Discover folk - the CRM for people-powered businesses
Winning public contracts is tough.
You're juggling strict compliance rules, endless documentation, and multiple agencies—all at once.
You need clarity. Speed. Control.
That’s where a CRM built for government contractors comes in.
It helps you centralize contract data, track every agency interaction, and manage your pipeline—without missing a deadline.
In this guide, discover the best CRM for government contractor success: tools that boost productivity, simplify compliance, and help you win more bids.
The 5 best CRMs for government contractors
1. folk
folk is a modern CRM platform for managing contacts, workflows, and relationships, offering customizable pipelines, AI-driven tools, and integrations to enhance deal management and prospecting.
Key features
- Contact enrichment: Automatically enriches contact details by finding emails and LinkedIn URLs, enabling efficient outreach without manual data entry or additional costs for email services.
- Social media integration: Seamlessly import contacts from LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and more to track contact information within folk, and use templates for quicker, streamlined communication.
- Mail merge and email sequences: Full email sync, templates, and tracking features, enabling users to manage all communications directly from the CRM.
- AI-powered features: AI tools assist in managing contacts and relationships, automating routine tasks, and suggesting actions to improve productivity.
- Integrations: folk integrates seamlessly with over 6,000 apps, including Gmail, Zapier, and Make, allowing users to centralize their workflow and reduce manual data entry.
Pros
- Ease of use: folk is praised for its intuitive interface, making it accessible even to non-technical users with quick onboarding and a minimal learning curve.
- All-in-one: folk streamlines your workflow by allowing you to import contacts from LinkedIn, automatically find their emails, reach out through customizable email sequences, and track interactions in a pipeline, eliminating the need for multiple tools and saving time and money.
- Full customizability: Have control over custom fields, dashboards, multiple pipelines, and workflows.
- Integrations: folk integrates seamlessly with over 6,000 apps, including Gmail, Zapier, and Make, allowing users to centralize their workflow and reduce manual data entry.
Cons
- Reporting: Currently lacks reporting features, but there are plans for future implementation.
Price and plans
You can try folk for free with a 14-day free trial. After that, a monthly or annual subscription plan is as follows.
- Standard: $20 per user, per month.
- Premium: $40 per user, per month.
- Custom: Starts from $80 per user, per month.
2. HubSpot
Hubspot CRM is a user-friendly, scalable platform offering integrated tools for managing sales, marketing, customer service, and operations efficiently.
Key features
- Sales Hub: Provides deal tracking, pipeline management, sales automation, and reporting, essential for managing government contracts efficiently.
- Marketing Hub: Includes email marketing, ad tracking, landing pages, and lead generation tools to help government contractors attract and engage potential leads.
- Service Hub: Offers customer service tools like ticketing, live chat, and knowledge bases, ensuring excellent support for government clients.
- Operations Hub: Syncs and automates business processes across different systems, streamlining operations for government contractors.
- Lead scoring: Prioritize leads with predictive scoring to improve sales efficiency and focus on high-potential government contracts.
Pros
- User-friendly interface: The intuitive and easy-to-use interface makes it accessible for users of all skill levels, crucial for government contractors who need quick onboarding.
- Seamless integration with marketing tools: Integrates smoothly with marketing, sales, and service hubs, creating a unified platform for managing government contracts and customer relationships.
- Automation capabilities: Provides powerful automation tools for tasks like email marketing, lead nurturing, and sales workflows, saving time and improving efficiency.
- Customizable dashboard and reports: Allows users to create customized dashboards and reports to track metrics and gain insights into government contract performance.
- Strong customer support: Offers excellent customer support, including live chat, phone support, and a vast knowledge base, ensuring government contractors have the help they need.
Cons
- High cost at higher tiers: The pricing can become expensive as you move to higher tiers, which may be prohibitive for small government contractors as they scale.
- Limited customization in free plan: The free plan and lower tiers have limited customization options, which can restrict flexibility for growing government contractors.
- Complexity in advanced features: Some advanced features, such as custom reporting and workflows, have a steep learning curve and may require additional training.
- Email marketing limits: Email marketing functionality in the free plan is restricted by limits on the number of emails you can send, which can be a drawback for government contractors with larger lists.
- Additional costs for add-ons: Many useful features, like advanced CRM capabilities and integrations, come as paid add-ons, increasing the overall cost.
Price and plans
Prices and plans on the CRM suite for an annual subscription are as follows.
- Starter: $15 per user, per month.
- Professional: $450 per user, per month.
- Enterprise: $1,500 per user, per month.
3. Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a web-based CRM for small businesses, offering lead management, automation, email integration, and customizable pipelines to optimize sales.
