Free sales tools like CRMs and browser plugins streamline different aspects of the sales process and help salespeople improve their productivity without breaking the budget. We looked at dozens of options and chose this list of free sales tools based on how they make work easier for sales reps and help them win more deals.
Top 19 Free Sales Tools 2019
| Free Sales Tools | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Freshsales | Basic CRM that integrates with chat and calling tools. |
| HubSpot CRM | CRM with content management, lead forms, and real-time chat tools. |
| Owler | Real-time business updates, alerts, and insights. |
| FullContact | Contact management and profile enrichment. |
| LinkedIn Sales Navigator | Chrome extension that adds contact insights from LinkedIn to your Gmail inbox. |
| Calendly | Simple interface for allowing prospects to self-schedule phone and in-person appointments. |
| Zoom | One-on-one and group video conferencing for customer and remote team meetings. |
| CloudHQ Screencast | Creating quick screencasts embedded in Gmail for product demos or customer troubleshooting. |
| Mailcastr | Chrome extension that provides basic email tracking for Gmail. |
| CloudHQ Gmail Templates | Chrome extension that enhances Gmail with predesigned and imported Mailchimp templates. |
| Gmail Auto Follow Up | Gmail plug-in that lets you create simple follow-up email drip campaigns. |
| Bananatag | Multi-platform email analytics and engagement notifications for important messages. |
| Mailchimp | Email automation platform with landing pages, signup forms, and easy-to-use templates. |
| Google Voice | Creating a separate virtual phone number with call, text, and voicemail transcription features. |
| Freshchat | Chat widget letting you connect with and organize conversations with visitors on your website. |
| Zapier | Workflow automation to connect lead forms and other third-party tools with your CRM. |
| Grammarly | Chrome extension that automatically checks spelling and grammar in Gmail and Google docs. |
| HelloSign | Cloud-based contract management including digital signatures and document storage. |
| ScanBizCards | Simple business card scanning, transcription, and contact management including CRM export. |
Free Sales Tools for Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
CRM software lets you manage lead and customer relationships, as well as deals that are moving through your sales pipeline, which is why they are among the top sales management tools for large and small businesses alike. They often include features like email tracking, social media integrations, and measuring sales goal performance. Many have free trials, while some are available to use for free, with additional features available as paid upgrades.
Freshsales
Freshsales contact management
Freshsales offers a free-forever plan that allows you to add unlimited users and unlimited contacts. It includes the ability to manage leads, customers, accounts, and sales opportunities. Freshsales also allows you to customize your sales pipeline and includes basic lead scoring, which helps users identify the most qualified leads based on whether or not the lead is a decision-maker and their overall engagement with your email campaigns.
One particular benefit of Freshsales is that the free version integrates with Freshchat, making it a powerful way to connect with new leads and existing customers through web-based chat. Freshsales also integrates with Freshdesk and Freshcaller, making it a robust, end-to-end tool to manage the entire customer relationship.
Freshsales is a great choice for business-to-business (B2B) sales teams that generate leads through their website or prospect by phone and want to integrate those features into a free, easy-to-use CRM. In addition, Freshsales offers a free trial of their paid plans, which start at $12 per user, per month.
HubSpot CRM
HubSpot CRM contact management
HubSpot CRM is a robust, free CRM that includes customizable sales pipelines, email tracking and templates, contact management, and lead generation forms. It’s free to use for unlimited users and up to 1 million contact records, making it a great solution for businesses that generate a lot of website traffic and want to convert those visitors to leads that can be moved through the sales process
With HubSpot CRM, you can customize your sales pipeline, send email campaigns with tracking features, and even connect with visitors while they’re on your site using the built-in webchat widget. It also serves as a central contact database for their more advanced marketing and sales features, all of which can be explored with a free 30-day trial.
Free Sales Tools for Business & Contact Insights
Salespeople are always looking for new ways to streamline the process of researching and learning about the people they are connecting with. These free sales tools provide insights into your target companies and individual contacts like relevant news and current contact information, providing you with the information you need to effectively reach out and connect with your prospects and customers.
Owler
Owler business profiles
Owler is a business intelligence service that relies on its user community to provide insights and competitive analysis of over 2 million businesses. It offers three main areas of information, company profiles, real-time news alerts, and company insights. Owler lets you select the businesses you want to follow and receive a daily email digest of news about companies, as well as real-time notifications of important events like acquisitions and key leadership changes.
