6 Best Simple CRM Systems for 2019

Simple CRM systems are easy-to-use software with uncomplicated pricing structures. Some only have core features like lead and pipeline management, while others have robust features including user support tools. Pricing ranges from free to just over $100 per user, per month. They’re best for busy entrepreneurs wanting straightforward systems.

Top 6 Simple CRM Systems in 2019

How We Evaluated Simple & Easy CRM Software

Simple customer relationship management (CRM) is relationship management software that is straightforward with features and pricing that are easy to understand. For instance, simple CRMs have pricing structures that are easy to understand at first glance and uncomplicated basic features. Easy CRMs might have more robust functionality, but they are easy to use and require little technical skill. The time required to get up and running is usually minimal.

The top six simple CRM software was determined using the criteria below:

• Ease of use: We included simple CRM software that was easy to use and that didn’t require technical skills to set up or use.
• Simple pricing structure: We considered solutions with pricing structures that were easy to understand.
• Affordability: Not only did we look at how simple the pricing structure was, but we also looked at how affordable the solution was for small business owners.
• Core CRM features: Having the core CRM features like lead, contact, account, and pipeline management without unnecessary or complex features was important.
• User support: We also considered the levels of user support included with each solution.
• User reviews: How users felt about each solution was also considered.

Based on the above criteria, we’ve decided that Pipedrive is the overall best simple CRM system. It’s easy to use and set up with drag-and-drop features. It is affordable and has easy to understand pricing starting at $12.50 per user, per month. It also has core CRM features with sophisticated tools, like an artificial intelligence sales assistant, which are easy to use and don’t overcomplicate the product.

Pipedrive: Best Overall Easy CRM With Advanced Features

Pipedrive, starting at $12.50 per user, per month, is the best easy CRM option for businesses wanting an affordably priced solution and an easy-to-digest visual snapshot of their sales pipelines and activities. It offers a simple, drag-and-drop Kanban-style pipeline management tool along with an artificial intelligence (AI) sales assistant that makes sales activity suggestions. This combination of features makes it great for sales teams looking for a simple CRM with advanced features.

Pipedrive Pricing

With a starting price point of $12.50 per user, per month, Pipedrive is affordable for entrepreneurs. As your business grows, prices are still affordable at $49.90 per user, per month, adding more advanced tools like workflow automation, which helps automate repetitive tasks, and Caller, which lets you make calls from Pipedrive.

Pipedrive Tiered Features

Essentials

The Essentials plan costs $12.50 per user, per month and includes a core set of lead management tools like web forms to capture leads from your website as well as activity reminders to stay on top of sales activities. It also has a calendar and allows you to copy emails into pipelines. Sales Assistant, which suggests sales activities based on past performance, is also included in this tier. Pricing is similar to the starter plans from Zero BS and Less Annoying CRM.

For entrepreneurs wanting a robust, entry-level, easy CRM priced between $12 and $15, Essentials is ideal. It offers the affordable price point of less sophisticated CRMs like Zero BS and Less Annoying CRM while offering easy-to-use advanced tools like AI Sales Assistant.

Advanced

Priced at $24.90, the Advanced plan features all the tools available in the Essentials plan and offers fully integrated email, which allows you to send and receive emails directly in Pipedrive instead of copying them into your pipelines. You can also track open and click-through rates, which helps you execute smarter email marketing campaigns. You’re also able to customize your dashboard as well as streamline and automate repetitive tasks with workflow automation.

Pipedrive’s Advanced plan is the best option for business owners looking to add workflow automation and integrated email with tracking at an affordable price. It is best for entrepreneurs looking for an easy CRM that will offer insights about how effective their email campaigns are and assist them with automating and scheduling tasks. It also has email template features, similar to Zendesk Sell, Salesforce Essentials, and Copper.

Professional

Pipedrive’s Professional plan includes the ability to create and manage multiple dashboards, teams and revenue forecasting reports, as well as its new click-to-call feature, Caller. This plan is priced starting at $49.90 per user, per month, and is less expensive than Zendesk Sell’s Enterprise plan, Copper’s Business plan, and Salesforce’s Lightning Professional Plan. It’s a lot more expensive than Zero BS and Less Annoying CRM’s plans, which are not as robust.

The features available in the Professional plan are best suited for larger sales teams because of the team reports and team management tools. Caller also makes it perfect for sales teams using phone outreach as part of their sales activities. This plan is comparable to Zendesk Sell’s similar plan, which is at a similar price point and has calling features.