Key features
- Lead and deal management: Centralized tools to manage customer data, interactions, and sales pipelines, helping government contractors efficiently track and act on opportunities.
- Sales automation: Workflow automation to handle repetitive tasks, such as lead routing, follow-ups, and email sequences, allowing government contractors to focus on securing contracts.
- Email integration: Full email sync, templates, and tracking features, enabling users to manage all communications directly from the CRM, crucial for maintaining clear and consistent communication with government agencies.
- Advanced reporting and analytics: Real-time data analytics and custom reporting tools to track performance, forecast revenue, and gain actionable insights, essential for making informed decisions in the competitive government contracting space.
- Customization and security: Options to customize pipelines, fields, and user permissions, with robust security measures to protect sensitive government contract data.
Pros
- User-friendly interface: The intuitive and visually appealing interface makes it easy for government contractors to navigate and manage their sales pipelines.
- Sales pipeline focus: Designed specifically for managing sales pipelines, offering a visual approach that helps government contractors track deals and activities effectively.
- Customization: Allows for a high degree of customization, enabling government contractors to tailor the platform to their specific processes with custom fields and workflows.
- Automation features: Includes automation tools that help streamline repetitive tasks, such as sending follow-up emails and moving deals through the pipeline, saving time and boosting productivity.
- Reporting and analytics: Offers robust reporting and analytics tools that provide valuable insights into sales performance and help identify areas for improvement, crucial for government contractors aiming to optimize their strategies.
Cons
- Limited advanced features: Lacks some of the more advanced CRM features, such as extensive marketing automation and AI capabilities, which are available in other platforms.
- Basic reporting in lower tiers: The reporting and analytics features in the basic plans are somewhat limited, requiring upgrades to access more in-depth insights.
- No built-in email marketing: Does not include built-in email marketing features, requiring users to integrate with third-party email tools for such functionality.
- Price Increases with add-ons: The cost can increase quickly when additional features or integrations are added, making it less cost-effective for government contractors with growing needs.
- Limited project management features: Primarily focused on sales, and lacks robust project management features, requiring the use of additional tools for project tracking.
Price and plans
An annual subscription plan basis is as follows.
- Essential plan: Starts from $24 per user, per month.
- Advanced plan: Starts from $44 per user, per month.
- Power plan: Starts from $79 per user, per month.
- Enterprise plan: Starts from $129 per user, per month.
4. Zoho
Zoho is a CRM system with a strong sales focus. Its got features such as journey orchestration, sales process management and workflow automation. There's also something for marketing teams, including lead hurting, event management and customer segmentation.
Key features
- Sales automation: Automates sales tasks like lead management, deal tracking, and follow-up actions.
- Customizable dashboards and reports: Allows users to create and customize dashboards and reports for in-depth analytics.
- Lead and contact management: Manages customer information, tracks interactions, and segments contacts for targeted campaigns.
- Workflow automation: Automates routine tasks and processes to improve efficiency and reduce manual effort.
- Security and privacy controls: Provides robust security features including role-based access, data encryption, and GDPR compliance.
Pros
- Customization: Extensive customization options allow businesses to tailor the CRM to their specific needs, including custom fields, modules, and workflows.
- Integration with Zoho Suite: Seamless integration with other Zoho products (like Zoho Books, Zoho Projects, and Zoho Campaigns) creates a comprehensive ecosystem for managing different business functions.
- Multi-channel communication: Zoho CRM supports email, phone, social media, and live chat, enabling businesses to manage all customer interactions from a single platform.
- Scalability: The platform is highly scalable, making it suitable for growing businesses. It can support small teams and large enterprises alike, with features that scale with business needs.
- Strong security: Zoho CRM provides robust security measures, including data encryption, two-factor authentication, and role-based access, ensuring data protection and compliance.
Cons
- Steep learning curve: The extensive customization options can be overwhelming for new users, requiring a significant time investment to master the platform.
- Complex setup: Initial setup and configuration can be complex, particularly for businesses without technical expertise or dedicated IT resources.
- Limited third-party integrations: While Zoho integrates well with its own suite of products, integration with third-party applications can be limited or require additional effort.
- Data migration challenges: Migrating data from other CRMs to Zoho can be difficult and time-consuming, often requiring manual adjustments.
- Customization requires technical knowledge: Advanced customizations often require technical expertise, which can be a barrier for non-technical users.
Price and plans
Free plan limited to three users suitable for small businesses. After that, an annual subscription plan is as follows.
- Standard: $20 per user, per month.
- Professional: $35 per user, per month.
- Enterprise: $50 per user, per month.
