What are the most commonly used database clients?

1

monday.com

Manage your client data, interactions, and processes in one centralized place to streamline all sales opportunities

Monday sales CRM is a complete Work OS software featuring robust client management and database capabilities. The platform lets you manage all client and customer-related data: from contact details and recording communications to setting up automatic reminders and assigning tasks.

The platform provides a 360° view of all customer interactions and communications in one organized view, giving you and your team full visibility into all important data at any time. The intuitive interface makes it easy to visualize every part of your client database without having to switch between multiple tabs or screens.

Managing and recording interactions with customers is also made easy using monday.com: send emails directly from the platform, schedule calls, and instantly log all communications in one place. Whether it’s emails, meetings, notes, or other events, log and connect every interaction to your larger sales pipeline.

Best of all, you can connect your monday sales CRM customer database with many of the tools you already use, including Hubspot, Zendesk, Slack, Google Drive, and others. These integrations can be set up alongside automations to seamlessly trigger actions, like “If customer does not respond in 3 days, automatically send follow-up email.

monday sales CRM costs from $10/user/month and comes with a free 14-day trial. They offer a free plan for up to 2 users.

14-day free trial

From $10/user/month

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2

Zoho CRM

Best client and customer database software for AI capabilities

Zoho CRM is a cloud-based, easy-to-use client database management software with a simple UI and highly customizable workflows for generating, qualifying, and nurturing leads into deals and lifelong customers.

Users can track purchase history, product preference, and personal information on a timeline of activities dating back to the first interaction and lead source. The tool includes advanced filters and fields for deal stage, campaign source, email status, notes added, and even profitability percentage.

Choose from pre-built reports or dashboard templates, or create your own to visualize customer behaviour and metrics in the form of charts, KPIs, and funnels. Team members can export reports as Excel, CSV, or PDF files, embed dashboards on a website and/or make it accessible on a Slack channel.

Mobile-enabled features allow you to log prospect details on-the-go, pull up price lists and agreements, and post significant updates on your team forum or chat. Another great feature is the AI-powered sales assistant that can auto-fill empty fields in your CRM.

Zoho CRM has over 40 native integrations and 500+ third-party integrations that include Google (G Suite), Microsoft Office 365, MailChimp, RingCentral, Quickbooks, Zapier, Xero, and other popular apps.

Zoho CRM starts at $14/month with a 15-day free trial, and also offers a free version for up to 3 users.

15-day free trial

From $14/user/month

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3

Freshsales

Client database and CRM that lets your team use AI-based lead scoring, phone, email, activity capture, and more

Boasting over 150,000 clients and users, Freshsales aims to simplify CRM solutions. To do so, they offer AI-based lead scoring; phone, email, activity capture; sales lead acquisition assistance; sales pipeline management; event tracking (website and app); and more.

Freshsales does email segmentation, sorting, and display-by-relevance very well. This tool categorized conversations in a way that makes them easy to retrieve and sort by customer and it also uses conversation records (text, call, chat, email) to their full potential.

Native integrations include Freshdesk, Freshchat, Freshconnect, Freshcaller, Google calendar, Mailchimp, Segment, Office 365 Calendar, Hubspot, Freshsales for Web, PieSync, Google Apps, Quickbooks, Google Contacts, Xero, and many more through Zapier. Other integrations include Calendly, Facebook, GetAccept, Clenty, Justcall, Toky, 24sessions, Integromat, Akito, Trello, Magento, and more.

Setting up and learning the software was quite time-consuming, losing them some minor points in the Usability section of the evaluation criteria. Migrating from another CRM platform, in particular, has many pain points.

Freshsales starts at $15/user/month and has a 21-day free trial.

21-day free trial

From $15/user/month

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4

Airtable

Part spreadsheet, part database, Airtable lets you add attachments, text notes, links to records, and even barcodes

With over 800,000+ companies using Airtable, this tool uses native mobile and desktop apps to make it easy to edit, comment, and collaborate within the database in real-time. Organizational options include customizable fields for data; filtering, sorting, and grouping of content; and more.

Having a freemium version, as well as a very reasonable monthly subscription price, made sure that Airtable excels in our Value for Cost evaluation criteria section. This makes them a great choice for those just beginning to dabble in client database software.

