Salesforce customer relationship management (CRM) cloud is one of the most popular products in the CRM market. It has thousands of third-party integration options, a powerful mobile app, and excellent lead management and artificial intelligence (AI) features.
Despite its capabilities, it lacks certain attributes, like a free-forever plan, an intuitive interface, and low-cost automation—prompting users to seek Salesforce alternatives. We evaluated many CRMs to see which compared in function or filled product gaps. Based on our evaluation, we found the seven best Salesforce alternatives.
- HubSpot CRM: Best for free operations management
- Freshsales: Best for multichannel account and customer engagement
- Copper CRM: Best for Google Workspace users
- Zoho CRM: Best for integration capabilities
- Pipedrive: Best for intelligent sales features
- Bitrix24: Best for project management
- Apptivo: Best for referral tracking
- Best Salesforce Alternatives Compared
- HubSpot CRM: Best for Free Operations Management
- Our Expert Opinion
- Freshsales: Best for Multichannel Account & Customer Engagement
- Our Expert Opinion
- Copper CRM: Best for Google Workspace Users
- Our Expert Opinion
- Zoho CRM: Best for Integration Capabilities
- Our Expert Opinion
- Pipedrive: Best for Intelligent Sales Features
- Our Expert Opinion
- Bitrix24: Best for Project Management
- Our Expert Opinion
- Apptivo: Best for Referral Tracking for Lead Generation
- Our Expert Opinion
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Bottom Line
Best Salesforce Alternatives Compared
| Provider | Starting Monthly Price | Free Plan? | Our CRM Rating out of 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
 | $25 per user | X | 4.21 |
| Visit Salesforce | |||
 | $15 per user | ✓5 users | 4.63 |
| Visit HubSpot CRM | |||
 | $9 per user | ✓3 users | 4.42 |
| Visit Freshsales | |||
 | $9 per user | X | 4.36 |
| Visit Copper CRM | |||
 | $14 per user | ✓3 users | 4.34 |
| Visit Zoho CRM | |||
 | $14 per user | X | 4.19 |
| Visit Pipedrive | |||
 | $49 for 5 users | ✓Unlimited users | 4.18 |
| Visit Bitrix24 | |||
 | $15 per user | X | 4.15 |
| Visit Apptivo | |||
HubSpot CRM: Best for Free Operations Management
When to Use HubSpot CRM Over Salesforce
- You’re looking for a free CRM for operations management: HubSpot CRM offers a robust free plan for five users that includes tools for managing sales, marketing, customer service, content, operations, and ecommerce processes. Users can use this platform to manage contacts, leads, and deals, as well as to create quotes, deploy automated email campaigns, and manage support tickets.
- You want access to free or low-cost AI tools: HubSpot CRM made it to our list of the best AI-powered CRMs because of the availability of easy-to-operate smart features across all plans. Its free option includes an AI content assistant and a chatbot builder. You can use its ChatSpot command builder to improve productivity by submitting commands for sending follow-ups, building reports, and updating CRM data.
When to Use an Alternative
- You’re looking for more affordable tools for lead scoring and assignment: HubSpot CRM offers automatic lead routing and standard scoring for contacts, companies, and deals with its Sales Hub Professional plan at $90 per user monthly. This plan can be pricey for small teams and businesses with limited resources.
- Alternative: Zoho CRM offers low-cost lead scoring with its Standard plan ($14 per user monthly).
- You need built-in sales territory management features: Unfortunately, HubSpot CRM does not come out-of-the-box with sales territory management features. You’ll have to manually build a workflow for lead assignment by region or use a third-party app connector like Zapier to import data for territory lists.
- Alternatives: Freshsales (monthly Pro plan at $39 per user) and Apptivo (monthly Ultimate plan at $40 per user) offer more affordable sales territory management features.
