Best CRM Software Solutions (2026): Find the Right Fit for Your Team

I have researched and tested leading CRM platforms to find the overall best and help US businesses find the right fit for their budget.

Based on my experience, the best CRM software is Zoho CRM. It offers superb value for money by packing a ton of features at a mid-range price point, making it a great option for small-to-medium businesses and teams. If that’s not you, don’t worry, six other options may suit you better.

Finding the right CRM software can be challenging. After all, you don’t want to waste time and money signing up for a software plan your team struggles to engage with, and you don’t want to pay a premium for features you don’t use. Our list can help you narrow down your choices to the one CRM software that works for your business.

The Top 7 Best CRM Software Tools in 2026

Below, you’ll find my simple breakdown of the top seven best CRM software providers in 2026. If you’d like to cut straight to the chase, however, check out our CRM comparison tool, which will match you with some suitable CRM platforms based on the information you provide.

1. Zoho CRM: Best for Value for Money

Why is Zoho CRM the best value for money?

Zoho CRM provides businesses with a vast network of features and integrations for a relatively low price, making it a great value pick in my view.

Starting at $14 per user, per month, Zoho CRM is cheaper than Salesforce and Zendesk but includes advanced CRM features for a variety of use cases. Sales teams can take advantage of Zoho’s lead scoring function, while customer service teams can use Zoho’s detailed case management options.

Both of these are included in the cheapest pricing plan, so you don’t need to pay an arm and a leg to benefit from them.

On the marketing side, I found I could create email templates and send out marketing emails en masse, although the number you can send is more limited on the cheapest plan (250 per day). Still, I could track metrics like open rates and clicks, which is the kind of information I need to adjust A/B tests and marketing strategy more broadly.

Zoho also has a free plan, although it’s quite limited, and only allows for three users. It’s still pretty good value for money, however, since you get access to Zoho’s suite of other business-focused apps. You don’t get any fancy forecasting tools, though, or many customization options.

Who is Zoho CRM suitable for?

Zoho CRM is a great option for startups or small businesses looking to scale. It’s got a free plan for very small-scale operations, and four other plans designed to suit small to large businesses. Thanks to its mid-tier pricing ($14-$52 per user, per month) and large range of features, it also offers great value for money.

However, it’s not a good option for total beginners. I found the onboarding tour a little limited, given the number of features the platform contains.

There are a lot of helpful tutorials in Zoho’s Resource Center, but a novice user would have to spend a lot of time going through them to get to grips with the platform. For a more user-friendly CRM software, I’d suggest Freshsales.

Read more: The Best CRM Software for Sales Teams

2. Freshsales: The Simplest and Most User-Friendly Platform

Why is Freshsales the most user-friendly CRM software?

Freshsales earned its spot as the most user-friendly CRM software thanks to its excellent onboarding process. The software guided us through every step of the setup process, including importing data (arguably the most important step).

The platform also has a handy “launchpad” tool, which is like a search engine that users can use to look up features. This means you can quickly find the tool you’re looking for in the interface without trawling through endless menus, which I had to do when using competitor HubSpot.

One of the tools I liked the most on the system is the AI-based lead scoring, called Freddy AI. It automatically generates scores for leads that indicate how likely they are to convert. I was able to specify what type of leads are most valuable and which aren’t to produce results accurate to my specific business needs.

However, Freshsales’ AI contact scoring system did show some inconsistencies in our testing. I uploaded five contacts with the same basic fields (name and email), and their scores differed slightly. As such, I’d take the results with a grain of salt and not accept them blindly.

Who is Freshsales suitable for?

If you’re a small business looking for an easy-to-use CRM system, Freshsales will be right up your alley. Its comprehensive onboarding, minimalistic interface and useful AI assistant will help you get to work quickly.

Freshsales is also a much more lightweight program compared with its heavy-duty rivals. While that might put off a large business with big sales teams, you’ll definitely find it a better fit if you’re part of a small team that doesn’t need to build complex dashboards inside a multi-purpose CRM machine like Salesforce.

