Best Automotive CRM Software: Top 9 Options

You need a free automotive CRM software: HubSpot CRM is our top recommended general-use CRM for sales, marketing, service, and operations management tools at no cost. It provides car dealerships with a single platform for collecting leads, coordinating sales operations, and nurturing customer relationships.

HubSpot CRM’s free plan also includes its AI-powered Breeze Copilot tool. This smart tool helps you streamline customer service, automate sales outreach processes, and strengthen marketing campaigns.

You’re looking for an industry-specific automotive CRM: Since HubSpot is a general-use CRM system, it lacks niche-specific features, such as warranty management, insurance management, and DMS integrations.

Alternatives: Selly Automotive is our top recommended industry-specific CRM for independent dealerships. Its features include DMS integration, automated data entry via license scanning, and a smart call management system with direct dealership transfers. VinSolutions is another top automotive CRM software that has excellent vehicle inventory management capabilities.

You manage an independent car dealership: Selly Automotive offers automation features that eliminate menial tasks from the daily workflow of independent dealerships. These features include autoresponders to text and email messages for quick follow-ups with customer leads. It also has a centralized communication platform where you can access and manage emails, texts, and recorded calls from the web and mobile apps.

You need a free automotive CRM: Selly Automotive does not offer a free plan or trial. You can only watch a demo video or schedule a live demo session from its website.

Alternative: HubSpot CRM is an excellent general-use CRM that you can customize to manage your independent car dealership. Its free plan supports up to two users and includes a robust set of sales, marketing, service, and operations management tools.

You need an automotive CRM with robust reporting capabilities: Zoho CRM offers robust reporting features across all plans. Starting with the free plan, you can generate standard reports for car dealerships, including account, campaign, case, product, quote, and invoice reports. Paid plans (starting at $14 per user monthly) allow you to build custom reports and dashboards with charts and key performance indicators (KPIs).

You want an established provider with niche automotive CRM features: While Zoho CRM is one of the most popular CRMs on the market and is equipped with robust features for managing car dealerships, it is not an industry-specific platform. It requires extensive tab, label, and form customization to align with automotive terms and functions.

Alternative: Salesforce Automotive Cloud is a well-established CRM made specifically for the automotive industry. It’s built on Salesforce’s Sales and Service Clouds, and it has ready-to-use modules for car dealerships, such as automotive lead management, warranty management, loan and lease tracking, and fleet management.

You need a highly intuitive CRM to simplify sales management processes: monday CRM is one of the easiest platforms to use because of its highly intuitive interface with a drag-and-drop functionality. Even its automation tools are user-friendly because of the low-code design. This allows car dealerships to automate customer reminders and day-to-day tasks easily.

You’re looking for low-cost post-sales and account management tools: With monday CRM, you have to subscribe to its custom-priced plan to access its post-sales management modules. These include tools for managing and tracking accounts, client projects, and collections.

Alternative: Zoho CRM offers account management features with its free plan. Its native integration with Zoho Projects also enables users to manage post-sales projects.

You want a CRM with next-gen AI tools: Salesforce Automotive Cloud’s basic plan comes with Einstein Activity Capture, an AI tool that automatically syncs email and calendar content with the CRM. The Einstein 1 tiers ($700 per user monthly) include conversational and generative AI tools for productivity, personalization, content generation, and case resolutions.

You’re operating with a limited budget: Although Salesforce Automotive Cloud is a powerful and full-featured CRM, it’s among the most expensive options available today. Its plans range from $325 to $700 per user monthly.

Alternative: Dealer Lead Track is a more affordable industry-specific CRM than Salesforce Automotive Cloud. Its Basic CRM plan (starting at $95 per user monthly) includes automotive lead management and daily task scheduling features. The Plus CRM plan (starting at $195 per user monthly) offers additional features, such as texting and automated emails.

You need better visibility into your sales funnel: AutoRaptor has powerful tools that help you track your sales funnel. These include real-time insights into your source performance, lead distribution, inventory activity, and sales performance. You can also track buyer communications and appointments using real-time dashboards and reports.

You need a niche platform with reliable mobile access: Many online user reviews cite issues with AutoRaptor’s mobile app, such as its clunky interface and lack of capabilities for sending images, downloading Up Sheets, and scanning licenses.

Alternative: DealerSocket is a niche automotive CRM with higher usability scores for its mobile app because of its intuitive interface. It also allows users to scan a driver’s license and vehicle identification number (VIN), search the inventory database, send follow-up texts or videos, and view reports.

You want a CRM with a built-in vehicle inventory management system: VinSolutions comes out of the box with an inventory management system that allows you to see your vehicle inventory in real time. You can also adjust the pricing, view the current vehicle valuation, and update the display photo from the same tab.

You’re looking for a solution with built-in marketing tools: VinSolutions offers marketing tools, such as automated text messaging and content-rich videos. However, these tools are not included in the basic CRM package and require customized add-on fees.

Alternatives: DealerSocket (starting at $750 per user monthly) has out-of-the-box automated marketing capabilities that include personalized text and email campaigns. AutoRaptor (starting at $399 per user monthly) is great for monitoring marketing campaigns. If you prefer a general-use platform, go for HubSpot CRM, which offers email marketing, list segmentation, and ad management at no cost.

You want a purpose-built CRM platform with sales, marketing, and service tools: DealerSocket was purpose-built for use by automotive dealerships, so it boasts an impressive set of advanced features. These include a centralized customer database, automated marketing, and a service scheduler. It also has additional tools for managing franchises and independent dealerships, such as credit qualification and equity mining.

You need a more affordable solution with transparent pricing: Although DealerSocket’s website does not post an exact cost, reviews indicate that its customized plan starts at $750 per user monthly. This is the most expensive starting price in this guide.

Alternatives: Dealer Lead Track’s Basic CRM starts at $95 per user monthly. Its Plus CRM plan, which includes automated texting and email, starts at $195 per user monthly. monday CRM is another option that offers highly customizable work management boards for lead and activity tracking. Its plans start at $12 per user monthly with a three-user minimum.

You want to nurture repeat customers: Dealer Lead Track offers solid features for managing and automating car sales lead management processes. This platform allows you to automate texting and emailing and even provides you with dozens of automated email scripts. This makes it easy to follow up with repeat customers, ultimately leading to improved customer experiences and increased sales.

You need a native mobile app for your field sales team: Unfortunately, Dealer Lead Track is completely web-based and does not have a native mobile app. You can access the web app via an internet browser on a mobile device, but it does not have offline functionality. In addition, the app itself has a clunky interface that affects its usability.

Alternative: Salesforce Automotive Cloud is known for having an excellent mobile app that mirrors all of the features available in the web app. While there’s a decent learning curve because of its advanced features, it also has a highly intuitive interface.