Contact management software helps users organize contacts, track interactions, and record each touchpoint of a customer’s journey. As a primary feature of customer relationship management (CRM) software, contact management solutions also typically offer features like lead and deal management as well as automated emailing. We used our scoring tool to determine which CRMs offer the best contact management tools and which one is the best overall.
The CRM software with the best contact management tools for small business are:
- Zoho CRM: Best overall for contact management
- Agile CRM: Best for motivation through gamification
- Apptivo: Best contact manager for retail and ecommerce
- Really Simple Systems: Best contact manager for multiteam unification
- Bitrix24: Best for quotes and invoicing
- HubSpot: Best free contact management software
Zoho CRM: Best Overall Contact Management Software
Zoho CRM contact card example
(Source: Zoho CRM)
Fit Small Business score: 4.98
Zoho CRM’s wide range of tools and features, along with its free plan and affordable paid tiers, earned it the highest score of all the solutions on our list. Manage your contacts as well as leads and deals in the pipeline with a free plan for up to three users. Paid plans include a comprehensive set of features to help teams meet customers, leads, and prospects via their favorite communication method, including email and social media.
Zoho CRM Pros | Zoho CRM Cons |
|---|---|
Mobile apps | Free plan supports only three users |
Social monitoring tools | Lacks native Instagram integration |
Multichannel customer communication | Assignment rules only available on upper-level service plans |
Zoho CRM Pricing
- Free: Supports three users
- Standard: $12 per user, per month
- Professional: $20 per user, per month
- Enterprise: $35 per user, per month
- Ultimate: $45 per user, per month
- Free trial of paid plans: 30 days
The pricing above is based on annual billing. A monthly subscription is also available at a slightly higher fee.
Additional Zoho CRM Features
- 1GB storage per organization, 512MB per user
- Workflow automation
- Scoring rules
- Real-time customer notifications
- Customizable pipelines
Agile CRM: Best Contact Manager With Gamification
Agile CRM’s customer contact card
(Source: Agile CRM)
Fit Small Business score: 4.81
Agile CRM is a solution built for sales teams that are motivated by, or need motivation from, gamification tools like custom leaderboards and analytics, reflecting the performance of individual agents and different teams. Advanced reporting offers insight into how gamification efforts impact a team’s overall performance. Agile CRM narrowly missed nabbing the top spot on our list, losing points for its lack of customization options compared to other CRMs.
Agile CRM Pros | Agile CRM Cons |
|---|---|
Custom leaderboards | Free plan supports only 10 users |
Advanced analytics | No social monitoring tools available with the free plan |
Phone and email support available on paid plans | Premier support for top-tier customers only |
Agile CRM Pricing
- Free: Supports up to 10 users
- Starter: $8.99 per user, per month
- Regular: $29.99 per user, per month
- Enterprise: $47.99 per user, per month
- Free trial of paid plans: None
The pricing above is based on a two-year contract. Monthly and annual subscriptions are also available at slightly higher fees.
Additional Agile CRM Features
- Unlimited documents
- Customizable reports
- Real-time brand mention monitoring
- Third-party email integration
- Tag-based segmentation
Apptivo: Best Contact Manager for Retail & Ecommerce
Apptivo contact information card
(Source: Apptivo)
Fit Small Business score: 4.73
Apptivo CRM was built with retailers and ecommerce businesses in mind. This type of CRM features payment processing through integration with PayPal, Stripe, and other similar services, as well as mobile apps for managing contacts in the field. Although Apptivo integrates with numerous business apps, it lost points for lack of native features and after-market plugins to manage and monitor social media accounts.
Apptivo Pros | Apptivo Cons |
|---|---|
Offers free plan | Free plan does not include payment processing |
Email tracking | No mobile apps on free plan |
Sales automation features | Lacks advanced marketing integrations |
Apptivo Pricing
- Free: Supports one user
- Lite: $8 per user, per month
- Premium: $12 per user, per month
- Ultimate: $20 per user, per month
- Free trial of paid plans: 30 days
Apptivo also offers a customized Enterprise plan with a dedicated instance and 5,000 mass emails per user, per month.
Additional Apptivo Features
- Up to 10GB of storage per user
- Automatic contacts categorization
- Contact smart search
- Ecommerce website builder
- Email templates
Really Simple Systems: Best Contact Manager for Cross-team Unification
Really Simple Systems opportunity management dashboard
(Source: Really Simple Systems)
Fit Small Business score: 4.64
Really Simple Systems is CRM for businesses with separate sales, marketing, and service departments. Its features give each team the access they need to contact information while tracking customer activity to keep everyone on the same page. Its lack of mobile apps and limited customization options cost this solution some scoring points, but Really Simple Systems offers better unification tools than other solutions on this list.
Really Simple Systems Pros | Really Simple Systems Cons |
|---|---|
Accessible from desktop or mobile browsers | Lacks mobile apps |
Opportunity probability and weightings | Limited customization tools |
Free CRM support with all plans | Limited self-service documentation |
Really Simple Systems Pricing
- Free: Supports up to two users
- Starter: $14 per user, per month
- Professional: $30 per user, per month
- Enterprise: $46 per user, per month
- Free trial of paid plans: 14 days
The pricing above is based on annual billing. A monthly subscription is also available at a slightly higher fee.
