This guide explores popular small business sales tools. It covers key features, pricing, and user experience, with a firsthand look at what each tool offers so small business owners and sales leaders can make a confident, informed choice.
Table of Contents
- What are sales tools for small businesses?
- What You Should Look For in a Small Business Sales Tool
- Types of Sales Tools Every Small Business Should Invest In
- 8 Best Sales Tools for Small Businesses
- How to Choose the Right Sales Tools for Your Small Business
- Improve your small business operations with the right tools.
What are sales tools for small businesses?
Sales tools help small businesses manage leads, conversations, and deals. Free sales tools reduce upfront cost for tool adoption, while paid sales tools typically add automation, permissions, and advanced reporting.
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What You Should Look For in a Small Business Sales Tool
With endless software and features available, what should small business owners consider when investing in a tool? Consider ease of use, affordability, integrations, mobile access, reporting, support, and tool customizations.
Ease of Use
When a tool is user-friendly, business owners are onboarded more efficiently and start to see ROI more quickly. A few things to weigh:
- How long it takes to learn.
- How the interface feels.
- How intuitive it is to use.
- How fast data entry is.
Any business owner can learn software with enough patience and time, but a dashboard that’s a chore to open rarely delivers full ROI. HubSpot is known for being user-friendly for this reason. G2 reviewers cite ease of use as what they like most about HubSpot products.
Affordability
Monthly software costs quickly add up for small businesses, but affordability is about more than just the monthly price of a single tool. Consider these cost factors:
- Price for value
- Flexible pricing plans
- Scalability
- Tool consolidation
For example, HubSpot bundles tools into a single digital ecosystem. That consolidation improves the user experience and costs less than paying separately for CRM, customer support, and reporting software.
Integrations
When tools don’t integrate, business owners are forced to enter data manually or live with data silos. Before investing in any tool, business owners should check whether it integrates with the tools their team already uses.
HubSpot’s 2,000+ integrations offer maximum convenience to business owners. Most tools have a searchable directory where users can find essential integrations.
Mobile Accessibility
Sales reps often need to check in on leads or deals when away from their desks. See how well each tool works on mobile devices and whether staff can perform basic actions (such as updating a lead or viewing sales dashboards) on the go.
Reporting and Insights
Raw data collection is an expected tool feature, but what’s really valuable for business owners is clear, actionable insights. Sales reporting tools track pipeline value and conversion rates, while AI assistants can sift through data and make tailored recommendations.
Explore how each tool helps reps visualize their pipeline and track performance. Sales forecasting uses pipeline stages and historical close rates to project revenue. A strong reporting feature helps business owners make smarter, faster decisions.
Customer Support
When choosing tools, some teams focus on features and forget to consider customer support. Before investing, take time to evaluate what support options are available:
- AI chatbot
- Live chat
- Phone support
- Online knowledge base
Reliable support is a must-have for business owners, which is why HubSpot offers all of these forms of customer support.
Pro tip: Be investigative when reviewing support. Look at what current customers say about support on review sites like G2.
Customization and Automations
Every business has unique processes, and sales teams need a tool that can adapt to how they work. How flexible are things like deal stages, data fields, and reports? Can the software be tailored to fit a specific workflow, and once workflows are established, can it automate repetitive tasks?
HubSpot sales automation tools trigger follow-ups based on customer actions or changes in the deal stage. This automation lets small business owners spend less time on manual work and more time closing deals. The more sales teams can streamline their process with smart automations, the smoother the day-to-day work becomes.
Types of Sales Tools Every Small Business Should Invest In
Small businesses should invest in seven core types of sales tools: a CRM, a document tool, invoicing software, inventory and order management software, a survey tool, a meetings app, and an email management tool. Each one targets a specific part of the sales process, from organizing contacts to collecting payments.
Most small business owners are short on time, money, and staff, so anything that helps them work faster has an outsized effect on both the bottom line and stress levels. Here are the seven tool types that most improve a small business’s productivity and ROI.
