If you want to automate your sales activities, marketing initiatives, and customer service to make your small business operations more efficient, then you’ve come to the right place. The best operational customer relationship management (CRM) systems offer advanced features, like extensive workflow automation capabilities, that streamline your business and revenue operations (RevOps) processes.
We evaluated dozens of solutions and narrowed them down to the eight best operational CRM platforms in terms of standout features, affordability and scalability of plans, ease of use, and user reviews.
- Zoho CRM: Best (overall) for free lead management
- Bitrix24: Best free CRM for unlimited users
- HubSpot CRM: Best for free revenue management
- Pipedrive: Best for sales automation
- Insightly CRM: Best for project management
- monday CRM: Best for ease of use
- Salesforce: Best for business health reporting
- Copper CRM: Best for affordable productivity tools
Why You Can Trust Fit Small Business
- Best Operational CRM Platforms Compared
- Zoho CRM: Best CRM for Operations Overall With Free Lead Management
- Bitrix24: Best Free Operational CRM for Unlimited Users
- HubSpot CRM: Best for Free RevOps Management
- Pipedrive: Best Operational CRM for Sales Automation
- Insightly CRM: Best for Project Management
- monday CRM: Best for Ease of Use
- Salesforce: Best for Business Health Reporting
- Copper CRM: Best Operational CRM Software for Affordable Productivity Tools
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Bottom Line
Best Operational CRM Platforms Compared
| Provider | Free Plan | Free Trial | Starting Monthly Price per User | Our Rating out of 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ✓3 users | ✓15 days | $14 | 4.62 |
| Visit Zoho CRM | ||||
 | ✓Unlimited users | ✓15 days | $43 for five users | 4.59 |
| Visit Bitrix24 | ||||
 | ✓2 users | ✕ | $15 | 4.52 |
| Visit HubSpot CRM | ||||
 | ✕ | ✓14 days | $14 | 4.48 |
| Visit Pipedrive | ||||
 | ✕ | ✓14 days | $29 | 4.37 |
| Visit Insightly CRM | ||||
 | ✕ | ✓14 days | $12 | 4.34 |
| Visit monday CRM | ||||
 | ✕ | ✓30 days | $25 | 4.24 |
| Visit Salesforce | ||||
 | ✕ | ✓14 days | $9 | 4.11 |
| Visit Copper CRM | ||||
Zoho CRM: Best CRM for Operations Overall With Free Lead Management
When to Use Zoho CRM
- You need a CRM with free or low-cost AI tools: Zoho CRM offers AI tools in the form of its voice assistant, Zia. This tool provides you with intelligent automations, smart recommendations for sales activities, predictions based on sales trends, and suggestions for email content. Unfortunately, Zia is only available for higher tiers, starting with the Enterprise plan ($40 per user monthly).
- Alternatives: If you want more affordable yet comprehensive AI features, go for Pipedrive’s Essential plan ($14 per user monthly). Its AI Sales Assistant provides automated task updates, reminders, forecast assistance, and tips for performance improvement. Bitrix24’s Copilot for deal and lead autofilling, transcribing calls, and creating quality email content is available on its free plan.
- You’re looking for a more affordable CRM with segmentation tools: Zoho CRM’s customer segmentation feature is locked in with its Enterprise plan ($40 per user monthly). For small businesses, this could be a steep price.
- Alternatives: HubSpot CRM’s free plan and Salesforce’s Starter Suite ($25 per user monthly) both offer customer segmentation. Bitrix24’s Basic plan ($43 per user monthly) also offers sales and marketing automation with customer segmentation. While it’s more expensive at first glance, it’s cheaper per user ($8.60 per user monthly).
When to Use an Alternative
- You need a CRM with free or low-cost AI tools: Zoho CRM offers AI tools in the form of its voice assistant, Zia. This tool provides you with intelligent automations, smart recommendations for sales activities, predictions based on sales trends, and suggestions for email content. Unfortunately, Zia is only available for higher tiers, starting with the Enterprise plan ($40 per user monthly).
- Alternatives: If you want more affordable yet comprehensive AI features, go for Pipedrive’s Essential plan ($14 per user monthly). Its AI Sales Assistant provides automated task updates, reminders, forecast assistance, and tips for performance improvement. Bitrix24’s Copilot for deal and lead autofilling, transcribing calls, and creating quality email content is available on its free plan.
- You’re looking for a more affordable CRM with segmentation tools: Zoho CRM’s customer segmentation feature is locked in with its Enterprise plan ($40 per user monthly). For small businesses, this could be a steep price.
- Alternatives: HubSpot CRM’s free plan and Salesforce’s Starter Suite ($25 per user monthly) both offer customer segmentation. Bitrix24’s Basic plan ($43 per user monthly) also offers sales and marketing automation with customer segmentation. While it’s more expensive at first glance, it’s cheaper per user ($8.60 per user monthly).
