Want to jump straight to the answer? The best contact management software for most people is definitely Bigin or Streak.
Contact management software is the modern way for businesses to organize contacts by needs, interests, and categories.
The best contact management solutions encompass CRM (customer relationship management) features to track communication with people on your list. These features are crucial for sales teams to convert leads into loyal customers.
In addition to names, phone numbers, emails, and company information, contact management software stores information for things like sales history or open quotes.
Without contact management software, you and your team are forced to rely on memory when communicating with customers and sales leads. The alternative solution is hand-written notes or digital notes. This is nearly impossible to manage at scale.
Contact management software is a popular tool in sales but it can be leveraged by a wide range of industries and use cases.
The Top 7 Best Contact Management Software
- Bigin – Best Overall Contact Manager Software
- Streak – Best Contact Management Software for Gmail Users
- Pipedrive – Best Contact Management Software for Sales Teams
- Maximizer CRM – Best Custom Contact Management Software
- Metrilo – Best Contact Management Software for Ecommerce Sites
- Nutshell – Best Easy-to-Use Contact Management Software
After researching the top contact management software on the market and testing dozens of options, I’ve narrowed down the top seven to consider. Below, I dig into the features, benefits, pricing, use cases, and potential drawbacks of each one.
#1 – Bigin — Best Overall Contact Manager Software
- Free for 500 contacts
- Only $7/user per month for full features
- Custom fields & dashboards
- Simple automation on all plans
Bigin ranks first overall on our list due to its simplicity, features, and affordable price point. It’s an easy-to-use but deeply customizable contact manager perfect for small businesses.
I love how perfectly tailored this software is to small-to-medium teams. Everything is organized in an appealing, intuitive way. So, no matter who’s picking up the ball, they know exactly how to approach the conversation with a lead.
The built-in telephony features are fantastic for keeping every contact updated after every touch point. And, you can deploy simple automations to do the same for manual actions, triggers, or one-click workflows.
What’s even better for small teams is that this is all in the free forever version of Bigin.
You’re limited in a few meaningful ways. Bigin Free only allows one user and one pipeline, a maximum of 500 contacts, and limits on how you build those automations.
So, it’s pretty streamlined. But if you’re just managing a small pool on one pipeline, Bigin can work for you.
But, it’s the single paid plan that really wows me and earns the “best overall” title.
Here’s a sampling of what you get for just $7/user per month:
- 50,000 contacts
- 5 pipelines
- 2 free data backups per month
- Custom fields, list views, and dashboards
- More automation options
- Google and Office 365 integrations
- Add 10,000 more contacts for an additional $1/month
At that price point, you’re getting a lot more control for your dollar than most other contact management options. You’re able to customize everything you need to store the right information about your contacts. Roll that into the automation capabilities of the software and you’ll have a comprehensive database that’s always up-to-date.
Get started with Bigin today by trying out the free plan. This simple yet mighty software can do a lot to improve your contact management and, by extension, your sales.
#2 – Streak — Best Contact Management Software For Gmail Users
- Starts at $15
- Free for basic use
- Add directly to Gmail account
- 14 day free trial
If you’re using Gmail or G Suite as your primary communication method, Streak can improve your process with contact management tools. This simple software can be added directly to your existing Gmail account.
It’s used by 750,000+ individual users and businesses across the globe.
Instead of bouncing back and forth between a spreadsheet and your email account, Streak allows you to organize your contacts, tasks, and pipelines from a single source of truth.
This contact management software is commonly used for sales, business development, fundraising, real estate, hiring, support, and more.
You can use Streak to automatically improve the information associated with each contact, including their names, companies, and other details—directly alongside your emails. Streak also provides you with a detailed timeline of all communication with emails, call logs, files, notes, tasks, and everything else you need to manage your contact list.
The software is affordable as well:
- Solo — $15 per user per month
- Pro — $49 per user per month
- Enterprise — $129 per user per month
There’s also a free plan for basic use, that’s great for individual users and smaller contact lists. Try any paid plan free for 14 days.
