The Best CRM Software in Australia

Imagine walking into your favorite café, where the barista not only recognizes you but also recalls your usual order down to the last detail. You’re not just another customer; you’re an individual with unique tastes and preferences. This personalized service not only makes you feel valued but also makes you more likely to return.

This is the essence of customer relationship management (CRM) – creating an experience that makes each customer feel special and valued. Businesses, big or small, are effectively the ‘baristas’ aiming to remember every detail about their customers, not merely to enhance their experiences but also to build a sustainable and loyal customer base.

CRM software is the technological incarnation of this concept. It is a tool that allows businesses to maintain a one-to-one relationship with their thousands or even millions of customers. It helps manage, analyze, and use customer data to improve relationships, encourage customer retention, and drive sales growth.

In Australia, with its highly competitive market and discerning customers, businesses can’t afford to underestimate the power of a solid CRM system. Whether it’s a local start-up aiming to gain a foothold or a multinational corporation wanting to stay ahead, the right CRM software makes all the difference. It ensures that in the eyes of your customers, they’re not just a number, but an individual with specific needs and preferences.

This blog post explores the top CRM software options available in Australia, helping businesses find the perfect fit to make every customer feel like their only customer.

CRM Provider	Free Plan / Free Trial	Monthly Starting Price (AUD)
Monday.com	Free Plan	$11 seat/ month
Pipedrive	14-day free trial	$14 user/ month
Hubspot	Free Plan	$126 / month
ActiveCampaign	14-day free trial	$29/ month
Freshsales	21-day free trial	$25 user/ month
BenchmarkONE	Free Plan	Contact for custom pricing
Salesforce	30-day free trial	Contact for custom pricing
Zoho	15-day free trial	$22/ month

1. Monday.com

Best Overall

In a market as competitive as Australia’s, a business’s ability to manage customer relationships effectively can mean the difference between success and stagnation. This is where Monday.com comes in, rightfully earning its spot as the best overall CRM solution in the country.

Understanding and analyzing the versatile CRM software of Monday.com requires both a bird’s eye view of its expansive capabilities, as well as a granular exploration of its unique features. It’s not simply built to manage contacts and leads, it’s meant to serve as an all-encompassing tool that integrates CRM with project management, helping businesses automate different elements of their operations for increased productivity.

Key Features and User Experience

Let’s delve deeper into what makes Monday.com an exceptional tool:

• Comprehensive Automation: With Monday.com, automation goes beyond simple tasks. The platform provides an easy-to-use system that allows businesses to set up a broad range of automated tasks. These can range from notifying team members about project updates on Slack, to alerting sales representatives as soon as an email is opened, enabling them to take immediate action. The resulting efficiency can transform business operations significantly.
• Centralized Communication: Monday.com allows businesses to centralize their communication efforts. By logging all sent emails and maintaining a record of customer interactions, Monday.com ensures no detail slips through the cracks. This centralized approach provides a comprehensive view of customer relationships and helps businesses stay on top of their communication game.
• Scalable Personalization: One of the standout features of Monday.com is its ability to cater to large audiences without sacrificing personalization. The platform’s mass email feature enables businesses to send personalized emails at scale, thereby ensuring that their communication remains relevant and engaging, no matter how large their customer base.
• Performance Visualization: With Monday.com, businesses get to visualize their performance through innovative tools such as the leaderboard widget and the visual funnel chart. These tools provide insights into team performance and sales pipeline effectiveness, empowering businesses with data-driven decision-making capabilities.
• Seamless Email Integration: Monday.com integrates seamlessly with Gmail and Outlook, enabling businesses to send and receive emails directly from the platform. Moreover, the platform also provides real-time email tracking, ensuring businesses are always informed and ready to respond promptly.
• Activity and Sales Management: Monday.com doesn’t stop at managing customer relationships. It extends its functionalities to activity tracking and sales forecasting, equipping businesses with tools to log any lead or contact-related activity and track sales performance over time.

