Are you a startup in the SaaS industry looking for the best SaaS CRM software to manage your users and help you grow? The space can be extremely confusing! We have done the hard work for you by testing and reviewing in detail, 17 of the best SaaS CRM solutions on the market specifically designed for SaaS use cases. Whether you are looking to scale your sales function, reduce churn or want to improve your onboarding process, there is something for every SaaS company in this list.


Why a good CRM tool is essential for a SaaS startup

The aim of any SaaS startup is to acquire new customers, onboard them successfully and make sure they continue using your products and services into the future. And you want to do this at scale. Without a CRM, the amount of time and admin involved in making sure each of your users gets the attention they deserve would be astronomical and would be a hassle for even the best of teams.

Modern CRM systems help you to automate and manage many of the essential functions of a SaaS business. We break down the top 11 benefits of CRMs in this extensive article.

How do SaaS platforms utilize CRMs?

  1. Automatically send a “welcome” email when a user signs up for the first time
  2. Check-in with users if they haven’t performed an action you want them to take e.g. send a chat popup the 3rd time a user logs in if they haven't started the onboarding process
  3. Follow up with new signups 5 days after they first created an account to check if they received value from your product
  4. Set a reminder to call a user 3 days after they create an account
  5. Send payment reminders to your users when their billing cycle is coming up

These examples only touch the surface of what is possible with a good SaaS CRM Solution. The sky's the limit, you can automate anything you can think of. But it’s not just automation where CRMs excel. They can help you to better understand your customer needs and ultimately improve your SaaS products through data and insights. Many come with extensive reporting and customer insights built in as well as customer support tools that let you keep track and organize what’s being said about your software.

What features do Saas Startups need from a CRM?

Choosing a CRM for your startup can be a very confusing process. Some are designed specifically with salespeople in mind and others focus on automating customer service. It may be that your business needs more than one CRM tool. So keep that in mind whilst reading this post. Certain CRM systems do certain tasks better than others. We always recommend you write down a list of tasks you want to accomplish, and features you need with your CRM before choosing just one platform. Some of the things CRMs can help with are:

  1. Customer Insights

    A good SaaS CRM software should not only store customer data but also use it to produce actionable insights. The CRM must be able to present trend graphs showing customer interaction and business performance. The best CRM SaaS software uses artificial intelligence to produce and manage these insights. 
  2. Marketing Automation
    As a software or SaaS company, you need a tool that can handle repetitive tasks while leaving you free to pursue new clients and grow your business. Consequently, any CRM software you choose should feature an automated marketing pipeline that can send email campaigns to your prospects.
  3. Customer Support
    CRM software will have no customers to manage if it can't maintain long-term relationships with them. Thus, it has to equip you with customer relationship management tools to follow up on customers and actively communicate with them. These tools include voice and video calls, email and SMS inboxing, and live chat.
  4. Sales Pipeline Management
    Your CRM must be able to identify leads and aid your strategy to gain their trust and patronage. Using email detection and behavior analysis, your CRM should show you the hottest leads so you can prioritize them better by providing sales/deal tracking tools.
  5. Third-Party Integrations
    As a SaaS enterprise, it’s likely that a CRM will not be the only tool in your arsenal. You'll likely be using accounting tools, payroll tools, workflow management, website builders, forms and more. A good CRM system will seamlessly integrate with your existing tech stack for a cohesive workflow across teams.

Quick Comparison of CRM Software for SaaS Startups

Software Intro Price Differentiators
Active Campaign $19 Best all round for SaaS
Hubspot Free Extensive feature set
Intercom $65 Intelligent in-app messaging
GIST Free Excellent value & fully featured
Freshworks Free Fully featured and excellent for support
Engagebay Free A good value, all-in-one solution
Salesforce (Sales Cloud) $25 Extensive sales reporting
Pipedrive $9.90 Low cost and extensive features for sales teams
Salesflare $29 Fully focused on sales teams with interesting AI features
Close $25 Good dialout options for sales teams
Copilot $29 Create a branded client portal
Klaviyo Free Excellent CLV estimation AI
Sharpspring $449 Track the entire life of a lead
Less Annoying CRM $15 Simple, no-frills CRM
Pipeline CRM $25 Extensive customization capabilities
Ortto $29 Provides automated personalized customer journey
Campaign Monitor $9 Best for businesses that want automated email journeys


The Top 17 Best CRM Software For SaaS Startups Are

  1. Active Campaign
  2. Hubspot
  3. Gist
  4. Intercom
  5. Freshworks
  6. Engagebay
  7. Salesforce (Sales Cloud)
  8. Pipedrive
  9. Salesflare
  10. Close
  11. Copilot
  12. Klaviyo
  13. SharpSpring
  14. Less Annoying CRM
  15. Pipeline CRM
  16. Ortto
  17. Campaign Monitor