Airtable has many built-in integration options as well as a robust API. Connect even more apps and websites through Zapier, Workato, Integromat, or Automate.io. Built-in integration options include Asana, Basecamp, Box, Dropbox, Eventbrite, EverNote, Facebook, Github, Gmail and G Suite, Instagram, Jotform, LinkedIn, and many more.

Minor cons include no options for rich text functionality, quite limited records for free plans, low-responsiveness with customer service, and minimal tutorial help.

Airtable starts at $10/user/month and has a freemium version.

Free-forever plan with limited functionalities, but you can upgrade to a paid plan with ease

From $10/user/month

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5

Kintone

Best for building custom client databases

Kintone is a customizable client database tool used by teams at Volvo Trucks North America, Japan Airlines, Shiseido, and over 23,000 organizations worldwide. Their unique approach to client database tools lets you build a wide variety of customizable “apps” either from scratch, using templates or from your existing spreadsheets, for data management, business processes, and workflows. Kintone apps can be customized for project management, sales CRM, client databases and activity logs, expense reports, shared to-do lists, equipment management, product feedback, and much more.

Kintone lets you build client database apps by dragging and dropping elements that you want to see onto the page: rich text fields, date fields, drop-down menus, number fields with built-in calculations, spaces for attachments, user or group selection menus, related data from other apps, tables, and more.

Once you’ve built the app you want, you can use it to more easily manage whatever data and tasks you and your team need to track. And with custom notifications and reminders as well as detailed permissions settings, your client database solution can look and work however you want it to.

What makes Kintone particularly great for client databases is the customizability—users can tailor what information the CRM records and holds, update and change fields or entire workflows without relying on IT support, and create automated reminders to notify sales members of important deadlines.

Kintone’s built-in communication features also allow your team to discuss customers or tasks directly in the database and in topic or project-based threads. Dedicated “spaces” organize all of the information your team needs about your customers in one place, including your customer database, customer inquiries and interactions, and more.

There are so many ways to customize Kintone it can be hard to know where to start. Read the starter blog “What Can You Build with Kintone?” or watch Creating an App from Scratch for a quick look at how the drag-and-drop builder works.

Kintone lets you expand its capabilities with both free native plugins built by the Kintone team as well as integrations with other tools like Slack, Gmail, Google Calendar, Outlook, Tableau, Dropbox, Salesforce, HubSpot, Eventbrite, WordPress, QuickBooks, MailChimp, and many more through a paid plan with Zapier or via API integrations.

Kintone costs $24/user/month with a minimum requirement of 5 users. They offer a 30-day free trial (no credit card required) and discounted prices for nonprofits and educators. Kintone’s team also offers a free custom app build as part of the free trial process.

30 days free trial

From $24/user/month

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6

Streak

Sales and project management software with automation, data, and analytics, built right into Gmail

Streak CRM integrates directly with Gmail, so users can track and manage their sales pipeline, contacts, and emails right in G Suite. You can also set reminders for easy follow-ups with tasks and clients.

You can import and export client and lead data in any format, including numbers, text, lists, checkboxes, tags, formulas, contacts, and more, making it useful for tracking and reporting on data. Streak CRM will auto-fill data such as ‘Date created’ or ‘Date of Last Email'.

Another great feature is the ability to automatically share emails, notes, and call logs with your team so you can pick up where they left off. Streak CRM offers a mobile app as well, for ease of use and access.

Streak CRM’s open API integrates with G Suite and Zapier to connect your Streak to any existing app or tool you use.

Streak CRM has a basic plan that is completely free. Paid plans cost from $15/user/month.

14 days free trial

From $15/user/month

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7

Ontraport

Store every customer click, purchase, and action throughout your campaigns and use landing pages and forms to bring people in

Boasting award-winning customer support, Ontraport features a variety of tools for users of their CRM suite: email and text marketing, landing pages and forms, UTM data for lead sources, fulfillment lists, automated follow-up, process mapping, API access for integrations, and more.

Something Ontraport does particularly well is helping you map the customer journey from landing page to ongoing relationship support. You’ll have access to perfectly tailored event steps like initial forms, email confirmation automation, and future campaign navigation.

