8 Best LinkedIn CRM Software in 2023
Jess served on the founding team of a successful B2B startup and has used a wide range of sales and marketing tools over the course of her 15-year career. She uses her industry knowledge to deliver the best answers to your questions about sales tools and sales management.
This article is part of a larger series on CRM.
LinkedIn is a social media platform designed for business networking, recruiting, and sales prospecting. When integrated with customer relationship management (CRM) software, businesses expand their outreach capabilities by generating and qualifying leads, running ads, and connecting with decision-makers in one system. We evaluated dozens of LinkedIn CRM platforms to identify the top eight options.
- Best overall: HubSpot CRM
- Great CRM that integrates with LinkedIn for case management features: Salesforce Essentials
- Excellent omnichannel management tools: EngageBay
- Best low-cost Sales Navigator plans: Zoho CRM
- Solid free LinkedIn integration: Agile CRM
- Great for automating simple LinkedIn flows: monday.com
- Best for targeting email campaigns: Mailchimp CRM
- Solid CRM for LinkedIn with a built-in phone: Close
Best LinkedIn CRM Integration Options Compared
Provider | Starting Monthly Price per User* | Free Plan? | Our CRM Rating Out of 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
 | $45 (up to two users) | ✓ | 4.40 |
 | $25 | ✕ | 4.33 |
 | $13.79 | ✓ | 4.30 |
 | $14 | ✓ | 4.20 |
 | $14 | ✓ | 3.95 |
 | $10 | ✓ | 3.88 |
 | $13 | ✓ | 3.48 |
 | $25 | ✕ | 3.06 |
*Based on annual billing; monthly billing is also available for slightly higher rates.
HubSpot CRM: Best CRM for LinkedIn Integration Overall
Overall Score:
4.40 / 5
Pros
- Free plan for unlimited users, which includes LinkedIn ads management and data sync from LinkedIn
- CRM Suite includes sales, marketing, and service in one bundle
- Easy-to-use CRM in terms of interface navigation and operating LinkedIn functions
Cons
- Paid plans get expensive on higher tiers
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator integration not available until Professional plan
- Deal scoring tools get expensive
- You want to run LinkedIn ads from your CRM: Because HubSpot is both a CRM and marketing platform, teams can integrate HubSpot with LinkedIn to create, deploy, and monitor ads from the CRM beginning on the Free plan.
- You function in a revenue operations structure: The HubSpot CRM Suite is bundled with sales, marketing, content management, and customer service modules. This all-in-one capability is great for businesses using LinkedIn for outreach and operating as a unified revenue team, as opposed to a structure separating sales, marketing, and customer success management.
- You need free LinkedIn data sync: HubSpot offers a free plan for unlimited users. As part of that no-cost subscription, teams can synchronize lead data generated from LinkedIn business page forms and campaigns in the CRM.
- You need a low-cost integration with LinkedIn Sales Navigator: The LinkedIn Sales Navigator integration allows users to obtain LinkedIn profile insights on CRM contacts and companies, and send InMail messages directly from the CRM. Unfortunately, this feature is expensive—beginning on the Professional plan for $1,600 per month if bundled, or $450 if the sales module is purchased individually.
- Alternative: Zoho CRM is the best alternative that allows its integration with Sales Navigator plans for just $23 per user, per month.
- You need a scalable CRM solution: Overall, HubSpot’s free plan is top-of-the-line and the platform is a great CRM that integrates with LinkedIn as it offers plenty of functionalities. Its main downfall is its costly paid plans, regardless of whether you bundle the software or purchase modules separately—not ideal for fast-growing companies.
- Alternative: Zoho CRM and Agile CRM are great alternatives with free plans, integrate with LinkedIn, and make it cost-effective to scale upgrades to higher CRM tiers as a business’ data, features, and user requirements change.
HubSpot CRM Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing based on annual billing on a per-month breakdown; monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. Each plan offers a 14-day free trial.
**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 managing LinkedIn ads (Source: HubSpot)
Our Expert Opinion
HubSpot dominates as the best LinkedIn CRM because it is intuitive and one of the only products on this list that allows complete functionality once integrated. For instance, there’s lead data sync between LinkedIn and the CRM, the ability to manage social media ads from the CRM, and direct connections with LinkedIn Sales Navigator for advanced outreach features. Finally, HubSpot’s free CRM solution is unmatched as it allows unlimited users and comes with LinkedIn data sync and ads management.
HubSpot CRM is a solid free CRM option and provides comprehensive LinkedIn functionality once integrated. For more product details, check out our full HubSpot CRM review.
