How is this crm & sales ranking decided?

Mechanically. The 20 approved crm & sales listings on this page are sorted by their published rating, highest first, with the number of ratings behind each score as the tie-break and the product name as a final tie-break so the order is stable. Those ratings are aggregated from public sources, not collected from Softwr readers, this site hosts no reviews, so the order is a summary of what is already published elsewhere, not a verdict of our own. Nothing on this page is paid placement.

Is this list re-ordered for startups?

No, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise. The catalogue records no data about which team sizes or roles each tool suits, so the ranking is the same published-rating order as the unsegmented list. What the startups framing changes is which of the figures below matter most. Startups are buying for a headcount they do not have yet, which makes the second and third tier of each ladder more important than the first. Check what the price becomes at ten people.

How much does crm & sales software cost?

Across the 20 crm & sales tools listed here, paid plans start between $7 and $99 a month, with a median entry price of $34. The most expensive single tier published in the category is $738 a month (Snov.io). 9 of 20 also publish a $0 plan.

What is the cheapest crm & sales software?

1 of the 20 tools listed here cost nothing at all. Among the ones that charge, Woodpecker has the lowest published entry price at $7 a month. Cheapest and best value are different questions: check which tier the capability you need actually appears in before you compare starting prices.

Is there free crm & sales software?

Yes, 9 of 20 tools in this category publish a plan priced at $0. 1 of them are free outright, with no paid tier above. A tool is only counted as free here when it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence, or a starting price of zero, a free trial does not count.

What features should crm & sales software have?

Judging by what vendors put in their own published pricing tiers, the most frequently named capabilities in this category are api access (5 of 16 tools that publish plan detail), contact management (5) and pipeline management (4). Treat those as the category baseline. Anything named by only one vendor, such as account manager included or basic contact info, is a differentiator rather than a standard, so it is worth deciding whether you need it before it narrows your shortlist to one.

How is crm & sales software usually billed?

subscription (13), freemium (4), quote (1), usage-based (1), counted across the 20 listings on this page. The distinction that costs money is per-seat versus flat: a per-user plan at the same headline price scales with your headcount and a flat subscription does not. 6 of 20 tools also keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote.

What does crm & sales software actually cover?

The 20 tools on this page do not describe themselves the same way. The subject tags they carry most often are crm (10), lead generation (7), cold email (5), email verification (4), b2b-data (3). That spread is the honest answer to what the category means in practice: it is not one product shape, and two tools filed under crm & sales may overlap on very little.

How many pricing tiers do crm & sales tools offer?

17 of 20 tools here publish a plan breakdown, and the median one has 3 tiers. 15 of 20 publish three or more. More tiers is not generosity, it usually means the capability you are buying for sits two rungs above the advertised price, so price your shortlist at the tier that contains it.

How many crm & sales tools are listed on Softwr?

20 approved crm & sales listings appear on this page, including Agile CRM, Bitrix24, Capsule, Capsule CRM. Each links to a full breakdown with its pricing tiers and plan detail, and the category can be filtered by price and sorted by rating above. You can also read the shortlist view at /best/crm-sales, which ranks the same set by published rating.

CRM & Sales · ranked shortlist

Best CRM & Sales software for Startups in 2026

20 approved crm & sales listings, ordered by published rating with the method stated below rather than assumed. Startups are buying for a headcount they do not have yet, which makes the second and third tier of each ladder more important than the first. Check what the price becomes at ten people.

Tools ranked: 20
Entry price range: $7-$99
Publish a $0 plan: 9 of 20

How this ranking is derived

The sort key

Published rating, highest first. Ties break on the number of ratings behind the score, then on product name so the order never depends on what the API happened to return first. That is the whole rule, there is no weighting, no score of our own, and nothing paid: no sponsored slot runs on these pages.

Where the ratings come from

No listing in this set carries a rating, so the order falls back to name. Those scores are aggregated from public sources rather than collected here, Softwr hosts no reviews of its own, which is also why no rating on this page is marked up as ours in structured data.

What the pool is

Approved crm & sales listings, capped at 20 per page; 20 came back for this one. It is not the whole market, and a tool being absent means we hold no record of it rather than that it failed a test. The unranked full set is on the crm & sales category page.

