Factors to keep in mind by consulting CRM software buyers
7 best CRM for consulting business that you must consider!
Closing thoughts
Key Takeaways
Consultants of the Big Three work 55 to 60 hours per week to keep up with the demand of their role, making it a challenge for consultants to maintain a good work-life balance.
CRM software can help consulting businesses manage and automate their sales, marketing, and CX practices to save time for effective consulting and closing deals.
When selecting a CRM, a few things to remember are its features, pricing, user interface, communication capabilities, and integration with third-party tools.
Did you know? Consultants of the Big 3 (McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company) work 55 to 60 hours weekly to keep up with the demand of their role.
And for Big Three consultants, maintaining a good work-life balance has become a challenge.
55 to 60 weekly working hours is a startling amount!
However, with the help of the right consultant management software, this amount could be reduced.
For instance…
Connecting with leads and clients is easier
Managing leads and clients trouble-free
Automating all your mundane tasks to save time and much more
You’re in the right place if you’re a consulting firm or an independent consultant searching for a perfect CRM solution.
Whether it’s comparing them with pricing, features, or their limitations, we’ve taken a closer look at each CRM and made a detailed evaluation.
But, before looking at the top CRM for consulting businesses available in the market, let’s look at a few factors you should consider before choosing one.
Factors to keep in mind by consulting CRM software buyers
Every business is different, and so are its requirements.
For example, reports might be essential for medium and large-scale businesses, whereas contact management might be more critical for small-scale consulting companies.
So, here are the factors to consider:
Is the CRM intuitive and easy-to-use?
Does the CRM have pipeline management?
Can you keep track of all your client communication (call, text, and email) in one place?
Is it within the budget?
Does it have powerful automation capabilities to automate time-consuming and repetitive tasks?
Is it equipped with a robust reporting feature that generates detailed reports with key insights?
Is the management consultant software accessible on a mobile device?
Does it integrate with other apps, such as invoicing or document signing tools?
7 best CRM for consulting business that you must consider!
Now that you’re equipped with the right things to keep in mind let’s look at the 7 best CRM software for consultants.
Salesmate is a robust CRM that helps businesses better connect with their prospects or existing clients, nurture them, and convert them.
It has everything from Web Forms to Sales Reports to help you keep your sales, marketing, and CX operations in one place.
It’s known for its user-friendly interface and value-for-money features, making it accessible to businesses of all sizes and one of the best CRM software for your consulting business.
Some key Salesmate features that help consulting businesses are Sales Pipeline, Deal Management, Sales Reports & Forecasting, Shared Team Inbox, Automation, Chatbots, Built-in Calling, and more.
Moreover, the CRM integrates with 700+ essential business apps like Harvest or InvoiceBerry for invoicing, DocuSign for getting clients to sign necessary contracts digitally, and many more.
Overall, Salesmate is a great CRM solution for consulting firms that helps streamline their sales & marketing business processes.
It enables you to boost efficiency and save time for your most important activity- providing expert advice and solutions to clients.
High-end automation capabilities get rid of time-consuming tasks. For instance, you can automate lead scoring, lead nurturing, onboarding of new clients, and much more.
An all-in-one CRM for consultants to manage all (marketing, sales, and CX roles).
Mobile CRM to facilitate your consulting business anywhere, at any time.
2. HubSpot CRM
HubSpot is a customer relationship management software that offers solutions for sales, marketing, customer service, CMS, and operations.
However, HubSpot is a platform that isn’t pocket-friendly for small-scale businesses. The average price of the basic plan of all the solutions comes to around $550/month.
And, for businesses that are just starting or have a small team, it can be quite challenging.
It also has the option to choose a CRM suite that starts at $1,781/month. It is a comprehensive solution that includes marketing, sales, customer service, CMS, and operations software features.
HubSpot also has all these plans available for individuals and small teams at a much lower price, such as the CRM suite for individuals or small teams is available for $30/month.
But for the low-price plans, there isn’t much value left in the platform. So it puts many limitations on that price.