#3 – Pipedrive — Best Contact Management Software For Sales Teams
- Starts at $12.50
- Sales CRM
- Two-way email sync
- 14 day free trial
Pipedrive is a contact management solution built for selling. Its features help sales teams track performance, predict revenue, and prioritize deals.
The software makes it easy to manage the full history of calls and emails for each contact. Everything is organized in a visual timeline, so you can quickly check on the last conversations before following up with a lead.
Any contact can be linked to a specific deal once they’ve been added to your list.
As a sales CRM, Pipedrive has extra features, in addition to basic contact management. You can automate repetitive tasks and get valuable insights with custom reports.
Pipedrive offers two-way email sync, so you can send and receive messages directly from Pipedrive. Use the software to customize templates, and send batch emails to groups of people, such as lead segments.
Get real-time notifications whenever an email is opened, or a link is clicked. This gives you the ability to follow up with leads at the perfect time.
Pipedrive has a built-in activity calendar and appointment scheduler as well.
Another cool feature of the Pipedrive contact management solution is the contact map tool. This allows you to filter contacts by city, state, and country, using Google Maps integration.
Here’s a look at the starting price points for Pipedrive:
- Essential — $12.50 per user per month
- Advanced — $24.90 per user per month
- Professional — $49.90 per user per month
- Enterprise — $99 per user per month
All of the rates above are based on an annual contract. The Enterprise plan has a ten-user minimum. The software is trusted by 90,000+ companies in 179 countries. Try Pipedrive free for 14 days.
#4 – Maximizer CRM — Best Custom Contact Management Software
- Starts at $40
- Shared address book
- Cloud or on-premise deployment
- 30 day free trial
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Maximizer CRM is an all-in-one solution for contact management and customer relationship management. The software allows you to personalize the way you communicate with customers.
Use this tool to organize communications, simplify your data, and respond to leads at the perfect time.
With Maximizer CRM, every contact, document, and interaction can be managed with a shared address book. Keep all of your sales, marketing, and support teams on the same page by showing a complete history of every interaction.
Some of the other top features and benefits of Maximizer CRM include:
- Automatic email recording
- Automatic call logging
- File tracking
- Multi-level security
- Audit log
- Last contact dates
- Integrated calendar
- Form field validation
One of my favorite tools within Maximizer CRM is the ability to track connections between your contacts. It’s a great way to understand the relationship between contractors, subcontractors, and subsidiaries at a glance.
Maximizer CRM is available as a cloud solution or on-premise.
- Cloud CRM Live — $65 per user per month
- On-Premise CRM — $40 per user per month
- Financial Advisor CRM — $70 per user per month
The price points are definitely higher compared to other comparable software. But Maximizer CRM is much more than just a basic contact management solution. Try it free for 30 days.
#5 – Metrilo — Best Contact Management Software For Ecommerce Sites
Metrilo is a CRM solution that’s built for ecommerce businesses. In addition to contact management, the software provides an integrated email marketing feature as well.
The main focus of Metrilo is analytics. You’ll know exactly what’s going on with your ecommerce site in real-time. Monitor KPIs, revenue, performance, sales funnels, and more, without any complex setup required.
As users engage with your ecommerce site, you can add them to your contact management platform—leverage automation based on visitor actions, such as cart abandonment.
Metrilo makes it easy for you to segment customers based on behavior. Easily track and identify your most loyal customers and biggest spenders. Filter contacts based on:
- Revenue
- Orders
- Most recent purchase
- Last active
- Sessions
- Locations
- Personal tags
As a fully integrated email marketing tool, Metrilo makes it easy to recover abandoned carts, send welcome emails, and manage drip campaigns.
Overall, the tool is much more than a basic contact management solution. It’s an all-in-one tool for growing your ecommerce business. But because it’s so feature-rich, the software is priced accordingly.
- Essential — $99 per month
- Pro — $165 per month
- Premium — $249 per month
These rates are based on an annual contract. The ecommerce CRM starts with the Pro plan, which is where the bulk of the contact management features are found. Email marketing is only available at the Premium tier.
If you’re not interested in the ecommerce analytics side of Metrilo, this probably isn’t the best choice for you. You can find a more affordable contact management solution elsewhere, without these extra features.
