Don’t get sold on Salesforce: Better CRM options for your Small or Midsize Business

For many small or midsize business owners who are looking to take the plunge and commit to a CRM system (kudos – we strongly support this move!), the name recognition and seeming ubiquity of Salesforce immediately places them as the leading option to consider. We’ve gotten the impression from numerous companies that as soon as they began down the CRM road, Salesforce was the only option seriously considered – as if signing that contract was a fait accompli. And yet, in the majority of those discussions, we’ve learned that the companies regretted their decision. And worse, they have felt trapped by it – whether by contractual obligation or by a fear of a costly transition to a different tool.

Salesforce is powerful—but it’s also complex and expensive, and it is certainly not always the best fit for every company. This is particularly the case for many small- and mid-sized businesses for whom the Salesforce system is serious overkill. If you need to pot some plants, don’t buy a backhoe.

Salesforce is an incredible platform that is designed to meet enterprise-grade needs – corporations with large sales teams, sophisticated sales processes, and the deep pockets to pay for software to support them – and IT resources to manage the software itself.

If that doesn’t sound like your company, the good news is that there are great platforms available to you that are a far better fit – with powerful features catered to individual or small teams and that are designed to make sales/marketing professionals at SMB’s more successful and efficient. SMB-focused CRM systems don’t require in-house management, are far lower cost, offer more (and more relevant) features, have time-saving automation capabilities, and offer reporting to help drive great decisions and eliminate waste.

Imagine a CRM platform that delivers state-of-the-art features, exceptional customer support, and a much friendlier price tag. In short: something that costs less, but gives you more – more ROI, more sales, more insights, and more personalized service.

Let’s compare Salesforce vs. three notable alternatives that are far better CRM options for your SMB: HubSpot, Constant Contact, and our very own LeadVelo. We’ll also highlight why we are convinced that LeadVelo is uniquely positioned to bring you growth.

Common Features of Salesforce CRM Alternatives

Before we dig into anything specific, let’s take a moment to give a brief overview of the types of features provided by HubSpot, Constant Contact, and LeadVelo – and how they empower your organization’s success. Each system has several components largely in common – similar core features with minor differences in approach or how they’re used. They also each offer add-ons, integrations and customizations that more aggressively minded companies can utilize to get even more out of the systems.

• Core CRM Functions – Managing contacts, logging interactions, creating and logging sales opportunities and revenue.
• Outbound Marketing Functions – Personalized email communications, appointment scheduling & calendar integrations, SMS/text messaging, and automation.
• Inbound Marketing Support – Creating custom landing pages, forms & conversion funnels, and tracking galore.

We encourage you to review the functions of each platform thoroughly as part of your research process, and we’re happy to help you identify what features will matter most to your organization – and how to take advantage of them effectively!

Benefits of Salesforce Alternatives for SMBs

1. Cost Savings That Let You Reinvest in Growth

HubSpot offers free and seemingly low-priced tiers—great for dipping your toes—but as soon as you add marketing automation, sales pipeline tools, or sandbox features, costs climb quickly, especially with increasing contacts or users. SMBs with small contact lists – and small sales/marketing teams – are the best fit for HubSpot. Companies with larger contact lists or who require multiple user “seats” will likely encounter unaffordable costs.HubSpot enjoys similar name recognition to Salesforce, and has earned its strong reputation due to the high quality of its toolset (more on that in a moment). But while it is a leading platform, HubSpot struggles in a cost/benefit analysis.

Constant Contact is known for its history as a consumer-grade email marketing platform (and to be fair, still focuses heavily in that area), but it has grown over the years to add more robust full-service CRM features. It has an affordable starting price, but be aware that Constant Contact’s pricing model is similar to HubSpot, but its tools are more limited. In order to come close to obtaining features comparable to HubSpot or LeadVelo, the add-on costs drive your final price much higher than their advertised rates.

A company also needs to be aware that there are essentially two versions of Constant Contact – the well-known consumer-grade version, and the very little-known but quite powerful “industrial strength” version. The pricing, features, and even the user experience of each differs significantly.