Advertisement
Zoho CRM Pricing Plans*
Cost: $0 for three users
Key Features:
- Lead, account, contact, and deal management
- Recurring activities
- Tasks, meetings, and calls
- Standard reports
- Marketing campaign management
- Custom email templates
- Customization for the home page and tabs
- Automation for workflow rules, tasks, email notifications, and records
- Web forms for leads and contacts
- Integration with Zoho apps like Sales IQ, Projects, Analytics, Desk, and Campaigns
Cost: $14 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in the free plan
- Sales forecasting
- Calendar booking
- Lead scoring rules
- Social Tab feature for tracking lead and customer engagement
- Custom reports and dashboards
- Custom fields
- Reminder for workflow tasks
- Email insights
- Expanded Zoho app integrations like Zoho PhoneBridge, Meetings, and Analytics
- Zoho CRM Marketplace third-party app integrations, including Google Workspace
Cost: $23 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in the Standard plan
- Business process management
- SalesSignals for real-time notifications on all customer activities
- Sales gamification using Motivator for Zoho CRM
- Unlimited custom reports and dashboards
- Email integration
- Scheduled mass emails
- Inventory management module for managing products, price lists, orders, and quotes
- Configure, price, and quote (CPQ) with guided selling
- Customer case management
Cost: $40 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in the Professional plan
- Forecasts based on territories
- Multiple scoring rules
- Advanced CRM analytics like an anomaly detector, cohort analysis, and target meter
- Autoresponders
- Zia AI conversational sales assistant for lead scoring and recommendations
- Custom modules
- Marketing attribution and customer segmentation
- SalesInbox for intelligent categorization of email senders
- Client portals
Cost: $52 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in the Enterprise plan
- 150 rules per module (maximum 100 active; 10 conditions per rule)
- Data storytelling and higher-level data administration
- Enhanced feature limits
- Extended AI capabilities with deeper-level AI and machine learning capabilities
- Advanced customization (using no-code tools to build personalized customizations)
- Data preparation
- Autogenerate reports and dashboards and categorize data with augmented analytics
- Unified business insights with deeper data visualization and intelligence
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-month breakdown of the plans. Monthly billing is available for a higher cost. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing.
Our Expert Opinion
Zoho CRM’s free plan includes tools for lead management, including web forms for lead generation, marketing campaigns for lead nurturing, and standard reports for lead tracking. You can track lead sources, statuses, owners, and conversions. In addition, all plans allow you to automate mundane tasks, such as emailing, lead follow-ups, and data field updates. Workflow automation helps improve the productivity of your sales and marketing teams.
Bitrix24: Best Free Operational CRM for Unlimited Users
When to Use Bitrix24
- You need a free operational CRM for unlimited users: Bitrix24 is the only CRM software on this list offering free-forever tools for unlimited users. Its free plan includes many helpful sales tools like duplicate data detection, e-signatures, and live chat engagement. These capabilities are usually offered as paid options in other CRMs.
- You need robust data management tools: Bitrix24 offers users a high storage capacity on the free plan, including unlimited contacts and deals. It also stores different record types like clients, inventory, projects, products and services, and leads. Finally, Bitrix24 has excellent data management tools, like free automated duplicate detection, custom fields, and file editing within the CRM.
When to Use an Alternative
- You need a simpler CRM solution: While it comes with great features, Bitrix24 gets poor reviews for product usability. Users find the interface difficult to navigate, and the built-in tools have a steep learning curve.
- Alternatives: monday CRM takes the crown for the best operational CRM for ease of use. It has a simple interface that appeals even to true beginners. On the other hand, Copper CRM has a familiar interface similar to Google apps, which is highly intuitive.
- You want lower-priced email marketing features: While users can access email integrations on the Basic plan, deploying bulk email campaigns is not included until the Standard plan for $87 per month.
- Alternative: HubSpot CRM can save sales reps and marketing teams a lot of time by allowing them to send bulk emails on the free-forever plan.