1. Active Campaign

Founded: 2003
HQ: Chicago, Illinois, United States

Key info Price: From $19 per user/mo
Free Trial: 14 days
Support: 24/7 (phone + email)
Best for Businesses looking for a versatile CRM with features like smart inboxing and automation system
Pros + Fully featured CRM at an extremely low price vs competitors
+ Comes with extensive sales, marketing and customer support tools
+ Easy-to-use automation builder
Cons - Interface can be buggy
- Reporting needs improvement
Integrations Zapier, Salesforce, WordPress, GA and 870+ more
Pricing model* Lite: $19/mo
Professional $49/mo
Enterprise: Custom

Active Campaign is among the top CRM tools for small and medium-scale SaaS enterprises. As a SaaS platform itself, ActiveCampaign understands the features SaaS companies need and provides them with great effect.

As stated by the company, its main goal is to remove all intermediaries between you and your users, creating a personalized customer experience for each of your customers. To achieve this goal, it offers a vast array of features for a low price. Features include a fully functioning sales pipeline, marketing campaigns (email marketing), SMS features, reporting, live chat, web forms and much more. ActiveCampaign is suited for both sales and marketing teams.

Having personally used this for several SaaS clients, I can highly recommend it - you won't find a more fully featured CRM at this price.

The best thing about ActiveCampaign is that it allows you to automate the repetitive tasks that bog down your team. Its smart automation system is the most sophisticated of any CRM software on this list, allowing users to build simple but powerful workflows containing complex triggers, conditions, and executions. This pipeline is tightly integrated with the other features ActiveCampaign offers, allowing you to seamlessly create and manage customer onboarding journeys and sales processes.

The web forms creator allows you to create and embed forms within emails, websites, and applications. It's a fully-featured tool that allows you to add custom fields, enforce their requirements, and verify responses with a captcha test. The forms creator is extremely easy to use and customize while giving you full control over the layout through HTML and CSS.

The customer service inbox is an add-on and lacks some key features of competitors like Intercom. Marketing and sales are where ActiveCampaign really shines. When paired with something like Intercom or GIST, connected via Zapier you'll have a SaaS CRM system that's hard to beat.

With a starting price of just $9 per month, it's not difficult to see why ActiveCampaign has more than 130,000 paying customers around the world. These customers flock to ActiveCampaign because it offers the most features at the most affordable price. Not to mention that ActiveCampaign does its job as a CRM tool extremely well.

2. Hubspot CRM

Founded: 2006
HQ: Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

Key info Price: From free
Free Trial: None
Support: Phone, email & chat
Best for Larger SaaS startups with bigger budgets that want an extensive CRM with a wide range of customer support features
Pros + Incredible range of features
+ Excellent and abundant online video tutorials
+ Fully featured for sales, marketing, customer support and more.
Cons - Can get very expensive if you need every feature
- Very confusing pricing
Integrations WordPress, MailChimp, GA, Adwords & 500+ more
Pricing model (CRM suite)* Starter: $45/mo (1,000 contacts)
Professional $1,600/mo (2,000 contacts)
Enterprise: $5,000/mo (10,000 contacts)

If you have heard of CRM then you have likely heard of Hubspot. The CRM behemoth offers a collection of sales, marketing, and operations tools within a single CRM platform. Hubspot introduces customers to its software bundle, with a free plan that competes with the best other products have to offer.

However, we must flag that this is a bit of a marketing ploy to have customers upgrade to a paid subscription. If you’re looking to use the full set of Hubspot’s features, you should prepare to spend up to $3000 monthly.

Indeed, Hubspot offers an impressive range of features and can be a powerful all-in-one solution for SaaS providers, as established in this in-depth case study from Plytix, a PIM SaaS startup - on how they used Hubspot to replace a multitude of customer support tools . It allows you to manage sales pipelines, send marketing emails and SMS messages directly within the app and even make phone calls. You can record these calls, generate text transcripts, and export call records in various file formats.

Hubspot CRM features a sales pipeline that provides real-time deal tracking and analysis. This pipeline helps SaaS companies close more deals and manage the sales cycle more effectively. It can automate sales, generate quotes and invoices with e-signature support, and provide detailed productivity and business performance reports. Hubspot empowers users to make accurate predictions based on sales trends shown in these reports.

The service hub is a customer support software that helps you develop deeper customer relationships. This software also benefits from automation to perform seamless onboarding of new clients. The service hub also contains a knowledge base for written and video blogs that provides relevant information about your company to customers.

Hubspot's strength lies in the ability to use its many features on an opt-in basis, meaning that you pay for what you use. However, the price can get really expensive for a SaaS startup looking to use all the features Hubspot offers.

In conclusion, HubSpot is a powerful, feature-rich CRM tool that is more than well-suited to the needs of SaaS startups with bigger budgets. Its user-friendly interface and range of integrations make it a highly scaleable CRM.

3. Gist

Founded: 2022
HQ: Newark, Delaware, United States

Key info Price: From Free
Free Trial: 7 days
Support: Phone, email, & chat
Best for SaaS startups on a budget that want extensive features such as marketing automation and real-time communication
Pros + Get 2 users completely free
+ 5 users are just $48 per month
+ Quick to release new features
Cons - Basic knowldge base
- Lack of integrations
Integrations Zapier, Stripe, Google apps, BetterProposals

Gist is a new entrant to the CRM market, launched in 2022. It provides CRM for SaaS businesses of all kinds. It has quickly built a reputation for itself as a great value-for-money  SaaS CRM with advanced marketing and automation features.

GIST offers a completely free plan! Yes, completely free for 2 users, and is modeled on the functionality of Intercom, choosing to focus on live chat, customer service and support but also manages to successfully bundle in some excellent marketing features to boot.

Key features include live chat and bots, a team inbox, web forms, marketing automation, event tracking and much more. There is also a meetings scheduler that functions much like Calendly, allowing potential users and existing ones to schedule a meeting with technical support or your sales team, adding times and dates to your team’s calendars as programmed.

Marketing automation features are impressive too, with journey mapping t automating many of the common things like triggering emails based on behavior, adding users to Facebook audiences, and much more. We are very impressed with the full functionality it offers at an affordable price making it one of our favorite SaaS apps. The only downside that we see here is the lack of integrations but we’re sure this will come in time.

4. Intercom

Founded: 2011
Headquarters: California, USA

Key info Price: From $65 per month
Free Trial: 14 days
Support: Email & chat
Best for SaaS startups that want a CRM that integrates with their product
Pros + Intelligent live chat
+ Easy to use, clean interface
+ Comes with an excellent, ready-made knowledge base for your startup
Cons - Lacks marketing features
- Lack Deals board
Integrations Salesforce, WhatsApp, Stripe, Hubspot & 100+ more

Intercom has quickly built a reputation as a leader in live chat and support functionality for SaaS startups. We have all seen the familiar smiley chat widget, located in the bottom right corner of many SaaS homepages. That’s Intercom. If you are looking for a smart-looking CRM that is packed full of live chat and support features, then we say look no further than Intercom. It was built with live chat in mind, whether you want to capture the attention of new leads visiting your website for the first time or help onboard existing users when they are already logged into your platform, Intercom is ideal for both.

It captures a vast amount of customer information as they navigate through your website, tracking the pages they visit, the number of times they have logged in or visited, whether they have an account or not and the source they originated from Intercom can be programmed to reach out with exactly the right message at exactly the right time.

It also provides an excellent email support center from which you and your team can reply to incoming queries and handle correspondence (be it sales or technical support). Build canned responses, create support articles and host them with Intercom and then direct your customers to exactly the right place when they get in touch. As a solution for your support function, Intercom is hard to beat.

5. Freshworks

Founded: 2010
HQ: San Mateo, California, United States

Key info Price: From Free
Free Trial: 21 days
Support: Phone, email, & chat
Best for Growing SaaS companies that want to expand the functionality of their CRM
Pros + Tools for sales, marketing and customer support
+ Cost effective
+ Feature rich
Cons - Not as many integrations as competitors
- Support and billing is confusing
Integrations Mailchimp, Hubspot, Zapier, Quickbooks, Google Apps and many more

Freshworks is a highly-rated  CRM for SaaS companies. The first thing to note about Freshworks is that you have to bundle together different products under the Freshworks brand to create your dream CRM. There's Freshdesk and Freshchat for customer support, Freshsales for sales teams, and Freshmarketer for your marketing team. Combing every product they offer will make for a CRM that's hard to beat.

This software does a remarkable job of providing a platform that handles all sales team operations. Freshworks offers lead management and visual pipeline tools. However, the team management, sales automation, and lead scoring functionalities make this platform unique.

From task management to sending follow-up calls to customers, the sales automation functionality helps to manage the activities of the sales teams in SaaS companies. This tool helps small businesses to generate more leads in their sales pipeline, which ultimately translates into an increase in revenue generation.

Around the world, over 50,000 companies use Freshworks as a Customer management tool. Companies like Fiverr, Pearson, Travix, Klarna, and many others trust this software platform to solve their problems and deliver excellent customer service. With such remarkable features, it is perfectly understandable that Freshworks is generally approved by users worldwide.

It is among the top-rated SaaS CRM platforms with a 4.5/5 rating on G2 with excellent feedback from many pleased clients.

Several customers have good reviews to give about Freshworks. For one thing, the platform is very easy to install. Furthermore, the software undergoes regular updates and improvements. Customers also commend Freshworks for tracking how customers engage with their brand.

6. Engagebay

Founded: 2018
HQ: Wilmington, Delaware, United States

Key info Price: From free (up to 500 contacts)
Free Trial: Unlimited with the free plan
Support: Phone, email, & chat
Best for Saas startups looking for an easy-to-use, all-in-one solution with customer feedback and live chat features
Pros + Fully featured free plan
+ Convenient funnel builder
+ Fast and easy-to-use
Cons - Lack of email templates
- No built-in SMS features
Integrations Zapier, Sendgrid, Mailgun & 450+ more

EngageBay is a general-purpose platform for marketing, CRM, sales, and customer service activities. In just three years, EngageBay has grown to support more than 29,000 startups globally. Offering a free plan and affordable subscription models, EngageBay is perfect for growing SaaS companies.

EngageBay offers three principal features that are useful for any Sales Rep. The automated sales CRM tool provides email tracking that alerts users when clients open their emails, download documents, or visit any of the company's web pages. This tool also syncs Google or Office 365 calendars for appointment scheduling. Finally, the EngageBay Telephony CRM allows users to make calls and record call logs for analytics.

Another useful feature is the Customer Service software that enables SaaS companies to meet every one of their customers' needs. Using a support ticketing system, this tool organizes all complaints and feedback in a single location for easy access and resolution. It also automates personalized responses and collects metrics that help boost productivity.

Finally, EngageBay offers Live Chat software for real-time one-on-one customer interactions. This software contains all you’d expect of a modern chat service; emojis, file attachments, chat requests, and chat categories. EngageBay allows you to install the live chat service on any website, customize its appearance, and record transcripts of previous conversations.

EngageBay is patronized by more than 46,000 customers, including Forbes, Neil Patel, and WebNovo. It has high ratings on G2 and Trustpilot and performs well against competing products. Many customers have described it as a serious contender for Hubspot in light of the many advanced features it offers. With its rich feature set and affordable pricing, it is one of the best CRM for startups.

7. Salesforce Cloud

Founded: 1999
HQ: San Francisco, California

Key info Price: From $25 per user/mo
Free Trial: 14 days
Support: 24/7 (phone + email)
Best for SaaS startups that need best-in-class reporting and a full feature set in the form of customizable dashboards and reports
Pros + Industry standard sales pipelines
+ Incredible reporting
+ 2500+ integrations
Cons - Has a dated look and feel
- Very expensive if you add on Marketing Cloud
Integrations Xero, Quickbooks, FinancialForce, Vertex, Freshbooks & 2500+ more

If this list was solely based on the number of CRM tools available in a single platform, Salesforce would take the lead. This software connects all your marketing, e-commerce, and client management tools under the Customer 360 software bundle. These tools include popular apps like Slack, Tableau, and Mulesoft.

Salesforce Cloud is an intuitive CRM. Its GUI is so flexible that it allows you to create custom dashboards and populate them with customizable reports. These reports display all pending sales, leads, and business opportunities in an understandable format. Using various pie charts and histograms, users can make forecasts on this data to make informed business decisions.

True to its name, Salesforce Cloud provides a sales app to track your progress with potential customers. It has robust contact management features. The sales app also saves time by allowing bulk imports, exports, and edits of contact information.

SaaS companies can provide adequate customer support services using the Service Console Salesforce Cloud provides. This tool assigns a serial number to customer cases for quick identification and queries. As such, users can promptly respond to client feedback and provide useful solutions to any issues.

Salesforce has highly contrasting customer support reviews. Some users describe the customer support team as world-class and praise them for their helpfulness. Conversely, other customers complain about the overwhelming amount of correspondence from Salesforce. They state that these emails are so many to the point of becoming spam.

All things considered, Salesforce has been providing SaaS CRM tools for over 20 years, making it a tried and tested platform. The ability to organize all information in a central location and integrate external apps and email services make Salesforce a reliable option for your Saas startup.

Beware though, the pricing here is for the Sales Cloud product - designed with sales teams in mind - if you want to add on Marketing Cloud, the price gets significantly higher and you will be charged on a per-contact basis starting at $1,250 per month for up to 10,000 contacts.