One of the ways Owler is especially helpful is that it allows you to keep track of current events relating to your target companies and connect with decision-makers in a timely manner. For example, if one of your target companies hires a new senior executive for purchasing, you want to connect with them and become a resource quickly. With profiles on over 2 million businesses, it’s a great way to keep on top of what’s happening.
FullContact
FullContact web dashboard
FullContact is an insights platform that includes both paid and free products that help you better understand your contacts by providing context and additional information like social media networks and demographics. For example, FullContact has a Gmail plug-in which adds a sidebar in your inbox that shows enhanced contact information and context when you open an email.
In addition, FullContact includes a web- and API-based dashboard that provides robust contact information that you can use to view additional information about your contacts or prospects. This dashboard allows you to search FullContact directly as well as create API connections with other software tools to add additional contact information within your CRM or address book.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
LinkedIn Sales Navigator Gmail plug-in
The Sales Navigator plug-in for Gmail provides you with valuable insights about your contacts from the LinkedIn network in your inbox. When you open an email, it automatically shows you information from your contact’s LinkedIn profile, including mutual connections or common experiences. Sales Navigator calls these Icebreakers, as they are intended to provide context you can use to enrich your customer dialogue.
“One of my favorite sales tools is the LinkedIn Sales Navigator plug-in for Gmail. When I’m sending or receiving an email and that email is attached to a LinkedIn profile, a mini-version of the profile sits on the right side of my computer screen in the sidebar. I don’t have to leave my inbox in order to see if I’m communicating with a C-level executive, mid-level manager, or entry-level person.”
— Jon Sterling, Owner, The Sterling Report
“One of my favorite sales tools is the LinkedIn Sales Navigator plug-in for Gmail. When I’m sending or receiving an email and that email is attached to a LinkedIn profile, a mini-version of the profile sits on the right side of my computer screen in the sidebar. I don’t have to leave my inbox in order to see if I’m communicating with a C-level executive, mid-level manager, or entry-level person.”LinkedIn Sales Navigator for Gmail will let you view rich LinkedIn profile data for your contacts directly in your inbox, including common connections and experiences. Sales Navigator for Gmail is a free browser plug-in that enhances your contacts and provides valuable insights as you reach out and connect.
Free Sales Tools for Meetings & Appointments
Salespeople spend a lot of time meeting with prospects and customers, and these free sales tools help streamline the process of scheduling and meeting with your contacts. Whether you generally meet in person or via video conferencing, we think you’ll find that these are some of the best free tools for connecting with your customers.
Calendly
Calendly scheduling interface
Calendly is a free automated scheduling tool that makes it easy for salespeople to book more customer appointments by letting them pick the date and time that works best without all of the back-and-forth email conversation. It integrates with Google and Outlook calendars, and lets you set your availability. Then, you simply provide your personalized scheduling link and let customers book the time that works, eliminating the hassle of scheduling meetings.
Calendly also offers paid versions that allow advanced integrations with GoToMeeting, Zapier, and Salesforce, as well as multiple appointment types. The paid versions also include administrative and team features for managing group and team scheduling needs.
— Charlene DeCesare, Founder, Firewalk Sales
“My all-time favorite free sales tool is Calendly. Calendly is a meeting scheduling tool that integrates with Google, Office 365, Outlook, and iCloud. A great sales professional is one who is reaching out to a lot of potential clients and booking a lot of meetings. Still, it can be cumbersome to manage back-and-forth emails with a moving target. Calendly syncs with my Google calendar so that my contacts can a get real-time view into how my availability aligns with theirs, then book the best time. I couldn’t live without it!”Calendly eliminates the back and forth of scheduling customer appointments by allowing you to customize your availability and let your customer pick the time that works best. Calendly can be shared using a personalized link or embedded in your website. It’s free to use for individuals and a 14-day free trial is available of paid features.
Zoom
Zoom group video meetings
Zoom is a video conferencing tool with a free plan that can be used for simple online one-on-one or group meetings. It’s a great tool for presenting proposals, internal account review meetings, and external meetings with customers. It’s also a great way to keep remote teams connected, which is how we use it here at Fit Small Business.