The ranking

Each entry lists why it sits where it sits, drawn from its own published rating and pricing.

#1
Agile CRM
Highest rated here
All-in-one CRM, Marketing, and Service Software
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $9 a month.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $39.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
crm, marketing-automation
Agile CRM breakdown Compare with Bitrix24
#2
Bitrix24
All-in-one CRM and business automation platform
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $39 a month.
- 4 published tiers, topping out at $199.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
4 tiers
Tags
crm, collaboration, all-in-one
Bitrix24 breakdown Compare with Capsule
#3
Capsule
Visual CRM for small teams
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $19 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $99.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
crm, simple
Capsule breakdown Compare with Capsule CRM
#4
Capsule CRM
The customer relationship management CRM
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
freemium
Capsule CRM breakdown Compare with Clay
#5
Clay
Data platform for sales teams
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
Billing
quote
Published tiers
1 tier
Tags
crm, data, sales
Clay breakdown Compare with Clearbit
#6
Clearbit
B2B data enrichment and intelligence
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
Model not published
Tags
data-enrichment, b2b-data, lead-intelligence, API
Clearbit breakdown Compare with Copper
#7
Copper
Gmail-native CRM for growth teams
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $25 a month.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $75.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
crm, gmail, google-workspace
Copper breakdown Compare with Freshsales
#8
F
Freshsales
Smart CRM for growing businesses
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $19 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $65.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
crm, sales
Freshsales breakdown Compare with Hunter
#9
Hunter
Email finding, verification and cold outreach platform for B2B prospecting
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $34 a month.
- 5 published tiers, topping out at $209 plus a tier sold by quote.
Billing
freemium
Published tiers
5 tiers
Tags
Email Finder, Email Verification, Cold Email, b2b-data
Hunter breakdown Compare with LeadSquared
#10
LeadSquared
Indian marketing automation and CRM platform for lead management
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
Billing
subscription
LeadSquared breakdown Compare with lemlist
#11
lemlist
Multichannel cold outreach platform for email, LinkedIn, SMS and calling
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $55 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $87 plus a tier sold by quote.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
Cold Email, sales-engagement, Linkedin Automation, Multichannel Outreach
lemlist breakdown Compare with Less Annoying CRM
#12
Less Annoying CRM
Simple CRM built by small business experts
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $30 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $100.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
crm, Small Business, nonprofit
Less Annoying CRM breakdown Compare with Lusha
#13
Lusha
B2B contact and company intelligence
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $99 a month.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $299.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
crm, lead-intelligence
Lusha breakdown Compare with Mixmax
#14
Mixmax
Email productivity and sales engagement platform
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $34 a month.
- 4 published tiers, topping out at $65.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
4 tiers
Tags
email-tracking, gmail, sales-engagement, productivity
Mixmax breakdown Compare with Nimble
#15
N
Nimble
Social CRM for teams
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $19 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $59.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
crm, social, relationship-management
Nimble breakdown Compare with Reply.io
#16
Reply.io
Multichannel sales engagement platform for email, LinkedIn, calls and SMS outreach
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $49 a month.
- 4 published tiers, topping out at $139.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
4 tiers
Tags
sales-engagement, Cold Email, Multichannel Outreach, Linkedin Automation
Reply.io breakdown Compare with Seamless.AI
#17
Seamless.AI
Sales lead search engine for finding contact and company data
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Free, no paid tier is published at all.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
Billing
freemium
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
Sales Intelligence, lead generation, Prospecting, Contact Data
Seamless.AI breakdown Compare with Snov.io
#18
Snov.io
Lead generation, email verification, outreach automation and CRM platform
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $39 a month.
- 5 published tiers, topping out at $738 plus a tier sold by quote.
Billing
freemium
Published tiers
5 tiers
Tags
lead generation, Email Verification, Cold Email, crm
Snov.io breakdown Compare with UpLead
#19
UpLead
B2B contact database and lead intelligence platform for sales prospecting
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $74 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $149 plus a tier sold by quote.
Billing
subscription
Published tiers
3 tiers
Tags
lead generation, b2b-data, Sales Intelligence, Email Verification
UpLead breakdown Compare with Woodpecker
#20
Woodpecker
Cold email and LinkedIn outreach automation platform with pay-per-use pricing
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $7 a month, with no free plan.
Billing
usage-based
Published tiers
1 tier
Tags
Cold Email, Outreach Automation, lead generation, Email Verification
Woodpecker breakdown

What crm & sales software costs

Counted from the published pricing of the 20 listings on this page. A tool counts as free only where it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence or a starting price of zero.

