9 Best CRM Software in South Africa in 2024

Updated Jul 20, 2023.

If you’re running a business in South Africa, you need a reliable platform to manage your interactions with customers. We’ve compiled the best CRM software to help, starting with the top five.

Monday icon

Monday CRM

Topnotch CRM and project and work management software with collaboration tools, time-saving automation, and easy optimization.
Pipedrive icon

Pipedrive

Ideal tool for sales teams to manage and track contacts. Operational CRM with user-friendly design and workflow automation.
Hubspot icon

HubSpot CRM

Sleek CRM with a wide range of integrations for marketing, customer service, and sales teams. Offers to schedule with top-notch customer service.
Keap icon

Keap

Built for startups and CRM beginners who need sales and marketing automation. Comes with an intuitive platform and e-commerce features.
Insightly icon

Insightly

Easy for teams to work together from anywhere with streamlined workflows. Ideal for marketing campaigns; comes with native integrations.

Our work is supported by affiliate commissions.

Customer relationship management software provides an organization with a platform and strategy for managing interactions with customers and improving customer satisfaction. To get the most out of this tool, you need the best CRM software in South Africa in 2023.

The best platforms in the CRM market have many features for automating sales and marketing processes, building customer relationships, tracking and scheduling, and collaboration among teams. To help your business in South Africa, we put together the top 9 CRM software in 2023.

Let's take a closer look.

The Best CRM Software to Choose in South Africa

Here are the best 9 CRM software for businesses in South Africa.

  1. Monday CRM
  2. Pipedrive
  3. HubSpot CRM
  4. Keap
  5. Insightly
  6. Salesforce Sales Cloud
  7. Microsoft Dynamics 365
  8. Zoho CRM
  9. BluWave Software

1. Monday CRM

Best Overall

Pros
  • Intuitive and visual dashboard.
  • Customizable dashboards and customization metrics.
  • Extensive range of email marketing software tools.
  • Makes collaboration easy with activity tracking and team goals.
  • Forever free plan for two team members.
Cons
  • Lacks powerful task dependencies.
  • Pricing plans are per seat per month.
Monday icon
Monday CRM
4.6
Editor’s Take

Monday CRM is a fantastic option for small and midsize businesses looking for a one-stop-shop for customer relationship management and a project management system. With extreme customization, hundreds of automation templates, and affordable plans, it's the best CRM software tool in South Africa. 

Best:
Overall
Price:
$0 – $30 per seat per month
Annual Discount:
18%
Promotions:
Free plan

At the top of our list of the best CRM systems in South Africa is Monday CRM, offering a comprehensive business management solution to customer relationships for businesses of all sizes. The CRM platform offers extensive customization without coding and automates sales processes with reminders, notifications, lead management, and more.

Key Features

Centralized Customer Communication

Monday CRM makes it easy for businesses to communicate with their customers through emails. The email marketing tool will follow leads and send notifications when they open the email. It's easy to get organized by logging leads and contacts into the database, and a wide range of templates autofill the contact information and save time.

Easy Performance Tracking

The CRM software provides a wide range of metrics on the dashboard, including deal progress and team performance. There are sales probability metrics that track forecasts and probability, and activity tracking to check the team's sales performance and take care of task management.

Seamless Data Management

On Monday Sales CRM, you can import data from Excel or an API to start communicating with customers. The project management tool makes lead capturing easy, and if you have two of the same leads, it will merge them for easy organization.

Pricing

If your team consists of two members and you will deal with no less than 1,000 contacts, you can use the free forever plan on Monday CRM. The paid plans start from $12.5 per seat per month, and you can pay for up to 200 seats. There is the option to pay annually or monthly. Large businesses can customize their pricing plan.

2. Pipedrive

Best for Sales CRM

Pros
  • Easy to understand CRM explained by a pipeline.
  • Provides a complete history of every single contact with customers.
  • Easily segment leads to create targeted lists.
  • Set up activity reminders to remember follow-ups and deals.
  • Get automatic calculations on our revenue and sales volume.
Cons
  • Limited custom reports and fields.
  • There is no free plan.
Pipedrive icon
Pipedrive
4.4
Editor’s Take

Pipedrive is the best CRM software on our list for sales teams, offering a straightforward platform and reasonable pricing plans. With a wide range of pipelines, web forms, reporting features, and collaboration tools, it’s the ideal contact management solution for empowering sales teams. 