Monday.com emerges as a versatile, user-friendly, and robust CRM solution for Australian businesses. Its expansive features, paired with a commitment to delivering a smooth user experience, make it an excellent choice for businesses of varying scales. Monday.com goes beyond meeting CRM needs—it sets a new benchmark for what businesses should expect from their CRM platform. Its potent combination of power and ease of use propels it to the position of ‘Best Overall’ in the CRM landscape.

2. Pipedrive

Best for SMEs

When it comes to balancing the need for a robust, full-featured CRM with simplicity and straightforward use, Pipedrive is the name that often gets recommended. Built with a clear focus, this sales CRM tool is a popular choice among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) not just in Australia, but worldwide. Its standout features aren’t tangled in a maze of complex dashboards and prompts but are intelligently designed to offer a streamlined experience that keeps salespeople focused on what they do best – sell.

Key Features and User Experience

Let’s delve into Pipedrive’s unique offerings and explore the user experience you can expect:

• Customizable Pipeline Stages: Pipedrive allows for complete personalization of the sales pipeline stages, ensuring they align with your business’s unique sales process. This adaptability is rarely seen in other CRM tools and provides an intuitive visual representation of sales progress, eliminating the guesswork.
• Sales Activities Focus: Pipedrive’s approach is to focus on the necessary sales actions rather than the end goal. This system prompts users to schedule and execute sales activities which are the incremental steps toward closing deals. As a result, salespeople concentrate more on strategic actions, contributing to efficient sales process execution.
• Goal Tracking: Every salesperson needs a way to track progress and performance. Pipedrive, acting like a digital sales coach, provides real-time reports and calculates conversion rates to help its users meet targets. The tool provides a clear picture of progress, helping you adjust your strategies when necessary.
• Automation and Integrations: Another strong point for Pipedrive is the plethora of automation and integrations it offers. Mundane administrative tasks can be automated, and integrations with popular tools save time, leaving your team free to refine their strategies and aim for higher goals.
• Revenue Prediction: A unique and valuable feature of Pipedrive is its revenue forecasting capability. The platform prioritizes deals and tracks performance, providing predictions on potential revenue, and thus enabling strategic planning.

Pipedrive lives up to its reputation of simplifying the CRM process while being a robust and comprehensive tool. It focuses on providing features that truly matter to SMEs, without overwhelming them with unnecessary complexities. If you are an SME in Australia seeking a CRM that aligns with your business process and helps you make informed, strategic decisions, Pipedrive might just be your ideal choice.

3. Hubspot

Best All-In-One Platform

HubSpot is well known for being a comprehensive CRM platform, bringing together a cohesive ecosystem of tools designed to streamline business operations. With an integrated suite that covers sales, marketing, customer service, CMS, and operations, HubSpot offers a distinct advantage for businesses looking for a unified solution. Its different tools provide a seamless experience and lend themselves to more effective contact management and performance tracking.

Key Features and User Experience

• Broad Spectrum of Tools: HubSpot provides a rich array of tools beyond just a CRM. From lead generation and email marketing to customer communication and support, it caters to various facets of a business. This consolidated approach offers an intuitive and efficient user experience.
• Unified Ecosystem: A major appeal of HubSpot lies in the smooth integration of its marketing, sales, and service tools. This synergy allows for a smoother transfer of data and insights, leading to more informed strategies and improved customer relations.
• Track Performance: HubSpot equips users with the capability to monitor key metrics efficiently. Form submissions, website activity, and enriched contact data from a plethora of businesses can all be tracked, aiding in the evaluation of business performance.

However, HubSpot is not without its drawbacks. The pricing of HubSpot is often a point of contention as it can add up quickly when you start including additional features. Still, if you have the budget for it, HubSpot stands out for its holistic approach, providing a one-stop-shop solution for businesses, making it the “Best All-In-One Platform”.

