6 Best Lead Management Software Options for 2019

Lead management software helps sales teams organize and prioritize their leads with scoring and contact management features. We evaluated a variety of lead tracking software options and narrowed it down to the best six for 2019. To identify the best, we considered how each handles lead scoring, pricing, ease of use, and organizational functionality.

Top 6 Lead Management Software Options for 2019

Which Lead Management Software Is Right For You?

How We Evaluated Lead Management Software Options

Lead management software helps you organize, manage, prioritize, and track hundreds, even thousands of leads in one place. When considering software options that are right for small businesses, we looked for lead management solutions that were easy to set up and use, are affordably priced, save time, and make it easier to build relationships with top prospects.

Here are the criteria we used to identify the top six lead tracking software options:

• Affordability: One important factor is price. We compared the pricing of the software to similar options on the market.
• Ease of use: Small businesses need tools that are easy to get started and use without extensive training or setup, so we looked at options that place a priority on making the software intuitive and simple to use.
• Lead capture & qualification tools: An important criteria for lead management is the ability to prioritize the leads you capture based on their likelihood of being a good fit as customers.
• Lead organization functionality: We evaluated the software’s organizational features, such as lead filtering and sorting. We also looked at the software’s ability to help salespeople and business owners organize their leads in ways that help them build and optimize relationships.
• Automation tools: Many sales tasks can be automated with the right tools. We included automation in our criteria because it adds to sales productivity.
• Mobile access: Many salespeople and business owners perform their jobs on the road. Being able to access your leads from a mobile device was an essential part of our criteria.
• Activity management & reporting: Sales teams need to be able to track activities, gain insights through reporting, and utilize those to manage performance. We evaluated how easy it is to measure important metrics and generate helpful reports.
• App integrations: It can save you and your sales team time when lead management software integrates with other productivity tools you use. Our criteria included whether the software integrates with commonly used tools like Google apps, Microsoft Office, or other app products that compliment lead management.

Based on these criteria, we have determined Freshsales to be the overall best small business software for lead management for its ability to help you organize, prioritize, and work your leads; ease of use; and affordable price point. Its team management tools, great mobile app, and built-in phone, making it a terrific option for territory-based sales teams or sales organizations that need lead management in the field.

Freshsales: Best Overall Lead Management Software

Freshsales is the best overall customer relationship management (CRM) software and lead management tool for small businesses. It’s affordably priced and allows you to prioritize the best leads, support territory sales, and lead assignment. Its mobile app, built-in phone, and territory-based lead management make it great for sales organizations that want a tool that helps them manage their leads while in the field.

Freshsales Pricing

Freshsales is affordably priced, starting at $12 per user, per month. There’s also a free version that offers basic lead and contact management functionality for unlimited users. As your needs grow and require more advanced tools, the prices are still affordable at $49 per user, per month.

Freshsales Tiered Features

Sprout

The Sprout plan is the free forever plan. It includes an unlimited number of users and contacts. It offers lead management functionality like lead scoring and contact management. There is also a built-in phone, unlimited support, and a mobile app, which earned Freshsales one of our top picks for best mobile CRM. Compared to the Insightly and Zoho free plans that have user limitations, Freshsales free plan has no restrictions on the number of users.

The Sprout Plan is appropriate for small businesses that want to organize their contacts and communicate with them by phone but aren’t quite ready for paid features like lead assignments, workflows, or bulk emails. Starting off with this plan will help you stay organized and give you the ability to scale into a solution that supports a bigger, more segmented sales team divided into territories.

Blossom

Starting at $12 per user, per month, this plan builds on the Sprout plan, providing more advanced CRM tools in addition to the lead organization and calling features. Those tools include pipeline creation and management, expanded lead scoring, advanced reporting and workflows, and the ability to send up to 250 bulk emails. This plan is comparable to Zoho CRM, offering advanced reporting and lead scoring, starting at $12 per user, per month.

Freshsales’ Blossom plan is the best option for business owners looking to go beyond lead organization. They want lead management software to help them communicate with and convert their leads more efficiently. They’re also looking for basic reporting tools to assess the effectiveness of their activities.