Salesforce Essentials: Best Case Management Features
Overall Score:
4.33 / 5
Pros
- Includes built-in case management features for customer support
- Highly advanced artificial intelligence (AI) features for analytics and workflow automation
- Has over 2,500 third-party and native integrations, including many industry-specific CRM integrations
Cons
- No free plan
- Some poor usability ratings for setting up and operating the CRM
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator integration requires higher Salesforce plans
- You want automated lead data sync from LinkedIn: The LinkedIn CRM integration allows users to automatically add leads, accounts, or contacts from LinkedIn to Salesforce Essentials. Teams can do this as a mass import and data sync from LinkedIn forms on business pages or submissions from LinkedIn ads.
- You need customer case management built into your CRM: Salesforce Essentials includes a built-in case management module for users to receive, track, and resolve customer inquiries and complaints. Teams can store knowledge resources for agents and reps to access to answer questions and maintain quality service.
- You want to connect with LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Salesforce offers a powerful integration with LinkedIn Sales Navigator that lets them embed LinkedIn profiles within the CRM, send InMail messages, enrich lead data, and conduct sales prospecting. The issue is the Salesforce integration with LinkedIn Sales Navigator is not available until you subscribe to the main sales cloud Professional, Enterprise, or Unlimited plans.
- Alternative: Zoho CRM is the best option with direct connections to Sales Navigator.
- You need a free CRM for LinkedIn: Salesforce Essentials only comes with one pricing option, which does not offer any free-forever plan.
- Alternative: HubSpot and Agile CRM offer the two best free LinkedIn integrations.
Salesforce Essentials Pricing Plan & Overview
Salesforce Essentials is a small business-specific plan offered by the CRM powerhouse. Billed annually, it costs $25 per user, per month and offers a 14-day free trial. Included are modules for account, lead, and opportunity management, mass emailing, and campaign tracking. Teams can oversee customer support using case management tools, design automated workflows, and create sales processes. The LinkedIn Salesforce integration includes lead data sync to the CRM from form submissions and ad campaigns.
Salesforce Essentials mapping LinkedIn lead form data (Source: Speedwork Social)
Our Expert Opinion
While most of the LinkedIn capabilities, like using LinkedIn Sales Navigator from the CRM, aren’t available until the primary sales cloud subscriptions, Salesforce Essentials remains a valuable lead generation tool. It has LinkedIn data sync, mapping features, and built-in case management capabilities for sales and customer service teams to operate in the same system. Finally, we like how Salesforce Essentials offers various integration options outside of LinkedIn.
Salesforce Essentials is an advanced CRM solution designed for small businesses to grow. Find out if it’s right for your business in our Salesforce Essentials review.
EngageBay: Best for Omnichannel Management
Overall Score:
4.30 / 5
Pros
- Free plan available with LinkedIn social feed monitoring
- All-in-one sales, marketing, and service tool
- Free plan includes lead scoring and LinkedIn CRM integration
Cons
- LinkedIn integration for data sync requires third-party connection with Zapier
- Bad user review for product usability
- Goal management not available until Pro plan
- You want to monitor LinkedIn social feeds: The EngageBay free plan option includes the social suite. While users can only manage content for Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, they can connect with LinkedIn to monitor platform activity and feeds from the CRM.
- You need a free, all-in-one sales, service, and marketing platform: EngageBay stands out for its all-in-one capabilities, including free tools for managing sales leads, marketing campaigns, and customer service tickets. Additionally, the system includes excellent activity tracking for contacts and reps across numerous channels like phone, social media, email, and website chat.
- You need direct integration with LinkedIn Sales Navigator: The EngageBay LinkedIn integration is limited to monitoring social media feeds and synchronizing contact data to the CRM from LinkedIn ad form submissions. There is no integration option with LinkedIn Sales Navigator for access to advanced insights and outreach capabilities.
- Alternative: Zoho CRM has the best direct integration with LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
- You need a highly intuitive CRM for LinkedIn: Usability is a common user issue with EngageBay. Plus, data synchronization to automatically add LinkedIn leads to the CRM requires an extra step in the process through integration with Zapier.
- Alternative: HubSpot, Close, and monday.com are all solid alternatives for platform ease of use.
EngageBay Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing based on annual billing on a per-user monthly breakdown; monthly billing is also available for a higher cost, and biennial billing is available for a lower cost.
