6 Best Contact Management Software for Small Business

Contact management software, a major feature in customer relationship management (CRM) systems, lets teams store, organize, and search for customer or lead data, e.g., identifiable information like names, phone numbers, or addresses, behavioral information (such as lead activity), and descriptive information (such as a contact’s industry). We evaluated dozens of CRM systems to identify the best contact management software for small businesses.

• HubSpot CRM: Best overall contact management software; great for small businesses seeking free data management features for unlimited users
• Really Simple Systems: Solid contact list management software for sales teams looking for the simplest CRM solution
• Apptivo: Ideal contact manager software for businesses that use referrals as a primary lead generation source
• Agile CRM: Best contact management software for revenue teams looking to manage sales and customer support in one system
• Zoho CRM: Excellent contact database for small businesses wanting to automate most of their contact management workflows
• Bitrix24: Tremendous pick for organizations that want to manage business contacts and projects in one solution

Best Contact Management Systems Compared

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*Based on annual billing; monthly billing is also available at slightly higher rates

HubSpot CRM: Best Overall Contact Management Software

*Pricing based on annual billing, monthly billing is also available at a higher cost
**CRM Suite includes sales, marketing, customer service, content management system (CMS), and operations software; individual modules can be purchased for lower monthly costs

HubSpot CRM is an easy-to-use CRM system, well-acclaimed for its marketing capabilities and direct sales features. It offers a free plan for unlimited users and custom paid options depending on a business’ needs. Paid modules are payable individually or can be bundled for businesses to subscribe to. The modular products include sales, marketing, customer service, operations, and a content management system (CMS).

In terms of being the best software to manage contact information, HubSpot gives you everything you need for free plus advanced functionality if you choose to pay. The free plan lets users store, organize, and filter lead, contact, customer, and deal information. Teams even can deploy meeting scheduling links, create contact lists, and organize documents and email templates. Additionally, users can send out and receive email and live chat messages and track prospect visitor activity on your website for free.

The lead scoring features are useful in contact management for qualifying opportunities. Unfortunately for HubSpot, this function is not available until the Professional plan, which gets expensive regardless of bundling or paying for the individual module. Agile CRM is a standout contact management CRM that offers lead scoring for free.

HubSpot CRM Plan Summary

HubSpot CRM Key Features

• Contact and lead scoring: Customizable criteria assign points to contacts, leads, and deals based on behaviors or customer characteristics—allowing reps to prioritize sales opportunities
• Data management and organization: Ability to store and organize contact, lead, customer, account, and deal data and activity in tailorable records of custom data fields, required fields, and record layout
• List segmentation: Contact list filtering based on preset traits and qualities of leads or customers—applicable for targeted email marketing or cold calling campaigns
• Multiline communications: Communication tools to engage with leads and customers through live chat, email, or phone, plus logging features to track previous communications

HubSpot Customer Support

In addition to phone, email, and live chat support from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern Time, HubSpot offers an array of online resources. This includes HubSpot Academy, a community page of platform users, and an online library of tutorials and guides.

Learn more about how this CRM helps sales teams manage leads, track conversations, collaborate, and close deals in our HubSpot CRM review.

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Really Simple Systems: Best for Product Usability

*Pricing based on per user, per month, annual billing; monthly billing is also available at a higher cost

Really Simple Systems is an inexpensive CRM solution that also offers a free plan for up to two users. It has useful features like contact management, record filtering, task management, events tracking, and the ability to link profiles to one another. There are also plenty of customization options for a business to design data fields, tables, lists, pages, and dashboards to their liking.

Just as the name suggests, Really Simple Systems is extremely easy to use and even has our pick for the best simple CRM product due to its clean and simple interface. As far as contact management features go, users can do nearly everything they need to track and centralize sales data. The system allows unlimited contact records, task and event tracking, timelines, one-page views, and record filtering for creating lists.

In today’s business climate, it’s nearly assumed that a CRM offers marketing features for designing, deploying, and tracking campaigns. Unfortunately, Really Simple Systems does not have default marketing features and requires an add-on for additional costs. HubSpot is the best alternative for users who want marketing tools built into their CRM.