Advertisement
Bitrix24 Pricing Plans*
Cost: $0 for unlimited users
Key Features:
- Unlimited contacts, deals with sales pipeline, and activity tracking
- Client management module with task planning, tracking, reminders, and an autodialer
- Bitrix24.Sign tool for creating, sending, and getting digital signatures for documents
- Automatic duplicate detection
- Contact Center with CRM forms, live chat engagement, and social media messaging
- Sync with external calendars (Google Calendar, Apple iCloud, Microsoft Office 365)
- One sales pipeline and unlimited tasks, statuses, and reminders
- Ecommerce module with order, product, inventory, and payment tools
- CoPilot AI assistant in CRM, tasks, chat, feed, email, and texts on websites
- Sales intelligence with report builder (1,000 contacts max) and automatic customer journey tracking
Cost: $43 for five users
Key Features:
- Everything in the free plan
- Five sales pipelines and sales tunnels to move leads to another pipeline
- Email and telephony integration
- Document viewing, storage, and CRM document templates
- Premade project templates and recurring tasks
- Unlimited invoices with convert deal-to-invoice function
- 100,000 leads, deals, contacts, or companies included in sales intelligence reports
- Sales and marketing automation with customer segmentation
- Contact center with built-in telephone, call-back widget, and call statistics
- Access to Bitrix24 Market (a catalog of ready-made solutions) for third-party app integrations
Cost: $87 for 50 users
Key Features:
- Everything in the Basic plan
- Project management and task collaboration
- Built-in company cloud storage drive for internal documents
- Collaborative document editing in the CRM
- Recurring tasks and templates with subtasks
- CRM duplicate control to automatically merge duplicate emails, contacts, and other data
- Unlimited leads and quotes with recurring invoices
- Video calls directly from client profiles and event planner tools
- Bulk text and email with stored email templates
- Open Channel analytics reports (chat statistics like average response time and satisfaction ratings)
- Business intelligence builder with unlimited dashboards
- Business process automation in CRM for sales workflows
Cost: $175 for 100 users
Key Features:
- Everything in the Standard plan
- Business process automation in the CRM with workflows for operations
- Unlimited knowledge base resource storage for internal employees
- File sharing between teams
- Custom data fields in task records with task automation
- AI scoring for leads and deals
- Unlimited open channels in the Contact Center
- Canned replies
- e-Signature for human resources (HR) or office managers
- Analytical reports and custom traffic sources to track advertising campaigns
Cost: Starting at $325 for 250 users
Key Features:
- Everything in the Professional plan
- Document search in the Drive (cloud storage and group files)
- Unlimited sales pipelines, product catalog items, and online stores
- Management of multiple businesses, offices, or branches
- High-performance enterprise cluster infrastructure
- Priority customer support
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-month breakdown, though monthly billing is available for a higher cost. Bitrix24 offers a 15-day free trial on paid plans. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing.
Our Expert Opinion
Bitrix24 offers free operational CRM tools for unlimited users. It provides a centralized system with plenty of free tools like duplicate data detection, e-signatures, and an AI assistant, perfect for startups. It’s an excellent free solution for optimizing sales operations while aligning sales teams with those responsible for client services. You also can’t miss the collaboration tools that streamline communication, reporting, and internal scheduling.
HubSpot CRM: Best for Free RevOps Management
When to Use HubSpot CRM
- You need an all-in-one CRM for RevOps: Evolved from traditional sales operations, revenue operations (RevOps) is becoming a popular structure that combines sales, marketing, and service into one business unit. HubSpot CRM is excellent for aligning strategies and sharing resources across these teams as this CRM system includes a Sales, Marketing, and Service Hub in its suite.
- You’re looking for a free operational CRM: HubSpot CRM is considered the best free CRM that can fulfill many day-to-day operational needs while allowing you to scale efficiently. Users get no-cost access to quote generation, document storage, email marketing, meeting scheduling, and a products library module. The Free plan also allows for third-party integrations, including Slack for collaboration and task updates.
When to Use an Alternative
- You want more affordable sales forecasting tools: For a sales manager, forecasting is crucial to properly planning rep capacity and a growth strategy. Unfortunately, HubSpot does not include forecasting tools until the Professional plan, which costs $1,170 per month.
- Alternative: Zoho CRM offers much more cost-friendly forecasting that’s just $14 per user monthly under its Standard plan.
- You need affordable workflow customization and automation: There’s no better operational productivity hack than workflow automation that autocreates or updates CRM records, assigns tasks, or sends communications based on triggers. While you’ll find these in HubSpot CRM, you’ll need the Professional plan to access these features for $1,170 per month for five users.
- Alternative: monday CRM offers workflow automation with low-code design and custom sales activity logging in its Standard plan for only $17 per user monthly. Even with a three-user minimum requirement for a total of $41, it’s way cheaper than HubSpot CRM’s Professional plan.