HubSpot CRM Pricing Plans & Overview*
Cost: $0 for five users
Key Features:
- Contact management with activity tracking and notes
- Deal pipeline
- Document storage for CRM records
- App marketplace access for third-party CRM integrations
- Appointment scheduler
- Customizable quotes
- Mass email marketing with automation and email template storage
- Product library
- Live chat widget and conversational bots
- Reporting dashboard
Cost: $15 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in the Free plan
- Simple sales automation for deal pipeline
- Payment processing via Stripe integration and automated clearing house (ACH)
- Sales content analytics
- Task calendar sync
- E-signature for quotes
- HubSpot-provided phone numbers for inbound and outbound calls
- Team goal tracking
- Automated conversation routing for incoming live chat messages
- Recurring tasks
Cost: $15 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in Sales Hub Starter
- Marketing Hub Starter
- Service Hub Starter
- Content Hub Starter
- Operations Hub Starter
- Commerce Hub
Cost: $90 per user
Notable Features:
- Everything in Sales Hub Starter
- Advanced conversational bots for booking meetings and qualifying leads
- Standard contact, deal, and company scoring
- Sales analytics with rep productivity performance tracking
- Prospecting Workspace
- Custom reporting and sales forecasting
- Automatic lead rotation
- Email sequences
- Data duplicate management for contact records
- Call transcription of phone calls with search, comment, and review functions
*Pricing is based on annual billing of the HubSpot Sales Hub plans for individuals and small teams. Enterprise-level products and monthly billing are also available for a higher cost. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing.
**The Customer Platform includes sales, marketing, service, content, operations, and commerce management tools bundled into one product.
Our Expert Opinion
In a head-to-head HubSpot vs Salesforce comparison, we see that both platforms offer essential tools for sales, marketing, service, and ecommerce management. These include lead and opportunity management, email templates, ticket routing, and product libraries. While Salesforce stands out for its high customizability and case management capabilities, HubSpot CRM has more advanced marketing capabilities, which include landing pages and email reply tracking.
Freshsales: Best for Multichannel Account & Customer Engagement
When to Use Freshsales Over Salesforce
- You need a free or low-cost platform for multichannel customer engagement: Freshsales is one of the few CRM systems on the market with a free plan that includes account management features and live chat engagement for customers. It also has a built-in phone system with an inbound caller ID and a phone dialer, making it one of the best call center CRMs.
- You want a highly intuitive and simple CRM: Freshsales is our top recommended simple CRM because its features are easy to learn and use, even for absolute beginners. It features a kanban view for records that provides users with access to data at a glance, as well as a drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy to arrange records or edit email templates.
When to Use an Alternative
- You’re looking for free access to social media engagement capabilities: While Freshsales offers multichannel engagement capabilities, its free tier is limited to live chat and phone channels. You’ll need to subscribe to a paid plan (starting at $9 per user monthly) to engage with customers via social media and SMS directly from the CRM.
- Alternatives: HubSpot CRM is a top social CRM that lets you interact with customers via Facebook Messenger using its free plan. Bitrix24 is another alternative that offers a free option that comes with a contact center for live chat engagement and social media messaging.
- You want more cost-effective workflow automation tools: Freshsales’ Growth plan ($9 per user monthly) offers basic workflows for creating tasks, updating records, and sending email reminders. However, its advanced workflows for automated SMS and email engagement are locked in with the Pro plan ($39 per user monthly).
- Alternative: Zoho CRM offers free and low-cost plans with workflow automation. Its Free plan offers basic automation for tasks, sales force, and email marketing. The Standard plan ($14 per user monthly) includes access to a Social Tab for social media interaction, automation for scheduled actions, and reminders for workflow tasks.