Garden

Starting at $29 per user, per month, this plan expands on the Blossom plan, offering territory management, lead scoring and lead assignment rules, and an expanded number of automation workflows. It provides call forwarding and call transfer, which support territory-based teams. Garden is similar to Insightly’s Professional plan priced at $49 per user, per month, with its workflow and lead scoring functionalities but offers calling features not available with Insightly.

This plan is for small businesses ready to segment their sales teams into territories. A combination of territory management tools like automated lead assignments and the ability to purchase and assign either national or local phone numbers to sales reps, combined with call transfer and call forwarding, allows teams to engage with leads assigned to them quickly.

Estate

Starting at $49 per user, per month, Estate offers lead scoring capabilities that allow you to prioritize your most important leads. It also offers web-to-lead capture forms, additional sales campaigns, and workflows. This tier lacks some of the more advanced tools offered by the other providers at this level. For instance, Pipedrive offers multiple dashboards and revenue forecasting, both of which are not available in this Freshsales tier.

The Estate plan is excellent for businesses with territory-based sales teams interested in expanding their prospecting and lead generation activities more strategically. Included features allow you to use lead scoring to focus on the best leads, automation tools to capture website leads and sales campaigns to target and communicate with the best prospects. It’s more advanced than Zendesk Sell’s Professional plan and Pipedrive’s plan, which are missing lead and deal scoring.

Lead management screenshot

What Freshsales Is Missing

It’s also missing lead registration to support businesses with channel sales strategies. Freshsales is missing project management tools to help you engage with new customers once deals are closed. If project management tools and lead registration features are essential, you can always use a tool like Trello for project management. For more options, see our article on different types of CRM.

What Users Think About Freshsales

Freshsales users love the software because they find it easy to use, offers great support, and includes email and phone integration. Dislikes include the system sometimes being slow or functionality not being visible on the mobile app. For more information on reviews, see our Freshsales review page.

Pipedrive: Best Lead Management Software for Lead & Pipeline Visualization

Pipedrive is the best lead management software for businesses that want an affordably priced visual snapshot of their lead stages and activities. It includes a Kanban-style lead management tool, a sales assistant that suggests actions based on past performance, and detailed at-a-glance contact insights. This makes it a terrific option for teams looking for a simple and highly visual lead management solution with sales activity guidance.

Pipedrive Pricing

Pipedrive is affordably priced, starting at $12.50 per user, per month. As your needs grow, and you require more advanced tools like revenue reporting and multiple dashboards, prices are still affordable at $49.17 per user, per month.

Pipedrive Tiered Features

Essentials

The Essentials plan, priced at $12.50 per user, per month, offers a basic set of lead management features like lead capture web forms and activity reminders. It also includes a calendar and the ability to copy emails into pipelines. It stands out with a unique Sales Assistant feature that suggests sales actions based on past performance. Pricing and features are similar to Zoho and Freshsales’ starter plans.

For small businesses looking for a robust entry-level lead management tool in the $12 to $15 range, Essentials is a great choice. When it comes to email communication, it is a great option for businesses that want to link their prospects with email communications but don’t send enough emails to warrant full email integration.

Advanced

The Advanced plan contains everything in the Essentials plan but offers a fully integrated email where emails can be sent and received directly in Pipedrive. Its email integration, open, and click rates are tracked, which contributes to lead management by providing information that influences prospect engagement. This plan also offers a customizable dashboard, workflow automation, and event scheduling.

Pipedrive’s Advanced plan is the best option for business owners looking to go beyond the basics for the cost of $24.90 per user, per month. It is best for teams looking for lead management software that will give them insights about the effectiveness of their communications and help them automate and schedule tasks so that they become more efficient and productive.

Professional

In addition to everything the Advanced plan offers, the Professional plan includes multiple dashboards, the ability to create teams and revenue forecasting reports, and Caller, which is Pipedrive’s new click-to-call feature. It is priced starting at $49.90 per user, per month, which is comparable to Insightly and Freshsales plans at this tier.

The features in the Professional plan are best for companies with larger sales teams because of the team reports and team management features. It’s also great for teams that rely on phone outreach with Caller, its built-in calling tool. This plan is comparable with Freshsales and Zendesk’s similar tier that has a similar price point and calling features.

