Best CRM for lead management

Why lead management matters for 20–50 person teams

As a sales professional on a team of 20-50 people, effectively managing leads is critical to driving your sales pipeline and closing deals.

For medium-sized sales teams, keeping track of prospects, follow-ups, and interactions across multiple team members can become overwhelming without the right tools. A dedicated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for lead management can help your team organize leads, automate follow-up tasks, and provide real-time insights into your collective sales efforts—all from one centralized platform.

In this blog post, we'll explore the best CRM options for lead management specifically designed for growing sales teams of 20-50 people, focusing on tools that will help you streamline your process, nurture leads effectively, and boost your sales performance at scale.

How to evaluate and choose a CRM

With numerous CRMs to consider for your 20-50 person sales team, it can be overwhelming to figure out where to start. To help you with your decision making process, and to make sure you find the right solution that aligns with your team's collaborative needs and growth trajectory, we've put together the following tips.

1. Define your requirements

Identifying the key features needed for your medium-sized sales team is crucial when selecting the best CRM for lead management. Teams of 20-50 people should look for functionalities such as lead scoring, automated follow-ups, customizable pipelines, detailed analytics, and robust collaboration features. Consider integration capabilities with your existing technology stack and ensure the platform can handle multiple users efficiently. Start by looking for these key features that we know will help with your team's lead management efforts.

Key features of a CRM for lead management

• Automated processes: Streamlines tasks by automating repetitive workflows across your entire sales team.
• Contact enrichment: Automatically finds leads and customers' email addresses and contact information, enhancing efficiency for busy sales teams.
• Multiple pipelines: Tracks leads and customers through defined stages, ensuring process clarity and effectiveness across team members.
• Mail merge and email sequences: Increases communication efficiency with follow-up templates and automated sequences that your entire team can utilize.
• LinkedIn Connection: Seamlessly imports leads and customers from LinkedIn and Sales Navigator, bringing all your team's contacts within the CRM.
• Analytics: Provides essential data analysis and predictive insights for better team planning and performance tracking.

2. Shortlisting process

Researching and choosing the right CRM vendor for your 20-50 person team involves several steps. Start by reading reviews and case studies from similar-sized sales organizations. Request demos and take note of the user experience, scalability, and customer support quality. Engage with vendor representatives to understand their roadmap and how they can address your specific team lead management needs and growth plans.

3. Get a demo

Before committing to a new CRM for your sales team's lead management, it's crucial to get a demo. A demo allows you to see the software in action, understand its collaborative features, and assess its suitability for your 20-50 person team's specific needs. Try out and compare different CRM platforms to see which one aligns best with your team's lead management requirements. Use free trials or demo versions to test features like lead tracking, team reporting, and automation at scale. Compare the ease of use, scalability, and integration capabilities before making a final decision. Get started with a demo of folk here.

👉🏼 Try folk now to manage contact-based reminders with your team

3 tips for implementing a CRM

1. Import Your Data in Your New CRM

Transitioning your 20-50 person sales team to a new CRM can seem daunting, but importing your existing lead data is a straightforward process. Once you have your team's data in CSV format, you can easily import it into your new CRM, ensuring a smooth transition for all team members.

3. Create your first pipeline

Setting up your first pipeline is a crucial step in optimizing your team's lead management process. Design a pipeline that reflects the stages of your sales process, such as "New Lead," "Contacted," "Qualified," and "Converted." This structured approach helps your entire team track the progress of each lead and ensures no opportunities slip through the cracks, even when managing leads across multiple sales representatives.

4. Onboard Your Team

A CRM is only as effective as its users, especially for teams of 20-50 people. Ensure your entire sales team is well-versed in the new system by providing comprehensive training sessions. Familiarize them with the CRM's collaborative features, best practices for team lead management, and how to use the pipeline effectively. An empowered team will maximize the CRM's potential, leading to better lead management coordination and higher conversion rates across your sales organization.

The 5 best CRMs for lead management

1. folk

folk is the ideal modern CRM platform for sales teams of 20-50 people, offering customizable pipelines, AI-driven tools, and seamless integrations designed to enhance collaborative deal management and prospecting for growing sales organizations.