So, if you’re a small-scale business and looking for the best CRM software for consultants, HubSpot is a big no-no!
Pricing
Free Plan: $0
Start Plan (For individuals and small businesses): $30/month (Sales & service hub includes 2 paid users)
Professional Plan (For individuals & small businesses and for businesses & enterprises): $1,600/month (Sales & service hub includes 5 paid users)
Enterprise Plan (For businesses and enterprises): $5,000/month (Sales & service hub includes 10 paid users)
Users can create a custom bundle of features their business uses most and only pay for the important stuff.
It is an all-in-one ecosystem for sales, marketing, and CX teams.
HubSpot’s vast app marketplace allows users to connect numerous third-party tools with the platform.
Cons
The pricing of the platform is not suitable for individual or small-scale businesses.
HubSpot email templates are hard to modify and aren’t very easy to use.
The pricing of the plans isn’t very transparent. They do have hidden charges that are disclosed after signing up.
The basic CRM suite plan allows users to create only 1,000 marketing contacts.
3. Salesflare
Salesflare is a CRM that helps businesses better manage customer relationships and sales processes.
It primarily focuses on helping small and medium-sized firms with CRM. So, if you’re an enterprise-level organization, this might not be your CRM.
Key features of Salesflare include email tracking, automatic logging of calls & meetings, workflow automation, and more.
It is also known for its leaderboard, revenue insights, interaction tracking, and sales funnel analysis.
Overall, Salesflare is a platform that just makes do with the basic functions of a CRM. And even though it’s targeting small-scale businesses, the pricing isn’t that feasible.
So if you have specific requirements that can only be fulfilled with Salesflare, you should go for them.
However, if that’s not the case, other great options are available.
The platform has an intuitive interface, making it easy for new users to navigate the software.
The information-gathering capabilities of the platform are good. It automatically gathers contact information such as emails, social profiles, email signatures, etc.
Cons
Salesflare has limited features compared to other CRMs available in the market.
Only 25 email-finding credits are available in the basic $29 plan. Add-ons are available for this, which start at $39 for 1500 credits.
4. Salesforce Sales Cloud
Consulting businesses focus on guiding their potential and existing clients in the right direction. And, with Salesforce CRM also having a core focus on enabling businesses to better manage their prospects and client relationships, with the help of data, it can be a good choice for your business.
It consists of various capabilities that allow users to store, track, and analyze prospect & customer information.
The platform focuses on bringing sales, marketing, commerce, service, and IT teams into one place with their customer 360 capability.
If you have a substantial budget to spend, then Salesforce might be the choice for your business.
Allows users to custom-choose features of choice that suit their requirements.
Salesforce is an adaptive CRM, allowing it to work for any size of the organization.
The platform has built a fantastic community around the product that helps drive customer success in the organization.
Cons
The basic plan lacks critical features—for instance, workflows, meetings, automation, and more.
The platform has a complex user interface and isn’t very easy to use.
Ample research and training are required for teams to use the platform efficiently.
When many leads are coming in, lead scoring is important for a consulting firm. However, with Salesforce, this capability is available only in the ‘unlimited’ plan.
5. Capsule CRM
Capsule is a smart and simple CRM that helps businesses to build better customer relationships, drive sales, and save time.
It has various features that help businesses manage their customer interactions effectively. Some essential features include contact management, workflow automation, sales pipeline, and task management.
Moreover, it also has a range of integrations to third-party tools like Zapier, FreeAgent, Mailchimp, and more.
Capsule CRM is well-equipped to help businesses improve customer relationships and drive growth.
Capsule CRM has essential features that allow businesses to manage their contacts and sales, so this might not be a suitable software for larger enterprises.
Capsule CRM is an ideal choice for small firms that are looking for a simple CRM tool that is easy to use and effective.
It is super simple and easy to use, making it a good choice for businesses, as they won’t have to spend much time and resources to train the teams.
Capsule has robust customization options, from customizable milestones to branding, fields, and more.