Contact details screenshot

What Pipedrive Is Missing

Unlike Freshsales, Pipedrive is missing lead scoring and assignment capabilities. Pipedrive is also missing phone support at its lower-tiered plans, which can be important for some salespeople and business owners. If phone support, lead scoring, and assignment are essential in the beginning tiers, Freshsales is an option to consider.

What Users Think About Pipedrive

Pipedrive users love that it is easy to use, highly customizable for their needs, and very visual. They also love its mobile app, which allows for productivity on the go. Pipedrive hasn’t received many negative reviews, but when they do, they tend to be about minor issues. For more information on user reviews, see our article Pipedrive Reviews, Pricing & Popular Alternatives.

Insightly: Best Lead Management Software With Project Management:

Insightly is a CRM with lead management as well as project management. It also includes helpful automation features like its unique built-in business card scanner as well as email templates, web-to-lead forms, and automated lead assignment rules. It is best for businesses that want to automate their lead management or plan to build long-term relationships with their leads beyond the initial sales cycle.

Insightly Pricing

Insightly is affordably priced, starting at $29 per user, per month. As your needs grow and you require more advanced tools like workflow automation and role-based permissions, prices are still affordable at $49 per user, per month.

Insightly Tiered Features

Free

The Free plan offers the same core set of tasks, lead, relationship, and project management functionality as the paid plans. Where it differs is that only two users are allowed on this plan, and there are many limitations like a limited number of records that can be imported and the size of data storage. It is comparable to the free versions of Zoho and Freshsales but, unlike these two options, it offers project management tools to help foster long-term relationships.

For small businesses with only one or two users looking to try lead management software and plan to manage projects and pursue long-term relationships with their customers, the Free Plan is the best choice of the six options featured in this article. It’s a great starter option that is scalable when the business expands its team and level of prospecting and lead management.

Plus

The Plus plan is $29 per month, per user, and offers the features of the free plan and as well as additional ones. The main difference is that there are fewer limitations or restrictions. It’s $29 per month, per user. Record, storage, and email limitations increase significantly with this plan. This plan also includes features like the business card scanner and Google Contacts and Calendar Sync.

Insightly’s Plus plan is the best option for business owners whose businesses are growing and looking to go beyond the Free Plan because they have more users or need more advanced features, and their number of leads and users has increased, creating the need for more features like email scheduling and Google Contacts and Google Calendar syncs. They also need fewer restrictions on the number of records and storage.

Professional

At $49 per month, per user, the Professional Plan offers fewer restrictions on the number of records and data storage while offering tools and resources not available on the Free and Plus plans like workflow automation and lead assignments. Workflow automation can automate lead management tasks and lead assignments helping to ensure timely follow-up. While automation is great, other plans like Zoho offer these tools in lower price-point tiers.

This plan is best for businesses with medium to large sales teams that may be segmented by territory or product. Tools like lead assignments, role, or profile permissions, and workflow automation help managers better direct and manage their team’s sales activities. Expanded email capabilities such as the number of mass emails and email templates can also add to team productivity, all for an affordable price of $49 per user, per month.

Insightly Screen for adding new leads

What Insightly Is Missing

Insightly is missing free phone support and in-depth training. It offers email support, but for users who prefer to speak to someone, they’d have to buy a customized support and service plan. Also missing is call integration, which would complement email integration, where calls can be made, received, and tracked right in the software. If this feature is vital to have in your CRM, Freshsales, Pipedrive, or Zendesk Sell are better options.

What Users Think About Insightly

Insightly users love the project management features. They like the fact that the software helps them stay involved with customers even after a deal is closed. They love how it helps organize contacts and track opportunities. They think Insightly can improve training and onboarding. For more information on Insightly, see our Insightly user review page.

Zoho: Best Lead Management Software for Social Media Engagement

Zoho is a CRM with lead management tools that allow businesses to capture leads directly from social media. Zoho also offers advanced features like artificial intelligence (AI)-powered sales signals that can help businesses focus on their lead development efforts on the most engaged social media prospects. Therefore, it is best for businesses that want to manage their social media leads as well as their leads from more traditional sources.