Key features

• Contact enrichment: Automatically enriches contact details by finding emails and LinkedIn URLs, enabling your sales team to conduct efficient outreach without manual data entry or additional costs for email services.
• Contact management: Brings together your team's contacts from multiple inboxes, social media platforms and more directly into one platform to get real-time information accessible to all team members.
• Custom sales cycle and pipelines: Keep your entire sales team aligned with customizable pipelines using Kanban dashboard or list views to keep leads organized. Use custom fields to segment leads and maintain full control over user permissions across your 20-50 person team.
• LinkedIn integration: Seamlessly import contacts from LinkedIn and Sales Navigator, import search lists and leverage your network within folk, while using templates for quicker, streamlined team communication.
• Mail merge and email sequences: Full email sync that's compatible with Gmail and Outlook, templates, and tracking features, enabling your team 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 team productivity.
• Integrations: folk integrates seamlessly with over 6,000 apps, including Gmail, Zapier, and Make, allowing your sales team to centralize workflow and reduce manual data entry.

Pros

• Perfect for growing teams: folk is specifically designed for teams of 20-50 people, offering intuitive collaboration features with minimal learning curve for quick team onboarding.
• All-in-one solution: folk streamlines your team's workflow by allowing multiple users to import contacts from LinkedIn, automatically find emails, coordinate outreach through customizable email sequences, and track interactions in shared pipelines, eliminating the need for multiple tools and saving your organization time and money.
• Seamless team collaboration: Close more deals faster as a team with collaborative notes attached to each profile and smart reminder assignments so the right team member follows up seamlessly.
• Scalable customization: Make folk work for your growing sales team through custom fields, multiple pipelines, automation and workflows that adapt as your team expands.
• Cost-effective for mid-size teams: At $20-40 per user per month, folk provides enterprise-level features at a price point perfect for teams of 20-50 people, delivering exceptional ROI.
• Extensive integrations: folk integrates seamlessly with over 6,000 apps, including Gmail, Zapier, and Make, allowing your team to centralize workflow and reduce manual data entry across all your existing tools.

Cons

• Advanced reporting and analytics: folk already includes pipeline and deal stage analytics, forecasting with weighted probabilities, performance breakdowns by owner, channel, industry, region, or any custom field, plus revenue insights dashboards.

Price and plans

You can try folk for free with a 14-day free trial perfect for testing with your sales team. After that, monthly or annual subscription plans are as follows.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month - ideal for teams of 20-30 people.
• Premium: $40 per user, per month - perfect for teams of 30-50 people with advanced needs.
• Custom: Starts from $60 per user, per month - for larger teams requiring enterprise features.

2. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a web-based CRM suitable for small to medium businesses, offering lead management, automation, email integration, and customizable pipelines, though it can become expensive as teams scale.

Key features

• Lead and deal management: Centralized tools to manage customer data, interactions, and sales pipelines, helping teams act quickly on opportunities.
• Sales automation: Workflow automation to handle repetitive tasks, such as lead routing, follow-ups, and email sequences, allowing sales teams to focus on closing deals.
• Email integration: Full email sync, templates, and tracking features, enabling users to manage all communications directly from the CRM.
• Advanced reporting and analytics: Real-time data analytics and custom reporting tools to track sales performance, forecast revenue, and gain actionable insights.
• Customization and security: Options to customize pipelines, fields, and user permissions, with robust security measures to protect data.

Pros

• User-friendly interface: Pipedrive is known for its intuitive and visually appealing interface, making it easy for users to navigate and manage their sales pipelines.
• Sales pipeline focus: Pipedrive is specifically designed for managing sales pipelines, offering a visual approach that helps sales teams track deals and activities effectively.
• Customization: Pipedrive allows for a high degree of customization, enabling users to tailor the platform to their specific sales processes with custom fields and workflows.
• Affordable starting price: Pipedrive offers competitive entry-level pricing, making it accessible to small and medium-sized businesses.
• Automation features: Pipedrive includes automation tools that help streamline repetitive tasks, such as sending follow-up emails and moving deals through the pipeline.

Cons

• Expensive for larger teams: Costs can quickly escalate for teams of 20-50 people, especially when advanced features are needed.
• Limited advanced features: Pipedrive 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 expensive upgrades to access more in-depth insights.
• No built-in email marketing: Pipedrive does not include built-in email marketing features, requiring users to integrate with third-party email tools.
• Limited LinkedIn integration: Unlike folk CRM, Pipedrive lacks seamless LinkedIn integration, making prospecting more challenging for sales teams.

Price and plans

Pipedrive's annual subscription plans can become expensive for medium-sized teams:

• 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.