Freshsales is also relatively affordable. Like Zoho CRM, Freshsales has a free plan and an affordable starting plan at $7 per user, per month (cheaper than Zoho’s $14). However, it’s not quite as scalable as Zoho CRM, since there’s a steep price jump from the $7 Growth plan to the $29 Pro plan.

While it might be appealing to small, ambitious sales and marketing teams, I wouldn’t recommend Freshsales to customer service teams. It only has a few basic customer service functions, and you’d need to be on the Pro or Enterprise plans to create custom tasks for answering customer service queries.

You also can’t rank tickets by urgency, a crucial function for any customer service team. If you’re looking for a CRM platform that’s rich in customer service tools, Zendesk is a better bet.

3. HubSpot: Best All-in-One Solution

Why is HubSpot the best all-in-one solution?

HubSpot is the best all-in-one solution for CRM, largely thanks to its flexible pricing structure, which allows users to only pay for the premium features they need.

If you select the “Create a Bundle” option on HubSpot’s checkout page, I found that I was able to mix and match the features of HubSpot’s three plans (Starter, Professional, Enterprise). For example, if you need minimal marketing features, but require more advanced sales features, you can select the Starter level for marketing and the Professional or Enterprise level for sales.

When it comes to the features HubSpot offers, they’re quite extensive and meet a variety of CRM use-cases. Here are some features I was particularly impressed by:

• Sales features: Call contacts directly from HubSpot. You can do this as long as you have a HubSpot-provided number (available on all paid plans), and the call will be logged and recorded.
• Customer service features: Switch channels while talking to customers (go from live chat to email to Facebook Messenger), and create dynamic ticket routing rules (customers can use an AI chatbot or be directed to the appropriate employee).
• Marketing features: Embed videos that contain CTAs and forms in emails, on your website and on your social media pages, while tracking performance through HubSpot.

Who is HubSpot suitable for?

HubSpot is a great solution for smaller businesses that need marketing, sales, and customer service features, but don’t want to pay for anything they’re not going to use. The bundle pricing option also lets you pick different price points for each set of CRM functions, depending on your needs, meaning you won’t pay for premium features you don’t actually need.

While the flexibility is a bonus, HubSpot can still be very expensive. Right now, the highest price point is $4,700 per month for seven users, up from a previous high of $4,300, so it’s not a software we’d recommend for businesses without much of a software budget. For a more budget-friendly CRM solution that still has great features, look to Zoho CRM.

Read more: Compare CRM Software Costs

4. Pipedrive: Best for Detailed Lead Management

Why is Pipedrive best for lead management?

Pipedrive is best for detailed lead management thanks to its automations, AI sales assistant and unlimited customizable pipelines, which appear in an easy-to-read kanban view.

The platform comes with 30 preset workflow automations tailored to sales teams, so you don’t have to waste time building them when you set up. This means you’ll have more time to focus on nurturing your leads. This isn’t the case for platforms like Zoho CRM and Freshsales, which demand a bit more of a DIY approach, according to my testing experience.

The top three most expensive Pipedrive plans also come with an AI sales assistant, which helps you to best choose how to respond to current deals. In addition, these plans give you access to automatic assignment, which means leads and deals will automatically be assigned to team members based on your preset custom criteria.

Pipedrive also integrates with Slack, Trello and Teams, enabling me to take action within those apps based on activity within Pipedrive.

Our one gripe is that most of Pipedrive’s most attractive features are missing from its cheapest plan, Lite, making the starting point $39 per user, per month, for most of what we’ve discussed.

Who is Pipedrive suitable for?

Pipedrive is ideal for SMEs looking for a sales team CRM solution that comes with capable lead management features, like list segmentation and automated workflows, and it can accommodate a large number of pipelines.