Really Simple Systems Plan Summary

Really Simple Systems Key Features

• Custom record properties: Customizable data fields, tables, and pages within the CRM can be tailored to the needs of any business
• Tasks, timelines, and events: Collaborative view of notes, emails, and completed tasks or pending tasks, and events related to a specific contact, lead, or customer
• One-page contact view: 360-degree view of a contact and lead showing identifiable information, source, notes, and timelines
• Unlimited contacts with linked accounts: Ability to store an unlimited number of contact records, link lead, customer, or partner records to other profiles, and find nearby accounts using Google Maps

Really Simple Systems Customer Support

Really Simple Systems offers customer support during standard business hours for North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia. In those time zones, users have access to assistance via live chat, email, and phone. There’s also an online blog, webinars, tutorial videos, and a self-service Support Hub that explains how to use certain features.

See how else this platform can be an excellent solution for you and your business by reading our Really Simple Systems review to learn more about its usability and feature set.

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Apptivo: Best for Referral Tracking Features

*Pricing based on annual billing; monthly billing is also available at a higher cost

Apptivo is an excellent CRM solution for managing contacts, deals, leads, and inventory. Additionally, teams can use this platform to create quotes, estimates, and purchase orders, sent easily to contacts within the system. Marketing modules also allow users to create mass emails, create and store email templates, and automate campaign deployment.

Regarding contact management functions, the biggest standout feature is the low-cost and easy-to-use referral tracking capabilities. Teams not only can organize identifiable and behavioral data on their leads but also monitor the lead source and who referred them to their business. Users can also create customizable reports that present exactly who the top referral sources are—letting them prioritize and enhance partner relationships.

Unfortunately, the deal management features to track progress on current sales opportunities in the pipeline are not free. HubSpot and Zoho CRM are the best alternatives that allow deal management capabilities on the free-forever plans.

Apptivo Plan Summary

Apptivo Key Features

• Lead source and referral tracking: Ability to track and create reports on where leads come from and whether they come from referral partners
• Tasks, appointments, and notes: Task and appointment management within contact or leads records as well as custom notes to add contextual information to each profile.
• Contact management and filtering: Data storage and organization for leads, accounts, and customers that let users clone records for multiple modules and filter out custom lists for sales and marketing campaigns
• Fields mapping: Options to map data fields to other modules or records so that information entered in one lead, contact, or customer record is automatically entered into another

Apptivo Customer Support

Apptivo uses a tier-based customer support system based on the plan you subscribe to. The free-forever plan includes email support and knowledge base online resources. The paid plans provide 24/7 live chat and email availability as well as 24/5 phone support and onboarding training for new users.

See if Apptivo is right for your business by reading our Apptivo CRM review. Here you’ll get all the information you need about pricing, features, integrations, and usability scores.

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Agile CRM: Best Contact Management Software for Customer Support Operations

*Pricing based on per user, per month, annual billing; monthly billing is also available at a higher cost

An excellent scalable CRM option, Agile CRM offers plenty of value with a free plan for up to 10 users and low-cost paid plans. The system is easy to use and has excellent free tools you don’t often find in other CRMs, such as a built-in telephone, appointment scheduler, lead scoring, custom data fields, and landing web page builder.

Agile CRM separates itself from the other products through its sales, marketing, and customer service modules within the platform. Revenue and service teams, in particular, love the customer contact software tools that extend past direct sales activities. Businesses can fully manage, collect, categorize, assign, and prioritize customer support tickets. Teams can also manage service level agreements to adhere to customer expectations, automate service workflows, and create and store predesigned customer responses to inquiries.

Agile CRM is notoriously limited on integration and plugin options for businesses looking to connect their third-party applications to their CRM system. Zoho CRM is the best alternative for integration options, with thousands of third-party and native software solutions for teams to choose from.

Agile CRM Plan Summary

Agile CRM Key Features

• Custom data fields: Users can customize contact and companies profile properties to meet their unique business needs
• Lead scoring: Free lead qualification features that assign points to opportunities based on behaviors, events, and lead characteristics
• Tasks and documents: Ability to store, manage, track, assign, and share tasks and documents associated with a contact record
• Phone and email: Two-way phone and email communication capabilities by integrating with voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) tools like Twilio and RingCentral and email services such as Outlook and Gmail

Agile CRM Customer Support

Agile CRM has a somewhat tiered customer support system, offering 24/5 email support on all plans and phone support for paid plans during standard business hours (9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time). There are also online resources for self-help, including blogs, workshop videos, infographics, setup guides, and onboarding assistance.

Want to learn more? Check out our Agile CRM review to get insights on its features, integrations, usability, and best-for circumstances to see if it’s right for you.