Pipedrive Contact Details screenshot

What Pipedrive Is Missing

Pipedrive is missing phone support within its lower-tiered plans. This can be important for sales professionals and business owners who’d rather speak to a person to have questions answered quickly. If you’re considering a lower tier and phone support is important in the beginning tiers, Copper may be a better option for you with its 1:1 Office Hours support or Less Annoying CRM with phone support. Pipedrive is also missing lead assignment, which is offered by Salesforce.

What Users Think About Pipedrive

Users find Pipedrive easy to use and very customizable. They like the visual drag-and-drop Kanban-style pipelines. There aren’t many negative Pipedrive reviews, but there are some instances where users wish certain features could be improved, like search functionality, or added, like marketing automation. See our article on Pipedrive user reviews for more information on user reviews.

Where to Find Pipedrive

Businesses needing to save time by getting pipeline information visually and by utilizing sales activity reminders to stay on top of important tasks should consider Pipedrive. It’s also great for businesses wanting advanced features like an AI sales assistant in a CRM that’s still easy to use. You can try it for free by signing up today for a free 14-day trial today.

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Less Annoying CRM: Best Simple CRM With Single-tier Pricing

Less Annoying CRM is an easy CRM for entrepreneurs and sales teams that value simple pricing. Priced at $10 per user, per month, this simple CRM system provides users with a way to manage the most important information about their leads without navigating through features they don’t use or need. Its simplicity and affordable price point make it best for businesses that have limited resources and want a no-frills, easy CRM without complex pricing.

Less Annoying CRM Pricing

This is one of the most affordable CRM systems; it’s priced at $10 per user, per month for unlimited users. Less Annoying CRM does not have any pricing tiers, product limitations, or contracts. There’s a 30-day free trial so that you can try it out.

Less Annoying CRM Features

Less Annoying CRM offers the core CRM features needed to keep contacts and deals organized. Its contact management features allow you to access details and notes from interactions, sales activities, pipeline details, and meetings. It is not as robust or sophisticated as Pipedrive, Salesforce, Zendesk, or Copper with functionality like lead assignment or built-in calling features, but it offers enough to stay organized and focused.

Here are more details on Less Annoying CRM’s features:

Contact Management

The contact management features in Less Annoying CRM allow you to view your contacts and related tasks, events, files, notes, and pipeline information in one place. This provides a snapshot of details related to your contacts and the actions that are needed to move deals forward. This feature is similar to those of the other providers highlighted.

Email & Activity Tracking

The Bcc Email Sync feature allows you to sync leads with email exchanges, which is similar to what’s offered in Pipedrive’s beginning tier. This feature is important so that you’re able to reference emails while on the phone. This feature works by syncing emails to contacts when you bcc an email box that Less Annoying CRM provides.

Follow-up Task Management

Less Annoying CRM has a built-in calendar that syncs with Google calendar for easy access and due date reminders. This helps keep important dates, tasks, and events top of mind. However, this CRM lacks more robust tools like workflow automation and follow-up rules found in other programs, like Pipedrive.

Activity Reporting

Based on your upcoming events, the Agenda, along with the Emails feature, sends an automated email every day with daily to-do’s. This helps you stay on top of your sales pipeline activities and gets your deals closer to being closed. Because this comes in the form of an email, you don’t need to log into your CRM system to view the things you need to do, which is a unique feature of this easy CRM.

Less Annoying CRM Contact Details screenshot

What Less Annoying CRM Is Missing

Less Annoying CRM is missing many of the advanced features found in the other CRMs, like customer support tools, AI sales assistants, advanced dashboards, and lead assignment. In addition to these features, it doesn’t have email integration or any features to capture leads. If you’re looking for more advanced features, CRMs like Pipedrive, Zendesk Sell, or Salesforce are better options for you.

What Users Think About Less Annoying CRM

Users find Less Annoying CRM intuitive and affordable with a pricing structure that’s easy to understand. They also love the company’s customer support, which is offered by email and phone. There aren’t many negative reviews, although a few reviews offering constructive feedback relate to having a more appealing user interface. For more information on reviews of this product, visit our Less Annoying CRM user reviews.

Where to Find Less Annoying CRM

Less Annoying CRM is a great option for entrepreneurs wanting only the basic CRM features like contact management and activity reminders with pricing they don’t have to think about. They just want to manage their relationships without a lot of extra features they don’t need. For business owners seeking an affordable, no-frills CRM with single-tier pricing, Less Annoying CRM has a 30-day free trial to give it a try.