I’d suggest it’s not for businesses looking for a marketing or customer service CRM solution, since Pipedrive is highly focused on sales. It has no customer service tools and limited email campaign functions.

For a customer service CRM solution, I recommend Zendesk, and for marketing functionality, I think you’d be better suited to Zoho CRM or HubSpot.

5. monday CRM: Best for Customization

Why is monday CRM the best for customization?

I found that monday CRM is the best CRM software for customization, allowing me to customize everything from the dashboard, contact fields, tasks and objects with ease.

The platform is structured as a series of customizable rows and columns, similar to a spreadsheet, giving you a comparable amount of control over how data is displayed. There are also no fixed separate dashboards, for leads and deals, for example, so you can combine information and items as you see fit.

I also appreciated how easy it was to customize monday CRM. Most changes can be made directly from the dashboard with a few clicks, whereas in competitor platforms, I typically needed to sift through the settings to do this. monday CRM is impressive because it opts for this “blank canvas” approach, yet I found it really easy to use.

There is a downside to this approach, though — its features aren’t as extensive as other CRM platforms. Marketing features are limited to web form creation and email sending, for instance. There’s also no preset automatic lead scoring, and while I could set parameters for this, it’s an extra step that could easily be removed.

Who is monday CRM suitable for?

monday CRM is suited to sales teams and service agents that have complex pipelines or a unique operating structure and need a CRM system with wide-ranging customization.

In the same vein, if you’ve found your current CRM a little restrictive and you want to try out another provider, I’d suggest taking monday CRM out for a test spin. You can use any paid monday CRM plan for a month before you have to pay anything, so there’s really no downside.

However, I don’t recommend monday CRM for marketing purposes, since it has virtually no features to support this, and lacks social media integrations. A better option for marketing CRM is Zoho CRM, which I could use with various social media tools.

6. Salesforce: Best for Automation and Analytics

Why is Salesforce best for automation and analytics?

Salesforce holds nearly 20% of the cloud-based CRM market share, making it one of the largest platforms available, so I couldn’t avoid including it in my list.

I chose Salesforce as the best CRM for automation and analytics because it has numerous options for automation and more in-depth analytics tools than other CRM platforms.

Automation options aren’t just limited to automatically assigning leads once they’ve come in. Instead, Salesforce’s AI software, Einstein Analytics, can generate content for your sales, marketing, commerce, and customer service teams.

When it comes to analytics and reporting, I found Salesforce has a report-building functionality separate from its dashboard creator. This means you can combine data from different dashboards, such as income and contact data, into one single spreadsheet. Data can also be displayed in many different ways, such as doughnut, funnel, line, bar and dot charts.

However, I will warn you that the learning curve for this tool is fairly steep. Most customizations I made had to be done in the settings menu, and I struggled a lot with importing data due to Salesforce not being able to map fields automatically (I had to manually indicate them to the software).

Who is Salesforce suitable for?

Salesforce is best for the sales or customer service teams of growing businesses that need in-depth analytics and want to streamline processes through automation.

I’d recommend it to SMEs over very small businesses, both because of Salesforce’s high price point (the cheapest plan is $25 per user, per month, $10 more than competitors) and because larger businesses will benefit the most from the premium features available on the platform.

This is particularly the case when it comes to integrations. If you’re a larger business, you probably use a lot of software already and need a CRM system that integrates with it. The Salesforce AppExchange connects your CRM to thousands of third-party applications — so there’s very little the software doesn’t work with.

As I mentioned above, Salesforce isn’t cheap. But if you are looking for CRM software that won’t burn a hole in the pocket of your slacks, we can help. We’ve listed the top 15 cheap CRM systems in the US — go get yourself a bargain!

7. Zendesk: Best for Customer Service

Why is Zendesk best for customer service?

I chose Zendesk as the best for customer service because it enables users to have multiple channels open with customers, and brings everything together through dashboards and third-party analytic tools.