8. Pipedrive

Founded: 2010
HQ: New York, United States

Key info Price: From $9.90 per user/mo
Free Trial: 7 days
Support: phone, email, & chat
Best for SaaS startups that want an affordable solution for their sales teams
Pros + Low cost
+ Great reporting for tracking sales agent performance
+ Integrates with outbound sales call apps
Cons - No marketing tools
- No webforms
Integrations Zapier, Google Meet, WhatsApp and 300+ more

What separates Pipedrive from other software on this list is its focus on driving SaaS sales and increasing your customer count. This means that SaaS businesses can close more deals in little time. Unlike many other CRM software that aim to be all-encompassing tools, Pipedrive dedicates all its resources to deal management.

The sales pipeline is Pipedrive's principal feature. Sales leaders value the ability to visualize in-progress deals quickly. This pipeline automatically tracks the progress of these deals using their worth, estimated completion date, and win probability. Pipedrive also allows you to manage the sales process by creating unique pipelines with custom stages and colored cues that indicate the urgency of each deal.

Pipedrive has several other sales tools to support pipeline management. One such tool is the Live Chat feature that facilitates communication with leads, clients, and prospects. The programmable chatbot it provides can automatically respond to messages and answer questions intelligently.

Pipedrive's automation functionalities include workflow automation. The ability to create complex triggers and conditions that execute actions effortlessly is a favorite among customers. Users also appreciate the actionable insights and reporting that allow them to create and track custom variables in deals.

Despite its wonderful features, some customers have criticized the user interface, citing bugs and incomplete features. Nonetheless, Pipedrive has continued to receive praise and is often compared favorably against other SaaS CRM software.

9. Salesflare

Founded: Antwerp, Belgium
HQ: 2014

Key info Price: From $29 per user/mo
Free Trial: 7 days
Support: phone, email, & chat
Best for SaaS startups with a focus on sales teams that need to manage inbound and outbound sales
Pros + Easy to use on a mobile
+ Clever AI features
+ Amazing automation functionality
Cons - Setting up Automations is not intuitive
- No webforms
Integrations Better Proposals, Intercom, Mailchimp and more

Salesflare’s primary selling point is that customers spend less time telling the software what to do and more time making sales. It has one of the best Contact Management features among SaaS CRM. It uses artificial intelligence to extract customer data from social media, emails, and third-party databases and presents them in a clear and concise format. As such, SaaS startups can save the time, money, and effort otherwise spent manually finding this data.

Salesflare's automation features are unparalleled by other SaaS CRM software. With real-time information tracking, Salesflare knows everything about your customers even before they visit your website. It non-invasively tracks conversations clients have about your business on the internet and notifies you about them. Consequently, you can address complaints about your products and better serve your customers.

Salesflare is renowned among SaaS startups for its time-saving features. Many users claim that each member of their sales teams now saves up to four hours weekly when using Salesflare to perform tasks. With this advantage, they can get ahead of competitors and utilize the extra time to acquire new clients. Moreover, Salesflare automatically builds a network graph of relationships between team members and clients.

Salesflare hardly has any faults, as shown by its high rating of 4.8 stars out of 5 on G2. The customer support team is on hand to address any issues before they grow into major complaints. They are also concerned about customer experience and will implement new features as soon as requested.

10. Close

Founded: 2013
HQ: San Francisco, California, United States

Key info Price: From $25 per user
Free Trial: 14 days
Support: Phone, email, & chat
Best for Startups prioritizing outreach as a marketing/sales channel
Pros + Easily create follow-up sequences
+ Make calls directly from your computer
+ Assign tasks to team members
Cons - Difficult to track call charges
- Data filtering can be buggy
Integrations Zapier, Hubspot, Zoom, Asana and many more

Close is an all-in-one SaaS CRM solution for growing small and medium-sized businesses. It features powerful client communication tools designed to follow up on leads and turn them into business opportunities.

Close contains an in-built caller app that helps double the volume of your outbound calls. Using the power dialer, you can easily make more than 300 calls every day. Additionally, the predictive dialer automatically routes calls to an available sales representative. The caller app handles international and local calls so that you can contact customers in every country. Furthermore, Close provides a Zoom integration so you can have video calls with clients.

The text messaging aspect of Close has the same quality as the caller app. You can import, send, and receive emails within Close through integrations with Gmail, Outlook, and other email providers. This feature also includes timeline tracking that records the history of email conversations with clients. Using the SMS tool, you can send bulk messages to multiple clients and respond to synced messages.