Zoho Pricing

Zoho is affordably priced, offering a free option for lead management. Paid plans start at $12 per user, per month, with an annual agreement or $18 per user, per month, for a month-to-month agreement. Even at the Professional level, the pricing is very competitive at $20 per user, per month, with the annual agreement.

Zoho Tiered Features

Free

The Free plan offers basic lead management features such as being able to organize and store leads, accounts, and opportunities. You’re also able to track tasks, events, call logs, and notes as related to your leads. It also includes basic workflow management tools like workflow rules and email notifications. Even with the Free plan, users can take advantage of basic social media integration, which differentiates Zoho from competitors at this tier.

The Free Plan is great for small businesses with three users or fewer that want to manage leads and engage them on social media. You can share content, have conversations, and follow posts from your prospects. It’s a great starter plan to organize your leads and execute a social media engagement strategy. Its free plan offers double the record limit size of Insightly’s free plan, which is capped at 2,500.

Standard

The Standard plan builds on the Free plan, with advanced marketing tools like mass emails, marketing campaigns, and social media lead capture forms. You can also integrate calling features with Zoho PhoneBridge. These features help build prospect relationships while supporting lead generation from social media and higher levels of engagement over the phone.

The Standard plan is the best option for business owners looking to execute marketing and lead generation campaigns alongside their prospect nurturing activities. Pricing is the same as Freshsales, which also has a built-in phone, and is priced at $12 per user, per month.

Professional

The Professional plan, priced at $20 per user, per month, builds on the Standard plan and adds more advanced tools like inventory management and Zoho Finance Suite, included in this plan. These tools add to the level of engagement by giving the salesperson access to information on products, inventory, invoices, and more while they are communicating with their prospects or customers.

This plan is for small businesses that want to access and incorporate product information while engaging their prospects and customers. This can save time that the salesperson would have to take to log into another system to access information.

What Zoho Is Missing

Zoho has a phone dialer integration. However, it is not offered as a built-in feature. It also lacks the project management found in Insightly, though this too can be added and integrated into the software. Therefore, Zoho is not as out-of-the-box ready as the other products we compared in terms of lead management.

What Users Think About Zoho

Zoho users like the fact that the software is very comprehensive. However, some are disappointed with having to buy add-on products to get the functionality they are seeking. For more information on reviews, see our article on Zoho User Reviews.

Zoho lead scoring screenshot

Zendesk Sell: Best Lead Management Software With Access to Support Features

Zendesk Sell is a CRM with lead management tools that also gives you affordable access to Zendesk’s Support. It’s customer support tools that can be added. Lead management features include the ability to track interactions within each contact profile helping you build on prior interactions. Zendesk Sell is great for companies that want to start with the basics and add features as needed over time.

Zendesk Sell Pricing

Zendesk Sell has two plans for small businesses priced at $19 and $49 per user, per month. You can also purchase Zendesk Duet at $59 per month, per user, which includes the CRM and Support products together. If you purchase Duet, you’ll need an annual agreement.

Zendesk Sell Tiered Features

Team

The Team plan includes core CRM features for $19 per month, per user. It also includes custom sales pipelines, and basic sales reporting. You can make and record calls within Sell with a native dialer in this tier. Similar to other providers featured here, email integration is also a feature. Like Salesforce Essentials, Pipedrive, and Zoho, there’s a mobile app that lets you work on the go.

The Team plan is right for smaller organizations that want an affordable CRM with calling features, reporting tools, and the ability to integrate emails. Small business owners can conduct outreach via phone and email right in the CRM while tracking sales activities, which helps plan your next steps. It’s affordable and has no user limitations like Salesforce’s beginning tier does.

Professional

The Professional Plan costs $49 per month, per user, and builds on the Team tier. It includes mass email tools and email templates, enabling you to scale email outreach efficiently. It has more advanced reporting like sales forecasting as well as call analytics. You can also integrate with MailChimp and Zapier with this plan, allowing you to expand its capabilities further.

