The CRM market is experiencing significant growth, and it is predicted that it will reach a market size of $128.97 billion by 2028. Startups require an effective CRM as it serves as a centralized system for handling customer relationships and sales procedures, which becomes particularly crucial when they have ambitious goals with limited financial resources.
Do startups need a CRM?
Can it be described in one word? Absolutely.
Startups necessitate a system to expedite the adjustment of their sales, marketing, and customer service procedures, as they are continually growing and evolving.
The process of monitoring and managing relationships throughout the entire customer lifecycle is made easier with a customer relationship management platform, making it the ideal solution. Moreover, about 40% of sales professionals perceive their CRM as highly effective in aligning sales and marketing teams.
What are the benefits of using a CRM for startups?
Here are a few ways in which a CRM system can be an invaluable resource to help startups meet those needs.
- Nurture strong customer relationships from the start
To ensure successful conversions, startups require a strong CRM that incorporates reminders, efficient scheduling, and an area to jot down notes regarding potential customers, facilitating effective conversations and guiding them through the sales funnel.
- Provide excellent customer experiences
When considering brand loyalty, 74% of consumers prioritize feeling valued and understood over receiving discounts or perks. To provide exceptional customer experiences, utilize a CRM system that assists in sorting and examining customer data, enabling the crafting of personalized messages, content, and communication patterns.
- Centralize data
To enhance the data organization and flow within the company, it is essential for a startup to store all customer data in a centralized location. This is crucial as effective data management plays a significant role in determining decisions related to current and future projects.
- Provide clarity within your team
A straightforward CRM facilitates your employees in locating customer information or important updates pertinent to the sales cycle. This encompasses customer lifecycle stages, CRM bug reporting, deal information, and new feature releases that they can propose to prospective customers.
- Streamline the sales process
By sorting sales, labeling opportunities, and grouping customers as desired, a CRM provides visibility into the complete sales pipeline. Through a sophisticated platform, custom dashboards can be utilized to promptly monitor deal progress, sales figures, team performance, and other relevant information.
- Better scalability and growth preparation
As your startup expands, the sales and customer service teams will also increase in size. Your business’s CRM system will grow accordingly, allowing new team members to immediately access sales processes and product information.
Best CRM Software for Startups
Freshsales Suite – Best CRM for startups
After conducting research, we have determined that Freshsales Suite is the top CRM for startups due to various factors. Firstly, it provides affordable pricing options, beginning at just $15 per user per month, allowing startups to begin without a substantial financial obligation. Furthermore, this plan is available completely free of charge if the number of users is three or fewer, a feasible limit for most startups.
In addition to that, Freshsales Suite provides a simple and intuitive interface, making it the easiest CRM to use. Even users who are inexperienced can quickly get started within minutes. Additionally, it offers a good level of customization and includes various sales and marketing features such as contact management, automated lead scoring, and marketing drip campaigns.
The pricing for Freshsales Suite is being considered in a step-by-step manner without any addition or removal of information.
Freshsales provides three pricing plans: Growth, Pro, and Enterprise. The Growth plan requires a payment of $15 per user per month, the Pro plan requires a payment of $39 per user per month, and the Enterprise plan requires a payment of $69 per user per month.
As previously stated, Freshsales Suite does not offer a free plan per se. However, you can utilize the features and functionality of the Growth plan without any cost, as long as you have three or fewer users. This option is beneficial for startups as it allows them to test the platform and begin using it before incorporating additional users.
HubSpot Free – Best free CRM for startups
Although Freshsales does provide an impressive free plan, it is difficult to compare with HubSpot’s free plan, especially for startups that require more marketing features rather than sales or customer service. HubSpot’s free plan offers an unparalleled range of features, such as comprehensive contact management choices, the ability to run marketing drip campaigns, track website visitors, and customize analytics.
HubSpot may not be as user-friendly as Freshsales Suite, possibly due to its focus on enterprise-level organizations and its paid level, leading to a slightly complicated interface. However, when considering the features and functionality of the free plan, HubSpot outperforms Zoho CRM, Freshsales Suite, and monday CRM. Hence, if you currently have no budget for CRM software, we highly recommend HubSpot as the top choice from this list.
The pricing of HubSpot remains the same without any added or removed information.
As previously stated, HubSpot provides a comprehensive free plan that enables you to initiate marketing, sales, and customer service activities without any expenses for your business. It is the most exceptional free plan among the options listed, and our research has determined it to be the top CRM for marketing.
If you decide to choose paid plans, you will probably have to pay a significant amount. The Sales and Service Hub Starter plans are reasonably priced at $9 per user, per month, while the Marketing Hub is priced at $18 per month. However, if you need additional features, you will have to pay either $90 or $120 per user, per month, which may exceed your startup budget.
Zoho Bigin – Best value CRM for startups
If you’re a small business and don’t require all the features of Zoho CRM, you can opt for Zoho Bigin. This platform is specifically designed for smaller businesses and offers customization options at a lower price.
Although Zoho Bigin lacks advanced options for sales, marketing, and customer service that are found in Zoho CRM, it does offer a range of contact management features including list segmentation and automated workflows. Additionally, its analytics are strong with tools such as custom dashboards and customer reports. In summary, Zoho Bigin is a cost-effective option that provides significant value without the need for all the extra features.
The pricing for Zoho Bigin remains unchanged, with no additional information added or removed from the original text.