Freshsales Pricing Plans & Overview*
Cost:
- $0 for three users
Key Features:
- Contact, deal, and account management with activity and website tracking
- Email templates
- Built-in telephone with inbound caller ID
- Live chat engagement with AI chatbot builder and analytics
- Tasks, appointments, and notes
- Custom fields
- Data import/export and migration from other CRMs
- Role-based access
- Basic dashboard for incoming conversations, team inbox, and response time
- Mobile CRM with voice notes, Google Maps integration, and Uber app integration
Cost:
- $9 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in Free
- SMS, Slack, and social messaging app integration
- Chat assignment rules, canned responses, and frequently asked questions (FAQs)
- CRM reports with sales and activity home dashboard
- Product catalog
- Automated CRM workflows
- Visual sales pipelines with a rotten deal alert
- Two-way email sync with personalized bulk emails
- Web forms
- Access to third-party CRM integrations via Freshworks Marketplace
Cost:
- $39 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in Growth
- Workflows for messaging and automatic assignment for chats and records
- Book meetings directly from live chat
- Power dialer
- Custom roles, sales activities, and reports
- Multiple sales pipelines
- Sales team and quota management
- Sales forecasting
- Freddy AI sales assistant for lead scoring, deal insights, and data deduplication
- Territory management
Cost:
- $59 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in Pro
- Holiday routing and virtual hold for calls
- Automated profile enrichment
- Deal teams to work on ad-hoc deals
- Customizable modules or applications within the CRM
- AI forecasting insights
Freshsales Pricing Add-ons:
- Workflows: $5 for 10 workflows
- Phone Credits: Starts at $5
- Configure, price, quote (CPQ): $19 per user monthly
- Additional Bot Sessions: $75 for 1,000 bot sessions per month
*Pricing is based on annual billing. Monthly billing is available for a higher cost. Freshsales comes with a 21-day free trial for the paid plans. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing.
Our Expert Opinion
Many of the pros of Freshsales compared to Salesforce involve pricing and ease of use. Most notably, Freshsales’ free plan includes account management features, a chat widget, and a built-in phone system.
Salesforce provides a stronger mobile app, lower-priced lead assignment, and broader integrations that extend to industry-specific products. However, advanced features like team management and workflows are cheaper with Freshsales.
Copper CRM: Best for Google Workspace Users
When to Use Copper CRM Over Salesforce
- Your team uses Google Workspace apps in daily operations: Copper CRM is one of the best Google CRMs because it has a Google Chrome extension that allows users to access CRM records while in Gmail or Calendar apps. This platform is also incredibly intuitive as the developer intentionally designed it for teams using Google Workspace apps.
- You need a CRM with excellent collaboration and productivity tools: All of Copper CRM’s plans come with tools for task management, note-taking, and file uploading. It also integrates with Google Workspace productivity apps like Gmail, Google Contacts, Calendar, Drive, and Sheets.
When to Use an Alternative
- You’re looking for a free CRM for your small team or business: Copper CRM offers a 14-day free trial so you can get a feel for its full set of features. And it has a low entry-level price of $9 per user monthly for its Starter plan. However, it currently does not offer a free plan.
- Alternatives: HubSpot CRM, Freshsales, and Bitrix24 are among our top recommended free CRMs. HubSpot CRM is great for revenue operations, Freshsales is for teams needing a free built-in phone, and Bitrix24 is best for project-based and ecommerce businesses.
- You want a CRM with free or low-cost integration with non-Google apps: While Copper CRM offers Google integrations across all plans, it does not have a free plan. Users also need to subscribe to its Professional plan ($59 per user monthly) to integrate the CRM with apps outside of the Google Workspace suite.
- Alternative: HubSpot CRM and Bitrix24 are excellent options for teams looking for free CRMs with non-Google integrations. Zoho CRM’s free plan includes integrations with apps within the Zoho ecosystem, and its monthly Standard plan ($14 per user) gives you access to the Zoho Marketplace for third-party app integrations.