Integrations include Quickbooks, Xero, Acuity Scheduling, Calendly, Google Calendar, Schedule Once, Time Trade, Bloom Forms, ConvertPlus, ConvertPro, Freshdesk, Helpscout, ZenDesk, Beaver Builder, Leadpages, Megaphone, Lob, MailLift, Thankster, LearnDash, ZippyCourses, Shopify, WooCommerce, and many more. You can also connect tools through API helpers like Apiant, Fuzed, PieSync, PlusThis, Webmerge, and Zapier.

In our Value for Cost evaluation criteria, we look for two things: General affordability and transparency in pricing. Ontraport lost a few marks here because the monthly cost is only for a single user with additional users racking up another $47/user/month.

Ontraport starts at $79/month and has a free 14-day trial.

Free 14-day trial

From $79/month

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8

Keap

CRM, client database, sales, and marketing automation for small to midsize businesses

Keap is a clean, intuitive client database tool for automating processes around following-up with leads and clients. You can schedule pre-built reminders, automated emails, and texts to make keeping up with customers, or potential customers, faster, saving you and your team time.

The tool lets you build a repeatable sales process to maintain regular client database outreach as well as set-up appointments, track leads, and send quotes. Keap also includes built-in landing pages and a campaign builder to get more leads and turn them into paying clients, as well as reporting and analysis features.

Keap integrates with lots of tools including PieSync, AdEspresso, BigCommerce, Bojoro, AppointmentCore, Automate.io, Zapier, Fix Your Funnel, Deadline Funnel, CustomerHub, Formlift, Gmail, Graphly, Imember360, Instapage, JotForm, LeadPages, My Fusion Helper, OptinMonster, Outlook, PlusThis, Privy, Quickboks, ScheduleOnce, Wordpress, and others. This extensive list of connection options scored them very well in the Integration segment of the evaluation criteria.

Keap starts at $79/month for 500 contacts and 1 user; they often have lower price deals for your first 2 months.

14-day free trial

From $169/month

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9

Agile CRM

A cloud-based SaaS service with sales enablement, marketing automation, customer service, and more

Free for up to 10 users, Agile CRM is an excellent option for small to mid-sized businesses. Features vary between free and paid plans and may include sales enablement through gamification, marketing automation, customer service, contact management, and more.

Agile CRM’s monthly subscription price is one of the lowest per-user on this list, not to mention they have a freemium version for 10 users or less. This ensured they scored top marks in the Value for Cost section of the evaluation criteria.

Integrations include Twitter, Facebook, TowerData (Rapleaf), LinkedIn, Zendesk, ClickDesk, HelpScout, LiveHelpNow, Tidio Chat, UserVoice, IMAP, Google Apps, Microsoft Exchange, Twilio, VoIP, RingCentral, Bria, Mandrill, SendGrid, Amazon SES, FreshBooks, Xero, QuickBooks, and many more. Connect additional tools using Zapier, as well.

A few cons to note are limitations/restrictions in certain automation capabilities, some cumbersome sales tracking elements, and a lack of search/sorting fields.

Agile CRM starts at $8.99/user/month and has a freemium version for up to 10 users.

Freemium version up to 10 users

From $8.99/user/month

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10

Salesforce

A robust client database system that helps you forecast sales, improve service satisfaction, task automation, and more

Founded in 1999, Salesforce pioneered the idea of replacing traditional desktop CRM software with a cloud-based alternative. This tool focuses on everything from employee productivity, team collaboration, customer loyalty, sales generation, artificial intelligence, and more.

Some of the strengths of this software include the ease of use and plentiful customization capabilities; the unification of their client database and associated notes; and responsiveness of their customer support team.

App and tool integration is done through the MuleSoft Anypoint Platform. You can bring data from any system, like SAP, Oracle, Workday, and more, directly into Salesforce using this system.

Salesforce does its best to keep you within its own infrastructure, which is why integrations are siloed through their own platform: MuleSoft Anypoint. Their unwillingness to promote independent app add-ons lost them some marks in the Integrations category of our evaluation criteria.

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