Best:
for Sales CRM
Price:
$11.90 – $74.90 per user per month
Annual Discount:
17%

Pipedrive describes itself as a CRM platform built for salespeople by salespeople, which is not surprising. Ideal for businesses in South Africa, Pipedrive comes with a wide range of sales tools that one can take advantage of. There is a wide range of integrations, including app building, lead generation, and marketing automation tools. And you can start with the 14-day free trial.

Key Features

Sales Pipeline

Pipedrive allows you to see the entire sales process of your business at one glance through the virtual sales pipeline. This makes the sales team more organized and simplifies the CRM platform. You can easily use the drag-and-drop interface for pipeline management. The pipeline is also highly customizable, so add custom fields and stages when needed.

Reporting and Forecasting

Compiling reports is easy because Pipedrive offers detailed reporting on all key activities, sales, and leads. You can set goals, track progress on your dashboard, and leverage revenue forecasting to predict sales volume and revenue based on your current pipeline.

Fully Customizable Web Forms

To start communicating with your customers, you can place top-quality and fully customizable web forms on your website. This makes it easier to generate leads right into your CRM database. From there, you can segment leads for personalized customer interactions.

Pricing

Read more Pipedrive pricing

Pipedrive starts all plans with a 14-day free trial; no credit card is required. The cheapest CRM plan is $11.90 per user per month, billed monthly. You can go for annual billing and save 17%. The Enterprise plan is better suited for large businesses at $74.90 per user per month.

3. HubSpot CRM

Best Value

Pros
  • Robust feature set covering a wide range of sections.
  • Generous free plan with free tools.
  • Advanced tools for workflow automation and analytics.
  • Easily organize your contacts and communication.
  • Create and edit pipelines for easier management.
Cons
  • Includes a learning curve.
  • Some helpful features are available on higher-pricing plans.
Hubspot icon
HubSpot CRM
4.2
Editor’s Take

HubSpot CRM provides businesses with many features to manage customer relations, making it among the best software for South African companies. Providing an easy-to-use CRM platform, HubSpot CRM makes integration with a wide range of other tools from their other suites. 

Best:
Value
Price:
$50 – $5,000 per month
Annual Discount:
Yes
Promotions:
None

HubSpot CRM is known for its wide range of solutions that appeal to businesses, including marketing, sales, service, CMS, and operations tools. All these are provided under the CRM platform, and you don't have to pay per seat per month, offering you good value for your money. The contact management software is easy to use to nurture customer relationships, even if you want to import all your contacts from another platform.

Key Features

All-in-One CRM Solution

HubSpot CRM provides a wide range of tools under its platform. The marketing tools provide SEO, automation, social media tools, and more, while the sales hub includes tools like predictive lead scoring, sales automation, deal pipelines, and more. Customer service tools include video correction, ticket pipelines, feedback, CMS for dynamic content, content creation tools, and live chat.

Advanced Automation and Analytics

You can access these advanced features when you pay for higher pricing tiers. The automation allows you to create sequences from scratch or with the templates and leverage the workflow builders to manage approvals, notify team members, and more.

Free Tools

Aside from the standard CRM tools, HubSpot CRM comes with a wide range of free tools for all platforms. You can get free contact management, quotes, deal pipelines, meeting schedules, website pages, drag-and-drop editor, email scheduling, ticketing, and landing pages.

Pricing

Read more Hubspot pricing

HubSpot CRM offers pricing plans that start at $50 per month when billed monthly, and you can decide to pay upfront and commit annually instead. The highest plan is Enterprise, going as high as $5,000 per month. The plans offer all the hubs, and they come with unlimited free users.

4. Keap

Best for Small Businesses

Pros
  • Sales and marketing features in one CRM software.
  • Easy to monitor and communicate with customers via the Keap app.
  • All plans come with a customer success manager and free customer support.
  • Automatically collect and organize leads.
  • Integrates with over 2,500 software applications.
Cons
  • Most integrations require a monthly fee.
  • Contact-based pricing plans.
Keap icon
Keap
4.1
Editor’s Take

Keap is an easy-to-use CRM software for a small business or startup, with a wide range of features for lead management and automating repetitive tasks. The reputable CRM system has integrated thousands of software programs and e-commerce features for all businesses in South Africa.