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Zoho CRM: Best for Automating Contact Management

*Pricing is per user, per month, based on annual billing; monthly billing is also available at a higher cost

Zoho CRM offers teams a robust, scalable solution for managing leads, tasks, deals, customers, and marketing activities. The system includes tons of customization options for data fields, links, modules, pages, layouts, and tabs as well as limitless integration options with third-party and native software solutions.

Between the Zia artificial intelligence (AI) and workflow features, there are plenty of automation capabilities—particularly for small business contact management. Teams can auto-add contact records into the database through social media and web-to-contact online forms. Then, they can automatically keep the information fresh through data enrichment and prioritize opportunities based on lead scoring criteria. The Zia insights also tell users the best time to contact a person and the tasks they should focus on next.

Despite some of the advanced automation that can be used for contact management activities, Zoho CRM does not allow custom data fields on its Free plan. Agile CRM is the best alternative on this list with free data field customization in records.

Zoho CRM Plan Summary

Zoho CRM Key Features

• Data record customization: Users can design properties of contact, lead, and account records to meet their needs through data fields, links, buttons, and page customization
• Automated contact management: Ability to automate contact management workflows such as online and social data enrichment to auto-update record information, lead generation from online forms and social media, and best time to contact someone
• Record management and tagging: Lead, account, deal, and contact management with tasks, events, call logs, and notes as well as the ability to tag records with unique information relevant to your sales operations
• Contact and lead scoring: Automated lead qualification through contact, lead, and deal scoring to prioritize sales opportunities

Zoho CRM Customer Support

Zoho CRM uses a tier-based system where customer support options are dictated by the package you select. Users receive email support on all plans as well as phone and live chat support on paid plans either 24/5 or 24/7, depending on your plan tier. They also offer online resources, including documentation, guided tours, videos, webinars, and tutorials.

Learn more about this CRM product by reading our in-depth Zoho CRM review, where we explore its features and best-for use case scenarios.

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Bitrix24: Best Contact Database Software With Project Management Features

*Pricing based on annual billing, reflecting a 20% discount compared to monthly pricing; monthly and quarterly billing is available at a higher cost

Bitrix24 is an all-in-one marketing, CRM, contact center, project management, human resource management, and document storage system. Additionally, it offers a free plan for unlimited users and is not too expensive per user if you have many team members using the platform.

Businesses that manage a lot of projects either internally or as part of a service to others should strongly consider Bitrix24. It has built-in project management features, including task oversight, project templates, and multiple views such as lists, Kanban, and Gantt charts. Plus, teams can manage customizable contact records and evaluate customers and leads in a one-page profile. They can also search and filter lists and engage contacts through a built-in phone, email, and live chat system.

Bitrix24 has the lowest usability ratings on this list in terms of setting up a CRM system, operating the features and tools, and navigating through the interface. HubSpot and Really Simple Systems are the two best contact management CRM options that are strong in ease-of-use scores.

Bitrix24 Plan Summary

Bitrix24 Key Features

• Contact center: Module for communicating with contacts, leads, and customers through a built-in telephone, email, live chat, or social media channels as well as collecting data through online web forms
• One-click record conversions: Ability to convert leads to companies and deals, deals to quotes, deals to invoices, and quotes to invoices through one-click conversions
• Custom data fields: Free, fully customizable data fields in contact records to tailor for your business needs
• Client profile view: Full contact and customer view with general information and tab organization for deals, invoices, orders, quotes, and activity history

Bitrix24 Customer Support

All paid plans provide live chat and email support options from 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. for Universal Standard business hours. There are also online tools like a help desk and online training options.

Check out our comprehensive Bitrix24 review for an in-depth analysis of its pricing, features, and usability.

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How We Evaluated the Best Contact Management CRMs

To determine the best business contact database systems, we considered product features specific to managing lead or customer information. Some of these include contact data storage and enrichment, lead scoring, customer segmentation, and automated record entry. We also looked into each product in terms of typical attributes such as price, general CRM features, ease of use, and customer support.

We found HubSpot to be the best contact management CRM as it is easy to use and has a free plan for unlimited users. Included in its free-forever option is the ability to store and organize data for contacts, leads, and deals and create customer lists for targeted campaigns. Additionally, subscribers of HubSpot’s free plan can send out email and live chat communications and track which company prospects are visiting their website.

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The tabs below offer insight into our evaluation process of the best CRM for contact management: