The 24 best sales tools

The modern sales landscape is a double-edged sword. Thanks to digital channels like social media and email, you have more ways to connect with customers than ever. On the flip side, you have more leads and outreach methods to wrangle every day. Sales tools help you manage who you contact, how you get in touch with them, and how you organize it all to keep you on top of the overwhelm.

Sales tools come in many flavors, and depending on your role, you might need one type of tool and not another. To get the most well-rounded list of apps, I talked to sales managers and salespeople about their favorite tools to use and dug into Zapier's top picks. I then vetted the tools myself to be sure they weren't one-off picks and instead filled an important need for sales teams.

Of course, the best sales tool for one team might not fit like a glove for another, so along the way, I've also suggested alternatives. With that, here are the sales tools that stood out.

• Best sales tools for customer relationship management (CRM)

• Best sales tools for prospecting

• Best sales tools for productivity

• Best sales tools for communication

What are sales tools?

Sales tools are apps that help you perform sales-related tasks quickly, easily, and productively. Some people think of sales tools as software meant for sales only, while others include tools that you can use in the sales process, regardless of their purpose. I'm going with the latter definition, so this list will include some tools that aren't specifically designed for sales but that fit snugly in the process.

In my research and conversations, I found that the best sales software can be broken down into four categories:

• CRM. Customer relationship management software is generally what folks think of first when they think of sales tools. A CRM is a sales tool that helps you to organize contact info and manage relationships with leads, customers, and other contacts.

• Prospecting. Prospecting tools help you identify potential leads, so you can build up the list of folks who make their way into your CRM.

• Productivity. This is where things get a little fuzzy. These tools aren't tailor-made for sales, but the ones I've picked here were recommended by sales folks and fit really nicely into sales processes.

• Communication. You can communicate through your CRM, but there are also bespoke communication tools you can use to chat with leads and customers.

With all that in mind, here are the best sales tools to help you streamline your sales workflows.

The best sales software at a glance

Best sales tools for customer relationship management (CRM) 

Customer relationship management (CRM) software organizes customer contact information and sales records into one place. These CRMs are the top picks among the sales team members I spoke to and the Zapier crew.

HubSpot CRM

HubSpot's Sales Hub sales CRM can work on its own or as part of HubSpot's suite of sales and marketing tools. Vladislav Podolyako of Folderly counts on HubSpot CRM's robust free tier that can scale as the business grows. HubSpot's ability to automatically sort email leads into different groups is one of the Folderly team's favorite features.

You can also combine HubSpot with Zapier to connect it to your other favorite tools. Learn more about how to automate HubSpot, or get started with one of these examples.

HubSpot CRM pricing: The CRM suite starts at a free plan with unlimited users and contacts and scales up starting at $15/month.

EngageBay

EngageBay comes up in Zapier's testing as a solid free pick for supporting sales, marketing, and customer support all at once. If you like to keep your revenue operations in the same place and have a tight budget, this CRM could be the right fit for you.

You can do even more with EngageBay when you connect it to Zapier and start automating your sales processes. Learn more about how to automate EngageBay with Zapier, or take a look at these pre-made workflows.

EngageBay pricing: Free for up to 250 contacts; starting at $12.74/user/month for 500+ contacts and advanced features

Salesforce

Salesforce is one of the biggest names in CRMs, so it's no wonder that two of the salespeople I talked to mentioned it. Rephrasely's Matthew Ramirez enjoys it for its automations and ability to integrate with other tools. Meanwhile, Jeff Mains from Champion Leadership Group appreciates its ability to capture data sources throughout the customer journey for a unified experience across sales, marketing, and customer support teams.

For any app Salesforce doesn't directly connect to, you can get it working with Zapier with an automation like one of these. Or learn more about how to automate Salesforce.

Salesforce Sales Cloud pricing: Starting at $25/user/month for basic marketing, sales, and customer service features

Vtiger

If you're at the point in your business where you're ready to pay for a CRM but need to make every cent count, Vtiger could be a good fit. In Zapier's testing, it shines for offering a wide range of features at a reasonable and scalable price, making it ideal for small businesses.

Connect Vtiger to Zapier, so you can automate your lead management and focus on closing deals. Learn more about automating Vtiger, or use one of these pre-made workflows to get started.

Vtiger pricing: Starting at $12/user/month, with higher tiers scalable based on user permissions

monday CRM

While monday.com has its roots in project management, it also offers monday CRM for customers to manage sales on the same platform. At Ontario Property Buyers, Sebastian Jania relies on the CRM's long list of automations to ease the follow-up process. For anything else, Sebastian uses monday.com and its CRM with Zapier. Learn more about automating monday, or get started with one of these templates.

Monday Sales CRM pricing: Starting at $12/user/month for unlimited contacts and boards

Zoho CRM Plus

Zoho tries to do a little bit of everything for your team, including providing a CRM that integrates with other Zoho apps. Zoho CRM Plus has stood out in Zapier's testing because of its all-in-one approach, in-depth customization, and comprehensive reporting. When you pay for Zoho CRM Plus, you get marketing and customer support features in addition to sales capabilities.

You can do even more with Zoho CRM Plus by integrating it with Zapier, so you can streamline your lead management. Learn more about how to automate Zoho CRM, or take a look at these examples.

Zoho CRM Plus pricing: From $57/user/month for unlimited emails for up to 100,000 contacts (10 x your number of contacts for 100,000+ contacts)

Metrilo

Metrilo's eCommerce-focused platform brings together a CRM, analytics, and email marketing with a focus on customer retention. At Videeo, Andrew Chen depends on Metrilo's retention analysis feature, which breaks down the customer lifecycle to help you identify the ideal times to sell.

Metrilo pricing: From $199/month with unlimited team members for every plan

Zapier Interfaces and Tables

If you don't need many bells and whistles in your CRM, you could also create your own with Zapier Interfaces and Zapier Tables. Create a lead gen form in Zapier Interfaces and connect the results to a Zapier Table that serves as your CRM. This approach is ideal when you want a low-fuss solution.

Get started with this simple CRM template, which includes a form to collect leads, a datasheet to store lead information, and a visual tracker to manage the status of each lead and initiate actions (via automations) when needed. It combines the apps you need and the automation to streamline them into one powerful tool.

Simple CRM Template

A Simple CRM, without all the bells and whistles.

Try it

Zapier Interfaces and Zapier Tables pricing: Free for up to 2 interfaces and 5 tables; from $20/month for more interfaces and tables.

Best sales tools for prospecting

Part of the challenge of sales is finding the right people to sell to. These apps give you the resources you need to identify potential leads.

lemlist

lemlist aims to take you from zero leads to booked meetings with a suite of prospecting solutions. AutoRPF.ai's Jasper Cooper considers it the best prospecting tool because it combines AI icebreaker writing, email enrichment, message sequencing, and reporting. Jasper uses it to generate leads through LinkedIn and email.

You can automate lemlist with its Zapier integrations, so you can do things like adding new activity to your CRM. Learn more about how to automate lemlist, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

lemlist pricing: Free for lead exporting, lead verification, and AI message writing; Starting at $32/user/month for email campaign features

Apollo

Apollo builds contact lists and offers the tools to engage with those contacts. Juliet Dreamhunter from Juliety especially likes it for finding contact information and drafting emails with AI. The AI writing tool personalizes cold emails, then develops follow-up emails based on the previous conversation.

Apollo also connects with Zapier, letting you automate processes like adding new contacts to your CRM or even automatically sending them an email. Learn more about automating Apollo, or get started with one of these pre-made templates.

Apollo pricing: Free for unlimited email credits, 60 mobile credits/year, and 120 export credits/year; starting at $49/user/month for more credits and features like job change updates

Clay

Zapier's product testers consider Clay one of the most powerful data enrichment tools around. Since it mainly pulls information from LinkedIn, it works best if you're looking for people who tend to use the platform. But if you're a fit, you can take advantage of its AI-based data scraping methods to find the folks you need to get in touch with.

Then, you can connect your Clay data to other apps with some Zapier automations. Get started with one of these workflows.

Clay pricing: Free for up to 100 searches a month; starting at $134/month for 5,000+ searches a month

Hunter

Freelancers, solopreneurs, and other folks with small-scale sales don't always need an in-depth prospecting tool. Here's where Hunter excels. While the Zapier crew didn't find Hunter's paid plans worth the cost, its free plan offers plenty for occasional email prospecting.

Plus, it can become part of an affordable cold email workflow when you integrate it with Zapier. Use these automations to prospect your way.

And when you are ready to upgrade, you can browse Zapier's list of the best cold email software to find a paid solution for your goals.

Hunter pricing: Free for 25 found emails and 50 email verifications per month; starting at $34/month for thousands of searches and verifications per month

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn Sales Navigator expands LinkedIn's prospecting capabilities to improve Advanced Search, integrate with your CRM, and tap into your LinkedIn network. Dmytro Sokhach of Editorial Link recommends it for business-to-business (B2B) companies because of its ability to narrow your audience and analyze their interactions with your content. The Editorial Link team started with the free version of the tool and quickly upgraded because of how impressed they were.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator pricing: Starting at $99/user/month for advanced search, alerts, and custom lists

Best sales tools for productivity

Throughout the sales cycle, sales teams benefit from organizing their to-dos, communication, and sales assets. Most of these apps aren't specifically designed for sales, but they all make the process easier.

Google Workspace

Your sales documents and communication need a home, and Google Workspace offers a reliable and affordable one. At Instrumentl, Will Yang uses apps like Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Meet to collaborate with team members and communicate with clients. The family of apps' integration potential and versatility simplify his life across the sales process.

Plus, Zapier works with all of the most popular apps in Google Workspace, so you can have them working in harmony with your other tools. Here are some easy automations for Google apps.

Google Workspace pricing: Free; Paid plans starting at $6/user/month for features like custom email, more storage, and longer meetings

Notion

When you manage sales, you handle all sorts of documents, customer research, and materials. Notion holds all of that information in one place with a highly customizable design. Next Level Catapult's Bradley Hajart uses Notion as a sales knowledge base to keep the team on top of their jobs.

If you like the idea of Notion but aren't sold on the app, Zapier's list of Notion alternatives provides more options. Notion tends to be the gold standard for what it does, but you might want something different depending on your workflow.

Notion integrates with Zapier, too, so you can automate workflows like getting Notion items onto your calendar or vice versa. Learn more about how to automate Notion, or start one of these templates.

Notion pricing: Free for up to 10 guests; paid plans starting at $10/user/month for more uploads and guests

Docusign

Once you finally convert that lead, you might need to sign a contract using a digital signature tool. Anna Koval from Tarotoo prefers Docusign for its ease of use and security. If you're a realtor, you'll appreciate its real-estate-specific plans with documents and branding tailored for the industry.

You can also check out Zapier's list of the best eSignature apps for more options, or read this showdown of Docusign vs. Dropbox Sign.

Docusign also integrates with Zapier, so you can automate your sales workflows, like automatically uploading signed envelopes to cloud storage. Check out some ideas for automating Docusign with Zapier, or try one of these pre-made workflows.

Docusign pricing: From $10/month for regular plans and real estate plans

Beautiful.ai

Visuals matter when it's time for pitch decks or event presentations. Account executive and sales blogger Sean Mackay saves time on these decks with Beautiful.ai, an AI-powered presentation maker. Thanks to this app, Sean's presentations often get "rave reviews" for their graphics and layout.

Looking for more presentation tools? Zapier's roundup of PowerPoint alternatives includes even more options to choose from.

Beautiful.ai pricing: Starting at $12/month for an individual plan; higher tiers offer collaboration features

Demio

When a regular sales call won't do, Demio can add the extra power you need. It powers webinars and product demos so you can demonstrate your product or service instead of just explaining it. Run your event live or pre-recorded, then follow up afterward.

You can streamline your webinars and product demos with the rest of your workflows by connecting Demio to Zapier. Give these automations a shot, and take a look at Zapier's other recommendations for lead management tools.

Demio pricing: Starting at $42/month for up to 50 attendees per event

ChatGPT

ChatGPT can help you generate great sales emails, but there are also ways to use it a bit more creatively. Bradley actually combined ChatGPT, Zapier, and a chatbot to create a DIY a sales objection chatbot. Bradley's team talks to a "virtual client" powered by a custom GPT model—the AI generates questions, and Zapier connects the GPT model to the chatbot and archives conversation transcripts.