Copper CRM Pricing Plans & Overview*
Cost:
- $9 per user
Key Features:
- Google Chrome extension app
- Google Workspace app integrations (Gmail, Contacts, Calendar, and Drive)
- Sign in with Google
- Contacts (1,000 records) and company database
- Notes, activity logging, and file attachments in CRM records
- Task management with reminders
- Mentions and comments on CRM records
- Email templates and contact forms
- Custom fields
- Zapier integration
Cost:
- $23 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in Starter
- Project management with customizable project pipeline templates
- Task management and automation
- 2,500 contacts
- 25 custom fields
- Deal management with opportunity slippage tracking
- Customizable sales pipelines
Cost:
- $59 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in Basic
- Integration with Google Sheets and Looker Studio
- 15,000 contacts
- Unlimited custom fields
- Workflow automation
- Email automation
- Bulk email with email tracking
- Custom reports, template library, and activity insights
- Multiple currency support
- Built-in integration with popular tools like DocuSign, Mailchimp, QuickBooks, and Slack
Cost:
- $99 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in Professional
- Email sequences and drip campaigns
- Email scheduling
- Website tracking
- Lead scoring
- LinkedIn integration
- Form and ad management
*Pricing is based on annual billing. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. It comes with a 14-day free trial. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing.
Our Expert Opinion
Neither Copper CRM nor Salesforce offers a free plan. But Copper CRM is more affordable since it offers monthly low-cost and scalable plans that range from $9 to $99 per user. It is also better for usability because it is designed with a highly intuitive interface similar to Google apps. While Salesforce offers more integration options and analytics capabilities, it lacks Copper CRM’s project management tools.
Zoho CRM: Best for Integration Capabilities
When to Use Zoho CRM Over Salesforce
- You need a more scalable CRM with extensive integration capabilities: Teams can connect thousands of popular apps to Zoho CRM like LinkedIn and monday.com to keep data synchronized and get more functionality. You can access native Zoho integrations with its free plan and third-party connections with paid plans (starting at $14 per user monthly).
- You want access to free or low-cost workflow and task automation features: Zoho CRM offers basic workflow automation with its free plan. You can access lead, account, contact, deal, and marketing campaign automation at no cost. With paid plans (starting at $14 per user monthly), there are advanced automation settings for workflows, scheduled actions, field updates, lead assignment rules, and segmentation.
When to Use an Alternative
- You want to use a CRM with little to no learning curve: Zoho CRM is not known for product simplicity since its robust and advanced features require technical experience.
- Alternatives: HubSpot CRM, Freshsales, and Pipedrive are your best options if you want a simple CRM solution. They all have a highly intuitive interface that makes them easy to learn, use, and navigate.
- You are a project-based business: If you want to access project management features, you’ll have to integrate Zoho CRM with Zoho Projects or third-party apps like Trello and Asana.
- Alternative: Bitrix24 offers robust project and task management capabilities with its free plan for unlimited users. Apptivo’s Premium plan ($25 per user monthly) has a project management module with project templates, Gantt charts, time tracking, and project billing features.
Zoho CRM Pricing Plans & Overview*
Cost:
- $0 for three users
Key Features:
- Lead, account, contact, and deal management
- Recurring activities
- Tasks, meetings, and calls
- Standard reports
- Marketing campaign management
- Mass email and 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
Cost:
- $14 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in Free
- Sales forecasting
- Calendar booking
- Lead scoring rules
- Social Tab
- Custom reports and dashboards
- Custom fields
- Reminder for workflow tasks
- Email insights
- Expanded Zoho app integrations
- Zoho CRM Marketplace third-party app integrations, including Google Workspace
Cost:
- $23 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in Standard
- 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
- Configure, price, quote (CPQ) with guided selling
- Customer case management
Cost:
- $40 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in Professional
- Forecasts based on territories
- Multiple scoring rules
- Advanced CRM analytics
- Autoresponders
- Zia AI conversational sales assistant
- Custom modules
- Marketing attribution and customer segmentation
- SalesInbox for intelligent categorization of email senders
- Client portals
Cost:
- $52 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in Enterprise
- Highest feature limits
*Pricing is based on annual billing. Monthly billing is available for a higher cost. Paid plans include a 15-day free trial. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing.
Our Expert Opinion
Zoho CRM and Salesforce are powerhouses in their own regard, with extensive CRM integration, automation, AI analytics, customer case tracking, and inventory management tools. Both offer modules for lead, contact, deal, and accounts management, and have sales forecasting features, but neither stands out for product simplicity. Zoho CRM, however, is the next-best and much cheaper alternative with a comparable range of connections.