CRM
CRM software for small businesses acts as a system of record for contacts and pipeline. Integrations connect CRM software with email, calendars, and accounting tools, consolidating all data into a single dashboard.
AI-enhanced CRMs like Agent Hub, turn CRM data into a personal knowledge base. Before a phone call, business owners can ask Agent Hub where the last conversation left off. This capability is available on all plans, even HubSpot’s free CRM plan.
New to CRMs and want to see how they work? This guide walks through examples.
In my experience: As a small business owner, I need one place where I can keep track of every deal, contact, and conversation without losing my mind. That’s why a CRM is essential for me, and frankly, I don’t know how anyone maintains relationships without one.
I love how I can instantly see when we last talked, how we connected, what we discussed, whether they’ve bought from me before, how often they visit my site, which pages they viewed, and which emails they’ve opened and clicked.
Bottom line: If I’m choosing one tool to keep everything organized, it’s HubSpot CRM.
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Document Tool
A document tool sends and collects electronic signatures, speeding up both quote creation and contract signing with no printing or scanning needed. That makes it easier for sales teams to send proposals, close deals, and get paid.
Faster signatures mean faster payments. HubSpot makes this even smoother by integrating with tools such as PandaDoc.
In my experience: I love document tools because they let me send contracts and proposals quickly, and my customers can review and sign them in minutes.
Invoicing Software
Reliable invoicing software helps small businesses get paid faster and manage cash flow more efficiently. With the right tool, teams can quickly create and send professional invoices, track payments, and automate follow-ups for overdue accounts.
Look for the following key features when reviewing tools:
- Customizable templates. Design invoices that reflect the business’s brand with logos, colors, and personalized messages.
- Automatic payment reminders. Set up automated emails to nudge clients about upcoming or overdue payments.
- Online payment integration. Let customers pay directly from the invoice using credit cards, bank transfers, or digital wallets.
- Payment tracking and reporting. Monitor which invoices are paid, which are outstanding, and generate reports to understand revenue trends.
HubSpot’s invoicing tool connects directly to the CRM, so invoice and payment data live alongside customer and deal records. Revenue reporting updates automatically without chasing numbers across systems.
Pro tip: If you bill by the hour, I recommend choosing invoicing software that lets you easily add tracked time and expenses directly to your invoices.
Inventory and Order Management Software
An inventory and order management system tracks stock levels, purchase and sales orders, and warehouse details in one place. Commerce businesses that sell physical products rely on one to stay organized as they scale.
The most essential features to look for in an inventory and order management system are:
- Barcode scanning. To quickly check stock levels with a simple scan.
- Reorder alerts. Notification when inventory is running low, to avoid the risk of selling out unexpectedly.
- Reporting. To see which products are the top sellers, the total value of the inventory, and to track sales performance by week, month, or quarter.
I’ve found Xero and inFlow to be excellent choices for small business inventory management.
Survey Tool
A survey tool collects feedback from customers, prospects, and leads so small businesses can measure satisfaction, drive referrals, and catch issues before they turn into negative reviews. The more insight a business has into its audience, the easier it becomes to meet customer needs and market effectively. Small business owners can also use surveys to engage prospects, leads, or even their own team.
A user-friendly platform such as SurveyMonkey (which integrates with HubSpot) makes it simple to create polished surveys — no technical expertise required.
Pro tip: Do your customers have ideas of how the purchase process could be improved? Try sending a quick survey after a purchase to gather feedback on the experience.
Meetings App
Meeting scheduling tools reduce back-and-forth emails to book calls. Scheduling apps work for meetings with clients, suppliers, partners, or internal teams. Meeting apps offer a shareable view of availability, so others can book a time slot that works for both parties. Once a meeting is booked, it syncs straight to both calendars.
I recommend trying HubSpot’s Free Meetings Scheduler. Since it lives within the HubSpot ecosystem, it can sync call data and notes directly to a customer’s profile in the CRM.
In my experience: A meeting scheduler seems like such a basic tool, but I’m constantly surprised by how many people still do this manually and end up double-booking themselves.