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Copper: Best Simple CRM System for Businesses Using G Suite

Copper is the best easy CRM for small to medium-sized businesses using G Suite. It allows you to work within its CRM platform or from your Gmail account and other G Suite tools. It’s a robust, yet affordable CRM that is priced starting at $19 per user, per month. Copper is great for businesses using G Suite and wanting to leverage the work they’ve done in this set of productivity tools without having to manually re-enter data.

Copper Pricing

Copper’s pricing starts at $19 per user, per month for the Basic plan and goes up to $119 per user, per month for the Business Plan. It’s affordable, yet priced higher than Pipedrive or Zero BS and lower than Salesforce. As your business grows, Copper’s plans accommodate additional storage, number of records, and more integrations.

Copper Tiered Features

Basic

Basic starts at $19 per user, per month and comes with G Suite integration tools, including Calendar, Drive, and productivity tools like Sheets, Docs, and Slides. There’s a mobile app, meeting scheduler, and basic reporting. Storage capacity is 2GB and accommodates up to 30,000 records. Available integrations include Slack and Zapier. Pricing is comparable to Zendesk Sell’s beginning tier.

This plan is great for smaller companies wanting to leverage work done in G Suite. With all of the G Suite integration tools, this CRM lets you use the information you’ve already added. For instance, email contacts become contacts within the Copper CRM without having to key in data a second time into Copper’s contact management tools. It’s also great for smaller businesses not needing a tremendous amount of storage capacity.

Professional

The Professional plan builds on Basic and is priced starting at $49 per user, per month. It offers email tracking as well as task and workflow automation. More robust reporting is available in this tier with access to Google Cloud’s Data Studio. Storage and records limits are also significantly increased in this tier to 200GB and 100,000, respectively.

This plan is great for growing businesses with more records and the need for more storage. It’s also great for those wanting more information on their sales and sales activities with access to more sophisticated reporting. Companies wanting more customized fields will also find it useful with the number increasing from five to 25. Also, this plan includes integrations with Mailchimp, QuickBooks, and Zendesk.

Business

Priced at $119 per user, per month with a required annual agreement, the Business plan offers additional reporting tools like lead and sales insights that provide more insights into sales activities and leads. It also has a leaderboard and goal tracking tools to help keep your team motivated. Storage space is significantly expanded to 200GB and the number of records to 500,000.

The features in the Business plan are best for companies with larger sales teams because of the leaderboard and goal tracking features. More advanced integrations, like RingCentral, are available in this tier. This plan is comparable with Pipedrive, which offers more advanced reporting and other features like multiple customizable dashboards and built-in calling features in its higher tiers.

Copper Sales Report by Sales Rep

What Copper Is Missing

Copper is missing a built-in caller similar to the calling capabilities found in Pipedrive and Zendesk Sell. It does, however, offer an integration with RingCentral in its highest tier. If this is an important feature for your business, you’ll either need an upgrade to the highest tier or consider Pipedrive and Zendesk, which have calling features that come with their plans out of the box.

What Users Think About Copper

Overall, users like Copper and find it easy to use. Most tend to like that it’s fully integrated into Google’s G Suite platform. User dislikes center around pricing and how much more expensive it is compared to other solutions. For more details, check out our Copper user review article.

Where to Find Copper

Copper can be found in the hands of small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) using G Suite for their office productivity. They’re businesses that want to be as streamlined as possible and that want to eliminate repetitive data entry as much as possible. To see if it’s right for you, sign up for a free 14-day trial.

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Salesforce: Best Simple CRM With Sales & Support Tools

Salesforce’s Salesforce Essentials is an easy-to-use CRM that comes with customer support tools. You can easily create opportunities, move deals through pipelines, add and manage contacts, and even create and manage support cases. Pricing is affordable at starting $25 per user, per month. It’s ideal for smaller companies with under 10 users that are committed to using Salesforce long term.

Salesforce Pricing

Salesforce has two small to medium-sized business (SMB) tiers with prices from $25 to $75 per user, per month. With Salesforce, you don’t need to add features for basic customer support tools like case creation and management. There’s a 10-user cap on Salesforce Essentials, which means you should be prepared for a significant increase after reaching 10 users.