This plan is nice for growing businesses that have larger customer bases. Expanded email capabilities allow for scaling communications and goes beyond the Team plan’s functionality. Advanced reporting is also useful for companies interested in data to help with future growth. Professional is much less expensive and more flexible than Salesforce Professional plan but in line with other provider’s plans in the same tier in this article.

Zendesk Sell Lead Capture Form

What Zendesk Sell Is Missing

Similar to Zoho, Zendesk Sell is part of a robust platform that has many products ideal for lead management but, in many cases, it requires you to add features or bundle products. This is good if you want to start simple and add tools as needed, but it can be frustrating if you want everything out of the box like Freshsales offers.

What Users Think About Zendesk Sell

Overall, users like Zendesk Sell. Users find it easy to use with features allowing them to build relationships and focus on sales. They like the native click to call feature with call recordings. Dislikes around price and having to add-on features and other features like wanting more clear communication around product updates.

Salesforce: Best for Lead Registration & CRM Customization

Salesforce is a lead management CRM offering lead registration and CRM customization for small businesses. Lead registration allows you to report deals to channel sales partners, which can result in preferential terms. Customization features allow you to configure the CRM in a way that works for your business. Essentials starts at $25 per month, per user, and is capped at 10 users. It’s great for businesses that want customization and need lead registration.

Salesforce Pricing

Salesforce offers two tiers for smaller organizations with prices from $25 per user, per month, to $75 per user, per month. For companies that want support tools, there’s no need for add-ons as it’s included in Essentials. There’s a 10 user cap on Salesforce’s starting plan, whereas other paid plans featured here have no similar caps.

Salesforce Tiered Features

Salesforce Essentials

Salesforce Essentials has lead management tools that allow you to track where leads are in the sales process. It offers both lead assignment and routing so you can assign and route leads to the right sales reps. It offers customer support tools without add-ons so you can create a knowledge base and support tickets. It comes with Lightning Apps Builder for those that want to build custom CRM apps. This tier is priced at $25 per user, per month.

The Essentials plan is right for growing businesses just starting out that need an affordable plan with a monthly payment option. It’s ideal for small and midsize business (SMBs) with fewer than 10 users as there’s a 10 user maximum with this plan. Companies that need to build custom apps for their CRM would also find this plan beneficial since Lightning Apps comes with it. It’s also helpful if you want support tools included, unlike with Zendesk Sell, where it requires an upgrade.

Salesforce Professional

Salesforce Professional has advanced features like collaborative forecasting to work with colleagues on sales forecasts. There’s also lead scoring, which lets you help your sales team prioritize the best leads based on rules you establish. Lead registration is a feature that is perfect for businesses with channel sales strategies. Pricing begins at $75 per user, per month, with a required annual agreement.

Companies that have outgrown features in the Essentials plan and need more advanced features like lead scoring, lead registration, and collaborative sales forecasting will find this plan beneficial. It’s suitable for strategic organizations that want to focus on the most important leads and sales activities. This is the only platform of all providers here offering registration, which helps compete for large channel sales deals.

Lead view

What Salesforce Is Missing

Although Salesforce comes with support tools out-of-the-box, it’s missing pricing flexibility, which is essential for small businesses. The small business tier, Essentials, has a great price point of $25 and offers monthly billing, but is capped at 10 users. The next tier available once you reach the eleventh user costs $75 per month, per user, and requires an annual agreement. If you think you’ll scale to over 10 users but want lower pricing, consider one of the other options presented.

What Users Think About Salesforce

Salesforce users generally like using it. The customization aspect is one feature users tend to like. What they don’t like is the learning curve involved in fully utilizing the app builder and other customization features. They also tend to dislike the price of the more advanced Salesforce tiers.

Bottom Line

The best lead management software is easy to use, affordable, and has all the tools you need to organize, prioritize, and work your leads. Whether you are looking for simplicity, a highly visual lead management tool, the ability to establish and grow long-term relationships, lead registration, or have a sales team you are planning to divide by territories, one of these six solutions will meet your needs.

Being able to take action quickly on your top leads by assigning them to the right territories can mean the difference between winning and losing a sale. Freshsales offers lead management and CRM software that help business owners take meaningful action, track results, and change direction if necessary. Give Freshsales a try by signing up for a 30-day free trial.

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