Zoho Bigin provides users with two pricing options: Express and Premier. The Express plan is priced at just $7 per user per month, making it the most economical paid plan on the list. Similarly, the Premier plan costs $12 per user per month, remaining significantly cheaper than the majority of paid plans targeting startups.
Similar to other CRMs on this list, Zoho Bigin does provide a free plan, but it is quite basic, especially in comparison to the already minimal paid plans offered. Essentially, we would consider the Zoho Bigin paid plan more as a prolonged free trial rather than a suitable free choice for your business.
Zoho CRM – Best CRM for small business
If you are about to transition from a startup to a small business, Zoho CRM may be the most suitable option for you. Our investigation determined that Zoho CRM is the top choice for small businesses due to its powerful features in marketing, sales, and customer service industries. Additionally, Zoho CRM provides flexible pricing plans at affordable rates, making it suitable for any team.
Zoho CRM is not ranked higher on this list due to the fact that much of its functionality is only available in the more expensive paid plans, which is not ideal for startups. For instance, customer service plans are only accessible starting from the Professional plan which costs $23 per user, per month, and advanced sales features such as creating quotes and invoices are also restricted until that tier.
To put it simply, Zoho CRM is a great choice if you have the budget, but there are other options on this list that are more budget-friendly for startups.
The pricing for Zoho CRM remains the same; please rephrase the provided text by thinking step by step.
Zoho CRM provides a variety of pricing options, including Standard, Professional, Enterprise, Ultimate, and Plus plans. The Standard plan has a monthly cost of $14 per user, the Professional plan is priced at $23 per user per month, the Enterprise plan costs $40 per user monthly, the Ultimate plan is priced at $52 per user per month, and lastly, the Plus plan has a monthly cost of $57 per user.
Although Zoho CRM offers a free plan, similar to Zoho Bigin, its limitations make it unsuitable as a long-term solution for your business. We suggest utilizing it solely for testing the software, and later upgrading to a paid plan that better suits your requirements.
monday.com – Best for customization
Finding business software that meets the specific needs of a startup can be challenging, which is why we valued customizability in our research. This is why monday CRM was included on our list, as it offers an unparalleled level of customizability in terms of custom dashboards, objects, and task types across all paid plans.
The drawback of monday CRM is that it solely provides sales features since it is regarded as a comprehensive sales CRM. The only marketing feature available is web forms, and regardless of the amount you pay, there is no access to customer service features. Nevertheless, if you only require sales capabilities and value the ability to customize, monday CRM is the ideal CRM for you.
The pricing of CRM on Monday.
Monday CRM, similar to alternative choices, provides three pricing plans: Basic, Standard, and Pro. The Basic plan demands a fee of $10 monthly per user, the Standard plan requires a payment of $14 monthly per user, and the Pro plan necessitates a cost of $24 per user on a monthly basis.
It should be emphasized that monday CRM necessitates a minimum of three users for every plan, leading to higher costs compared to the aforementioned per user costs. To illustrate, the Basic plan costs only $10 per user per month; however, you must have a minimum of three users, resulting in a minimum cost of $30 per month.
Monday CRM offers a free plan that is limited in its capabilities, but it still includes all the sales features found in the paid plans.
Top features of CRMs for startups
To prevent wasting money and time, startups should narrow down their search for the most suitable CRM platform by considering these seven key features that can be found in the best CRM for startups.
- Ease of use
When you are a startup, you may have many important individuals fulfilling multiple roles. Choose a CRM that is not overly challenging for both sales representatives and marketing designers to implement.
All customer information, notes, progress on deals, and call schedules are displayed on a single screen, ensuring clear organization and preventing any confusion.
- Automation
According to Hubspot’s findings, 61% of leaders who exceed expectations utilize their CRM for automating certain aspects of their sales process, whereas only 46% of underperforming leaders do the same. To reach the top level, follow suit and automate mundane and low-impact tasks within your sales process. This will allow your team members to concentrate on the crucial tasks that contribute to your organization’s growth.
- Mobile CRM app
With over 7 billion mobile phone users, it is a common expectation for a good user experience on any device. Hence, your CRM should be compatible with various devices to ensure that your sales, marketing, and customer service teams can access essential information regardless of their location, which is particularly important in the current situation where remote work and dispersed sales representatives are becoming more prevalent.
- Dashboards
The role of analytics in customer relationship management is important as it helps in uncovering data pertaining to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
With the help of an all-in-one visual dashboard, you can analyze sales boards in a step-by-step manner and identify:
- the top-performing sales rep for the month
- how many deals are in progress
- how many need to be completed
- which customer service reps get the best feedback.
- Integrations
Select a CRM that can be integrated with all the other applications you are using, which will lead to a unified and collaborative working environment.
- Budget-friendly
Startups cannot waste their money on expensive tools that they will not use. They require an affordable yet highly functional CRM. The pricing plans for monday sales CRM are reasonably priced, and our list of features is extensive.
- Scalability
When considering an online CRM, it is important to select one that facilitates the growth of your company. It should be convenient to incorporate new employees into the system and ensure they receive the necessary information for their success.
Should a startup use a CRM?
When you have a limited budget and a small business, it may be tempting to save money on software and choose a manual method for managing customer relationships. However, as your business grows, these methods will no longer be sufficient. In simple terms, it is easier to start using CRM software before your operations become too complicated, so it is advisable to begin as soon as possible rather than later.