Email Management Tool
An email management tool tracks opens, clicks, and link activity, and schedules sends and follow-ups so sellers can time outreach to actual prospect behavior. Email remains one of the most powerful assets for any seller. An inbox without tools that show when someone opened a message or clicked a link leaves actionable insights on the table.
Beyond customer data, email tools come with many useful features:
- A/B test different subject lines
- Schedule emails to send in the morning so they’re at the top of someone’s inbox
- Schedule follow-ups in advance so no opportunity gets missed
Some of these tools are built directly into providers like Google Workspace. Others require a dedicated sales or marketing platform like HubSpot, where email tracking connects directly to contact and deal data.
HubSpot’s email marketing tool tracks opens, clicks, and engagement at the contact level, and connects that data directly to each contact’s CRM record so sellers can time their follow-up to actual prospect behavior.
In my experience: Timing matters. I aim to follow up while I’m still top of mind — it’s far easier to get a response when a prospect engaged with my email just a few hours ago.
8 Best Sales Tools for Small Businesses
Sales tools span a wide range, from niche software that handles a single task, such as scheduling, to comprehensive all-in-one platforms that manage the entire sales pipeline. Here’s an overview of the eight best tools on the market.
1. HubSpot Sales Hub
Sales Hub is HubSpot’s suite of sales tools, built on its free CRM and designed to help small businesses manage leads, automate outreach, and close deals in one place. It’s part of HubSpot’s broader platform of hubs spanning marketing, customer service, content, and operations.
Key features:
- Sales automation and sequences streamline lead assignment, follow-up tasks, and repetitive actions through automated workflows.
- Mobile CRM app sends template-based emails, scans business cards into contacts, and uses automation to log calls, emails, and meetings.
- Prospecting agent identifies high-quality leads and drafts personalized outreach inside an existing workflow.
- 2,000+ integrations connect the CRM with tools teams already use, from Gmail and Zoom to LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
- Built-in sales enablement includes Playbooks and document tracking, so teams get the enablement they need without a separate platform.
Best for: Small businesses that want an all-in-one sales platform they can start free and scale as they grow.
Pricing: The Starter Customer Platform starts at $15 per seat per month and includes marketing, sales, customer service, and content management. Paid plans unlock advanced tools, and the Professional plan is ideal for businesses that need a comprehensive solution as they scale.
What I like: Automation is where HubSpot saves me the most time. I worked for a logistics company that couldn’t profitably serve low-order-volume customers, so I built a workflow to automatically email anyone who filled out our website form but didn’t meet our minimum order requirements.
I built a second workflow for inbound qualification. It pulled data from our website’s form submissions and checked whether each property fell within the company’s total addressable market (TAM), then classified properties by monthly order volume and set next steps accordingly — adding to a list, assigning an SDR, sending an email, updating lifecycle stage. HubSpot makes building automations remarkably straightforward, and the built-in dashboards let me watch those workflows pay off in real time, tracking pipeline and campaign performance without building reports from scratch.
Free Sales Software
Built for productivity, powered by relevance.
- Sales Automation
- Call Tracking
- Lead Prospecting
- And More!
2. Odoo
Odoo is a modular business platform with a CRM at its core, built to scale across different business functions. Small businesses can start with sales and add modules like invoicing, inventory, and accounting as their needs grow.
Key features:
- Modular architecture lets a business run sales, invoicing, inventory, accounting, and ecommerce from one platform and switch on only the apps it needs.
- Integrated quote-to-cash turns confirmed quotes into sales orders, generates invoices in batches or individually, and takes online payments with automated reminders for overdue accounts.
- Accounting and multi-entity support handle bank reconciliation, dynamic financial reports, and multi-company, multi-currency operations for businesses with subsidiaries.
Best for: Growing businesses that want a single platform they can expand module by module.
Pricing: Odoo’s One App Free plan gives unlimited users access to one app. The Standard plan runs $31.10 per user per month, billed monthly, with lower rates on annual contracts. The Custom plan ($61.10 per user per month) adds Odoo Studio, multi-company support, external API access, and flexible hosting.