For example, tickets from all channels are fed into the same space, so agents can easily access and see them. There’s also a feature called “Side Conversations”, enabling you to speak to a team member for further support without leaving the main ticket screen.

Additionally, Zendesk allows you to let customers initiate tickets in multiple ways, including WhatsApp and X (formerly known as Twitter). This gives your customers the ability to contact you easily and have their issues resolved more efficiently.

Plus, it integrates with popular VoIP providers’ systems, such as RingCentral, Dialpad, and GoTo, making crossover between your phone lines and CRM possible.

Who is Zendesk suitable for?

Zendesk has two sets of three plans, one is more sales-oriented and the other is more customer service-oriented.

However, we recommend Zendesk for its customer service CRM plans over its employee service plans, mainly because Zendesk’s employee plans lack a few CRM-related features, such as quote and invoice creation, while its service plans offer a comprehensive suite of tailored features.

I also wouldn’t recommend Zendesk to businesses that want in-depth reporting features, since customized reports are only available on the two most expensive customer service plans, starting at $115 per user per month.

For a top-notch sales-focused CRM platform that also has excellent reporting and analytics, go with Salesforce.

How Much Does CRM Cost?

The cost of CRM software varies greatly based on your industry, team size, data allowance, contact allowance and the features you need. Pricing also depends on whether you choose a monthly or annual billing model.

Platforms like HubSpot and Zoho offer completely free CRM systems that are good options for startups that want to test CRM software or very small teams. These free plans usually limit the number of users, contacts or advanced features you can access, but they’re a low-risk way to trial CRM before committing budget.

The cheapest paid CRM software plans typically start at around $9 to $12 per user, per month, and are good entry-level options for small businesses on a budget. Like free versions, they often have limits on users, storage or contact volumes, but they’re generally easier to use and more capable than basic free tools.

If you upgrade to a more complete plan, you’ll usually pay between $30 to $90 per user, per month. CRM software at this price point will suit most small-to-medium-sized businesses and comes with more features, integrations, contact storage, and user capacity than cheaper plans.

At the top end, Enterprise CRM plans for large companies with complex needs can run into the hundreds or even thousands of dollars per month, especially when you add advanced analytics, AI features or extra modules.

Many CRM platforms also offer two pricing systems — annual and monthly. If you pay annually, the price is usually slightly reduced, which can lower your total cost if you’re confident in your choice of provider.

You should also check whether you’ll incur extra costs for add-ons, onboarding and training, premium support, or integrations that aren’t included in the base subscription before committing to a long-term contract.

To compare CRM price tiers in detail, go to our dedicated pricing page, which offers a full breakdown of costs.

CRM Buying Guide: How To Choose the Right CRM Software

When choosing a CRM platform, prioritize ease of use, pricing transparency and integration capabilities to better team adoption and ROI. Based on our testing and research, these three factors tend to have the biggest impact on whether teams actually stick with a system long term. Use the questions below to stress-test providers before you sign a contract.

How important is ease of use in a CRM?

Consider how easy your chosen provider is to use by reading reviews, like ours and customer testimonials.

In general, an intuitive interface that is easy to navigate will allow all employees to thrive in their respective roles. A difficult-to-use CRM system can reduce morale as staff struggle to adopt the technology, so it’s important to find an option to fit existing skills and preferences.

If your existing staff has previous experience using CRM software, it’s more likely that they can handle a more complex platform. But don’t overlook new recruits, since you want to minimize onboarding time.

A big factor that affects how easy CRM software is to use is its level of customization. A highly customizable platform can take some time to set up. However, once you’ve organized it to perfectly match your needs, it’ll be much easier to use.

Make sure to take a look at the onboarding support or check out the free trial version before taking the plunge, since this can also help you determine a software’s suitability.

What pricing models and costs should I expect from CRM software?

Consider which features are a must-have for your business and check that these are included in your chosen plan. While some are expensive and some are cheaper, the most important thing is value for money. A more advanced system that allows you to outsource simple functions to automation will save you money in the long run, so it can be worth investing in a higher-end system.