Sales leaders in SaaS businesses love Close for the reporting, call coaching, and sales pipeline it provides. Despite complaints about the calling functionality, Close has maintained a good rating on G2. Many customers have reported switching over from other SaaS CRM tools because of its ease of setup and customer support. These customers also cite the follow-up features as a deciding factor for the switch.

11. Copilot

Founded: 2020
HQ: New York, United States

Key info Price: From $29 per user
Free Trial: 14 days
Support: Phone, email, & chat
Best for Startups that need a CRM with powerful document management features
Pros + Excellent customer service
+ Handles documents, signatures and quotations with ease
+ Fast and easy to use
Cons - Lacks marketing features
- Lack of payment integrations
Integrations Loom, Data Studio, Calendly and many more

As its name implies, Copilot is a gateway for customers to become integral components of a modern services business. It’s a collection of modules, each designed to handle critical aspects of a SaaS enterprise. From messaging and billings to web forms and e-signatures, Copilot is an all-in-one solution for all your CRM needs.

Copilot's messaging module is designed to replace conventional email and other communication media. It's a secure communication channel that streamlines all client correspondence in a single location. The messaging module generates warm welcome messages that can leave a lasting impression on new clients. It also sends periodic email notifications to existing clients to keep them updated about new products and activities from your SaaS company.

Similarly, Copilot's file-sharing system is a viable alternative to cloud storage services like Dropbox and Google Drive. This tool allows you to securely share confidential documents like contracts, quotes, and billings in a branded portal. What's more, it provides a simple UI for your clients to view and upload their files as well as append e-signatures to relevant documents.

Copilot offers many more functionalities than any SaaS company would cherish. It performs excellently well as a quotation software with the invoicing tool it provides. In addition, Copilot provides an avenue for clients to know more about your business through the blog posts and articles you publish on the Knowledge Base module.

Copilot is an exceptional software with very high ratings on G2 and Capterra. It's praised for its flexibility, ease of use, and numerous features. The only complaint few customers have is the limited customization options. Nevertheless, this issue does not detract from Copilot's appeal. This software is feature-complete, and if there are any missing functionalities, Copilot provides extensions and easy-to-use APIs that fill in the blanks.

12. Klaviyo

Founded: 2012
HQ: Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Key info Price: From free
Free Trial: Unlimited with the free plan
Support: Phone & email
Best for SaaS startups that also work in the e-commerce space and want an automated marketing pipeline
Pros + Excellent reporting
+ Easy to use email builder
+ Create dynamic emails by connecting data feeds
Cons - Designed with eCommerce in mind
- No features for sales teams
Integrations Shopify, Facebook, Recharge and many more

Though Klaviyo was built with eCommerce in mind, there's no reason why you shouldn't use its powerful email marketing features for your SaaS startup. Klaviyo's most noteworthy feature is the automated marketing pipeline for personalized email and SMS campaigns. Using the email marketing tool, SaaS companies can generate hyper-targeted content that engages the audience and improves customer retention. This tool features a drag-and-drop editor that allows users to create responsive emails that adapt to desktop and mobile devices.

The SMS tool automatically captures phone numbers from contact lists, sign-up forms, and third-party forms, allowing you to reach even the most elusive client. The smart automation system can send personalized messages while respecting the customer's behaviors and preferences. It also collects reports on client interaction so you can accurately assess your business performance.

Klaviyo offers integrations with over 200 advertising, e-commerce, and helpdesk software. However, several customers have stated that the subscription costs could be cheaper since the integrations mean they have to subscribe to another software service. Customers have also expressed a desire for better tutorials on using the various tools within the software.

Klaviyo is popular for the easy-to-customize email and signup forms templates it provides. Many customers also report that automated marketing tools have increased their profits significantly. One satisfied customer states that:

“The results speak for themselves. We have 40% of our monthly online revenue coming from Klaviyo automated emails.”

13. Sharpspring

Founded: 2012
Headquarters: Florida, USA

Key info Price: From $449 per month
Free Trial: None
Support: Phone & email
Best for Saas startups that need in-depth sales/lead information
Pros + Track the entire lead journey
+ Plenty of marketing features
+ An enterprise solution that's cheaper than Salesforce / Hubspot
Cons - Lack of native integrations
-The Large number of metrics can be confusing
Integrations Google apps, Wild Apricot, Salesforce, Zapier

Sharpspring, a cloud-based market automation software,  offers a huge range of specialist functionality like cell phone tracking, quality social media integrations and excellent reporting features. Also, the search engine optimization and content management tools are some of the best in SaaS CRM software.

Sharpspring recognizes social media as one of the most important tools required to foster the growth of small businesses. As such, it provides social media integration that enables SaaS companies to take advantage of social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. These integrations allow users to reach out to their audience, solidify brand identity, and generate leads.

