unique business processes in an efficient manner.

If you are looking for project management tools in your CRM, then Insightly is worth checking out.

It is a versatile CRM that has a range of tools specifically designed to help you effectively manage your projects. 

With features like milestone and task tracking, as well as calendar syncing, Insightly enables you to streamline and improve your project management processes.

It also gives you access to a range of integrated tools that can help track your projects from start to finish and even beyond. 

Once a deal is successfully closed, it can be seamlessly converted into a project that captures all essential information, documents, and notes from the sale. This feature allows you to store all critical customer-related data in one place, facilitating continuous monitoring of relationships and effective follow-up as needed.

The best things about Insightly are:

• Opportunity tracking: You can use the pipeline tracker to identify key sales milestones and plan the next steps for opportunities.
• Google Workspace integration: Seamlessly connect the software with various Google Workspace tools for enhanced productivity.
• Product management and quoting: Easily generate custom product inventories, price books, and quotes to share directly with your clients.

In addition, Insightly also offers email marketing functionality, allowing you to send, create, and monitor emails directly from the CRM. This feature also tracks open and click-through rates, providing insight into the effectiveness of your email campaigns. 

Freshsales CRM is a solution powered by AI that is both scalable and focused on customer service tools and achieving customer satisfaction. 

It Utilises AI-driven predictive analytics and enhances the overall customer experience. 

With Freshsales CRM, you can effectively manage your customer base, execute targeted email campaigns, and utilise Freddy AI for predictive analytics. 

It also has a mobile app, allowing you to conveniently monitor customer interactions and sales activities while on the go.

Freshsales CRM has marketing tools that include features for drip campaigns and email marketing, with options for custom forms for capturing contact details.

The best things about Freshsales are:

• It has an user-friendly interface
• It is highly customisable to align with your specific needs. You can track your team's most vital sales metrics, build automation processes to streamline your sales cycle, and seamlessly integrate with the tools you already use. 
•  It enables you to automate key tasks such as chatbot interactions, contact scoring, and lead management.
• It is a highly scalable CRM tool that grows along with your startup. By automating numerous tasks, it ensures that your sales team can efficiently handle increased data volume, customer interactions, and sales processes as your startup expands.

From lead management to deal tracking, Freshsales CRM helps you to streamline your sales processes, track leads efficiently, and maximise your revenue potential.

Freshsales offers a free Plan that includes features such as contact management, deal management, and built-in telephony. It also offers a free 21-day trial, allowing you to explore and experience the premium features that are available with other pricing plans.