Cheapest paid plan: $7Woodpecker
Median entry price: $34across 15 priced
Dearest entry price: $99Lusha
Publish a $0 plan: 9of 20

Paid crm & sales plans in this set start anywhere from $7 a month for Woodpecker to $99 for Lusha. The median entry price across the 15 tools that publish one is $34, half of them start below that figure and half above it.

Entry price is not the ceiling. The dearest published tier anywhere in this category is Snov.io's at $738 a month, 7.5× the highest entry price on the page. Read the top of each ladder as well as the bottom, because that is where you land after two years of growth.

9 of 20 publish a $0 plan, and 1 of those charge nothing at all. 7 tools have no free tier of any kind.

6 of 20 keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote, which in practice means the number you end up paying at the top end is not on this page or on theirs.

Woodpecker pricing Lusha pricing Snov.io plans

How these vendors bill

The billing model each of the 20 crm & sales listings publishes, counted. Two tools at the same headline price are not the same purchase if one of them charges per seat.

subscription: 13
freemium: 4
quote: 1
usage-based: 1

Separately, 6 of 20 publish at least one tier with no price attached. Those are sold by quote, so the top of the ladder is negotiable, and unknowable, until you talk to sales.

What comes as standard, and what you pay extra for

Every capability named in a published pricing tier by any of the 16 crm & sales tools here that break their plans down, counted once per vendor. This measures what vendors choose to advertise as a selling point, not everything the software does, an absence below is silence, not a missing feature.

Named most often

API access , 5 of 16
Contact management , 5 of 16
Pipeline management , 4 of 16
Advanced analytics , 3 of 16
Custom fields , 3 of 16

Named by fewer

Advanced customization , 2 of 16
Advanced filters , 2 of 16
Advanced reporting , 2 of 16
Basic CRM , 2 of 16
Data enrichment , 2 of 16

Named by exactly one vendor: Account manager included, Basic contact info, Custom credit allotments, Email templates, Limited monthly emails, SSO. Those are differentiators rather than table stakes.

What “CRM & Sales” covers in practice

The subject tags that recur across these 20 listings, with the number of tools carrying each. A category label is a filing decision; this is the closer read of what is actually filed under it.

crm10
lead generation7
Cold Email5
Email Verification4
b2b-data3
Linkedin Automation3
sales-engagement3
gmail2
lead-intelligence2
Multichannel Outreach2
Prospecting2
sales2

Carried by a single tool: agencies, API, collaboration, data-enrichment, email-tracking, marketing-automation, productivity, simple. If one of those is the reason you are here, the category page is the wrong lens, go straight to that product.

How to choose between them

Four things the numbers above should change about your shortlist.

Start with the free tiers if there are enough of them

9 of 20 crm & sales tools here publish a $0 plan, which is enough to run a real trial without a purchase order. A free tier is worth more than a free trial when you are evaluating: a trial expires on the vendor's schedule, a free plan expires when you outgrow it. The thing to check before you commit is which of the capabilities below sit above the free line, starting with api access, the single most frequently named capability in this category's published tiers.

Read the spread before you read the features

$7 to $99 is a $92 spread on entry price alone, and a spread that wide is never about polish, it is about who the vendor built for. Tools at the bottom of this ladder are priced for one person or a small team; tools near $99 are priced for a department with a procurement process. Decide which of those you are before you compare capability, or you will shortlist four tools that were never competing for the same buyer.

Check which tier you actually land on

15 of 20 tools here publish three or more tiers, and the median vendor in this category ships 3 of them. The advertised price is the first rung, and the things teams tend to need, api access, contact management, pipeline management, are named in higher plans far more often than in entry ones. Price your shortlist at the tier that contains what you need, not at the tier on the pricing page's left edge.