Another factor to consider is your payment terms. Some providers charge less if you commit to them yearly, so this can be a great way to score a better deal.

What CRM features does my team actually need?

There is a vast array of tools and features that can be included (or not) in CRM software. Double-check that your team will be able to fulfil all of its actions within your chosen software.

The features you need will differ depending on whether you have sales, marketing or customer service intentions. For example, you may want to check how well you can create a sales pipeline, how easily you can create and test campaigns or whether you can perform multi-channel lead capture. The list goes on.

Does your team have specific needs?

CRMs aren’t a one-size-fits-all, so if you haven’t found a system that suits you in our guide, have a look at our specific industry-focused guides:

• The Best CRM for Healthcare
• The Best CRM for Law Firms
• The Best CRM for Accountants
• The Best CRM for Hotels
• The Best CRM for Restaurants
• The Best CRMs for Marketing and Creative Agencies
• The Best CRM Software for Sales Teams
• The Best CRM Systems for Recruitment Agencies

We also have a couple of specific guides that are feature-focused, too:

• The Best CRM for Email Marketing
• The Best Simple CRM Software

What integration capabilities does my CRM need?

Another area to consider, depending on your business needs, is how well the CRM integrates with the tools you already use. That could be any tool your preferred CRM can’t cover, such as email platforms, accounting systems and e-commerce platforms.

If you have specific needs or custom applications, check whether the CRM offers robust API access for deeper integrations and custom solutions.

With a more seamless integration across platforms, you can reduce the number of annoying headaches you and your team face, as well as lower the amount of valuable time lost at work.

How important is CRM customer support?

With any technology, you may occasionally run into hurdles. This is where customer support comes in to save the day.

Check the availability of your chosen provider’s customer support. Some operate online only, whereas some can be reached via telephone too, which can be crucial if you’re somebody who prefers to speak to another human being rather than a chatbot.

How important is mobile CRM access?

Having access to your CRM on the go can be crucial in today’s mobile-first world, where more and more teams are working remotely or in the field. For agile business operations, verify that your CRM offers a mobile or tablet app with full desktop functionality so your team can switch devices without running into missing features or broken workflows.

Can my CRM scale as my business grows?

Even if you are looking for a low-cost CRM solution, it is worth considering what your future business needs could entail, too. That’s because if you commit to one CRM system, changing software systems — and moving over all your work data as a result — can be a pain, and even cost you time and money as a result.

Consequently, I recommend picking a CRM that allows you to expand when you need to, whether that’s catering to an increased number of users, customers, new features or greater data. You’ll also want to consider the relative costs for these increases, too.

In the reviews above, we’ve listed the prices of each provider’s plans so you can see for yourself. However, many providers also allow for a variety of add-ons that can be added to any plan, which could save you money if you are looking for specific feature upgrades.

How to Switch or Migrate to a New CRM

Choosing a new CRM is only half the job: getting your data and your team safely from the old system to the new one is where most projects succeed or fail.

In our research and testing, the most time-consuming issues usually came from messy data, unclear ownership and underestimating how long imports and training would take, especially on more complex platforms like Salesforce.

When should you switch CRM platforms?

A full CRM migration is a big step, so it’s worth confirming that switching is the right move rather than just reconfiguring what you already have. Common signs it’s time to move include:

• Your team relies on spreadsheets or side tools because the current CRM doesn’t fit their workflow.
• Reporting and forecasting are unreliable or require heavy manual work every month.
• Licensing costs have grown faster than the value you’re getting from the platform.
• Integrations you now rely on aren’t available or are too fragile to maintain.

If several of these apply, planning a migration to a better-suited system can improve adoption and long-term ROI more than patching an outdated setup.

What should you do before you migrate CRM data?