5. Salesforce
Salesforce is a robust CRM platform for large enterprises, offering tools for sales, marketing, service, and analytics, with extensive scalability.
Key features
- Comprehensive ecosystem: A unified platform offering CRM, marketing automation, customer service, and custom app development, suitable for the varied needs of government contractors.
- Customization and scalability: Salesforce is highly customizable and scalable, allowing government contractors to tailor the platform to complex workflows and manage significant growth.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) integration: Salesforce Einstein offers AI-driven analytics and automation, providing insights that help government contractors optimize their strategies.
- Extensive integration capabilities: With Salesforce's AppExchange, government contractors can integrate the platform with a wide range of third-party applications, ensuring seamless operation across different business systems.
- Enterprise-grade security and compliance: Salesforce provides robust security measures and compliance features, critical for government contractors handling sensitive customer data.
Pros
- Comprehensive feature set: Salesforce offers an extensive range of features covering sales, service, marketing, and more, making it a powerful tool for managing all aspects of government contractor relationships.
- Highly customizable: Salesforce is highly customizable, allowing government contractors to tailor the platform to their specific needs with custom fields, objects, and workflows.
- Extensive integration capabilities: Salesforce integrates with a vast array of third-party applications, as well as its own ecosystem of tools, enabling seamless data flow across platforms.
- Scalability: Salesforce is highly scalable, making it suitable for government contractors of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises, with the ability to grow with your business.
- Advanced analytics and reporting: Salesforce provides powerful analytics and reporting tools, allowing government contractors to gain deep insights into their data and make informed decisions.
Cons
- High cost: Salesforce can be expensive, especially for small to medium-sized government contractors, with high licensing fees and additional costs for add-ons and customization.
- Steep learning curve: Due to its extensive feature set and complexity, Salesforce often requires significant time and training for users to become proficient.
- Complex setup and customization: Initial setup and customization can be challenging and often require expert help or certified consultants, which adds to the overall cost.
- User interface: Some users find the Salesforce interface to be outdated and not as intuitive as other modern CRM platforms, which can hinder usability.
- Overwhelming for small teams: Salesforce’s robust features may be overkill for smaller government contractors, leading to underutilization of the platform’s capabilities.
Price and plans
- Starter Suite: $25/user/month provides basic CRM features for small businesses.
- Pro Suite: $100/user/month includes advanced tools for growing businesses.
- Enterprise Plan: $165/user/month offers extensive customization and automation for large companies.
- Unlimited Plan: $330/user/month provides comprehensive features for large enterprises.
- Einstein 1 Sales: $500/user/month provides AI-driven insights and advanced features for large enterprises.
Why you need a CRM
Government contracting is complex.
You juggle deadlines, compliance, and stakeholders.
A CRM helps you stay in control.
It centralizes data, automates tasks, and boosts communication.
With vs. Without a CRM for Government Contractors
Conclusion
The right CRM can transform how you manage government contracts.
Whether you're focused on outreach, compliance, or deal tracking, each tool in this list brings something valuable:
- folk keeps everything in one place, with smart enrichment and LinkedIn sync.
- HubSpot offers a full-suite approach for marketing, sales, and support.
- Pipedrive simplifies pipeline management with a visual, no-fuss UI.
- Zoho delivers deep customization at a budget-friendly price.
- Salesforce powers complex operations at enterprise scale.
Start by defining your needs, team size, and budget. Then pick the CRM that fits—not just your contracts, but the way you work.
Ready to test a modern, intuitive CRM? Try folk for free
Need help deciding?
👉 Use our free tool to find the best fit for your team.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a government contractor use as a CRM?
Government contractors often use CRMs like folk, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho, and Salesforce. Each of these platforms offers unique features tailored to streamline processes, manage contacts, and enhance communication, making them popular choices for improving efficiency and securing contracts in the government sector.
Do I need a CRM?
Yes, depending on the complexity of your process. A CRM can significantly improve your organization’s efficiency by centralizing data, automating tasks, and providing valuable insights, which are crucial for managing government contracts effectively.
How much does a CRM cost?
CRM costs can vary widely, typically ranging from $15 to $500 per user per month. The price depends on the features offered, the number of users, and the level of customization required to meet your specific needs as a government contractor.
Does folk’s CRM respond to government contractors needs?
Yes, folk’s CRM is well-suited for government contractors. It offers an intuitive interface, seamless LinkedIn integration, customizable pipelines, and AI-powered features that streamline workflows and enhance efficiency. These features help manage contacts, automate tasks, and improve communication, making it a valuable tool for government contracting businesses.
Discover folk CRM - Like the sales assistant your team never had