Best:
for Small Businesses
Price:
$169 – $249 per month
Annual Discount:
20%

Keap is another of the best CRM software in the South African market, especially for small business owners and those new to using this software. The platform offers sales and marketing automation features and is excellent for e-commerce businesses. Keap provides a lot of automation with premade templates and removes the difficulty of lead capturing.

Key Features

Automatic Lead Capturing

One of the highlights of Keap is its automated lead tracking capabilities that helps businesses automatically collect and organize contacts. This is done through custom lead forms, social media, and landing pages. You can customize this feature based on different criteria and easily take care of lead management.

Mobile App

Keap features a mobile app that gives you a free virtual phone number for your business. This app can separate business calls from personal ones on your smartphone. This makes it convenient for small business owners to stay on top of leads and follow customers up.

E-Commerce Payment Processing

The contact management software is friendly for e-commerce businesses, as you can process payments without stress. This makes it possible to provide customers with secure payment options, although the providers' processing rates and terms differ. You can add abandoned cart automation to encourage customers to return.

Pricing

Read more Keap pricing

Keap offers pricing that is a bit on the higher end, based on how many contacts you will develop customer relationships with through your CRM. The more contacts, the higher the amount will be. You can pay annually to save 20% and benefit from the 14-day free trial.

5. Insightly

Best for Collaboration

Pros
  • Easy to input and share data.
  • Highly customizable.
  • Comes with collaboration tools for teams to work together.
  • Deploy a mobile app for employees.
  • Workflow automation is provided.
Cons
  • Does not have advanced features like custom workflow,
  • Pricing plans are a bit expensive.
Insightly icon
Insightly
4.0
Editor’s Take

If you're working on building a CRM platform with your team in South Africa, Insightly offers the best software for collaboration. The scalable CRM software focuses on helping teams easily communicate with each other. Insightly is best suited for small to midsize businesses. 

Best:
for Collaboration
Price:
$29 – $99 per user per month
Annual Discount:
None 
Promotions:
None 

Insightly is next on our list of the best CRM software in South Africa, offering users an easy-to-use interface, a seamless process of uploading data, and extreme customization. The CRM does not only provide features like lead routing and workflow service automation features for customers. Also, it helps in relationship linking for customers, building custom apps, and tracking important metrics.

Key Features

Automated Lead Routing

Insightly makes it easy to manage and leverage relevant lead information, as it automatically routes leads from marketing campaigns, meetings, emails, tasks, and phone calls, to the right person. This is done in real-time, allowing sales representatives to communicate while the leads are hot.

Relationship Linking for Collaboration

The team can easily understand customer relationships through linking functionality. The platform will link customers, emails, and more to the existing contact, giving a clear view of your current and prospective customers.

Build and Launch Custom Apps

Another highlight of Insightly CRM is the ability to build custom apps for your business without writing any code. The app can include workflow automation and validation rules and is deployed for employees.

Pricing

Insightly - Pricing Plan

The pricing at Insightly CRM starts at $29, billed annually and per user. You can try the plans for free before purchasing them with real money. You can get most of the top features in the Professional tier, while Enterprise is for larger businesses.

6. Salesforce Sales Cloud

Best for Automation

Salesforce - Sell more on one platform

If you're looking to automate your entire sales process, Salesforce Sales Cloud is the ideal choice. As one of the best CRM systems in South Africa, the platform makes it easy to automate and track regular administrative tasks with workflows and activity tracking. The tool can also track lead journeys, sales pipelines, and opportunities and is very easy to implement. 

Key Features

Sales Automation with Process Builder

Salesforce Sales Cloud allows businesses to automate business processes like automatic email alerts for specific deals and automatically handle task management while the deal moves through several stages. The Process Builder automates complex sales processes with custom workflows and automatic approvals.

Track Leads and Opportunities

Gain quality leads quickly by tracking and managing them on Salesforce Sales Cloud. The CRM solution shows what stage your deal is in, what you need to do to move it to the next stage, and your competitors. You can also track products and set up revenue and quantity schedules.

AI Forecasts

Salesforce Sales Cloud makes it easy to make data-driven decisions with the forecast management feature. This is driven by artificial intelligence and offers insight into the pipeline. The simple customer relationship manager provides CRM analytics in reports; you can check the metrics anywhere.

Pros

  • Sales process customization with increased productivity.
  • Extensive automation to reduce workload and shorten the sales cycle.
  • Increased lead opportunities with automated tracking.
  • Increase sales productivity with AI forecasts.
  • Centralized sales engagement feature.

Cons

  • Useful features are available as add-ons.
  • Steep learning curve.

Pricing

All plans are billed annually, starting at $25 per user per month. The highest plan goes for $300 per user per month and is ideal for larger businesses. There are several add-ons that you can pay for, too, to improve your CRM experience.

7. Microsoft Dynamics 365

Best for Large Organizations

Microsoft Dynamics 365 - Agility without limits

If you're an organization that has grown out of your current CRM platform, you'll benefit from Microsoft Dynamics 365. The CRM platform has many powerful features, including relationship management tools, real-time analytics, AI recommendations, and performance metric tracking.

Key Features

CRM Marketing Features

Microsoft Dynamics CRM comes with multi-channel campaigns that help you determine the right type of messages your customers should receive from you through the channel they prefer. Furthermore, you can integrate with marketing and sales analytics to convert sales leads.

Updated Analytics and Teamwork

With this contact management software, you can gather data that keep your staff updated on customer interactions. This prompts team members to see what they have to handle. You can share critical metrics with your staff so they can see where you are with your goals.

Adaptable Platform

Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be fully adapted to your legacy system. Not only this, but it will customize your security needs to improve safety and is highly scalable. The CRM platform will improve with the required resources as your business grows.

Pros

  • Centralize customer information for easy use.
  • Updated analytics for all the staff to use.
  • AI informed sales processes for better business decisions.
  • Offers different deployment options, whether on-premise or cloud.
  • Wide range of solutions for all business sizes.

Cons

  • Complex onboarding process.
  • Expensive CRM solution.

Pricing

Microsoft Dynamics 365 - services

How much you spend on Microsoft Dynamics 365 depends on your CRM needs. The pay for a customer data platform is $1,500 per tenant per month. Depending on your specific needs, you can pay for sales, customer service, marketing, HR, and other plans.

8. Zoho CRM

Best for Scalability

Zoho CRM - Superfast Work. Steadfast Growth

Fast-growing businesses in South Africa can opt for Zoho CRM for their customer relationship management software needs. The award-winning CRM platform offers affordable pricing, an intuitive user interface, and fantastic reporting features. You can easily set it up, and the free online videos make it even more convenient.

Key Features

Flexible CRM Features

One of the best parts of Zoho CRM is its flexibility, which makes it easy to work for any business size. The software comes with loads of features and will automate workflows, campaigns, processes, and customer journeys. You can leverage a wide range of extensions and integrations from the Zoho Marketplace.

Easy to Set Up and Use

Businesses can set up Zoho CRM right out of the box without needing a tech team. After setting up, it is easy to use and organized, with a simple design that allows you to focus on your tasks. The dashboard has all the essential metrics you need, and you can precisely track leads, accounts, deals, contacts, and more.

CRM Mobile App

Zoho CRM allows you to use your CRM platform while you're on the go. The app comes with most of the features you get on a desktop and is highly user-friendly. If there is no network available, you can work offline. The customer relationship management solution provides information on leads and even their location in real-time.

Pros

  • Great value for your money with feature-packed plans.
  • Highly flexible and scalable for all business types.
  • Most extensions are free and require no coding.
  • Easy to operate and manage leads.
  • Can quickly close deals on the app.

Cons

  • The free plan does not offer a lot of features.
  • Long wait time for customer service.

Pricing

The pricing plans at Zoho CRM start at $18 per user per month, and this is billed monthly. If you go for the yearly billing instead, you can save up to 34% on every plan. There is a free plan option, too, for three users and the essentials for a home business. You can get started with a free trial before paying for the plans.

9. BluWave Software

Best for Local Customer Service

BluWave Software - Faster, easier, cheaper CloudCRM

Rounding up our list of top CRM solutions in South Africa is BluWave Software, a cloud-based CRM that excels at incident tracking, accounting, ERP platform integrations, and full opportunity tracking. Since it is based in South Africa, you can expect local and exceptional customer service and multiple levels of security. The CRM platform is ideal for small and medium businesses in South Africa.

Key Features

Easy Leads and Customer Management

BluWave CRM comes with leads management software. You can import leads from your website and store them in the database. This will create the customer and contact management database, allowing you to organize all contacts, allocate customers to staff, and tailor your business to their needs.

Opportunity and Conversation Tracking

The opportunity tracking feature ensures you don't lose any leads and track conversion rates. You can track the progress of the sales pipeline and stay on top of email marketing and telephone conversations with customers.