Now, LeadVelo: Our proprietary platform uses a flat-rate pricing model that doesn’t hammer you with overages or add-ons. You get CRM, marketing automation, SMS, email, funnels, white-label options, even payment collection—a “full toolbox” of marketing and CRM tools all under one roof and for one base rate. While the platform does feature some premium features that require extra funds, these tend to be features that are outside of the core platform and are of more limited appeal. For example, can you pay extra to activate a LeadVelo feature where an AI-powered “employee” does your cold-calling? You sure can. Should you? Probably not.

LeadVelo also does not hammer you with added fees based on your quantity of contacts or internal users. This is an extremely rare, unique advantage for B2B companies – the system does not try to “cash in” on your success and growth. Lastly, our software costs actually include some time each month with our expert consulting team – helping you to get the maximum ROI from the system.

2. Comprehensive Features: One Platform to Rule Them All

Let’s face it: bouncing between different tools—one for email, one for CRM, another for marketing automation, yet another for funnels—it’s inefficient. You’re juggling logins, pricing tiers, vendor relationships.

HubSpot offers a sleek, integrated suite. It has been the historic benchmark of comparison for other CRM-lite and marketing automation platforms. Its best features tend to be “inbound”-oriented – creating landing pages with forms and automated follow-up “drip campaigns” are a specialty. But it also has plenty of email marketing firepower and basic CRM capabilities.

Constant Contact excels at email campaigns and some automation—but does require some serious upgrading in order to access its more advanced CRM capabilities such as pipelines, lead scoring, or intuitive funnel workflows. Constant Contact’s “Industrial Strength” version (formerly known as SharpSpring) has excellent tools – in fact, for many years, we recommended Constant Contact/SharpSpring to our clients. The value of their toolkit is readily apparent… and the strengths of those tools actually helped inspire us to create LeadVelo.

But there is an unfortunate dynamic at play: the more serious version of Constant Contact has the best tools for a B2B company – but it’s also suffering from a lack of attention. The tools have grown stagnant, the user interface is aging, and new features are a rarity. B2B companies are clearly not Constant Contact’s focus, and their platform shows an obvious lack of investment. Meanwhile, the consumer-grade version of Constant Contact gets all the shiniest new bells and whistles, but fundamentally lacks the functional firepower a B2B company needs. For that reason, our frustrations with Constant Contact’s limitations and lack of innovation also were major inspirations for why we created LeadVelo.

With both of the other strong options having noticeable weaknesses, LeadVelo is our answer. It’s crafted by a company with a decades-long focus on B2B marketing, and it’s built to specifically meet the needs of B2B companies. It has the most extensive library of features available in the market – starting with its ability to empower proactive lead-generation by using IP discovery to identify leads you’ve been missing out on, creating a pipeline of opportunities on a platter so that small sales/marketing teams can maximize their efficiency and effectiveness in nurturing leads. But while that feature alone is incredibly valuable (and you can pay a lot for it as a stand-alone service), it’s just the tip of the iceberg. LeadVelo also provides a CRM, sales & pipeline management, landing pages, forms, SMS marketing, email campaigns, automation, personalization, appointments and bookings, reporting… even social media management and reputation/review management! And for companies whose needs aren’t necessarily answered “off the shelf,” LeadVelo is incredibly customizable and friendly with third party API’s and integrations. Within a single dashboard, the toolkit available to you and your team is simply the best in the business.

3. Better Customer Service – Moving Towards Partnership

Often, SMBs choosing a CRM feel adrift: complex support tickets, AI chatbots that aren’t helpful, roadblocks between you and the people who actually know what they’re doing – and often the good support is only available at additional cost. Though Salesforce offers extensive documentation and multiple support tiers, a SMB is considered an entry-level user and can feel like a very small fish in a vast enterprise ocean… while paying vast enterprise prices.

HubSpot generally impresses with support for its own tools. Though their free tier does have quite limited support (as can be expected), they are generally responsive to the needs of paid customers. However, even paid customers may still hit slowdowns and have to pay for concierge-type assistance. They do have a strong onboarding process, and overall customer service is very solid and far superior to what you’d get from Salesforce – but to be fair, you are definitely expected to master the system and run things yourself.

And that’s an important point – HubSpot is a massive provider with neither the ability nor interest to learn the unique needs of your business. Their service tends to be one-size-fits-all, and is limited to helping you navigate and use their tools. They can answer a technical question about how to use their tools – but they will not be able to help you determine how to grow your business.