Advertisement
HubSpot CRM Pricing Plans*
Cost: $0 for two users
Key Features:
- Contact, company, and deal management with list segmentation and activity tracking
- Email integrations with email templates to automate email campaigns
- Quote generation and a product library
- Stripe payment processing
- Activity and performance reporting plus real-time dashboard metrics
- Document storage in the CRM or within records
- Built-in appointment scheduling
- App marketplace access for third-party integrations, including VoIP providers
- Canned snippets to answer prospects’ or customers’ common questions
- Customer service ticketing with routing to an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot
Cost: $15 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in the free plan
- Sales automation for tasks and email notifications based on deal changes
- Simple marketing automation for ad campaigns, form conversions, and marketing emails
- Repeating tasks and task queues
- Payment processing through an automated clearing house (ACH)
- Telephone usage from the CRM for up to 500 monthly minutes per account
- Multiple ticketing and deal-tracking pipelines with goal-tracking
- Call to action (CTA) design tools and AI assistant for content creation
- Conversation routing to team members with channel switching
- Electronic signature (e-signature) capabilities
Cost: $1,170 for five users ($45 per additional user)
Key Features:
- Everything in the Starter Customer Platform
- Custom revenue reporting with sales forecasting
- Expanded automation for fully customizable workflows
- Deal and company scoring
- Social media integrations to manage multiple accounts and social media posts
- Sales sequences for sending automated email messages
- Split or A/B testing on emails and landing pages
- Data duplicate detection
- Create custom rules to automatically assign records to the team (automated lead rotation)
- Organize up to 10 teams
Cost: $4,300 for seven users ($75 per additional user)
Key Features:
- Everything in the Professional Customer Platform
- Build detailed reports for managing and tracking recurring revenue and renewals
- Up to 100 deal pipelines per account
- Multitouch revenue attribution to assign credit to teams based on revenue impact
- Track custom events (unique to your business) from your website, app, and other tools
- 200,000 email sends per calendar month
- Use forms to qualify leads and book meetings in real time (lead form routing)
- Predictive lead scoring
- Customer and deal journey analytics
- Organize up to 300 teams based on region, business unit, brand, or other dimensions
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-month breakdown of the Customer Platform. Monthly billing is available for a higher cost, except for the Enterprise tier. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing.
**Customer Platform includes sales, marketing, customer service, content, operations, and commerce software bundled in one plan. Individual modules can be purchased for lower prices.
Our Expert Opinion
HubSpot CRM is our best CRM for small businesses and the top operational software on this list. As an all-in-one sales, marketing, and customer service management system, RevOps teams can align their resources and strategies to scale efficiently. Many vital RevOps features, including quote generation, document management, email communications, and appointment scheduling, are free.
Pipedrive: Best Operational CRM for Sales Automation
When to Use Pipedrive
- You need a free CRM system: Pipedrive, though not too expensive, does not come with a free-forever plan. Therefore, if you’re bootstrapping or simply want to try CRM software for free, you may want to consider other options.
- Alternatives: HubSpot CRM, Zoho CRM, and Bitrix24 are excellent operational CRMs with freemium plan options. HubSpot offers free-forever tools for two users, whereas Zoho CRM has a three-user allocation for its free plan. And Bitrix24 offers a freemium plan for unlimited users.
- You want more affordable project management features: Project management is convenient for overseeing sales deals and client deliverables in one interface. While Pipedrive recently started offering a project management module, it requires a higher plan (Power for $64 per user monthly) to use.
- Alternative: Insightly CRM is the best alternative with affordable project management capabilities. It is a solid pick, especially if you want to combine contact and project management in one space. These features are available in the Plus plan for only $29 per user every month.
When to Use an Alternative
- You need a free CRM system: Pipedrive, though not too expensive, does not come with a free-forever plan. Therefore, if you’re bootstrapping or simply want to try CRM software for free, you may want to consider other options.
- Alternatives: HubSpot CRM and Freshsales are two excellent operational CRMs with freemium plan options.
- You want more affordable project management features: Project management in a CRM system is convenient for overseeing sales deals and client deliverables in one interface. While Pipedrive recently started offering a project management module, it requires the Power plan for $64 per user, monthly.
- Alternatives: Bitrix24 is the best alternative with free project management capabilities. Insightly CRM is another solid pick, especially if you want to combine contact and project management in one space.
Advertisement
Pipedrive Pricing Plans*
Cost: $14 per user
Key Features:
- Deal management with rotting indicator alerts and deal progress reporting
- AI sales assistant for automated task updates, sales forecast assistance, etc.