Pipedrive: Best for Intelligent Sales Features
When to Use Pipedrive Over Salesforce
- You want cost-friendly AI sales automation features: Pipedrive has an AI-powered Sales Assistant tool for insights and data management for as low as $14 per user monthly. It provides suggestions on opportunities and tasks to prioritize and how to improve performance. There’s also deal rotting detection, Smart Docs to auto-fill sales documents, and Smart Contact Data that pulls LinkedIn information for profiles.
- You’re looking for a CRM that’s easy to use: Pipedrive is well known for its strong usability ratings. Its simple layout and intuitive interface make it easy for users of all levels to learn and customize. With just a few clicks, you can alter data fields, adjust sales process stages, and generate reports for sales activity or performance metrics.
When to Use an Alternative
- You need a free CRM for your small team or business: Though Pipedrive allows you to test drive its full feature set for 14 days, it does not have a free plan.
- Alternative: Freshsales is a great alternative for teams seeking a simple CRM with a free plan. More advanced users looking for free project management and ecommerce tools can choose Bitrix24.
- You want a CRM with built-in social media integration: Unfortunately, Pipedrive does not have built-in integrations with social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. You’ll have to use a third-party connector like Outfunnel or Surfe to access this feature.
- Alternative: HubSpot CRM’s free plan includes direct integration with Facebook Messenger, while its Sales Hub Professional plan ($90 per user monthly) comes with AI bots and Facebook ads engagement tracking. Zoho CRM’s Standard monthly plan ($14 per user) includes a Social Tab for customer engagement, brand monitoring, social listening, and lead generation.
Pipedrive Pricing Plans & Overview*
Cost:
- $14 per user
Key Features:
- Lead and contact management with activity tracking and document storage
- Products and services catalog
- Deal management with rotting indicator alerts and deal progress reporting
- App marketplace for third-party integrations
- Duplicate data detection and merge
- Comments and user mentions on CRM records for collaboration
- Custom data fields and pipeline stages
- Activity reporting
- Company and user sales goal tracking
- AI sales assistant for automated task updates, reminders, deal progress notifications, performance-enhancing tips, and sales forecast assistance
Cost:
- $39 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in Essentials
- Two-way email sync for using Gmail or Outlook in the CRM system and tracking communications
- Custom email templates and email signatures
- Built-in meeting scheduling with video conference options
- Workflow automation
- Smart contact data for auto-enriching contact profiles using online information
- Expanded sales reports with recurring revenue tracking
Cost:
- $49 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in Advanced
- Contacts timeline in CRM records for visual history tracking
- Smart Docs feature that auto-populates data on proposals to send, track, and get e-signatures for clients
- Sales team management
- Expanded reporting for tracking custom fields on sales reports and tracking subscription-based revenue
- Automated deal and lead assignment
- Revenue forecasting
Cost:
- $64 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in Professional
- Built-in project management with kanban views, tasks and subtask tracking, and custom data fields for projects
- Phone support and an implementation program for CRM users
Cost:
- $99 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in Power
- Unlimited reports and sales dashboards
- Up to 100 active workflow automation settings
- Unlimited team management capabilities
Pipedrive Pricing Add-ons:
- LeadBooster
- Web Visitors Tracking
- Campaigns
- Smart Docs
- Projects
*Pricing is based on annual billing. Monthly billing is available for a higher cost. Paid plans include a 14-day free trial. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing.
Our Expert Opinion
Pipedrive and Salesforce lack a free-forever option and built-in tools for customer engagement, brand monitoring, and marketing on social media. Salesforce has more third-party and native integration options, plus built-in features for account and customer case management. However, Pipedrive offers more cost-friendly paid plans, more affordable AI tools, sales automation, product catalog, and lead management capabilities.
Bitrix24: Best for Project Management
When to Use Bitrix24 Over Salesforce
- You are a project-based business: Bitrix24 offers a project management module with its free plan, which has no cap on the number of users. This module includes project template storage, task management tools, and multi-view capabilities on kanban, Gantt, and list views.