Sharpspring has an inbuilt Content Management System (CMS) that enables small enterprises to create, edit, manage, publish and store content on their websites. The CMS tool allows SaaS enterprises to customize their websites to meet precise business needs.

Sharpspring customers can access an outstanding support team of friendly, thorough, and professional technical experts. They provide clear and precise solutions to questions raised with timely responses. The support team also offers self-help resources like a library of help articles and a community forum.

More than 2000 marketing agencies and 10,000 businesses globally depend on Sharpspring to accelerate sales and increase profits on their market investments. Sharpspring serves small, medium, and large enterprises across many industries, such as insurance, advertising, and accounting.

14. Less Annoying CRM

Founded: 2009
HQ: St. Louis, Missouri, United States

Key info Price: From $15 per user/month
Free Trial: 30 days
Support: Phone & email
Best for Startups that want a no-frills, user-friendly CRM efficient for team collaboration
Pros + Excellent customer support
+ Easy to use
+ Excellent training videos
Cons - Limited reporting
- Lack of integrations
Integrations Google apps, Mailchimp, LeadsBridge and more

Less Annoying CRM is the best option for Saas startups looking for an easy-to-use, no-frills CRM solution. In line with its core mandate, Less Annoying CRM targets growing businesses that don't require a large feature set. It offers only one subscription tier that unlocks all its features, with zero hidden charges or complicated contracts.

Less Annoying CRM's central feature is the Workspace. This tool organizes all tasks, events, contracts, and activities within a single location, allowing you to identify pending tasks and complete them quickly. Additionally, it displays client leads, reviews, and onboardings as charts. These charts provide metrics on won or lost business opportunities.

Team collaboration with Less Annoying CRM is a breeze. This software allows you to create multiple users with separate logins, passwords, roles, and permissions. It also displays all events in one calendar so that team members know each other's activities. Furthermore, Less Annoying CRM's UI is responsive, adapting to various screens and displays. Consequently, you can use this software on any device without the need to sync up data.

Less Annoying CRM has a minimalist design. It may not be for you if you're looking for fully-featured software. Many customers have described it as more of an advanced contract manager than a true CRM, lacking certain features like task automation or email campaigns. Nevertheless, considering the pricing model, this software is a good bargain for those who want a simple application.

Less Annoying CRM has positive reviews across all categories on G2. It has a 4.9/5 star rating and scores highly on ease of use, quality of support, and ease of setup. It is praised for its flexibility and pipeline system. Less Annoying CRM may not be the best choice for larger businesses, but it’s great for startups with small teams.

15. Pipeline CRM

Founded: 2006
HQ: Seattle, Washington, United States

Key info Price: From $15 per user/month
Free Trial: 30 days
Support: Phone & email
Best for Smaller startups looking for a cost-effective CRM solution for file storage and seamless integration with other tools
Pros + Excellent customer support
+ Easy to use
+ Excellent training videos
Cons - Lack of integrations
- Limited use on mobile
Integrations Google apps, Mailchimp, LeadsBridge and many more

Pipeline CRM is an affordable solution for upcoming SaaS enterprises looking to develop deeper customer relationships. With the Sales Forecasting feature, users can identify the hottest leads and dedicate their resources to turning these leads into life-long clients. This tool also records a history of past deals in a trend graph, allowing users to predict the outcomes of future deals.

SaaS startups looking to save money will benefit from Pipeline CRM’s file storage service. This feature allows you to store, retrieve, and send an unlimited number of files, images, and correspondence records with no additional costs or hidden charges. This feature is especially generous, given that Prospect CRM has made it available on the most basic plan.

Pipeline CRM offers seamless integration with Excel, ActiveDemand, QuickBooks, and other CRM tools. This integration extends to email services, allowing you to view your inbox within the app without switching between software. You can also conduct email campaigns and track responses as activities.

Despite some criticism concerning mass email organization, customers love Pipeline CRM's ease of use, which renders report creation, modification, and execution trivial tasks. The user interface has been praised for its intuitiveness and user-friendly experience. According to most customers, the best thing about using Pipeline CRM was its ease of use and setup.

16. Ortto

Founded: 2015
HQ: Sydney, Australia

Key info Price: Campaign: $29/month, Professional: $99/month, Business: $299/month, Enterprise: On quotation
Free plan: Yes
Support: Email
Best for Businesses that want lead capture and an automated personalized customer journey and segmentation
Pros + Offers startups a 30% discount for 12 months off the Professional and Business plan
+ Has a visual builder
+ Has plug-and-play templates
Cons - There is no central hub for reviewing and editing existing email templates
- Steep learning curve
Integrations Zapier, Salesforce, Hubspot, PandaDoc, and many more

Ortto was initially known as AutoPilot and it was primarily a customer journeys platform used to automate marketing and welcome new customers. However, it was then reimagined as Ortto, an all-in-one analytics, customer journeys, and customer data CRM. Offering a pay-as-you-grow pricing model, there’s little wonder Ortto is used by the likes of StreamYard, Bitly, and several other startups.