- Company and user sales goals tracking
- Lead and contact management with activity tracking and document storage
- Custom data fields and pipeline stages
- Products and services catalog
- App marketplace for third-party integrations
- Duplicate data detection and merge
- Comments and user mentions on CRM records for collaboration
- Calendar view and activity management with activity reminder notifications
Cost: $39 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in the Essential plan
- Set up to 30 active automations with “delay” and “wait for” steps added per automation
- Smart Contact Data feature for autoenriching contact profiles using online information
- Product revenue forecast for better catalog decisions
- Two-way email sync (use Gmail or Outlook in the CRM system and track communications)
- Custom email templates and email signatures
- Built-in meeting scheduling with video conference options
Cost: $49 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in the Advanced plan
- Smart Docs feature autopopulates data on proposals and gets client e-signatures
- Contacts timeline in CRM records for visual history tracking
- Sales team management
- Generate reports based on custom fields
- Automated deal and lead assignment
- Revenue forecast reports and view
- Team filters and goals to organize salespeople and gain performance insights
Cost: $64 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in the Professional plan
- Built-in project management with Kanban views, task tracking, and custom data fields
- Phone support and an implementation program for CRM users
- Increased control of account permissions and visibilities
- 24/7 live chat support
Cost: $99 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in the Power plan
- Enhanced security preferences
- Complete access to all features
- Unlimited reports, sales dashboards, and customizations
- Up to 100 active workflow automations
- Unlimited team management capabilities
- Unlimited custom permission sets (per company)
- Up to five email syncs
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-month breakdown. Monthly billing is available for a higher cost. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing.
Our Expert Opinion
Pipedrive can convert a sales operation into an automated machine if you deploy all it offers. The system stands out by providing specialized advanced tools, such as Smart Docs, Smart Contact Data, and the AI sales assistant, in addition to traditional workflow automation features. Combine everything, and you can put nearly your entire sales process on autopilot.
Insightly CRM: Best for Project Management
When to Use Insightly CRM
- You need built-in project management tools: Insightly CRM is equipped with a project management module. You can seamlessly turn opportunities into projects after closing a deal. Sync all data and tailor projects using custom fields and page layouts for the best operational outcomes. Plus, enhance cross-team communication using pipelines and milestones—all in the Plus plan for only $29 per user monthly.
- You want a robust contact management system: Insightly CRM provides recordkeeping attributes, including contact linking to organizations, record classification, contact communication history, and batch updating. It also has lead qualification, tracking, and contact management tools that make sales operations and pipeline stage movement more efficient.
- You prioritize real-time data sync on the field: Sales teams looking for an operational CRM on the go will find Insightly CRM a great choice for its up-to-date synchronization of contact data in its mobile app. You can access information on leads and clients anywhere, anytime, making it easier to carry out sales activities without complex logistics.
When to Use an Alternative
- You need free operational CRM: Insightly CRM doesn’t offer a free plan. If you’re a small business with more team members, consider options with free-forever plans.
- Alternatives: HubSpot CRM offers a robust free plan for two users, including an intuitive lead management system. Bitrix24 is another solid free option with unlimited user allocation, especially if you want access to project management tools.
- You need a built-in telephone: Many sales teams continue to employ cold calling and telephonic communication as part of their sales processes. Unfortunately, with Insightly CRM, you’ll need to subscribe to its Insightly Voice product ($35 per user monthly) to access these features.
- Alternative: HubSpot is our top pick for operational CRM with a built-in telephone. You can place outbound calls from your CRM account and receive calls in your browser or forward them to your device for up to 500 monthly minutes per account starting with its Starter plan ($15 per user monthly).
Advertisement
Insightly CRM Pricing Plans*
Cost: $29 per user
Key Features:
- Project and task management and relationship linking of contacts and organizations
- Lead, opportunity, contact, and organization management
- Web-to-lead capture, Kanban view, and other project management features
- Batch update records and attach files from the cloud
- Built-in business intelligence dashboards with customizable reports
- 2,500 daily mass emails with automated deployments and stored email templates
- Convert won opportunities to projects and automated workflows on CRM processes
- Mobile app with real-time data sync and integration with Google Workspace
- 100,000 record limit, 10GB file storage, and 25,000 records per import
- 50 custom fields, two role-based permissions, and two configurable page layouts
Cost: $49 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in the Plus plan
- Unlimited custom profiles or page layouts
- Lead and assignment routing
- Scheduled outbound emails
- Custom queues that autogenerate processes and to-do lists for new tasks
- Complete workflow automation
- 250,000 record limit and 100GB file storage
- 50,000 records per import and 5,000 daily mass emails
- 100 customizable real-time insight cards and 100 custom fields
- Unlimited role-based permissions
Cost: $99 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in the Professional plan
- 10,000 daily mass emails
- Unlimited, customizable, real-time insight cards
- Products, price books, and quotes management
- Field-based permissions
- 500,000 record limit
- 250GB file storage
- 50,000 records per import
- 200 custom fields
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-month basis. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing.