What I like: Odoo lets me manage multiple sales teams and pipelines without things getting messy. I can create opportunities by hand, import them, or have them come in automatically from emails or website forms, and each salesperson gets their own dashboard to stay focused on the deals that matter. The flexibility to add modules like inventory, manufacturing, ecommerce, and events as the business evolves is what makes it stand out.
3. Pipedrive
Pipedrive is an AI-powered CRM that centralizes, organizes, and prioritizes leads to simplify follow-ups. Its AI Sales Assistant flags inactive deals so reps stay on track and close more opportunities.
Key features:
- AI Sales Assistant surfaces next-best-action recommendations, flags stalled deals, and offers smart suggestions for qualifying leads and deals.
- Visual drag-and-drop pipelines reflect a team’s sales process with deal probabilities and activity tracking, and multiple pipelines can run in parallel for new sales, renewals, or upsells.
- Sales Inbox and contact management sync with email to automatically log conversations, centralizing custom fields, deal history, tasks, and notes in one view.
Best for: Sales-led teams that want a visual, pipeline-first CRM that’s quick to customize.
Pricing: Pipedrive offers five plans for different business needs. The basic plan starts at $24 per user per month, scaling up to $99 per user per month for the top tier.
What I like: It’s effortless to modify deal details, rename pipelines, and adjust deal views in Pipedrive, and creating custom fields is quick and straightforward. I’m also a fan of the Sales Inbox — the send-later, AI-assisted email writing, and integrated meeting scheduler make communication feel efficient. One area where I think Pipedrive falls short is attribution and building detailed customer journeys, which are available in HubSpot.
4. ClickUp
ClickUp is a project management and team collaboration platform with dedicated CRM and sales features, including pipeline tracking, lead management, and deal collaboration. That combination makes it a viable option for small teams that want to run sales and project work in one tool.
Key features:
- Sales automations advance deals through the pipeline, delegate tasks as stages change, send real-time updates when customers act, and adjust priorities to keep reps on the most critical opportunities.
- Custom statuses and 15+ views tailor stage labels to a team’s process and visualize the pipeline as a List, Board, Table, or Gantt chart, starting from pre-made templates or saved custom ones.
- Column calculations sum contract amounts, closing costs, and revenue directly in List view, so deal values roll up without exporting to a spreadsheet.
Best for: Small teams that want CRM and project management in one platform rather than paying for both.
Pricing: ClickUp’s basic plan is free. Paid plans cost $10 per user per month for small businesses and $19 per user per month for mid-sized businesses. Enterprise pricing is custom and requires contacting the sales team.
What I like: Once tasks are assigned, I can add comments and set action items, which keeps sales teams organized and focused on their priorities. Breaking large tasks into smaller subtasks gives everyone a clear view of what’s next, so I can oversee the sales team, monitor prospects, and stay a step ahead before opportunities slip away.
5. Zoho
Zoho is a budget-friendly CRM built for micro businesses and lean sales teams. It simplifies the sales process with tools to generate leads, speed up deal closures, and track sales performance across the pipeline.
Key features:
- Zia, the built-in AI assistant, forecasts deal outcomes, surfaces key information, flags irregularities, and automates routine tasks.
- Sales enablement quickly generates price quotes, shares sales scripts, and provides customers, vendors, and partners with controlled access to view or update information directly in the CRM.
- Partner portals let channel partners create and nurture leads, update contact details, and browse products in a permission-based environment — useful for B2B businesses selling through partners.
Best for: Micro businesses and B2B teams that want AI-assisted selling and partner management at a low entry price.
Pricing: Zoho’s Standard plan starts at $20 per user per month. Teams that grow or need more advanced features move up to the Enterprise or Ultimate plans.