The most successful migrations we’ve seen start with planning rather than imports. Before you move any data, you should:

• Audit your existing data: Identify duplicate records, incomplete contacts and legacy fields that no one uses. Clean and normalize this data before moving it — a new CRM won’t fix bad inputs.
• Define your core objects and fields: Agree on which fields matter (for example, lifecycle stage, industry, deal value, owner) and how they should be formatted in the new system.
• Create a field mapping document: Map every important field in your old CRM or spreadsheets to a specific field in the new CRM. This is crucial for tools like Salesforce, which can struggle to auto-map fields during import.
• Decide what not to migrate: Old or low-value records can slow performance and clutter views. Many teams choose to only migrate active contacts and deals from the last 12 to 24 months.

How do you safely migrate data to a new CRM?

Once your data is cleaned and mapped, you can start moving it in stages. A typical migration process looks like this:

1. Start with a test import: Import a small sample (for example, 100–500 records) into a sandbox or test account. Check that fields are mapped correctly and relationships between contacts, companies, and deals are preserved.
2. Import in logical batches: Migrate contacts, then companies, then deals and activities, or follow the order recommended by the new CRM’s documentation. Avoid moving everything into a single huge file if you can.
3. Validate after each batch: Spot-check records with your sales or support leads: do key filters, views and pipelines still make sense? Are the owners and stages correct?
4. Lock down old systems: Once you’re confident in the import, switch users to “read-only” mode on the old CRM so data doesn’t diverge while people are testing the new one.

How do you roll out a new CRM to your team?

Even a perfectly executed import can fail if users aren’t brought along. To improve adoption:

• Nominate internal champions: Give one or two people in sales, marketing, and support early access so they can help shape views, reports, and pipelines for their teams.
• Mirror existing workflows where possible: Recreate familiar views (like kanban boards for deals) before asking teams to change how they work.
• Schedule focused training: Run short, role-based sessions on how to log calls, update deals, use email tools and pull reports — not just a generic “overview” webinar.
• Set a clear cutover date: Decide when the new CRM becomes the single source of truth and communicate that old tools should no longer be updated after that point.

Common CRM migration mistakes to avoid

During migrations, we consistently see the same avoidable pitfalls:

• Skipping data cleaning and moving every record “as is”.
• Underestimating how long field mapping and testing will take.
• Letting multiple tools stay “live” for months which fragments data and adoption.
• Giving everyone admin-level permissions instead of defined roles.

Avoiding these issues will make your switch to a new CRM smoother and will help you see value from the new platform faster.

What Are the Key Features to Look For in CRM Software?

The most important features in a CRM system are:

• Contact/customer management: The main reason businesses use CRM, customer management features should help you store and visualize data from customers or contacts.
• Automation: Whether it be automatic messages once a certain action has been completed, updating data across different boards, or moving projects down the pipeline, a good CRM system should have some degree of automation.
• Customization: Your business is unique, so looking for a CRM platform that lets you customize data sets, processes and reports will ensure it matches your needs and improves efficiency rather than slows you down.
• Integrations: Choosing a CRM system that is integrated with your existing software, whether it be a VoIP phone system or accounting suite, will save you from having to manually export and import data across platforms and open up your CRM system to more use cases.

The above is just a list of general features; more specific key features your team needs will depend on their role in your organization.

Here are some other features you may want to look out for if your team falls into these three common CRM user roles: sales, marketing and customer service.

Key CRM features for marketing teams

With the right CRM tools in place to execute multi-channel campaigns and capture interested prospects, pipeline and revenue growth follow, marketing teams can generate and qualify more leads to hit their pipeline goals.

Key CRM features for marketing teams include:

• Campaign analytics
• Automated emails
• Landing page creation
• Social media and email integration

Key CRM features for sales teams

For sales teams, having a complete view of prospects and deals along with tools to advance them is key for hitting revenue goals.

Key CRM features for sales teams include:

• Contact management
• Stakeholder deal pipeline tracking
• Task automation and automatic reminders
• Proposal/quote management.

