Sales automation software makes sales professionals more efficient by removing manual processes, fostering collaboration, and uncovering critical information to move the sales process forward and close deals faster. We’ve identified 11 sales automation tools designed to help small business owners enable their teams and enhance their sales process in a variety of ways.
Top 11 Sales Automation (CRM & Standalone) Tools 2019
Sales Automation Tools | Best For |
|---|---|
Businesses wanting automation for project management and sales collaboration that integrates with other apps | |
Teams that want a comprehensive, visual CRM with automated lead scoring | |
Teams that want sleek proposals with automatic pre-built templates that sync into many CRMs | |
People wanting to simplify expense reporting with one-click receipt scanning and automatic accounting sync | |
Businesses that want to convert website visitors in less than 30 seconds | |
Teams wanting a platform that automatically logs calls with a dialer, removing manual entry | |
Businesses wanting to link their web apps to share data and build automatic processes | |
Teams that want a simple way for prospects and customers to self-schedule appointments online | |
Teams wanting an automation platform to find prospects and automatically sends email campaigns | |
People who want pairings that allow their apps and devices to automatically communicate | |
Teams that want software that automatically stores and analyzes emails you send in real time. |
How We Evaluated the Best Sales Automation Software
We considered a range of factors that make sales automation CRM or standalone software powerful for small business owners and sales teams such as improving efficiency by saving time for a number of different sales situations. We also assessed factors such as pricing, customer support, ease of use, and integrations.
Some of the key factors we examined include:
- Price: Most automation tools have a price point, and it’s critical for small business owners who often have limited budgets to use software with a good ROI.
- Ease of use: Even if a sales automation tool has all the bells and whistles, people won’t use it if it isn’t easy to set up and doesn’t have a great user experience.
- Integrations: Integrations are often what make sales automation tools so useful because they work with all the other programs a company uses.
- Customer Support: When businesses adopt new software, they need a customer support team that has their back to provide timely support and training options.
There are a variety of automation tools that help sales teams collaborate, increase productivity, and close deals faster. Since there are so many tools that serve various functions, there is not an overall best tool we recommend, so we’ve included a wide range of automation tools to choose from that you can implement in your sales process.
1. Monday
What it costs: Plans range from $49 to $99 per user, per month
How it automates sales: Allows sales teams to manage projects and collaborate while seamlessly integrating with other apps and software.
Monday Project Screenshot
Monday is one of the top workflow automation software programs available allowing you to customize a sales workflow so you know where every deal stands and what you should do next. Capture leads from your website with forms, then send them directly to your Monday board. Monday also has a time tracking feature that automatically tells you when your next project task is due, so everyone can stay on track.
Monday has customized and predefined automation flows that can be customized for each company to meet their exact needs. Creating these automation flows is incredibly easy, and allows sales teams to notify other users about changes on your task management boards and customize the timing of the notifications. Sign up for a free trial today.
2. Pipedrive
What it costs: Plans range from $15 to $59 per month, per user.
How it automates sales: Allows sales teams to manage prospects, contacts, and sales opportunities with a visual pipeline tool.
Pipedrive Workflow Automation Example
Pipedrive offers workflow automation features that allow sales teams to eliminate repetitive tasks, such as sending manual emails to leads or scheduling follow up activities with prospects after a demo. You can set automated workflows to send personalized emails for you and automatically create follow up tasks right within the CRM when a deal is moved from one stage to the next.
Furthermore, Pipedrive can also increase efficiency with automations such as moving ownership from one team member to another when a deal hits a new stage. It can also automatically create sales deals when a new contact is added, saving time and increasing productivity with plans ranging from $15 – $59 per month, per user, with a discount for paying annually. You can sign up for a 14-day free trial on their website.
3. PandaDoc
What it costs: Plans are $9 per month for individual users and team plans range from $25 to $49 per user, per month.
How it automates sales: Streamlines document workflows such as proposals to accelerate the sales process and keeps documents organized.
PandaDoc Analytics Screenshot
PandaDoc is a cloud-based document tool that uses rich templates that you can customize and use repeatedly, making it easy for sales teams to create modern proposals, contracts, and quotes. It also integrates with many CRMs such as Salesforce, Pipedrive, HubSpot, Zoho, and Copper, so you can store documents all in one place and even see when a prospect has opened a document, clicked a link, and how much time they spent viewing certain sections.