Automatic Push Report

BluWave CRM allows users to stay updated with their progress and that of their team with the automated CRM push reports. You can schedule the reports to be sent to you at specific times, including data on new inquiries, quotes, sales, forecasts, and conversion rates.

Pros

  • Full management of the activity, documents, leads, and contacts.
  • Provides geocoding and mapping.
  • Full quote automation for easy use.
  • Detailed performance dashboard with push reports.
  • Tracks customer conversations and opportunities.

Cons

  • Clunky dashboard design.
  • No free plans or features.

Pricing

BluWave Software - Cloud CRM - pricing

BluWave Software offers pricing plans starting at R6,230 for up to three users, and you can pay up to 14. If you have even more users, there are Enterprise plans that can be customized directly to meet your business needs.

Factors to Consider When Choosing a CRM in South Africa

When setting up CRM software for your business in South Africa, you shouldn't just pick one with the lowest price or the flashiest features. Instead, it's essential to consider several factors and place them against your needs. Here are some of the factors to consider:

Customization

Every CRM is built for good relations and communication with customers. But, a better CRM should be open to customization in different areas. You might want to customize the pipelines, reports, databases, dashboards, metrics, and more.

Functionality

Assess the functions in the contact management software before you pick it. Ensure that the functions are helpful to your business goals. These features include lead and contact management, opportunity tracking, sales pipeline, email marketing, campaign management, customer service and ticketing, inventory management, sales tracking, reporting, and a mobile CRM app.

Ease of Use

A CRM is also meant to help your team stay organized and increase your productivity when relating to customers. You can't achieve this if the platform is not easy to use. Thus, you should look out for CRM software with intuitive features.

Price

One should avoid sacrificing functionality for low prices when getting a CRM. Instead, look out for those that provide good value for their money. Remember that you might have to spend expenses on add-ons and integrations.

Deployment

A CRM can either be hosted on-premise, installed into your server or on-demand, provided through a cloud based solution. Consider which one of them will work best for your company before choosing.

CRM Software South Africa FAQ

What Is The Most Popular Software for Customer Relationships?

Monday.com is the most popular CRM for users in South Africa and even globally. The CRM tool stands out for its affordable plans, robust features, and free forever plans. Monday CRM provides fantastic data visualization and can automate any workflow. The exceptional customer service is quick to respond and help. 

What Is The Best Free CRM Software In South Africa?

Monday CRM is the best choice if you want free CRM software in South Africa. The platform offers a free forever plan for two team members and 1000 contacts. The platform provides web forms to capture leads. 

Which Customer Relationship Management Software Should I Choose For My South African Business?

Choosing the best CRM vendors for your business in South Africa might be difficult, but our guide has cut it down to the top 9 and provided some factors that can help you decide. You should consider the needs of your business and select one that best meets these needs.

The customer relationship management software should provide you with enough tools to track leads, customers, conversations, and opportunities. It's also essential to consider those with good value for your money, customizable features, and ease of use.

Here are our top five picks:

Best Overall 

Monday CRM

Topnotch CRM and project and work management software with collaboration tools, time-saving automation, and easy optimization.
Best for Sales CRM 

Pipedrive

Ideal tool for sales teams to manage and track contacts. Operational CRM with user-friendly design and workflow automation.
Best Value

HubSpot CRM

Sleek CRM with a wide range of integrations for marketing, customer service, and sales teams. Offers to schedule with top-notch customer service.
Best for Small Businesses

Keap

Built for startups and CRM beginners who need sales and marketing automation. Comes with an intuitive platform and e-commerce features.
Best for Collaboration

Insightly

Easy for teams to work together from anywhere with streamlined workflows. Ideal for marketing campaigns; comes with native integrations.

Before you get started, here are some resources to teach you more about CRM:

Was This Article Helpful?

5.0
Rated 5.0 out of 5
5.0 out of 5 stars (based on 2 reviews)
Excellent100%
Very good0%
Average0%
Poor0%
Terrible0%

Martin Luenendonk

Editor at FounderJar

Martin loves entrepreneurship and has helped dozens of entrepreneurs by validating the business idea, finding scalable customer acquisition channels, and building a data-driven organization. During his time working in investment banking, tech startups, and industry-leading companies he gained extensive knowledge in using different software tools to optimize business processes.

This insights and his love for researching SaaS products enables him to provide in-depth, fact-based software reviews to enable software buyers make better decisions.