Salesforce Tiered Features

Salesforce Essentials

Salesforce Essentials has lead management tools that let you track leads in your sales process. There’s lead assignment and routing to help assign and route leads to the right sales reps. It comes with customer support tools that allow you to create a knowledge base and support tickets. This plan also comes with Lightning Apps Builder, which facilitates building Salesforce custom CRM applications. Salesforce Essentials is priced at $25 per user, per month.

Growing businesses just starting out needing an affordable plan with a monthly payment option benefit the most from this plan. However, there is a 10-user maximum with this plan. That said, companies wanting to build custom apps for their CRM appreciate it since Lightning Apps is included and is not a feature found in many other small business CRMs. It also comes with customer support tools included, unlike Zendesk Sell, which requires an upgrade.

Salesforce Professional

The Professional tier has advanced features like collaborative forecasting that makes it easier to create sales forecasts with colleagues and partners. It also comes with rules-based lead scoring to help your sales team prioritize the best leads. Also, lead registration tools are great for channel sales and competing for large deals. You can manage orders and contracts as well as create and send quotes. Pricing starts at $75 per user, per month and requires annual billing.

This subscription tier is great for business owners who have outgrown features in the Essentials plan and want advanced tools like lead scoring, lead registration, and collaborative sales forecasting. It’s great for strategic SMBs wanting to use these tools to grow their businesses in a smarter, more insightful way. Unlike the other professional tiers presented, this one offers lead registration, which can help SMBs effectively compete for large deals in channel sales.

Opportunity screenshot

What Salesforce Is Missing

Salesforce is missing a free option as well as an affordable option without user limitations. It’s also missing advanced features like the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered assistant in Pipedrive. If these are important features, Pipedrive is a better option for an AI sales assistant and Zero BS CRM is great if you want a free CRM that you can integrate within a WordPress website.

What Users Think About Salesforce

Users like Salesforce overall, but many find it difficult to use or that there is a steep learning curve. They tend to like the customization aspect of it. Other dislikes are around the steep increase in price from Essentials to Professional.

Where to Find Salesforce

Salesforce Essentials and Lightning can be found in small to medium-sized businesses that like the level of customization you get with the platform. You’ll also find it in businesses that want a CRM that is relatively easy to use and comes with customer support tools. To see if it’s right for you, sign up for a 14-day free trial with Salesforce Essentials.

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Zendesk Sell: Best Easy CRM for Adding Zendesk Support Tools

Zendesk Sell is a simple CRM system that’s part of the Zendesk ecosystem, which includes support and communication products that can be added as needed. Zendesk Sell is priced at $19 per person, per month and integrates with Zendesk Support to offer support to your customers. CRM features include calling with recording, customizable pipelines, and a mobile app. It’s great for businesses wanting to use the platform to add support as needed.

Zendesk Sell Pricing

Zendesk Sell’s pricing starts at $19 per user, per month and increases to $49 per user, per month. Zendesk Support can be added with a bundle called Duet, which includes Zendesk Sell and Zendesk Support Professional plans for $59 per user, per month. However, to sign up for this bundle, you’ll need an annual contract.

Zendesk Sell Tiered Features

Team

The Team plan is great for businesses that are starting out. It’s affordable at $19 per user, per month, and offers easy-to-use, yet robust features like custom pipeline, a full-featured mobile app to work on the go, and calling features. By either adding Support a la carte or via bundle, you can create and manage tickets and communicate with customers to quickly resolve their issues.

The Team plan is ideal for companies that may have a sales and support team in place looking for a CRM that’s easy to use and manage. Zendesk Sell’s point-and-click and drag-and-drop features make it an easy CRM along with affordable, straightforward pricing. Its price points, pricing structure, and feature set are similar to those of Copper and Pipedrive.

Professional

The Professional plan starts at $49 per user, per month. It includes features like mass email management for bulk communications, email templates to save time, and sales forecasting tools to plan for the future. For $10 more, you can add customer support features by purchasing the Sell and Support bundle.

This plan is ideal for growing businesses and teams needing email templates to save time on creating repetitive emails. It’s also ideal for those who need additional reporting like sales forecasting to help them plan for future sales initiatives or for planning to hire additional support staff as needed.

Zendesk Leads and Deals screenshot

What Zendesk Sell Is Missing

This simple CRM system is missing support tools that are already included in the product (as with Salesforce Essentials, which comes with support tools). This is preferable to some small businesses that don’t want these tools until they are ready to use them. If having support tools as part of the initial CRM setup is something you need, Salesforce Essentials will be a better choice.