Cons
Essential features like workflow automation, advanced sales reporting, multiple sales pipelines, and more aren’t available in the starter plan.
The built-in marketing automation tools have limited capabilities. Due to this, it integrates third-party tools to make up for the same.
6. Keap
If you’re an independent consultant or a small-scale consulting firm, then Keap just might be the CRM for you.
Keap is a CRM best known for helping small business leaders who want to grow their businesses with sales and marketing automation.
It includes multiple features, such as sales pipeline, email marketing, lead management, lead capture, sales & marketing automation, and more.
Also, for growing businesses, two things are quite important. First is ‘pricing’ and ‘value for money.’
However, in Keap’s case, the feature of ‘marketing analytics’ isn’t available in the basic plan, and for each new user you add to your Keap ecosystem, they charge $29 for each new user. So, this is something to think about!
Pricing
Pro: $149/month (Available with 1500 contacts and 2 users)
Max: $199/month (Available with 2500 contacts and 3 users)
Keap offers invoicing and payment processing features within the CRM, allowing consulting firms to manage their finances seamlessly.
The learning curve for the platform is quite less compared to other platforms. It’s very easy to use and get started with.
Cons
Keap focuses on helping small-scale businesses. However, the pricing offered in the basic plan is quite steep.
It isn’t value for money. The basic plan doesn’t include marketing analytics and only allows 1500 contacts.
7. Freshsales
Freshsales is a solution offered by Freshworks that enables businesses to drive better customer engagement, optimize their sales cycles, and convert more customers.
If you’re looking for a CRM that can help you execute basic sales and marketing functions, then Freshsales might be the solution.
Its features include contact management, a sales dashboard, deal management, built-in calling, and much more.
However, Freshsales does lack the ability to provide important features in the basic plan, for instance, time-based workflows, custom fields, sales forecasting, call transfer, and more.
Freshsales has a user-friendly interface, making it easy to navigate and access vital information quickly.
It has a suite of integrations to improve the CRM experience through Freshworks Marketplace.
Freshsales utilizes AI technology to enable businesses to focus on the right deals with AI-powered insights known as Freddy AI.
Cons
The pricing is quite steep for growing businesses.
While it’s easy to use, it has limited customization capabilities compared to other CRMs.
The basic plan doesn’t provide primary features important for consulting firms, such as an advanced dashboard, deal insights, only 2000 bot sessions, advanced automation, and more.
Closing thoughts
In conclusion, selecting the best CRM software for your consulting firm can significantly impact your marketing efforts and sales process.
Each of the 7 CRM software discussed in this article has its own features and benefits, making it appropriate for various consulting firms.
Go for a feature-rich consulting CRM system that meets your needs, aligns with your goals, and offers advanced analytics to forecast sales.
You can make an informed decision and choose a CRM to help your consulting firm thrive by considering pricing, scalability, customization options, and integration with other tools.
Sonali Negi
Sonali is a writer born out of her utmost passion for writing. She is working with a passionate team of content creators at Salesmate. She enjoys learning about new ideas in marketing and sales. She is an optimistic girl and endeavors to bring the best out of every situation. In her free time, she loves to introspect and observe people.
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This blog outlines the 11 core consulting skills essential for success in 2025, such as creative thinking, strategic planning, communication, and problem-solving. It emphasizes the importance of combining expertise with interpersonal and management skills to deliver tailored solutions and meet client expectations effectively.
A consulting sales funnel is a strategic model that helps you attract potential clients and nurture their interests to turn them into your paying clients.
Key Takeaways
Did you know? Consultants of the Big 3 (McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company) work 55 to 60 hours weekly to keep up with the demand of their role.
And for Big Three consultants, maintaining a good work-life balance has become a challenge.
55 to 60 weekly working hours is a startling amount!
However, with the help of the right consultant management software, this amount could be reduced.
For instance…
You’re in the right place if you’re a consulting firm or an independent consultant searching for a perfect CRM solution.