Try Metrilo free for 14 days.
#6 – Nutshell — Best Easy-to-Use Contact Management Software
Nutshell is a robust CRM with tools for sales automation, pipeline management, team collaboration, and more. For such a powerful and feature-rich software, it’s surprisingly easy to use.
Each time you add a new lead to your contact management tool, Nutshell will automatically pull information from that person on the web. Such things like their social media profiles, job title, location, and more, will be added right away.
For those of you who are using other tools and software to manage your contacts, you can import everything into Nutshell for free on the first day of use.
Once you’re up and running on Nutshell, you’ll be able to log all communication information for each contact from your phone or desktop device. Everyone on your team will have access to this information.
Nutshell is perfect for those of you who want to avoid tedious tasks. You can use the software to collect leads from your website, sync your phone contacts, or add new contacts by scanning a business card.
There are two plans for you to choose from—Starter and Pro. The plans start at $19 and $35 per user per month, respectively. You can try either one free for 14 days.
#7 – Nimble — Best For Social Media Marketing
More than 140,000 professionals worldwide use Nimble to manage contacts. It’s a sales-focused CRM that’s facilitated 10+ million deals directly through the platform.
The software is perfect for organizing contacts and managing the entire communication history from a single source.
My favorite Nimble feature is the social profile matching and enrichment tool. The software matches social profiles for contacts and companies, then automatically enriches those contacts with the details found within each profile.
Nimble automatically builds live profiles on anyone. The details typically include information about where they work, where they’re from, career history, industry, title, and more.
It’s the perfect tool for those of you who are collecting leads from social media and want to improve your social prospecting process. Nimble’s insights will help you find new prospects and segment new contacts accordingly.
Nimble has the most straightforward pricing on the market. There is just one plan, starting at $19 per user per month. This includes up to 25,000 contacts, with unlimited upgrades.
Try Nimble free for 14 days.
How to Find the Best Contact Management Software For You
With so many options to choose from, finding the best contact management software for your specific needs can be challenging.
I’ve made this process much easier for you. There are certain factors that must be taken into consideration as you’re shopping around for contact management tools. This is the methodology I used to narrow down the top software in this guide.
CRM Functionality
Most CRM software has some type of contact management solution. But not every contact management tool has CRM functionality.
Lots of the options on my list double as a CRM solution, which is perfect for those of you who aren’t already using one. But if you’re happy with your existing CRM and just need basic contact management tools, there’s no reason to get another one.
In most cases, CRM solutions will be more expensive than traditional contact management tools. That’s because this type of software generally comes with lots of extra features that go beyond the scope of contact management.
Communication Tracking
Being able to see the communication history for each contact is a crucial component of contact management software.
The best tools track emails, call logs, and other interactions.
Look for software that lets you add notes to each contact so everything is fresh in your mind the next time you speak to them. This is also important for businesses where multiple employees will be dealing with contacts.
Automation
Some advanced contact management tools will automate tedious tasks.
For example, let’s say you meet a new prospect in person, but only get their name and phone number. Some contact management solutions will automatically take that information and pull additional data about that person from the web.
So you’ll have access to their work history, current position, email address, LinkedIn profile, Facebook page, and more. Without this type of automation, you’d be forced to search the web on your own to learn these details.
Lead Management
The vast majority of contact management software is sales oriented.
So if you fall into this category, you want to make sure that the software has tools to manage your leads. Pipeline management and advanced segmentation capabilities would be key features to look for.
Some software is niche-specific, such as ecommerce contact management. In this case, leads would automatically be managed based on things like behavior and sales history.
Conclusion
What’s the best contact management software on the market today? Bigin is my top pick. It has everything you need in an easy-to-use, comprehensive contact management tool.
But Bigin isn’t for everyone. If you have specific needs, there are some other great options to consider.
Sales teams would benefit from Pipedrive. If you need a custom solution, try Maximizer CRM. I recommend Metrilo to ecommerce sites and Streak to individual Gmail users. If you’re looking for a simple contact management CRM, try Nutshell. For social prospecting, use Nimble.
Regardless of your industry, team size, or use case, you can find the best contact management software for your unique needs in this guide.
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