It particularly shines in contexts where businesses require a unified platform to oversee their operations. It might be pricier than some alternatives, but the breadth of its offering and the seamless integration of its tools create a strong case for it. For businesses in Australia seeking a comprehensive, integrated platform to streamline their operations, HubSpot is a worthy contender.

4. ActiveCampaign

Best Budget Friendly Option

The hybrid blend of email marketing automation coupled with an efficient sales CRM is what sets ActiveCampaign apart. Primarily, it’s a budget-friendly tool designed for businesses aiming for seamless integration of marketing automation and CRM software. With over 500 pre-built automation templates and an accessible learning curve, ActiveCampaign offers both functionality and ease in its operations.

Key Features and User Experience

• Automation and Segmentation: ActiveCampaign’s robust automation and detailed segmentation capabilities stand out. The visual automation builder aids users in effortlessly crafting complex automation. This results in a user-friendly experience, even for beginners venturing into marketing automation.
• Sales CRM: The sales CRM extends its functionality beyond simple deal management. It offers pipelines, tasks, reporting, automation, and email content generation. Thus, it brings together the necessary elements to streamline sales processes and manage customer interactions effectively.
• Personalized Communication: ActiveCampaign empowers businesses to deliver personalized and engaging communication to their audience. It helps businesses utilize personalization and automation to drive high-quality leads, increase customer engagement, and consolidate data to refine their marketing efforts.
• Sales Automation and Reporting: This feature contributes to an increase in qualified leads by an average of 110% year-over-year. The sales automation capabilities also simplify mundane tasks, allowing the sales team to focus more on core operations. Combined with sales reporting, it helps track team performance and the efficiency of the sales funnel.

The ease of setting up ActiveCampaign, especially for businesses that have their websites already established, serves as a selling point for this platform. However, it is worth noting that its strengths truly shine when businesses leverage its automation features, as statistics suggest that automation helps 95% of businesses achieve results they couldn’t attain on their own.

ActiveCampaign carves its niche as a potent tool for companies seeking budget-friendly marketing automation and CRM solutions. With a suite of powerful features geared towards personalization and automation, it empowers businesses to enhance their customer engagement and streamline operations. Therefore, for Australian businesses looking for a comprehensive yet cost-effective solution, ActiveCampaign emerges as a top contender.

5. Freshsales

Best for Beginners

For the uninitiated stepping into the world of CRM, Freshsales is an excellent starting point. Seamlessly bridging the gap between complex data management with and an intuitive user experience, Freshsales introduces a CRM system designed with the needs of small to midsize businesses in mind. Offering an array of easy-to-use tools, from customizable pipelines and dashboards to lead generation and scoring, Freshsales eliminates the intimidation factor of CRM for beginners. Its standout features include AI-driven contact scoring, mobile app functionality, and impressive multilingual and multicurrency support, making it a smart choice for businesses in Australia seeking a global reach.

Key Features and User Experience

• Ease of use: Freshsales offers a straightforward interface that allows beginners to easily manage their sales processes, including customizable pipelines, dashboards, and automated processes.
• 24/7 Support: The round-the-clock phone and email support ensures that any user queries are promptly resolved, minimizing potential disruption to business operations.
• AI-Powered Contact Scoring: This feature enables users to optimally time their reach-outs to leads, based on analyzed demographic and behavioural data.
• WhatsApp Integration and Mobile Apps: These tools extend the platform’s functionality beyond the desktop, enabling businesses to maintain contact with clients on-the-go.
• Global Orientation: Freshsales supports ten languages and over 150 currencies, making it a versatile choice for Australian businesses with international clients or operations.

Freshsales, with its user-friendly approach, earns its “Best for Beginners” title in the CRM landscape. It provides an accessible, non-intimidating introduction to CRM while ensuring that the business’s growth and scalability are not compromised. For Australian businesses seeking a reliable, easy-to-use CRM with strong multilingual and multicurrency support, Freshsales presents a winning solution.