EngageBay contact activity tracking (Source: EngageBay)
Our Expert Opinion
EngageBay is an underrated CRM, help desk, and marketing automation platform. Much of its value is the all-in-one capabilities starting on the free-forever plan for up to 15 users. We also like the omnichannel management that lets teams engage and monitor contacts through social media, email, phone, and chat. As for LinkedIn integrations, EngageBay would score higher if it could offer more capabilities than data sync and activity monitoring.
Zoho CRM: Best Sales Navigator Extension
Overall Score:
4.20 / 5
Pros
- Free and low-cost plans for solid scalability
- Cost-effective integration with LinkedIn Sales Navigator
- LinkedIn Zoho Integration allows data sync, enrichment, ads monitoring, and Sales Navigator extension
Cons
- Can be challenging for new users to operate the CRM features
- No free integrations
- Zia artificial intelligence (AI) data enrichment from LinkedIn not available until Enterprise plan
- You need low-cost integration with LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Relative to other CRM systems on this list, Zoho CRM directly integrates with LinkedIn Sales Navigator at an attractive price. The extension lets users receive LinkedIn lead recommendations, identify prospects through TeamLink (which lets you see if a lead is connected with a mutual connection), and save profiles as leads to the CRM. Users can also push CRM leads to add to the LinkedIn navigator tool.
- You sell business-to-business (B2B): Although it is assumed a CRM with LinkedIn connections is well-suited for B2B sales, Zoho CRM stands out as the best B2B CRM software. It includes robust account and deal management capabilities, quote and purchase order features, and advanced artificial intelligence (AI) for revenue forecasts, insights, and data enrichment on decision-makers.
- You want to manage LinkedIn ads from the CRM: The Zoho CRM and LinkedIn integration does allow users to sync lead data from ad form submissions and track LinkedIn ad performance. However, you cannot actually design and target ads from the CRM.
- Alternative: HubSpot has the best social media content and ads management for LinkedIn built into its CRM.
- You need free third-party integrations: Zoho CRM does not offer third-party integrations until users are on a paid plan.
- Alternative: HubSpot allows for external integrations beginning on its Free plan.
Zoho CRM Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing based on annual billing on a per-user monthly breakdown; monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. Zoho CRM also comes with a 15-day free trial for paid plans.
Zoho CRM LinkedIn Sales Navigator interface (Source: Zoho)
Our Expert Opinion
Zoho is a top competitor for the top LinkedIn integration. It offers numerous functions like data synchronization, ads tracking, and data enrichment. Most notably, we like its low-cost extension for LinkedIn Sales Navigator. This capability expands the already advanced sales features of Zoho without breaking the bank.
Zoho is well-known for its business-to-business (B2B) sales capabilities, broad range of integrations, and high degree of product customization. Find out if it’s right for your business in our Zoho CRM review.
Agile CRM: Best Free LinkedIn Integration
Overall Score:
3.95 / 5
Pros
- Free plan allows for LinkedIn integration
- Offers sales, marketing, and service modules
- LinkedIn integration allows users to get contact profile updates and send messages from the CRM platform
Cons
- Only one integration and plugin allowed on Free plan
- No option to integrate with LinkedIn Sales Navigator
- Does not include LinkedIn ad management tools
- You need a free LinkedIn integration: Agile CRM begins offering its integration with LinkedIn on the free-forever plan. This enables teams to track LinkedIn profile information and changes from the CRM tool, such as work history, location, and promotion updates. Users can also send LinkedIn messages to contacts directly from the CRM.
- You want a high-level sales prospecting CRM: Some sales targeting strategies involve using a high degree of prospect research to focus on lead quality rather than quantity. Agile CRM, in particular, has excellent sales tools for these activities at a low cost. These include free lead scoring, contact activity analytics, and profile monitoring from LinkedIn accounts.
- You need to connect with LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Agile CRM does not offer an integration with LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
- Alternative: Zoho CRM and HubSpot are excellent alternatives for weaving Sales Navigator tools in your CRM.
- You need multiple third-party integrations for free: The Agile CRM free plan caps users at one integration option—not ideal if you want to connect apps other than LinkedIn.
- Alternative: HubSpot lets you connect outside integrations to your small business CRM starting on its free plan for unlimited users.
Agile CRM Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing based on annual billing on a per-user monthly breakdown; monthly billing is also available for a higher cost.
Agile CRM LinkedIn data sync (Source: party4sales)
Our Expert Opinion
Despite not offering integration to Sales Navigator, Agile CRM still adds tremendous value to LinkedIn users and sales reps. Its free plan allows direct integration to synchronize lead data into the CRM. Teams can also monitor profile changes taking place on LinkedIn and send LinkedIn messages from Agile CRM. We also can’t forget this product is an all-in-one sales, marketing, and customer service management platform, for which most built-in features are included for free.