In addition to letting you meet face-to-face, Zoom’s free plan allows you to host an unlimited number of one-to-one meetings as well as group meetings of up to 100 people. It also lets you share your screen, making it ideal for conducting product demos, customer training, or support. Zoom includes HD video and voice, automatically highlights the active speaker, and allows users to share their screen with participants. Visit Zoom today to create your free account.
CloudHQ Screencast for Gmail
Screencast for Gmail by CloudHQ is a Chrome extension that allows you to easily record your desktop and voice audio with one click from within Gmail, and then automatically load the video into your email message. Screencast allows you to record your entire screen or choose the window you want to record while using the computer’s microphone to record voice-over audio, which makes it great for quick sales presentations, demos, or troubleshooting. Since it’s built into Gmail, it makes it easy to send demos and training videos via email.
Screencast sends your video as a screenshot in your email message, providing a link to a customizable landing page for recipients to view your video. This free tool makes it easy to record and send product demos, training videos, and tutorials directly from your Gmail inbox.
Free Sales Tools for Email
Email is one of the most common ways to communicate with prospects and customers. That’s because almost everyone has an email address, and email remains one of the most effective and inexpensive ways to reach out to prospects. These free sales email tools are designed to make connecting by email easier and more effective.
Mailcastr
Mailcastr is an easy-to-use email tracking app for Gmail that lets you know when your email is read. It’s free to use for unlimited email tracking and gives you insight into when your email is opened and what links are clicked. Since Mailcastr lives within your Gmail account, it provides analytics within your inbox, eliminating the need to look elsewhere for information about how your email messages are performing.
Mailcastr is designed to let you know when your email message is read, giving you important insight as to whether your message is getting through to your prospects and clients. Mailcastr allows tracking from within your Gmail inbox and provides reporting and analytics both in Gmail and the Mailcastr mobile app. Visit Mailcastr for more information.
CloudHQ Templates for Gmail
CloudHQ Gmail templates
CloudHQ’s Templates for Gmail is a Chrome extension that adds professional email templates within your Gmail inbox. It also allows you to import templates you’ve created in Mailchimp, or create your own directly in the software. Templates for Gmail lets you quickly choose an email template from within the Gmail mail editor, and even allows you to connect merge tags for sending emails to multiple recipients.
Templates for Gmail is a free Chrome extension that lets you create and share beautiful email templates directly from within Gmail. It includes a template library, with new designs added on an ongoing basis. Anyone who sends the same type of email over and over can save time and effort with Templates for Gmail.
Gmail Auto Follow Up
CloudHQ Auto Follow Up interface
Gmail Auto Follow Up is another free Chrome extension from CloudHQ that lets you set up a sequence of emails to send prospects over a period of time, directly from within Gmail. Auto Follow Up lets you schedule up to 10 automated emails to be sent over time and connects with the Templates for Gmail plug-in, letting you use your email template library to send compelling and professionally designed emails.
Auto Follow Up also includes email tracking to let you know when your email has been opened from within your Gmail account. You can also link the tool back to Salesforce to sync information about your prospect’s email engagement with your CRM. Auto Follow Up is a simple, free way to set up email drip campaigns from within Gmail.
Bananatag
Bananatag email tracking tools
Bananatag is an email analytics tool that tracks email open rates in Gmail, Outlook 365, and on mobile devices through email relay. The free plan allows you to track up to five emails per day and provides you with basic notifications when your email is opened. Bananatag also offers a paid version that includes link tracking, email templates, and email scheduling.
One of the advantages of Bananatag is that it works not only as a Chrome extension for Gmail, but also on Macs, iOS, and Android mobile devices, which makes it more versatile than some of the other email tracking tools we looked at. You can sign up for your free account and download the extension for Chrome or Outlook. Visit Bananatag for more information.
Mailchimp
Designing emails in Mailchimp
Mailchimp is an email automation tool that lets you easily create beautifully-designed email messages to send to your prospects or customers. Use it to generate sales leads from your website by collecting contact email information and send targeted drip campaign designed to move your prospects through your sales process. Mailchimp also allows you to segment your audience into lists as well as track when emails are opened and what links your readers click.
Mailchimp is a simple-to-use email tool that is free for up to 2,000 email contacts. It includes the ability to create multiple audiences and send up to 12,000 emails per month using professionally designed templates. It also integrates with many popular sales tools, including HubSpot, allowing you to track email engagement within their CRM.