The billing model matters more than the headline number

This category splits across 4 billing models: subscription on 13 listings, freemium on 4, and 2 other arrangements across the rest. A per-user price and a flat subscription at the same headline figure are not the same purchase, the first one grows with headcount and the second does not. Multiply by your real team size before you compare two numbers side by side.

Compare crm & sales tools directly

Every pairing below is a full comparison: the same checklist applied to both, so a gap in one is a gap in the other.

Go straight to the numbers

Build your own comparison See the shortlist instead

Questions people ask about crm & sales software

Answered from the listings on this page, and nowhere else.

How is this crm & sales ranking decided?: Mechanically. The 20 approved crm & sales listings on this page are sorted by their published rating, highest first, with the number of ratings behind each score as the tie-break and the product name as a final tie-break so the order is stable. Those ratings are aggregated from public sources, not collected from Softwr readers, this site hosts no reviews, so the order is a summary of what is already published elsewhere, not a verdict of our own. Nothing on this page is paid placement.
Is this list re-ordered for startups?: No, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise. The catalogue records no data about which team sizes or roles each tool suits, so the ranking is the same published-rating order as the unsegmented list. What the startups framing changes is which of the figures below matter most. Startups are buying for a headcount they do not have yet, which makes the second and third tier of each ladder more important than the first. Check what the price becomes at ten people.
How much does crm & sales software cost?: Across the 20 crm & sales tools listed here, paid plans start between $7 and $99 a month, with a median entry price of $34. The most expensive single tier published in the category is $738 a month (Snov.io). 9 of 20 also publish a $0 plan.
What is the cheapest crm & sales software?: 1 of the 20 tools listed here cost nothing at all. Among the ones that charge, Woodpecker has the lowest published entry price at $7 a month. Cheapest and best value are different questions: check which tier the capability you need actually appears in before you compare starting prices.
Is there free crm & sales software?: Yes, 9 of 20 tools in this category publish a plan priced at $0. 1 of them are free outright, with no paid tier above. A tool is only counted as free here when it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence, or a starting price of zero, a free trial does not count.
What features should crm & sales software have?: Judging by what vendors put in their own published pricing tiers, the most frequently named capabilities in this category are api access (5 of 16 tools that publish plan detail), contact management (5) and pipeline management (4). Treat those as the category baseline. Anything named by only one vendor, such as account manager included or basic contact info, is a differentiator rather than a standard, so it is worth deciding whether you need it before it narrows your shortlist to one.
How is crm & sales software usually billed?: subscription (13), freemium (4), quote (1), usage-based (1), counted across the 20 listings on this page. The distinction that costs money is per-seat versus flat: a per-user plan at the same headline price scales with your headcount and a flat subscription does not. 6 of 20 tools also keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote.
What does crm & sales software actually cover?: The 20 tools on this page do not describe themselves the same way. The subject tags they carry most often are crm (10), lead generation (7), cold email (5), email verification (4), b2b-data (3). That spread is the honest answer to what the category means in practice: it is not one product shape, and two tools filed under crm & sales may overlap on very little.
How many pricing tiers do crm & sales tools offer?: 17 of 20 tools here publish a plan breakdown, and the median one has 3 tiers. 15 of 20 publish three or more. More tiers is not generosity, it usually means the capability you are buying for sits two rungs above the advertised price, so price your shortlist at the tier that contains it.
How many crm & sales tools are listed on Softwr?: 20 approved crm & sales listings appear on this page, including Agile CRM, Bitrix24, Capsule, Capsule CRM. Each links to a full breakdown with its pricing tiers and plan detail, and the category can be filtered by price and sorted by rating above. You can also read the shortlist view at /best/crm-sales, which ranks the same set by published rating.

Keep reading

Neighbouring categories

Adjacent in the same taxonomy, not a ranking.

How this ranking is derived

The sort key

Where the ratings come from

What the pool is

The ranking

Agile CRM

Bitrix24

Capsule

Capsule CRM

Clay

Clearbit

Copper

Freshsales

Hunter

LeadSquared

lemlist

Less Annoying CRM

Lusha

Mixmax

Nimble

Reply.io

Seamless.AI

Snov.io

UpLead

Woodpecker