PandaDoc also allows sales teams to obtain payments and e-signatures, streamlining the sales invoice process by letting you create, send, and track documents all in one place without moving between different applications. Visit their website today for a free trial.
4. Expensify
What it costs: Expensify has pricing for individuals starting at $4.99 per month and plans for teams from $5 to $9 per user per month.
How it automates sales: Allows salespeople to automatically create and submit expense reports without dealing with manual receipts and spreadsheets.
Expensify expense portal
Expensify is one of the best expense tracker tools that makes it easy for sales reps to create and submit expense reports at the office or on the go in between sales calls. It has automatic approval workflows and the ability to connect a credit card and automatically create receipts as well as a one-click smart scanning tool on the mobile app so sales reps can scan receipts and upload them to their expense report right when they get them.
Expensify also offers a robust set of accounting, human resources and receipt integrations such as Bill.com, QuickBooks, Xero, Gusto, Zenefits, Workday, Greenhouse, Uber, Lyft and more. This makes it easier than ever to submit and get reimbursed on the next day so you can spend more time with customers and prospects.
5. Callpage
What it costs: There is a free plan for up to 15 leads per month, a Professional plan for 150 leads per month, and a Premium plan for up to 400 leads per month.
How it automates sales: Helps convert website visitors into customers by engaging them in a conversation with an immediate callback.
Callpage Dashboard
Callpage offers automated lead generation with a callback solution that starts a conversation with customers 28 seconds after they visit your website. The widget analyzes the behaviors of your website visitors, and offers them a call with a real person by asking for their phone number. Once they submit their number, the call is routed to the first available sales rep’s phone number. If they don’t answer, it is automatically sent to the next available person.
“CallPage is a nifty little tool that converts your website visitors into happy customers. One of the main challenges of a salesperson is Lead Response Time. They work so hard to gather leads but when the leads finally show up, the process is a bit hazy. CallPage allows you to reach to your leads within 28 seconds when they’re most interested in the offer. By leveraging your website traffic, you drive more sales leads and move deals faster through the pipeline.”
—Supratim Dam, International Marketing Manager, Callpage
“CallPage is a nifty little tool that converts your website visitors into happy customers. One of the main challenges of a salesperson is Lead Response Time. They work so hard to gather leads but when the leads finally show up, the process is a bit hazy. CallPage allows you to reach to your leads within 28 seconds when they’re most interested in the offer. By leveraging your website traffic, you drive more sales leads and move deals faster through the pipeline.” After the phone call with the prospect, Callpage sends an automatic thank you text to the prospect along with their sales rep’s contact info. The sales rep then gets a recording they can listen to and store into HubSpot CRM automatically. Sign up for a seven day free trial today.
6. RingCentral
What it costs: Plans range from $29.99 to $59.99 per user, per month.
How it automates sales: Provides a cloud-based phone, video conferencing, team messaging, and contact center for sales teams.
RingCentral desktop dashboard and mobile app
With RingCentral, each phone number serves as an automatic fax number, removing the need for a separate line or having to visit a machine—it goes straight to your email. Create local numbers, vanity and toll-free numbers, develop call delegation, screening and forwarding automations, and send voicemails to email inboxes. You can also connect RingCentral to a VoIP phone and download the mobile app to answer calls and take meetings on the go.
RingCentral’s messaging features make it easy to communicate with team members and customers all in one place with a powerful cloud phone calling system, video conferencing, and messaging. To read in-depth user reviews, visit our RingCentral reviews page, or sign up to take advantage of its free trial.
7. Zapier
What it costs: Free for limited integrations. Paid plans for individuals and teams range from $25 to $750 per month.
How it automates sales: Allows you to connect third-party software and apps that don’t already have built-in integrations with one another to create automated workflows.
Popular Zapier integrations
Zapier is a workflow automation software that allows you to connect apps and software that don’t already have native integrations to create powerful, time-saving workflows. You can link two apps together and pass information between them with automated workflows called Zaps, without using any web coding.
For example, you could set up a Zap to know when a prospect has filled out a Typeform entry on your website to automatically send a message to you in Slack or have a notification sent to the entire sales team each time a sale is closed or lost in your CRM. With over 1,500 integrations including Google Suite, Mailchimp, Salesforce, HubSpot, Asana, Stripe, and Intercom, Zapier is a powerful sales automation tool to consider for any sales process.