- You need a CRM to run your ecommerce business: Bitrix24 is unique because it offers a robust ecommerce module with its free plan. This includes tools for managing online storefronts, orders, products, and inventory. It also comes with a shipping cost calculator, integration with payment processing providers like Stripe, and the ability to create digital store coupons.
When to Use an Alternative
- You’re seeking a robust CRM with a user-friendly interface: Simplicity is part of Bitrix24’s strong suit because its out-of-the-box features are highly robust and advanced. As a result, there’s a sharp learning curve for setting up the CRM platform, operating the features, and navigating its interface.
- Alternative: HubSpot CRM strikes an excellent balance between robustness and ease of use. It’s an all-in-one CRM with tools for managing sales, marketing, customer service, content, operations, and ecommerce processes. Despite these rich offerings, it retains a simple and intuitive interface that makes it easy to learn, use, and navigate, even for users with limited technical experience.
- You want access to free in-app calling features: Although Bitrix24 has a contact center for multichannel customer engagement, the free plan only includes access to CRM forms and social media accounts. Telephony features are locked in with the Basic plan ($49 per month for five users).
- Alternative: Freshsales is our top pick for teams needing a free CRM with a built-in phone system. It comes with a phone dialer, an inbound caller ID, and the ability to buy local and toll-free numbers.
Bitrix24 Pricing Plans & Overview*
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 autodialer
- Bitrix24.Sign tool for creating, sending, and getting digital signatures for documents
- Automated duplicate detection and custom data fields
- Contact center with CRM forms, live chat engagement, and social media messaging
- Shared team calendar
- Project and task management module
- Ecommerce module with order, product, inventory, and payments
- CoPilot AI assistant in CRM, tasks, chat, feed, email, and texts on websites
- Sales intelligence with report builder and automatic customer journey tracking
Cost:
- $49 for five users
Key Features:
- Everything in Free
- Multiple 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
- Business intelligence analytics tools for CRM data
- Sales and marketing automation with customer segmentation
- Contact center with built-in telephone, call-back widget, and call statistics
- Access to Bitrix24 Market for third-party app integrations
Cost:
- $99 for 50 users
Key Features:
- Everything in Basic
- Built-in company cloud storage drive for internal documents
- Collaborative document editing in the CRM
- Recurring tasks and templates with subtasks
- Unlimited leads and quotes with recurring invoices
- Video Zoom calls directly from client profiles
- Bulk text and email with stored email templates
- Event planner tools
- Chat statistics
- Business intelligence builder with unlimited dashboards
Cost:
- $199 for 100 users
Key Features:
- Everything in Standard
- Business process automation in CRM with workflows for operations
- Unlimited knowledge base resource storage for internal employees to access
- 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
- Automated ad management with analytics and reports
Cost:
- Starting at $399 for 250 users
Key Features:
- Everything in Professional
- 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. 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
Both Bitrix24 and Salesforce offer strong capabilities for lead, contact, and deal management as well as customer engagement via email, chat, social media, and phone channels. However, they both score poorly in the product usability category—requiring a solid skillset to learn and operate the interface. Bitrix24 sets itself apart from Salesforce by offering a free plan for unlimited users and robust ecommerce and HR management modules.
Apptivo: Best for Referral Tracking for Lead Generation
When to Use Apptivo Over Salesforce
- Your business conducts referral marketing for lead generation: Apptivo is unique among most CRMs because it has a specific tool for referral tracking. Within lead or contact records, teams can add data for where the person, company, or opportunity came from a lead source or “referred by” field. They can then generate reports to see which partners or customers generate the best sales leads.
- You need a highly customizable CRM for a multi-function business: Apptivo has a tier-based modular system that allows you to select multiple applications for your business needs. For instance, those subscribed to the Lite plan ($15 per user monthly) can add up to 18 apps, including CRM, employee management, estimate builder, and supply management.