Our Expert Opinion
We find Insightly CRM an excellent operational CRM for businesses prioritizing an affordable project management system. We love this CRM’s relationship linking, custom fields, data entry automation, lead qualification, and web-to-lead capture that help identify sales opportunities. It’s an ideal option for business-to-business (B2B) sales teams and client-based operations.
monday CRM: Best for Ease of Use
When to Use monday CRM
- You need a simple operations CRM: monday CRM has a minimal learning curve since it uses a familiar spreadsheet-style format for data entry, updates, and custom fields. Once added, users can quickly toggle between different viewing options to evaluate data. monday CRM also has low-code automation options that let teams create if/then workflows with dropdown options.
- You want a dedicated operations management module: monday CRM is unique in that it comes with dedicated tools for sales operations. These include rep headcount and capacity planning, employee onboarding tracking, sales collateral storage, and an internal knowledge base. There’s also a feature for obtaining approval from legal or security teams on contract terms.
When to Use an Alternative
- You need a free CRM for sales operations: While monday CRM has a 14-day free trial, it currently does not offer a free-forever plan. Instead, you can start using the platform by shelling out $12 per user monthly, with a minimum of three users.
- Alternatives: Zoho CRM, HubSpot CRM, and Bitrix24 are great CRMs for sales operations that offer free-forever plans. Zoho CRM offers free tools for up to three users, while HubSpot has a two-user allocation for its freemium plan. Bitrix24 offers a free plan for unlimited users.
- You want lower-priced data deduplication: Duplicate data management allows you to keep a clean database by finding and merging redundant records automatically. While monday CRM has this capability, it requires the Enterprise plan, which uses tailored pricing based on users and feature requirements.
- Alternative: Bitrix24 is the best alternative, offering automated duplicate management on its free plan.
monday CRM Pricing Plans*
Cost: $12 per user
Key Features:
- Unlimited contacts, companies, and items stored in the database
- Unlimited, customizable pipelines, work boards, and free viewers
- Create a dashboard based on one board
- Web forms for lead capture
- Premade CRM templates for storing lead, contact, account, and deal data
- Document attachments in CRM items
- Kanban view of CRM boards
- Web-to-lead capture
- Custom notifications and collaboration features like file editing and whiteboards
- iOS and Android apps
Cost: $17 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in the Basic plan
- Multiple dashboards and extended board views like timeline and calendar views
- Lead, account, contact, and deal management with activity tracking
- One of the best Gmail and Outlook email systems with a two-way integration
- AI email generator for writing and editing emails
- Create and share unlimited quotes and invoices and merge duplicate contact data
- Workflow automation with low-code design and custom sales activity logging
- An Aircall integration handles calls, and a Zoom integration manages meetings
- PandaDoc and DocuSign integrations for obtaining signatures on sales documents
- Custom CRM automations and integrations (250 actions per month)
Cost: $28 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in the Standard plan
- Sales analytics and forecasting
- Create a dashboard that combines 10 boards
- Extended board viewing options like chart view and workload tracker
- Custom CRM automations and integrations (25,000 actions per month)
- Create and share unlimited, customizable quotes and invoices
- Email templates and custom electronic signatures
- Mass email tracking and automations based on contact engagement (clicks and opens)
- Calendar data sync to Google Calendar
- Integration with marketing tools like Mailchimp, HubSpot, and Facebook Ads
Cost: Contact provider for custom pricing
Key Features:
- Everything in the Pro plan
- Advanced account management with onboarding and renewal tracking
- Revenue collection tracking for CRM account records
- Client project management on service deliverables
- Lead scoring and data duplication management
- Teams can set sales goals and track them using advanced analytics (up to 50 boards)
- Sales operations management tools like rep capacity planning and onboarding
- Legal requests management for sales contracts
- Advanced security includes enterprise-grade security and governance
- Enterprise-scale automations and integrations
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a monthly breakdown. Monthly billing is available for a higher cost. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing.
Our Expert Opinion
monday CRM is the best option if your top priority is product usability. From an operations perspective, it offers a simple database for reps to access records—using a spreadsheet format familiar to most software users. We also can’t tout the automation capabilities enough. The low-code designer tools allow users to easily put sales tasks and pipeline stages on autopilot, regardless of technical skill.
Salesforce: Best for Business Health Reporting
When to Use Salesforce
- You need a CRM to track your business health: Salesforce is known for its robust and advanced out-of-the-box reporting and analytics features. Across all plans, you can access prebuilt and customizable reports and dashboards to get a real-time view of your business health. These reports allow you to monitor key success metrics, such as opportunities won, sales performance, top accounts, and revenue pipeline.
- You want an AI-powered CRM for managing deals: With Salesforce, you get smart suggestions and next-best recommendations to help you move deals along the pipeline faster. Plus, you can create a payment portal and send embedded payment links for deals in your CRM. Salesforce also has AI-powered features like automated lead qualification, lead and deal scoring, and Einstein forecasting.