8. Calendly
What it costs: Free to $12 per month, per user
How it automates sales: Makes it easy for teams to schedule meetings without the back and forth of finding a time through email by connecting to your calendar and showing availability.
Calendly Meeting Scheduler
Calendly offers free automated meeting scheduling that makes it easy for customers to book appointments with sales reps by integrating with Google or Outlook Calendar to show your availability. I’ve provided my personal Calendly link to prospects and watched our next meeting show up on my calendar. You can create personal links for pre-scheduled amounts of time such as 15 or 30 minutes, or let the prospect choose how long they’d like to meet.
Calendly has paid versions ranging from $8 to $12 per user, per month that allows you to connect to more than one calendar, schedule more than one meeting type, create a sales team availability pool, access metric and reporting, and offers integrations with GoToMeeting, Salesforce, Zoom, Zapier, PayPal, and more.
9. Prospect.io
What it costs: There is a starter plan for small to medium sized businesses that costs $45 per month. Email finder credits are offered in addition to your plan, ranging from $39 to $299.
How it automates sales: Helps sales teams find and verify prospects’ email addresses and contact information, while also sending them automated email campaigns.
Prospect.io automated email campaign
Prospect.io is a sales automation software that helps sales teams discover new prospects and automatically place them in email campaigns with follow-up messages. It does this by offering a Chrome extension that can scrape emails from LinkedIn and other websites. It also provides modern email templates for engaging drip campaigns as well as analytics and reports such as conversion and open rates for each campaign.
Prospect.io also integrates with several CRMs including Pipedrive, Salesforce, Close.io, and HubSpot, making it easy to keep track of prospect activity in one place. To read in-depth reviews on Prospect.io, visit our Prospect.io reviews page.
10. IFTTT for Business
What it costs: IFTTT is free for personal use, but it also has a range of business plans, including a free tier. Pricing is available by contacting its sales team.
How it automates sales: The connectivity platform allows businesses to increase touchpoints with customers to build engagement and receive insights about the behavior of your customers and how they use your services.
IFTTT services
IFTTT is an acronym for “If This, Then That.” You can set it up so that when one action happens, another automatically follows. For example, if you’re trying to close a deal with a company, you could create an IFTTT that alerts you when they are mentioned in the news, giving you a reason to send them a personalized email.
You could also create and IFTTT that helps you find new leads by getting alerts for certain keywords posted on Twitter–so when someone asks a question related to a product or service you offer, you get notified and can reach out. Sign up for a free account today by visiting the IFTTT website.
11. Yesware
What it costs: Plans ranging from $15 to $80 per user, per month.
What it does: Turns your email inbox into a powerful tool that can track email messages, links, and attachments in real time, create templates, and analyze prospect behavior.
Yesware email tracking
Yesware supercharges your email inbox with sales automation features. It allows you to create email templates you can customize and use over and over again with prospects and customers. It also notifies you when prospects open messages, attachments, or click links, analyzes the performance of your email campaigns and even offers A/B tests so you can fine tune your messaging to get the most opens and conversions.
Yesware also integrates with LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Salesforce contact data so you have all of your information in one place and don’t waste time navigating between different programs. To read in-depth Yesware user ratings, visit our Yesware reviews page.
The Bottom Line: Sales Automation Software
Giving sales teams the automation tools they need to improve productivity, capture leads, and measure performance sets them up for success. The tools described in this article are designed to streamline the sales process, increase conversions, and maximize your sales revenue.
We recommend Monday because it offers a robust set of productivity and sales automation features that help sales teams collaborate, keep track of their time and prospects, close deals faster, and measure success. Visit Monday to sign up for a free trial, no credit card required.
Submit Your Comment
Disclaimer: Reviews on FitSmallBusiness.com are the product of independent research by our writers, researchers, and editorial team. User reviews and comments are contributions from independent users not affiliated with FitSmallBusiness.com's editorial team. Banks, issuers, credit card companies, and other product & service providers are not responsible for any content posted on FitSmallBusiness.com. As such, they do not endorse or guarantee any posted comments or reviews.
You must be logged in to comment. Click a "Log in" button below to connect instantly and comment.