The cookie cutter approach of a provider like HubSpot is likely to lead to frustration at best – and at worst it can negatively impact your results and ROI. When you use HubSpot or Constant Contact, you will almost inevitably need your local agency to come to the rescue and help you create the strategy and tactics it takes to apply their tools in a way that will bring your company success. But the paradox is: HubSpot is not very “agency-friendly.” Their systems and access skew heavily towards clients having the expertise to do virtually everything themselves, while paying to work with premiere support and receiving virtually no strategic or tactical guidance. When judging all of HubSpot’s strengths and weaknesses, this is a glaring issue.

Constant Contact is once again a tale of two platforms. Their consumer-oriented tools have limited support, and that support is frankly quite poor. You’ll experience long waits, communication difficulties, and inexperienced, non-proficient support agents. To achieve meaningful support, your ticket will need to be escalated to a higher level of staff, causing delays in getting the answers you need. And if strategic and tactical support is a bit of a unicorn from the HubSpot staff, for a consumer-grade Constant Contact customer, it simply doesn’t exist at all.

However – it’s night and day over on Constant Contact’s SharpSpring tier. Constant Contact/SharpSpring is extremely agency-friendly – in fact by default, SharpSpring subscribers are required to get support directly through their local agency partner. To accommodate agencies who lack technical expertise, SharpSpring subscribers can also pay a quite reasonable upgrade fee to receive support directly from the SharpSpring team. And that support team is excellent – skilled, responsive, and helpful. Working through your local agency for support obviously leads to more personalized support that can incorporate their marketing insights and advice, and while the SharpSpring team lacks that personal touch and expertise about your business, they at least provide excellent and knowledgeable support for their product. Needless to say, if you decide to utilize Constant Contact, we strongly advise against choosing any of their entry-level plans.

The benefit of LeadVelo’s support is that we, like you, are an SMB – and like you, we’re experts in our field. Our team knows you, knows what you need, learns your company and its goals, and we go beyond mere “tech support” to provide valuable insights and ideas that will bring you more success. Accessible, personal, expert support is built into the LeadVelo experience – so much so that our base subscription includes monthly time with our team dedicated to brainstorming, consulting, and implementing strategics and tactics that will help your business grow. And while many companies like to primarily utilize a “DIY” approach, LeadVelo offers the option to engage with the Turchette team’s brainpower with full managed services. No other CRM/marketing platform provider comes close to that level of service.

4. Experience: Designed for Real SMB’s

Salesforce is powerful and designed for large teams with dedicated admins – not for a small or mid-sized business. HubSpot is sleek and polished – in fact migrating beyond the free tier can feel like stepping into an exclusive club – but you’re expected to master their tools and drive the system yourself. Constant Contact keeps things approachable—but its low-cost tools are really intended for fairly basic use.

Plenty of SMBs are great fits for either of those options, and neither has a shortage of testimonials and success stories. A company with a low budget and simple “entry level” marketing needs will likely be pleased with Constant Contact and consider it a major upgrade over their spreadsheets and rolodexes. A company large enough to have a dedicated sales & marketing team might have no issues with the HubSpot price tag and might have no concerns about committing to learn the HubSpot ecosystem and trusting that their own skillsets will translate into excellent results.

LeadVelo is great for either of those two scenarios, but shines brightest for the companies who live in the gap between – where we feel most B2B companies would fall. LeadVelo is ideal for companies with one sales/marketing professional who is wearing multiple hats, or for the small team that is already spread too thin and knows that leads are slipping through the cracks. We’ve been right there in the trenches, and we built LeadVelo specifically to provide those companies with a solution that will meet them where they are, empower them to grow, and scale along with them when they do.

Real-world, down-to-earth B2B sales and marketing experience that Turchette has honed for decades is the secret ingredient woven into LeadVelo. We get how SMBs operate: tight budgets, tight schedules, and the need to show results quickly. So LeadVelo matches your energy. It’s agile, easy to adopt, and built to help your company’s sales & communications be polished, professional, effective, and efficient – increasing leads, improving customer relationships, and driving better bottom lines.

If your goal is to streamline operations, boost leads and sales, while tapping into the brainpower of a team of B2B marketing experts who know what buttons to push to bring success – all without overpaying – LeadVelo deserves a test drive. Click here to schedule yours.