Key CRM features for customer service teams

Seamless customer service requires context and communication tracking, which a CRM enables for support teams.

Key features for customer service teams include:

• Support ticketing
• Business website integration
• Customer communication history logging
• Service analytics

Read more about how CRM can help automate your customer service in our dedicated guide.

How Secure Is CRM Software?

In our testing and research, we found that most leading CRM platforms take security seriously, but the level of protection — and how easy it is to manage — can vary a lot between tools.

Because CRM systems hold sales pipelines, customer histories, and sometimes payment or health-adjacent data, you should treat security as a core buying factor rather than an afterthought.

What security standards should CRM platforms meet?

At a minimum, modern CRM software should offer:

• Encryption in transit and at rest: Customer data should be protected with TLS (HTTPS) when it moves between your browser and the CRM, and encrypted on the provider’s servers when stored.
• Role-based access controls (RBAC): Admins should be able to define granular permissions so sales reps, managers and support agents only see the records and dashboards they actually need.
• Multi-factor authentication (MFA): In 2026, MFA or two-factor authentication should be standard, not a premium extra. Many CRMs also support single sign-on (SSO) via providers like Okta, Azure AD or Google Workspace.
• Audit logs and activity tracking: Good CRMs log who viewed, edited, exported or deleted records, helping you investigate suspicious activity and meet compliance requirements.
• Regular security testing and certifications: Look for references to third-party audits and frameworks such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, or similar standards in the provider’s documentation.

In practice, we found that larger platforms like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zendesk tend to offer the deepest security controls, while smaller or “freemium” tools sometimes limit advanced controls to higher-tier plans.

How do CRM tools handle GDPR, CCPA and other privacy laws?

Even if your business is US-based, you may still handle data from EU or California residents, which brings GDPR and CCPA/CPRA into play. When comparing CRMs, check:

• Data processing and DPAs: Reputable vendors provide a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) that defines how they act as a “processor” of your customer data.
• Regional data hosting and transfers: Some providers let you choose where your data is stored (for example, US versus EU data centers), which can help with compliance and latency.
• Data subject rights workflows: Your CRM should make it straightforward to find, export, or delete an individual’s data if they submit an access or deletion request.
• Cookie and tracking settings: If you’re using CRM-linked tracking pixels or forms on your website, you’ll need controls that let you honor consent choices and opt-outs.

Most major CRMs publish detailed privacy and compliance pages; it’s worth reviewing these side-by-side before you sign a long-term contract.

Who owns your CRM data?

A key question many buyers overlook is data ownership. In almost all cases:

• You own your customer data and the CRM provider is simply hosting and processing it on your behalf.
• The provider owns the software and platform, plus any aggregated, anonymized usage statistics they generate.

Before choosing a CRM, review the terms to confirm:

• You can export your data (contacts, deals, activity history) in a usable format if you decide to leave.
• The vendor’s retention policies define how and when your data is deleted after termination.
• You can request permanent deletion of specific records for compliance or internal policy reasons.

This matters particularly if you’re planning a future migration, so you don’t want to discover later that you can’t export full histories or attachments.

What can your team do to keep CRM data safe?

Even the most secure CRM can be undermined by poor internal practices. When we tested CRM platforms with real sales and support workflows, the biggest risks usually came from configuration and user behavior rather than the software itself. To protect your data:

• Tighten permissions: Start with the most restrictive roles possible and only open up access where necessary.
• Enforce strong login policies: Require MFA, set sensible password rules and use SSO where available.
• Limit exports and downloads: Restrict who can export full contact lists or reports and log when they do.
• Train your team: Make sure staff understand phishing risks, how to handle sensitive notes, and when not to store payment or medical details in free-text fields.

Treating CRM security as a shared responsibility between the vendor and your team will help you protect high-value customer data while still giving employees the flexibility they need to work efficiently.

How We Test and Rank CRM Systems