Check out our Agile CRM review for an in-depth analysis of features, pricing, and integrations to see if it’s the best product for your business.
monday.com: Best for No-code Automation Tools
Overall Score:
3.88 / 5
Pros
- Free-forever plan available
- Simple product to use with spreadsheet-style data entry for storing sales and project data and customizing boards
- LinkedIn integration allows for no-code automations from monday.com CRM to create posts or manage CRM data
Cons
- Misleading pricing; paid plans require a minimum number of users
- Integration with LinkedIn unavailable until Standard CRM plan
- No integration with LinkedIn Sales Navigator
- You need a highly intuitive CRM system: monday.com and its CRM-specific product are well-known for platform usability. The interface and features use a spreadsheet-style format, similar to Excel, to enter contact, lead, deal, and project data. Users can then transition to numerous board styles, like Kanban, chart, and Gantt. It’s easy to collaborate with team members on sales opportunities using the whiteboard and commenting tools.
- You want to schedule LinkedIn posts from your CRM: The main function of the monday.com Sales CRM and LinkedIn integration is the data management and CRM workflow automation features. Using a no-code workflow designer, users can automate processes that perform actions after preset triggers. For instance, automatically publishing and sharing a post to LinkedIn after a status change or specific date in monday.com.
- You need a Sales Navigator connection: The monday.com CRM product doesn’t offer direct integration with Sales Navigator. Its only function is the ability to schedule and automate LinkedIn posts from the CRM system.
- Alternative: HubSpot and Zoho CRM are more advanced solutions that offer integration with Sales Navigator.
- You need low-cost lead scoring: monday.com CRM offers lead scoring that can be used for lead qualification purposes. That tool, however, is not available until the Enterprise plan, which requires customizable pricing.
- Alternative: Agile CRM is the best alternative with lead scoring on its Free plan.
monday.com Sales CRM Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing based on annual billing for a monthly per-user breakdown; monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. There is also a 14-day free trial for paid plans.
monday.com workflow automation design for LinkedIn (Source: monday.com)
Our Expert Opinion
monday.com Sales CRM is an excellent CRM solution with the same ease-of-use principles from the main project management tool to a prebuilt CRM system. It offers a specialized use case when integrated with LinkedIn through simple automation. Its automation designer has preset workflows with a drop-down menu for teams to set up process triggers and actions. This lets them quickly create automations to post LinkedIn content based on date or board changes.
Like what you see? Our monday.com review tells you everything you need to know about the features and benefits of this product.
Mailchimp CRM: Best for Email Targeting
Overall Score:
3.48 / 5
Pros
- Cost-friendly plans with a free option
- Highly intuitive platform for designing emails and automating campaigns
- Offers LinkedIn data sync to email lists for tagging contacts and targeting campaigns
Cons
- Free plan only allows one user
- Data sync from lead forms is the only function with LinkedIn
- Lacks typical CRM features like deal and account management and pipeline tracking
- You need a robust email marketing platform: Mailchimp is email marketing software that has built-in contact management with tagging and activity tracking—giving it some basic CRM capabilities. Since it’s a specialty marketing platform, it offers a great solution for designing, deploying, automating, and tracking email campaigns with large audiences.
- You want to run targeted campaigns using LinkedIn info: The value of the Mailchimp LinkedIn integration is users can synchronize data from LinkedIn ad forms to create contacts in the email platform. Based on the information collected, you can simplify the process of campaign targeting by segmenting LinkedIn leads based on job position, industry, company size, and interests.
- You want end-to-end LinkedIn functionality: Mailchimp only offers data sync capabilities when integrated with LinkedIn. Therefore, users cannot use the platform to design or post LinkedIn ads, find and engage decision-makers with Sales Navigator, or auto-enrich CRM data using LinkedIn profiles.
- Alternative: HubSpot is the best CRM for LinkedIn with comprehensive functionality from the CRM.
- You need to manage LinkedIn ads and posts from your CRM: While users can manage Facebook, Instagram, and Google ads from Mailchimp, that feature has not yet been extended to LinkedIn content.
- Alternative: HubSpot is a great alternative for LinkedIn ad management.
Mailchimp CRM Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing based on annual billing on a per-month breakdown; monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. Mailchimp offers a 30-day free trial for paid plans.