What I like: I particularly like the voice-enabled assistant inside Zoho CRM. Zia has a distinct personality and a friendly voice that makes interacting with her feel natural, and she handles everything from jotting down notes to crunching sales numbers smoothly. Zoho has also built a strong reputation for managing the financial side of business operations. If I needed a tool to generate quotes, invoices, and orders while keeping inventory, shipping, and subscription details within reach, Zoho CRM would be my top choice.
6. Frontdesk
Frontdesk is an AI-powered communication platform for small businesses and startups. It handles inbound and outbound customer interactions across phone, SMS, and web chat, and logs every contact and activity in a built-in CRM.
Key features:
- AI Phone Receptionist answers calls 24/7, qualifies leads, books appointments, handles unlimited simultaneous calls in 20+ languages, and transfers high-value leads to a team member live.
- SMS Texting Agent sends personalized links mid-call, so a caller asking to book a meeting gets a scheduling link texted to them instantly.
- Built-in AI CRM centralizes calls, SMS, and web chat in a single dashboard, logging contacts and activity automatically, without manual data entry.
Best for: Small teams that miss calls and leads because no one’s available to answer the phone.
Pricing: Frontdesk’s basic plan starts at $99 per month, with enterprise pricing available on request.
What I like: I like how Frontdesk handles call management, freeing up sales teams to focus on higher-value work like nurturing leads and strengthening customer relationships.
Having a tool like this means fewer missed leads, double bookings, and delayed conversations.
7. Freshworks CRM
Freshsales, Freshworks’ CRM, streamlines the sales process with pipeline management, AI-assisted selling, and built-in analytics. It’s built for sales teams that want a clean interface without a long setup or steep learning curve.
Key features:
- Freddy AI identifies top leads and deals, predicts which will close, drafts emails, and offers 24/7 assistance.
- Multiple pipeline management tracks deals across separate pipelines for different teams, sets sales goals with timelines, forecasts with committed and best-case estimates, and flags stalled deals that need action.
- Custom analytics and reporting track team performance across regions, with built-in reports on conversion trends, plus custom reports based on chosen metrics, charts, and widgets.
Best for: Sales teams that want an AI-assisted CRM they can set up and use without a long onboarding.
Pricing: The Growth plan runs $11 per user per month and includes basic workflows, the Freshworks Marketplace, and the mobile app. The Pro plan starts at $47 per month and adds territory management and Freddy AI deal insights. The Enterprise plan starts at $71 per user per month with custom modules, forecasting insights, and a sandbox.
What I like: Freshworks has a clean, intuitive interface with powerful CRM features, so I hit the ground running with minimal setup and no steep learning curve. I also like that they’ve made sales a separate product, focusing only on essential features to keep the CRM clean and efficient. The Analytics section includes a Favorites tab, where I can save and access the most relevant reports.
8. Copper
Copper CRM is a Google Workspace-native CRM that tracks leads, manages contacts, and organizes sales activities without leaving Gmail, Calendar, or Drive. It’s Google-backed, a Chrome Enterprise Partner, and officially recommended for Google Workspace.
Key features:
- Native Google Workspace integration captures contacts from Gmail and Google Calendar via the Chrome extension, with automatic contact suggestions as emails arrive.
- Contact management centralizes emails, calls, documents, and notes in one view, captures leads from website forms, and creates contacts from a photo of a business card.
- The mobile app gives instant access to contact details and activity history on the go, automatically recording calls and texts to keep records current.
Best for: Sales teams that run on Google Workspace and want a CRM inside Gmail rather than another tab.
Pricing: Copper’s Starter plan runs $12 per user per month. The Basic plan starts at $29 per user per month and adds task automation, project management, and contact enrichment. The Professional plan starts at $69 per month with a 15,000-contact limit, and the Business plan starts at $134 per month with unlimited contacts, premium support, and custom reports.
What I like: Since I work a lot in Google Workspace, this CRM fits right in. Copper integrates seamlessly with Gmail, Calendar, and Drive, so I can add leads, track emails, locate files, and manage tasks without leaving Google’s ecosystem.