6. BenchmarkONE

Best for Integrations

BenchmarkONE, a sophisticated all-in-one CRM software, excels in offering seamless integration capabilities. This robust platform combines CRM with marketing automation to effectively manage the entire sales funnel, boasting an impressive suite of tools from contact management and email marketing to automation and lead generation. What sets BenchmarkONE apart, however, is its ability to integrate with over 5000+ apps through Zapier. This pivotal feature allows businesses to tailor their operations in a way that best suits their unique needs, making it an ideal solution for Australian businesses looking to streamline their workflows and optimize efficiency.

Key Features and User Experience

• Integration Capability: BenchmarkONE sets the bar high with its capacity to integrate with over 5000+ apps, including Google Apps, WooCommerce, Zendesk, and even HubSpot. This allows businesses to customize their CRM experience by incorporating the tools they already use and love.
• CRM and Marketing Automation: This software offers a combination of CRM and marketing automation tools that work harmoniously to manage the entire sales funnel. With email integration, tagging, segmentation, and sales pipelines, businesses have everything they need to maintain and enhance customer relationships.
• Email Marketing: BenchmarkONE comes equipped with a drag-and-drop email builder, 59+ pre-designed email templates, autoresponders, and email stat reports, offering an extensive email marketing suite that supports businesses in their engagement and conversion efforts.
• Dashboard and Reporting: Users can maintain a pulse on their business with comprehensive dashboards and reporting, which aids in making informed business decisions.

BenchmarkONE emerges as a top-tier choice for businesses seeking CRM software with powerful integration capabilities. Its impressive compatibility with a multitude of apps allows for a streamlined and customized experience. Its blend of CRM and marketing automation tools caters to the needs of businesses of all sizes, making it a particularly compelling option for Australian businesses. BenchmarkONE not only simplifies the process of managing customer relationships and marketing campaigns but does so in a way that can be tailored to fit the unique needs of each business.

7. Salesforce

Best for Customization

Salesforce, first established in 1999, was a pioneer in cloud CRM systems. Its comprehensive platform provides tools for lead generation, nurturing, sales, and marketing. The distinct edge that Salesforce offers is its high degree of customization, enabling businesses to fine-tune the platform according to their specific needs. With over 4000 integrations available, Salesforce extends far beyond a basic CRM system. For Australian businesses seeking a CRM that can adapt to their unique processes, Salesforce’s customization capacity is a significant advantage.

Key Features and User Experience

• Lead and Account Management: Salesforce allows businesses to efficiently manage leads and accounts, providing the capability to track each customer’s sales journey from start to finish.
• Sales and Marketing Tools: Salesforce encompasses a range of sales and marketing tools. This includes automation, a CMS, a visual automation editor, and mobile messaging, making for a comprehensive customer engagement platform.
• Integration Capabilities: Salesforce’s robust integration capabilities make it stand out. With over 4000 integrations, businesses can connect Salesforce with various marketing platforms, email marketing tools, and lead generation applications.
• Mobile Access: With the Salesforce Mobile app, users can access and share information securely wherever they are, which can be particularly useful for Australian businesses with remote or on-the-go teams.

As the frontrunner in cloud-based CRM systems, Salesforce has been designed with customization at its core. Its comprehensive suite of features and extensive integration capabilities make it a compelling choice for businesses of all sizes. Australian businesses, in particular, can leverage Salesforce’s powerful customization options and mobile access to meet their specific needs and facilitate streamlined operations.

8. Zoho

Best Easy-to-Use CRM

Zoho, a diverse cloud-based software suite, offers solutions across a spectrum of categories. Its products include CRM tools, sales, marketing software, collaboration resources, and project management. For businesses seeking an intuitive and user-friendly CRM, Zoho’s offering stands out. It is designed with growing businesses and enterprises in mind, providing a level of customizability that allows for automation of sales processes, enabling teams to concentrate on closing deals. Particularly for Australian businesses that value simplicity without compromising on feature richness, Zoho offers an ideal blend of user-friendliness and powerful functionality.