Mailchimp mapping data from LinkedIn forms (Source: Mailchimp)
Our Expert Opinion
Businesses invested in email marketing get a lot of value from the Mailchimp integration with LinkedIn. It’s specifically useful for targeting campaigns to decision-makers. As users run lead generation ads on LinkedIn, they can take and sync the submission data to Mailchimp to properly segment their email audiences. From there, you can create tailored content for specific audiences and distribute it widely. We also like the product usability and low-cost subscription options.
To learn more about other great Mailchimp capabilities, check out our guide on how to use Mailchimp for email marketing.
Close: Best Built-in Telephone System
Overall Score:
3.06 / 5
Pros
- Multiple communication channels including email, text, and a built-in telephone
- Intuitive interface with simple features
- All integrations, including LinkedIn, available on the lowest-tier plan
Cons
- No free plan
- Does not offer native integration with LinkedIn, requires third-party
- Relatively expensive paid plans
- You want to fill your pipeline with LinkedIn leads: Close is an excellent prospecting and lead and deal management tool, particularly for business-to-business (B2B) sales. It’s what makes it a solid option for LinkedIn-using companies that target decision-makers at other organizations. Teams can import or directly sync lead data into the CRM tool automatically after LinkedIn ad submissions.
- You manage a call center: Teams operating in a call center to engage leads and assist customers can benefit from Close CRM. It’s one of the few providers on the market that offers a built-in phone system—eliminating the need to pay for and integrate a third-party voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) service into the CRM. The phone system allows you to place and receive calls, send texts, auto-log conversations, and automate sequences.
- You need robust LinkedIn functionality: While Close is a great sales CRM system, its LinkedIn capabilities are limited to data sync from LinkedIn ads campaigns. Even then, that feature requires an added step where users must connect through a third-party application like Zapier or LinkMatch.
- Alternative: HubSpot and Zoho CRM offer the widest range of CRM functionality with LinkedIn integration.
- You want a cost-friendly LinkedIn CRM: Close has plenty of advanced CRM capabilities. That said, those solid features cause the provider to get relatively expensive—with the lowest option starting at $25 per user, per month.
- Alternative: Agile CRM and Zoho CRM stand out as the most cost-effective options, each offering a free plan and low-price paid plans.
Close Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing based on annual billing on a per-user monthly breakdown; monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. Close.io also offers a 14-day free trial.
Close CRM call sequence list (Source: Close)
Our Expert Opinion
Close CRM isn’t the most robust CRM product for LinkedIn or even the cheapest. In fact, it scored fairly low in both LinkedIn functionality and pricing. But despite those downfalls, Close offers excellent B2B sales and advanced communication features. On top of pipeline tracking, lead management, and mass email capabilities, the platform is fully equipped with a built-in phone system. This allows users to place, receive, log, record, and transfer calls and monitor calling activity for sales reps.
Check out all the other ways Close can add value to your business in our Close CRM review.
How We Evaluated the Best CRM Integrations With LinkedIn
To determine the best CRM for LinkedIn, we evaluated the specific features available once users integrate LinkedIn with their CRM. For instance, lead generation capabilities that create new CRM records from LinkedIn data is an essential feature we expect from these providers.
Additionally, being able to manage LinkedIn ads from the CRM makes it easy to create and target campaigns from one system. We also looked at other critical product attributes, including price, customer support, and general CRM features like a mobile application and customizable sales pipelines.
The tabs below offer insight into our evaluation process of the best CRM integration with LinkedIn:
30%
Niche/Advanced Features
20%
General Features
20%
Help & Support
15%
Pricing
15%
Expert Score
30% of Overall Score
20% of Overall Score
20% of Overall Score
15% of Overall Score
15% of Overall Score
*Percentages of overall score
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
We rated HubSpot the best overall LinkedIn CRM for its nearly complete functionality once connected. If you need certain product attributes, however, other CRMs might be a better option. For example, Zoho CRM has low-cost integration with Sales Navigator, allowing users to conduct prospecting and outreach from the CRM. Alternatively, Agile CRM has a free CRM with no-cost integration capabilities with LinkedIn for contact activity tracking and sending LinkedIn messages.
Technically, LinkedIn does not have a formal CRM system. However, you can make the argument that LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a CRM because of the prospecting, lead management, and InMail communication features in the software.
Bottom Line
A LinkedIn integration enables teams to use their CRM software for data synchronization, LinkedIn ads management, and prospect engagement. The advanced products even allow users to operate Sales Navigator from their CRM interface. While we rated HubSpot the best overall LinkedIn CRM system, your business’ needs could prompt you to choose a different provider. If you are on a tight budget, for example, you might choose monday.com or Agile CRM.