It’s worth noting that Copper comes at a higher price point, and many users have reported less-than-ideal customer support. Adjusting or reducing user licenses isn’t straightforward either — they can only be decreased by contacting support at least 30 days before renewal, which adds an extra layer of hassle.
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How to Choose the Right Sales Tools for Your Small Business
With so many types of sales tools on the market, investing in one becomes a tedious research process. Consider these factors when selecting a tool: sales goals, budget, team needs, and scalability.
Sales Goals
According to the 2025 HubSpot Sales Trends Report, 42% of sales teams prioritize annual recurring revenue as their top success metric. Small businesses that invest in a tool without strategically considering its impact on specific sales goals risk creating a gap between goals and execution.
Every small business wants to scale revenue, but more specific sales goals are needed to choose a tool and confidently measure its impact. A triage-first approach helps: start by identifying the single goal where the pipeline is weakest.
Consider these sales goals:
For example, HubSpot’s 2025 ROI Report found that companies using integrated CRM and business tools reported generating 3x as many leads and closing 94% more deals. If a business’s goal is to generate more leads, a CRM is the clear first investment.
Budget
Budget comes down to two questions for a small business: what it can spend per month now, and what it can afford as the software drives up its close rate. Having reliable answers to those questions requires an analytical look at the upfront and eventual costs of software, including:
- Staffing costs: The hours per week these tools save sales teams, which can be used to close deals instead.
- Break-even point on investment: How many sales a tool needs to generate each month to pay for itself, which puts its cost in context.
- Annual versus monthly subscriptions: Annual plans often cut costs by 20-30%, but reduce flexibility.
- Seats: Costs multiply per seat, so factor in the added seats that come with hitting growth goals.
- All-in-one platforms vs. singular tools: All-in-ones generally cost more up front, but stitching together separate tools carries its own cost in subscriptions and time lost to data silos.
Where to start? Free plans are the natural starting point for small businesses. They allow tool exploration and testing while protecting the budget, and when one free tool proves to be the right investment, onboarding is already partly done.
Team Needs
It’s a mistake to focus the entire conversation on customers and ignore the reps who find, nurture, and close them. Team size shapes this heavily. What kind of support does a team need, both at the individual-rep level and team-wide?
Equipping reps with useful tools can improve performance, and including them in the decision-making process can build trust between staff and leadership (especially in a small business). That goes a long way: 98% of sellers say team culture impacts their ability to hit sales goals, according to HubSpot’s 2025 Sales Trends Report.
“It’s clear that trust — both between sales reps and their leaders, and among reps themselves — is one of the best ways to keep salespeople motivated,” shared Graham Collins, Head of Partnerships at QuotaPath, in the Sales Trends Report.
Scalability
If sales goals are met over the next six, 12, and 18 months, can tools scale to match? Evaluate scalability in a few ways:
- Function: Whether the tool can support more tickets, leads, and data without slowing down.
- Cost: Adding seats and switching tools (migration, lost time) add up and must be weighed against the compounding returns of the investment.
- Customer support: A long-term tool will eventually need support, so consider past customers’ experiences.
- Reporting: Whether there are adequate analytics or customizable reports to gauge the tool’s performance.
- Integration: As businesses grow, so do tech stacks; consider whether a tool integrates with planned investments, such as interactive sales tools or revenue intelligence platforms.
- Client management: Managing client relationships gets more complex as deal size grows.
Despite economic turbulence, only 9% of survey respondents said their win rates decreased in 2025 (per HubSpot’s 2025 Sales Trends Report). Businesses are scaling despite the uncertainty. The teams driving those win rates are growing, and their tools need to keep pace.
Improve your small business operations with the right tools
The sales tools your small business needs depend on your business type, goals, and team. The guidance in this article can help you navigate the thousands of options on the market with more context and confidence.
I especially recommend a robust CRM to manage your customer interactions — one that integrates with your other tools to help you manage your pipeline, close deals, and keep customers happy.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
Free Sales Software
Built for productivity, powered by relevance.
- Sales Automation
- Call Tracking
- Lead Prospecting
- And More!
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