Additional Really Simple Systems Features
- Up to 5GB document storage
- HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) compliant
- Mass email tools
- Opportunity management
- Record de-duplication
Bitrix24: Best Contact Manager for Quotes & Invoicing
Bitrix24’s quote creator
(Source: Bitrix24)
Fit Small Business score: 4.61
Bitrix24, a popular CRM for sales operations, offers free, unlimited quotes and invoices on all plans, including the free tier. Use the built-in designer to create them, then email, print, or create a PDF for storage from the results. Project management, live chat, and a help desk round out this robust CRM. However, the learning curve can be a bit steep, which cost Bitrix24 some points when compared to the user interfaces of other CRMs on our list.
Bitrix24 Pros | Bitrix24 Cons |
|---|---|
Advanced reporting | Paid plan for unlimited users is expensive |
Create invoices from quotes in one click | Free tier lacks mass email tools |
Free plan for unlimited users | Most paid plans have user limits |
Bitrix24 Pricing
- Free: Supports unlimited users
- Start+: Supports two users for $19 per month
- CRM+: Supports six users for $55 per month
- Project+: Supports 24 users for $55 per month
- Standard: Supports 50 users for $79 per month
- Professional: Supports unlimited users for $159 per month
- Free trial of paid plans: 30 days
Additional Bitrix24 Features
- Up to 1,024GB of storage
- Built-in quote and invoice designer
- Searchable leads, deals, contacts, and company filters
- Third-party email integration
- Project management tools
HubSpot: Best Free Contact Management Software
HubSpot customer contact card
(Source: HubSpot)
Fit Small Business score: 4.20
HubSpot CRM is a free contact management platform for unlimited users. It features advanced functionality like smartform lead capture, a chat widget, and customer support ticketing, as well as email tracking and deal management. It can also be integrated with HubSpot’s Sales and Marketing Hubs for additional automation features. However, the pricing for these additional modules adds up quickly, which kept HubSpot from featuring higher on our list.
HubSpot Pros | HubSpot Cons |
|---|---|
Supports unlimited users for free | Paid add-ons can be expensive |
Offline access to contacts | Free plan lacks marketing automation |
Store up to 1 million contacts | Limited customer support with the free plan |
HubSpot Pricing
- Free
- Sales Hub and Marketing Hub add-ons: From $50 per month
Additional HubSpot Features
- Store up to five documents for free
- Profile auto-enrichment via social media integration
- Form-based lead capture
- Live chat integration
- Task and lead management tools
Learn more: HubSpot CRM reviews page
Evaluating the Best Contact Management Software
The best contact management and CRM software should provide a range of tools for adding, managing, and organizing contacts. It should also include features that use this data to improve sales activities, such as interaction analytics, automated workflows triggered by contact activities, and marketing campaign management.
To evaluate each CRM solution objectively, we created a scoring system that takes several aspects of the software into consideration, such as:
- Contact lists and segmentation
- Lead and opportunity management tools
- Email tracking and templates
- Reporting and analytics
- Mobile access
- Ease of use
- Price
Our subject matter expert reviews resulting scores for accuracy and also considers intangible elements of each CRM solution, such as how speedy it is to use and whether the user interface is intuitive for new users. The final scores rank each CRM solution on a 5-star rating scale to determine which are the top contenders and which one is the best overall.
Andrew Baker
Hi Jason,
Nice article.
You should really add contactzilla.com to your list of contact management software.
They help remote teams like Hawaii County manage their contacts and provide them with a single source of truth in disaster recovery periods. Pretty relevant in a time like now.
Best,
Andy
Amanda Norman
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for suggesting Contactzilla. We review and update buyer’s guides approximately once per year, so we’ll have another look before the next update.
Thanks for stopping by!
Mandy, Moderator
Owen
are there any programs that allow contact with your customers via sms?
Jeremy Marsan
If you install the mobile app for any of the CRMs (Insightly, Zoho, Pipedrive) there’ll be a link to send an SMS to your contacts. Clicking this brings you out of the CRM to your regular texting app with the customer number pre-loaded.
If you want to send SMS from your desktop, I believe Zoho is the only program that can handle this. It requires an extension called SMS magic.
Rich Reeves
Great article, Gavin!
I recommend that you also check software/tools that can integrate CMS or CRM with phone systems. Tenfold is one of those tools. It can integrate Office 365 (https://www.tenfold.com/integrations/microsoft-office-365), Salesforce, Zendesk and other systems of record to different phone systems. Unifying these systems are crucial in making things more efficient and effective.
Gavin Graham
Thanks for the tip, Rich.
James
Nice article.
Maybe you could look at noCRM (http://www.nocrm.io.com) for your next review.
I use it to streamline my sales process and it always has a ‘to do next’, meaning I never forget to take action on a lead.
Gavin Graham
Hi James — thanks for the tip!
G
Jude
Thanks for the tips! Another one is GetResponse – it has marketing automation, email, and many other features.
Gavin Graham
Hi Jude,
Thanks for the tip! We’ll consider it for our next update of the guide.
G