When to Use an Alternative
- You want a free or low-cost CRM for operations: While Salesforce offers a 30-day free trial, it does not have a freemium option. In addition, there is a huge price jump from the Starter Suite ($25 per user monthly) to the Pro Suite ($100 per user monthly).
- Alternative: Bitrix24 offers free and cost-scalable plan options for small businesses. Paid plans start at $43 per month for five users. Pipedrive is another excellent option because it has scalable plans with a low starting price (Essential plan at $14 per user monthly).
- You’re seeking more affordable tools for forecast and quote management: Salesforce’s sales forecast and quote management features come at a steep price of $100 per user monthly with its Pro Suite plan. This could be too expensive for small businesses with limited resources for CRM software.
- Alternatives: Zoho CRM’s Standard plan ($14 per user monthly) includes sales forecasting tools. Its Professional plan ($23 per user monthly) has an inventory module with quote generation tools. HubSpot CRM, on the other hand, lets you create and send quotes using its freemium plan.
Salesforce Sales Cloud Pricing Plans*
Cost: $25 per user
Key Features:
- Custom reports and dashboards and customizable sales process
- Account, contact, lead, and opportunity management
- Files and case management for collaboration
- Task management and activity feed
- Salesforce mobile app
- Einstein activity capture to sync email and calendar content and CRM data automatically
- Lead assignment and routing
- Web-to-lead capture and duplicate blocking
- Mass email, email templates, email productivity tracker, and Gmail and Outlook integration
- Products and price books
Cost: $100 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in the Starter Suite
- Sales forecast management and enhanced pipeline visibility
- Create and track quotes and orders
- Omnichannel ticket routing
- Collaboration tools like chatter and topics and recommendations
- Build custom apps with Lightning App Builder’s drag-and-drop functionality
- Enhanced, real-time chat
Cost: $165 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in the Pro Suite
- Advanced pipeline management and deal insights
- Embedded forecast charts to visualize recent prediction changes
- Conversation intelligence
- Opportunity splits to track the total sales team’s effort and divide commissions easily
- Workflow and approvals automation
- Sales territories to map sales reps to target customers
- Specify collaborators assigned for each deal (sales teams)
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-month breakdown of the Sales Cloud plans for SMBs. Monthly billing for the Starter Suite is available for a higher cost. It comes with a 30-day free trial. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing.
Our Expert Opinion
Salesforce’s ready-to-use, customizable reports and dashboards provide an accurate view of your business health in real time. AI-powered insights help you zero in on where your business is struggling so that you can take action to help you achieve your revenue goals. More than just a sales CRM, it offers marketing, service, and commerce tools on one platform to create a more seamless experience for your customers.
Copper CRM: Best Operational CRM Software for Affordable Productivity Tools
When to Use Copper
- You want to use affordable productivity tools: Copper CRM is a Google CRM system designed to look like and integrate with Google apps. As a productivity hack, users can access the Chrome extension and put the CRM directly in their Gmail or Google Calendar interface—often the most commonly used apps for sales reps. From there, you can add or update records, manage tasks, and find files in one system.
- You need a simple team collaboration tool: Copper CRM is a highly intuitive CRM that looks and feels like a Google app. It also comes with a great set of team collaboration features. Users can mention one another in CRM records, assign tasks, share files, and log activity, allowing sales teams to coordinate on opportunities and ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
When to Use an Alternative
- You need a lot of custom data fields: A key operational challenge with Copper CRM is that you only get up to 10 different customizable data fields on the Basic plan. Unlimited custom fields require the Professional plan for $59 per user monthly.
- Alternative: Bitrix24 offers free custom data fields with no limits on the number of unique, tailored fields.
- You want free access to mass emailing capabilities: Copper CRM’s mass emailing features do not come in until the Professional plan ($59 per user monthly), a relatively high cost compared with other options.
- Alternative: HubSpot CRM offers free-forever plans that include bulk emailing capabilities and email templates.