Free Sales Tools for Phone or Chat
Sales reps spend a lot of time on the phone with prospects and customers. For small businesses looking for tools to use that time efficiently, these free sales tools can help by providing voice-over-internet (VoIP) calling, dedicated business phone numbers, and call recording and logs.
Google Voice
Google Voice mobile app interface
Google Voice is a free call and voice management software that lets you make calls, send SMS, preview your transcribed voicemails, and get notified of new messages. Google Voice is available to anyone who has a Gmail or G Suite account, and includes an individual phone number for business calls. One of the most useful features of Google Voice is that it transcribes voicemails and sends them by email, making it easy to quickly determine how to follow up.
Google Voice can be used on both desktops or on your iOS or Android mobile device, making it easy to use for all of your business calls. You can set up your business number to give your customers based on your location, and can choose to forward business calls to the landline or mobile number of your choice.
Freshchat
Freshchat user interface
Freshchat is a chat tool that can easily be embedded into your website to communicate with prospects and customers while they are engaged with your site in real-time. It offers a free plan that includes up to 10,000 unique monthly visitors and supports up to 10 team members. Freshchat integrates seamlessly with WordPress, Squarespace, Shopify, and Facebook Messenger, making it a great tool for connecting with prospects wherever they are.
Freshchat also integrates with both Freshsales and Freshdesk, making it a powerful front-end communication tool for your sales team. Available on your mobile devices, the Sprout plan is free forever, and Freshchat also offers free trials of each of their higher-tier paid plans, which include advanced features like automatic agent assignment.
Free Productivity Sales Tools
Productivity tools help streamline the processes and administrative tasks that salespeople do on a daily basis. These free sales tools are some of our favorite for eliminating manual steps and streamlining your administrative workflow.
Zapier
Zapier workflow automation
Zapier is a workflow automation software that connects the software tools you use every day. Zapier lets you create what it calls “Zaps” to connect software applications that don’t have native integrations. For example, you can connect your CRM to your project management tool and have it create a new project or task every time you close a deal. Zapier’s free plan lets you create five Zaps at a time and send 100 contacts per month between connected software apps.
Paid plans are available at $20, $50, $125, and $250 per month and increase both the number of Zaps and the amount of information you can send. These plans also give access to “Premium” Zaps that include connections with software and platforms like Salesforce, QuickBooks, and PayPal.
Grammarly
Grammarly web text editor
If you write emails or create content, you should use Grammarly. Available as a Chrome extension as well as a standalone text editor, Grammarly checks grammar, spelling, and detects plagiarism. It offers a free plan that works with Gmail, Outlook, social media websites, Slack, and Google Docs in beta form. Additionally, Grammarly offers a keyboard profile that brings the tool to your mobile device.
Grammarly also provides feedback about your writing, including your overall accuracy, vocabulary, and word count compared to other users. A paid premium plan also checks for overused words, unclear sentence structure, and hedging language.
HelloSign
HelloSign admin interface
HelloSign is a cloud-based solution for collecting digital signatures that integrates with Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, and G Suite. Whether you need to collect individual or group signatures, HelloSign’s free plan allows individuals to use up to three documents per month. Your documents are protected with bank-level security, ensuring that your signatures will stand up in court.
HelloSign also offers paid plans beginning at $13 per month, which include unlimited document signing and your branding. You can sign up for a 30-day free trial of the higher-tier plans, but for most users needing a solution to digitally sign a few proposals and contracts a month, HelloSign’s free plan is a great choice.
ScanBizCards
ScanBizCards mobile business scanner interface
ScanBizCards is a free business card scanner app for iOS and Android that includes unlimited card scanning, unlimited contacts in your address book, and cloud-based backup. If you’re someone who finds himself collecting a large number of business cards, ScanBizCards is a great way to easily transcribe them and add them to your contact list. A Premium version is available for $2.99, which adds Salesforce and comma-separated values (CSV) file export.
ScanBizCards is straightforward, using optical character recognition (OCR) to read and transcribe your contact data, and manual (human) transcription can be added at an additional cost. Scanning is as easy as using a camera app, and ScanBizCards does the rest.
Bottom Line – Free Sales Tools
Each of these free sales management and enablement tools is designed to make your work life just a little bit easier. From email plug-ins, to contact management tools, to productivity apps that save time and effort, we’re confident that you’ll find a few that you can add to your toolbox.
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