When to Use an Alternative
- You’re looking for a sales-focused CRM with a short learning curve: Apptivo has a rich feature set and an outdated interface design. It’s quite tricky for beginner-level users to learn and operate and much more to customize.
- Alternatives: Freshsales, Pipedrive, and Copper CRM are sales-focused CRMs ideal for absolute beginners since their highly intuitive interfaces take little or no time to learn and use.
- You require a CRM with extensive third-party integrations: Apptivo’s third-party integration options are limited to Office 365, Google Workspace apps, and accounting and billing apps like Stripe and QuickBooks.
- Alternative: Zoho CRM is our best choice for integrations. It offers thousands of third-party integration options on the Zoho Marketplace plus several native software tools, like Zoho Desk, Zoho Projects, and Zoho Analytics.
Apptivo Pricing Plans & Overview*
Cost:
- $15 per user
Key Features:
- Access to 18 apps, including CRM, Estimates, Supply Chain, and Product Management
- Email templates with email and referral tracking
- Contact, lead, and deal management
- Tasks, appointments, and notes
- Multiple sales pipelines
- Custom fields
- Workflows
- Reports and summary dashboard with lead/loss analysis
- Product catalog
- Integration with Google Workspace, Dropbox, Sign.co, and RingCentral
Cost:
- $25 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in Lite
- Access to 46 apps, including Projects, Inventory Management, and Marketing
- Record relationship linking
- Inventory management, product listings, and order processing
- Campaign management and marketing automation
- Mass emailing with email sequences
- Manage multiple companies within the CRM
- Additional built-in integrations with PayPal, Stripe, Slack, and Zipmark
Cost:
- $40 per user
Key Features:
- Everything in Premium
- Access to 57 apps, including territory management, contact center, and app builder
- SMS (short messaging service) engagement with customers
- Configure, price, quote (CPQ)
- Custom applications for specific departments or teams
- Custom branding
Cost:
- Contact the provider for a quote
Key Features:
- Everything in Ultimate
- Access to 65 apps, including License Tracker, Insurance Tracker, and Properties
- Google Maps integration
- Service Level Agreement (SLA)
- Access to dedicated account manager and customization services
- White labeling
*Pricing is based on annual billing. Monthly billing is available for a higher cost. Apptivo offers a 30-day free trial. While we update pricing information regularly, we encourage our readers to check current pricing.
Our Expert Opinion
Neither Apptivo nor Salesforce offer a free-forever plan nor are well-acclaimed for product ease of use. Apptivo, however, is one of the best low-cost Salesforce competitors since it has a rich feature set at affordable prices, no matter your plan. Rich features include referral tracking for leads, built-in project management tools, and supply chain distribution management.
How We Evaluated the Best Salesforce Competitors
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is the best alternative to Salesforce?
The best alternative to Salesforce depends on the CRM features and capabilities your business needs. For instance, HubSpot CRM is our overall best pick since it fills many product gaps in Salesforce, such as free plan availability and an easy-to-use interface.
Freshsales offers free and lower-cost options for multichannel engagement, sales task automation, and AI analytics. Apptivo is great for referral tracking, while Bitrix24 is best for project management.
Which Salesforce alternatives are free?
Most of the CRMs on this list offer free alternatives to Salesforce. HubSpot CRM has a free-forever plan for up to five users, while Freshsales and Zoho CRM support three users on their free plans. Bitrix24 has a free plan that supports unlimited users.
Is Salesforce a CRM or an ERP system?
Salesforce is not an enterprise resource management (ERP) system or a platform that integrates multiple business functions. It is a customer relationship management (CRM) system that mainly provides functions for sales and customer service. However, you can integrate Salesforce with ERP systems like Sage Intacct to enhance business efficiency.
Bottom Line
While Salesforce is a popular CRM tool for managing leads, reviewing analytics, and engaging with customers, you may be looking for another CRM that has something it lacks. For instance, Zoho CRM has more scalability and integrations, while Freshsales offers built-in phone features at no cost. HubSpot CRM, on the other hand, is our top pick because of its robust free option, high usability, and integrated sales, marketing, and service capabilities.