Ortto’s essential feature is the intuitive customer journey visual builder. This tool lets you hand-craft customers’ experiences with omnichannel communication and easily understandable reports. It provides conditions, triggers, and filters that help you personalize email marketing based on customer behavior and demographic.

Ortto was initially known as AutoPilot and it was primarily a customer journeys platform used to automate marketing and welcome new customers. However, it was then reimagined as Ortto, an all-in-one analytics, customer journeys, and customer data CRM. Offering a pay-as-you-grow pricing model, there’s little wonder Ortto is used by the likes of StreamYard, Bitly, and several other startups.

Ortto’s essential feature is the intuitive customer journey visual builder. This tool lets you hand-craft customers’ experiences with omnichannel communication and easily understandable reports. It provides conditions, triggers, and filters that help you personalize email marketing based on customer behavior and demographic.

Ortto scores 4.5/5 on G2 and 4.6/5 on Capterra

17. Campaign Monitor

Founded: 2004
HQ: Nashville, Tennessee, United States

Key info Price: • Basic: $9/month, Unlimited: $29/month, Premier: $149/month
Free plan: Yes
Support: Email
Best for Businesses that want maximization of ROI through audience engagement and automated email journeys
Pros + Very easy to set up campaigns
+ Can upload custom-coded emails
+ Mobile-friendly layouts
+ Easy to upload, preview and edit custom emails
Cons - Pricing tiers jump significantly for modest increases in subscribers
- Takes time to learn how to use all the features
- Limited integrations with other software
Integrations Salesforce, WordPress, Shopify, Intercom

Campaign Monitor’s functionalities revolve around the drag-and-drop email builder. This simple and intuitive tool allows you to create engaging and eye-catching email campaigns within minutes. It offers an extensive email library that provides hundreds of templates for announcements, feedback, and transactions, amongst others. Additionally, Campaign Monitor allows you to input your website URL and automatically import your company’s colors and logos to create custom templates.

If you're looking to maximize your ROI through audience engagement, you can combine Campaign Monitor's SMS and email marketing. Not only can you quickly create, edit, and launch campaigns, but you'd also forge deeper relationships with your customers. After all, studies show that 95% of text messages are opened and responded to within three minutes of receipt.

Campaign Monitor’s functionalities revolve around the drag-and-drop email builder. This simple and intuitive tool allows you to create engaging and eye-catching email campaigns within minutes. It offers an extensive email library that provides hundreds of templates for announcements, feedback, and transactions, amongst others. Additionally, Campaign Monitor allows you to input your website URL and automatically import your company’s colors and logos to create custom templates.

If you're looking to maximize your ROI through audience engagement, you can combine Campaign Monitor's SMS and email marketing. Not only can you quickly create, edit, and launch campaigns, but you'd also forge deeper relationships with your customers. After all, studies show that 95% of text messages are opened and responded to within three minutes of receipt.

Campaign Monitor scores 4.1/5 on G2 and 4.6/5 on Capterra

Finding the right CRM software for your SaaS Startup

The sheer amount of options presented in this article can leave you bewildered about which CRM software is right for your SaaS startup. Still, we have performed the daunting task of highlighting their strengths and weaknesses, so you can conveniently choose the best CRM that best serves your business.

It would be best not to base your decision solely on this list. Rather, you can corroborate our reviews with those from trusted sources and gain first-hand experience using these software by participating in free trials. Remember to always do a software comparison checklist before making the leap.

*All pricing shown on this page was accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of writing (05/09/2022) and may now have changed. Always check companies own pricing page for up-to-date pricing.

Our Pick - Active Campaign

Active Campaign’s advanced automation system, full feature set, ease of use, great value for money and automated marketing pipeline make it Toksta's top CRM for SaaS startups for 2023.

Try Active Campaign Free

Meet the author

Sam Cassman is a seasoned growth marketer with over 10 years of experience as growth marketer for startups and small businesses. He is the founder of Toksta, a research technology company that helps businesses find and purchase the best software and SaaS. Sam has also run his own growth marketing consultancy Honest Growth, where he helped numerous clients to grow their businesses, including Eventcube, Baluu, Obby, and NBM Group.

Learn More About Sam