Whether it’s comparing them with pricing, features, or their limitations, we’ve taken a closer look at each CRM and made a detailed evaluation.
But, before looking at the top CRM for consulting businesses available in the market, let’s look at a few factors you should consider before choosing one.
Factors to keep in mind by consulting CRM software buyers
Every business is different, and so are its requirements.
For example, reports might be essential for medium and large-scale businesses, whereas contact management might be more critical for small-scale consulting companies.
So, here are the factors to consider:
7 best CRM for consulting business that you must consider!
Now that you’re equipped with the right things to keep in mind let’s look at the 7 best CRM software for consultants.
Sales and Marketing Automation
Contact Management
Workflow Management
Automation Journeys
Chat Journeys
Sales Cadences
Meeting Scheduler
Report and Insights
Omni-channel Marketing Automation
Sequences
Forecasting
Service Analytics
Email Tracking
Automation Logging
Website Tracking
Sales Automation
Lead Management
Pipeline Management
Forecast Management
Sales Pipeline and Analytics
Workflow Automation
Sales and Marketing Automation
Lead Management
Reporting and analytics
Cloud Telephony
CPQ application
Deal Management
Sales Reports
Freddy AI
1. Salesmate
Salesmate is a robust CRM that helps businesses better connect with their prospects or existing clients, nurture them, and convert them.
It has everything from Web Forms to Sales Reports to help you keep your sales, marketing, and CX operations in one place.
It’s known for its user-friendly interface and value-for-money features, making it accessible to businesses of all sizes and one of the best CRM software for your consulting business.
Some key Salesmate features that help consulting businesses are Sales Pipeline, Deal Management, Sales Reports & Forecasting, Shared Team Inbox, Automation, Chatbots, Built-in Calling, and more.
Moreover, the CRM integrates with 700+ essential business apps like Harvest or InvoiceBerry for invoicing, DocuSign for getting clients to sign necessary contracts digitally, and many more.
Overall, Salesmate is a great CRM solution for consulting firms that helps streamline their sales & marketing business processes.
It enables you to boost efficiency and save time for your most important activity- providing expert advice and solutions to clients.
Pricing
Basic: $23/user/month
Pro: $39/user/month
Business: $63/user/month
Enterprise: Contact sales
View pricing in detail →
Pros
2. HubSpot CRM
HubSpot is a customer relationship management software that offers solutions for sales, marketing, customer service, CMS, and operations.
However, HubSpot is a platform that isn’t pocket-friendly for small-scale businesses. The average price of the basic plan of all the solutions comes to around $550/month.
And, for businesses that are just starting or have a small team, it can be quite challenging.
It also has the option to choose a CRM suite that starts at $1,781/month. It is a comprehensive solution that includes marketing, sales, customer service, CMS, and operations software features.
HubSpot also has all these plans available for individuals and small teams at a much lower price, such as the CRM suite for individuals or small teams is available for $30/month.
But for the low-price plans, there isn’t much value left in the platform. So it puts many limitations on that price.
So, if you’re a small-scale business and looking for the best CRM software for consultants, HubSpot is a big no-no!
Pricing
Free Plan: $0
Start Plan (For individuals and small businesses): $30/month (Sales & service hub includes 2 paid users)
Professional Plan (For individuals & small businesses and for businesses & enterprises): $1,600/month (Sales & service hub includes 5 paid users)
Enterprise Plan (For businesses and enterprises): $5,000/month (Sales & service hub includes 10 paid users)
View pricing in detail →
Pros
Cons
3. Salesflare
Salesflare is a CRM that helps businesses better manage customer relationships and sales processes.
It primarily focuses on helping small and medium-sized firms with CRM. So, if you’re an enterprise-level organization, this might not be your CRM.
Key features of Salesflare include email tracking, automatic logging of calls & meetings, workflow automation, and more.
It is also known for its leaderboard, revenue insights, interaction tracking, and sales funnel analysis.
Overall, Salesflare is a platform that just makes do with the basic functions of a CRM. And even though it’s targeting small-scale businesses, the pricing isn’t that feasible.