Copper CRM Pricing Plans*
Cost: $9 per user
Key Features:
- Productivity tools like notes, reminders, team collaboration, suggestions, and activity feed
- Google Chrome extension
- Google Workspace integrations (except for Google Sheets)
- 1,000 contact limit and up to 10 custom data fields
- Tasks plus activity feed
- Email templates and merge fields for consistent inquiry responses
- Zapier integration
- Online forms
- Mobile apps for iOS and Android
- Support includes live chat, help center, Copper community, how-to webinars, and office hours
Cost: $23 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in the Starter plan
- Notes, file storage, and activity logging in contact records
- Custom sales pipelines for deal management
- Task automation
- Contact enrichment
- Project management tools like customizable project pipelines and project pipeline templates
- 2,500 contact limit
- Email, contact, and file data sync to the CRM
Cost: $59 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in the Basic plan
- 15,000 contact limit
- Activity and pipeline reports and revenue tracking
- Unlimited custom data fields
- Bulk email, email automation, and email open tracking
- Team permission settings for CRM data and reports
- Workflow automation for tasks like record updates and entries
- Google Sheets integration to access spreadsheets and manage spreadsheet data from the CRM
- Integration with popular tools like DocuSign, Mailchimp, QuickBooks, and Slack
- Personal onboarding and premium support
Cost: $99 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in the Professional plan
- Email click tracking and email series up to three emails at designated intervals
- Unlimited contacts
- Email sequences and drip campaigns
- Lead scoring
- Custom reports
- Website tracking to see which contacts are visiting your website
- Remove Copper branding on forms
- LinkedIn integration
- Web forms and ad integrations with Facebook, Wix, and WordPress sites to collect lead data
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-user monthly breakdown. Monthly billing is available for a higher cost. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing.
Our Expert Opinion
Copper CRM can optimize productivity thanks primarily to its unique Google Chrome extension. Because sales reps do most of their work through an email or calendar app, it would be ideal for them to be able to view and manage their CRM records from those systems. Copper’s extension gives you full CRM accessibility within Gmail and Google Calendar to stay organized and maintain work centralization.
How We Evaluated the Best Operational CRM Platforms
To determine the best operational CRM, we evaluated the essential features for managing a day-to-day sales team and improving its efficiency. These features cover forecasting, internal communication, and task automation. General CRM features were also considered when choosing the top CRMs for this list. We also looked at other critical product attributes, including price and user experience, in terms of product usability and solid customer support.
Methodology weights
General Features 25%
Advanced or Niche Features 20%
Pricing 20%
Help and Support 20%
Expert Score 15%
We first looked at features vital to any CRM system, regardless of industry, company size, or whether it’s primarily used for operations management. For example, a mobile app lets teams work on the go, while a range of third-party integrations allow teams to connect with their favorite outside apps. We also looked at system customization and the sophistication of reporting and analytics tools.
We evaluated niche features specific to operations management and rep productivity. Extensive workflow automation, for instance, lets you put repetitive and mundane activities on autopilot. We also looked at task management and internal communication features in each operational CRM example to help stay efficient and collaborate with team members. Finally, we evaluated features that can help scale a sales operation, such as forecasting and pipeline analysis tools.
This criterion looked at the all-around affordability of each CRM and its operational features. Pricing considered the total costs of each paid subscription and whether there was a freemium option or free trial for users. We also evaluated billing flexibility, such as offering annual options to save on costs.
Extensive support enables the best possible user outcomes while using these CRM systems. We wanted the providers to be available either during extended business hours or on a 24/7 basis. We also considered the range of support channel options like phone, email, live chat, and self-service resources, including a knowledge base and community forum in operational CRM systems.
In addition to first-hand experience with these operational CRM systems, we wanted to consider real user opinions by evaluating online reviews. This lets us gauge how users felt about the features, perceived value for the price paid, and product usability while setting up, operating, and navigating the CRM system. We also searched general user sentiment regarding its learning curve and ease of setup. In addition, we considered its plan options to see if it was easily scalable.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How does an operational CRM system work?
An operational CRM system is a sales software with features for improving productivity, organization, scalability, and efficiency. It automates workflows to put specific tasks on autopilot and track tasks. A CRM for operations provides internal communication tools for collaboration and capacity planning capabilities, such as sales and revenue forecasting for strategic decision-making.
What are the three types of CRM systems?
An operational CRM is one of three types. Collaborative CRM systems align departments, such as sales, support, and marketing teams, by sharing data resources and coordinating activity. Analytical CRMs prioritize finding insights and trends in customer data, pipeline activity, and the sales funnel to help improve operations and product offerings.
Why choose operational CRM?
Choose operational CRM software to streamline and automate your day-to-day customer interactions and sales activities, reducing repetitive tasks. This tool can also help you launch email marketing campaigns and advertising initiatives quickly. Synchronize your data by integrating your CRM with other business apps you use to improve your operations further.
What is the difference between operational and analytical CRM?
An operational CRM system automates sales, marketing, and customer service processes. Create workflows, such as rules for lead capturing, based on your operation’s needs. On the other hand, analytical CRMs provide deeper insights into customer behavior for strategic decision-making.
Bottom Line
Operational CRMs boost the efficiency and productivity of sales teams by providing tools for effective data management, automation, forecasting, and collaboration. Improve your day-to-day business operations by choosing the best operational CRM depending on your budget, feature priorities, and interface requirements. For example, monday CRM is great for ease of use, while Pipedrive can automate your sales activities. Zoho CRM, however, ranks the highest for its free lead management tools.