Key Features and User Experience

• Comprehensive CRM: Zoho CRM is one of the most feature-rich systems available, making it a comprehensive solution for businesses. This allows a wide range of processes to be centralized within a single platform. Despite its breadth of tools, expect Zoho CRM to be very easy to use.
• Integration with Google Apps: Zoho CRM integrates seamlessly with G-Suite, which helps familiarize users with the platform as they’re already using familiar platforms. Businesses that already leverage Google’s suite of tools can add Zoho CRM capabilities effortlessly, benefiting from automatic contact record updates and sentiment analysis.
• Omnichannel Engagement: Zoho CRM Plus offers omnichannel engagement, giving businesses the capability to interact with customers across multiple channels at different stages of the customer lifecycle. Real-time notifications ensure full context is maintained across these channels.
• Powerful AI Assistance: Zoho’s AI assistant, Zia, enhances team productivity by predicting business trends, suggesting optimal times to contact customers, analyzing sentiments in emails, and providing intelligent business dashboards.
• Automated Processes: Zoho CRM Plus allows businesses to build and automate processes that connect marketing, sales, and service teams, increasing efficiency and saving time.

Zoho stands out as an easy-to-use, feature-rich CRM that doesn’t compromise functionality. Its intuitive interface, integration capabilities, powerful AI assistance, and automation make it an ideal choice for businesses of all sizes. For Australian businesses, the advantages of Zoho are clear – a comprehensive, user-friendly CRM system that enhances team productivity and streamlines customer engagement.

How to Choose the Best CRM Software in Australia

The Australian business landscape is diverse and dynamic, with around 2.5 million actively trading businesses as per the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2022. A large chunk of these businesses are small to medium enterprises that rely on technology CRM to streamline operations and boost growth

Given this, selecting the best CRM software in Australia can seem like a daunting task. However, focusing on the following factors can help narrow down the choices:

1. Integration Capabilities

Australian businesses often utilize various software tools, ranging from email marketing to accounting software. Therefore, the ability of a CRM to seamlessly integrate with these existing systems is crucial for maintaining smooth operations and preventing data silos.

2. User-friendly Interface

Australian businesses often utilize various software tools, ranging from email marketing to accounting software. Therefore, the ability of a CRM to seamlessly integrate with these existing systems is crucial for maintaining smooth operations and preventing data silos.

3. Scalability

As per the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, 98% of Australian businesses are small businesses. While these businesses may start small, they have the potential for significant growth. Hence, it’s important to choose CRM software that can scale with the business and adapt to its changing needs over time.

4. Local Support

Given time zone differences and unique market conditions, Australian businesses can benefit greatly from CRM providers offering local support. This ensures timely and relevant assistance, particularly crucial in the event of software issues or when seeking guidance on best usage practices.

5. Regulatory Compliance

Australia has robust data privacy laws, such as the Australian Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act 1988. CRM software must comply with these regulations to ensure the legal use of customer data, protect customer privacy, and maintain business reputation.

The Best CRM Software in Australia FAQs

Choosing the Best CRM Software in Australia

The value of a robust CRM system cannot be overstated for businesses, regardless of their size or the industry they operate in. These systems offer tools that automate mundane tasks, provide critical customer insights, and promote superior customer service. As the Australian business landscape continues to evolve, the role of CRM software becomes increasingly essential.

This article has aimed to provide a comprehensive guide on CRM software, focusing on a selection of options well-suited to the unique needs of Australian businesses. Yet, the decision should not be rushed. It’s crucial for businesses to consider several factors when choosing a CRM system, including its features, integrations, user experience, and relevance to their specific business needs. Be sure to browse all your options and review them closely using our comparison tool to learn how each one can potentially simplify your business processes and provide a platform for growth.