So if you have specific requirements that can only be fulfilled with Salesflare, you should go for them.
However, if that’s not the case, other great options are available.
Pricing
Growth: $29/user/month
Pro: $49/user/month
Enterprise: $99/user/month
View pricing in detail →
Pros
Cons
4. Salesforce Sales Cloud
Consulting businesses focus on guiding their potential and existing clients in the right direction. And, with Salesforce CRM also having a core focus on enabling businesses to better manage their prospects and client relationships, with the help of data, it can be a good choice for your business.
It consists of various capabilities that allow users to store, track, and analyze prospect & customer information.
The platform focuses on bringing sales, marketing, commerce, service, and IT teams into one place with their customer 360 capability.
If you have a substantial budget to spend, then Salesforce might be the choice for your business.
Pricing
Essentials: $25/user/month
Professional: $75/user/month
Enterprise: $150/user/month
Unlimited: $300/user/month
View pricing in detail →
Pros
Cons
5. Capsule CRM
Capsule is a smart and simple CRM that helps businesses to build better customer relationships, drive sales, and save time.
It has various features that help businesses manage their customer interactions effectively. Some essential features include contact management, workflow automation, sales pipeline, and task management.
Moreover, it also has a range of integrations to third-party tools like Zapier, FreeAgent, Mailchimp, and more.
Capsule CRM is well-equipped to help businesses improve customer relationships and drive growth.
Capsule CRM has essential features that allow businesses to manage their contacts and sales, so this might not be a suitable software for larger enterprises.
Capsule CRM is an ideal choice for small firms that are looking for a simple CRM tool that is easy to use and effective.
Pricing
Professional: $18/user/month
Teams: $36/user/month
Enterprise: $54/user/month
View pricing in detail →
Pros
Cons
6. Keap
If you’re an independent consultant or a small-scale consulting firm, then Keap just might be the CRM for you.
Keap is a CRM best known for helping small business leaders who want to grow their businesses with sales and marketing automation.
It includes multiple features, such as sales pipeline, email marketing, lead management, lead capture, sales & marketing automation, and more.
Also, for growing businesses, two things are quite important. First is ‘pricing’ and ‘value for money.’
However, in Keap’s case, the feature of ‘marketing analytics’ isn’t available in the basic plan, and for each new user you add to your Keap ecosystem, they charge $29 for each new user. So, this is something to think about!
Pricing
Pro: $149/month (Available with 1500 contacts and 2 users)
Max: $199/month (Available with 2500 contacts and 3 users)
Max Classic: Contact Sales
View pricing in detail →
Pros
Cons
7. Freshsales
Freshsales is a solution offered by Freshworks that enables businesses to drive better customer engagement, optimize their sales cycles, and convert more customers.
If you’re looking for a CRM that can help you execute basic sales and marketing functions, then Freshsales might be the solution.
Its features include contact management, a sales dashboard, deal management, built-in calling, and much more.
However, Freshsales does lack the ability to provide important features in the basic plan, for instance, time-based workflows, custom fields, sales forecasting, call transfer, and more.
Pricing
Growth: $15/user/month
Pro: $39/user/month
Enterprise: $69/user/month
View pricing in detail →
Pros
Cons
Closing thoughts
In conclusion, selecting the best CRM software for your consulting firm can significantly impact your marketing efforts and sales process.
Each of the 7 CRM software discussed in this article has its own features and benefits, making it appropriate for various consulting firms.
Go for a feature-rich consulting CRM system that meets your needs, aligns with your goals, and offers advanced analytics to forecast sales.
You can make an informed decision and choose a CRM to help your consulting firm thrive by considering pricing, scalability, customization options, and integration with other tools.
Sonali Negi
Sonali is a writer born out of her utmost passion for writing. She is working with a passionate team of content creators at Salesmate. She enjoys learning about new ideas in marketing and sales. She is an optimistic girl and endeavors to bring the best out of every situation. In her free time, she loves to introspect and observe people.