What Users Think About Zendesk Sell

Users like Zendesk Sell because it’s easy to use and offers robust tools to build relationships. Dislikes found in user reviews center on price and a la carte add-on additional features.

Where to Find Zendesk Sell

Zendesk Sell can be found in companies already familiar with Zendesk or that want to use the Zendesk platform for sales and support together. It’s great for small businesses wanting an easy-to-use, streamlined, yet full-featured CRM with the option of adding support when needed. Sign up for a free 14-day trial to see if it’s right for you.

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Zero BS: Best WordPress-based Simple CRM System

Zero BS CRM is a free, browser-based CRM plugin made specifically for WordPress-based websites. It allows you to add on extensions to the platform like Woo Sync, Invoice Pro, Gravity Forms, and PayPal by purchasing bundles starting at $11 per user, per month. This makes Zero BS a good option for WordPress websites, including ecommerce businesses built on WordPress wanting a basic CRM part of their WordPress site they can customize.

Zero BS Pricing

The core CRM in Zero BS is free of charge. However, extensions can be added with one of their paid pricing bundles. Pricing bundles range from $11 to $30 per user, per month, with each tier allowing you to add more extensions and better support options.

Zero BS Tiered Pricing for Bundles

Zero BS Features

Zero BS CRM offers activity logs and the ability to segment customers and track proposals. Its core extensions include InvoicePro, which helps you manage invoices, Woo Sync, which allows you to use it with a WooCommerce site, an ecommerce site, and mail Campaigns, which gives you the ability to send targeted and segmented emails from within the Zero BS CRM platform.

Below are more details around Zero BS CRM’s features:

Contact Management & Customer Profiles

Core CRM features give you the ability to manage your contacts and customer profiles. It’s easy to keep track of customer data, which allows for easier customer communication and relationship building. Zero BS allows you to keep track of activities between you and your contacts, like when you last spoke to them or what they’ve purchased. You can also tag them, which lets you group them together to create and execute future campaigns.

Reporting & Analytics

Zero BS CRM also has a sales dashboard extension, which offers you a high-level overview of trends taking place within your WordPress or WooCommerce business. A few of the metrics include gross and net revenue, the number of newly acquired customers, fees and discounts, the number of sales, and more. There’s also a sales funnel extension that calculates other metrics like conversion rates, which are helpful for measuring marketing and sales activity.

Email Marketing

The mail campaigns extension gives you the ability to segment your customer base and send customized emails from within the platform. For instance, you can send welcome emails to new customers or cross-sell emails to existing customers. This extension eliminates the need for an external email provider, which saves money. If you’re already using an external provider like Mailchimp, there are connectors for those products as well.

Task & Team Management

Task management tools are part of Zero BS CRM. There’s a calendar where tasks can be input and associated with or assigned to contacts set up in the CRM. Team management features are also part of the CRM and include permissions management so that you can manage the types of tasks performed by various members of your team.

Zero BS Sales Funnel dashboard

What Zero BS Is Missing

Zero BS is missing features like built-in calling, which can be helpful for sales teams relying on telephone outreach. It’s also missing advanced features like the artificial intelligence (AI) sales assistant offered by Pipedrive. If either of these features is important and you don’t mind having your CRM outside of your WordPress site, Pipedrive may be a better solution for you.

What Users Think About Zero BS

Users like Zero BS mainly because of how responsive they are when it comes to user support. Platform upgrades are free, and the price is affordable for those wishing to add bundled extensions. One user had this to say in his review: “Minimal bugs, maximum support,” which sums up what most people think.

Where to Find Zero BS

Zero BS CRM can be found in the hands of small to mid-sized WordPress business sites and WordPress-based ecommerce stores looking for a WordPress CRM to manage customer data. If you’d like to learn more about this WordPress CRM with WooCommerce features, visit Zero BS CRM to learn more.

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Bottom Line

Simple CRM systems are those easy-to-use platforms with pricing structures that are easy to follow. An easy CRM can have just the core CRM features, like lead and pipeline management, or it can have more robust tools like the AI Sales Assistant Pipedrive has, as long as these tools are not complex for the user to figure out. Try one of these easy CRMs to see if they’re right for you.

Pipedrive is a simple CRM system that remains simple even though it has robust CRM features that go beyond the traditional core CRM tools. Tools like the AI Sales Assistant and its Caller feature only require you to click a few buttons to use. Pricing is also simple with only four total tiers. Sign up for a free 14-day trial to see if these tools are right for you.

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