ChatGPT integrates with Zapier, which means you can have ChatGPT generate content from whatever app you're already using. Read more about how to automate ChatGPT, or check out these examples.

ChatGPT pricing: Free; paid plans with more advanced models start at $20/month

Zapier Agents

Zapier created Zapier Agents so you can have your own automation-first AI agent. Connect a data source, such as a CRM, and authorize certain actions, and it'll create an agent that will perform actions based on the data—it can run when you tell it to, or work in the background without you even being there. It works with every app on Zapier, so you can create your own sales assistant to do whatever you need it to.

You can build from scratch based on your unique workflows, or get started with a template for lead background research, automated sales lead emails, or a LinkedIn company analyzer.

Zapier Agents pricing: Free for up to 400 activities per month; from $50/month for 1,500+ activities per month

Postaga

Many of the AI tools on this list focus on one aspect of sales, but if you want AI to drive your entire outbound sales process, Postaga has you covered. Its campaign wizard helps you design a campaign with templates based on your goals then helps you build out that campaign with AI. It automates outreach from start to finish.

You can get even more AI help with your sales campaigns by checking Zapier's list of the best AI sales assistants.

Postaga pricing: Starting at $84/month for 2,000 contacts and 10,000 emails per month

Best sales tools for communication

The platform you use to communicate with leads can matter as much as your technique. These tools aid with messaging and calling prospects.

Manychat

Chances are your prospects are messaging you on multiple platforms, and Manychat brings those conversations together. Rachel Eigen from Aesthetics Growth Solutions calls it her favorite sales app of all time because of its ability to streamline Instagram DM, Facebook Messenger, SMS, WhatsApp, and email chats. As a systems engineer, she also appreciates its AI that responds to customers in your brand voice.

If Manychat isn't the right fit, you can take a look at Zapier's lists of the best chatbot builders and all-in-one messaging tools. You could even use Zapier itself to create a chatbot using Zapier Interfaces.

Manychat also integrates with Zapier, so you can do things like add new contacts to your email marketing tool or CRM. Learn how to automate Manychat with Zapier, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Manychat pricing: Free for up to 1,000 contacts on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp; starting at $15/month for scaled pricing based on number of contacts

RevenueHero

If meetings or demo bookings are a major part of your sales cycle, RevenueHero factors those appointments into your success. The Mailmodo team tracks demos as a critical sales KPI, so Zeeshan Akhtar automatically analyzes them by booking them through RevenueHero. Mailmodo's demo booking increased after adopting RevenueHero because of features like automatic routing to the appropriate sales rep.

RevenueHero pricing: Starting at $25/user/month for basic features; advanced plan includes white labeling and webhooks

Dialpad

Classic phone calls still have an important role to play in sales, and Dialpad manages them with AI. Sebastian records and reviews sales calls with Dialpad and uses its additional numbers team-wide.

If you'd like to manage your phone calls online but don't need an AI focus, you can also try one of Zapier's recommended VoIP services.

Dialpad also integrates with Zapier, so you can do things like automatically logging new calls to your CRM. Here are some examples to get you started.

Dialpad pricing: Starting at $15/user/month for unlimited calling; higher tiers offer more office locations, departments, and phone numbers

Reply

Reply is a sales engagement platform that enhances prospecting and communications with AI. Bradley appreciates its outbound automation capabilities, including its LinkedIn data scraping and communication sequences. He noticed that since it now uses AI in its sequences, he can test and create content even faster than before.

You can even add other apps to the mix thanks to Zapier's Reply integration. Here are a few automations to improve your campaigns.

Reply pricing: Starting at $29/month for email features

Automate your sales tools

Once you pick the right sales software for your team, it's time to integrate them into a seamless workflow using native integrations and Zapier automations. Many apps on this list work with Zapier, and those that don't often integrate with other tools on their own. These sales automation ideas will provide some inspiration, or you can add AI to the mix with these AI-powered sales workflows.

Related reading:

• 10 metrics for sales performance

• The ultimate guide to pipeline management

• How to use personalized sales pitches to convert 

• How to create a sales plan (and 3 templates that do it for you)

• What is revenue operations?

• What is the MEDDPICC sales methodology?

This article was originally published in September 2023. The most recent update was in September 2024.