3. Zoho

Zoho is a comprehensive CRM system with strong sales focus, featuring journey orchestration, sales process management and workflow automation, though it can be complex for teams seeking simplicity.

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.
• Multi-channel communication: Integrates with email, phone, social media, and live chat to manage customer interactions.
• 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.

Pros

• Comprehensive feature set: Zoho CRM offers extensive functionality across sales, marketing, and customer service functions.
• Integration with Zoho suite: Seamless integration with other Zoho products creates a comprehensive ecosystem for managing different business functions.
• Customization options: Extensive customization capabilities allow businesses to tailor the CRM to their specific needs.
• Multi-channel communication: Zoho CRM supports email, phone, social media, and live chat from a single platform.
• AI-powered features: Zia, the AI assistant, provides intelligent insights and predictive analytics.

Cons

• Steep learning curve: The extensive customization options can be overwhelming for teams of 20-50 people, requiring significant time investment and training.
• Complex setup: Initial setup and configuration can be complex, particularly challenging for growing sales teams without dedicated IT resources.
• Outdated user interface: Some users find the interface to be less modern and intuitive compared to platforms like folk CRM.
• Performance issues: Occasional reports of slow performance, especially with larger datasets, can hinder team productivity.
• Limited third-party integrations: Integration with external applications can be limited compared to more modern platforms.

Price and plans

Zoho's free plan is limited to three users, insufficient for teams of 20-50 people. Annual subscription plans are:

• Standard: $20 per user, per month.
• Professional: $35 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: $50 per user, per month.

4. HubSpot

Hubspot CRM is a user-friendly platform offering integrated tools for managing sales, marketing, customer service, and operations, though pricing becomes prohibitive for growing teams.

Key features

• Marketing Hub: Includes email marketing, ad tracking, landing pages, and lead generation tools for effective lead capture and nurturing.
• Sales Hub: Provides deal tracking, pipeline management, sales automation, and reporting to streamline the sales process from lead to customer.
• Operations Hub: Syncs and automates business processes across different systems, ensuring seamless lead management.
• Lead scoring: Prioritize leads with predictive scoring to improve sales efficiency and focus on high-potential opportunities.

Pros

• User-friendly interface: HubSpot is known for its intuitive and easy-to-use interface, making it accessible for users of all skill levels.
• Comprehensive free plan: Offers a robust free version that includes essential CRM features, though limited for larger teams.
• Seamless integration with marketing tools: HubSpot integrates smoothly with its marketing, sales, and service hubs, creating a unified platform.
• Automation capabilities: Provides automation tools for email marketing, lead nurturing, and sales workflows.
• Strong customer support: HubSpot provides excellent customer support with multiple channels available.

Cons

• Extremely high cost for teams: HubSpot's pricing becomes prohibitively expensive for teams of 20-50 people, with Professional plans starting at $450 per month regardless of user count.
• Limited customization in affordable plans: The free and lower-cost plans have severely limited customization options for growing teams.
• Complexity in advanced features: Advanced features require extensive training and setup time.
• Email marketing limits: Free plan email limits are insufficient for active sales teams of 20+ people.
• Expensive add-ons: Many useful features require costly add-ons that quickly inflate the total cost.

Price and plans

HubSpot's sales hub plans become extremely expensive for medium-sized teams:

• Starter: $15 per user, per month (very limited features).
• Professional: $450 total per month (regardless of users - expensive for teams).
• Enterprise: $1,500 total per month (prohibitively expensive for most teams).

5. Salesforce

Salesforce is a robust CRM platform designed for large enterprises, offering comprehensive tools for sales, marketing, service, and analytics, but often overly complex and expensive for teams of 20-50 people.

Key features

• Customization and scalability: Salesforce allows extensive customization with custom fields, objects, and workflows, though this complexity can be overwhelming for medium-sized teams.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) integration: Salesforce Einstein provides AI-driven insights and automation for lead optimization.
• Extensive integration capabilities: Integrate Salesforce with thousands of third-party applications through AppExchange.
• Advanced analytics and reporting: Comprehensive analytics and reporting tools for data-driven decision making.
• Mobile accessibility: Robust mobile app offering full CRM access on mobile devices.

Pros

• Enterprise-grade features: Salesforce offers comprehensive functionality for complex lead management processes.
• Highly customizable: Extensive customization capabilities to match specific business processes.
• Robust integration ecosystem: Thousands of available integrations through the AppExchange marketplace.
• Advanced analytics: Sophisticated reporting and analytics capabilities for data-driven insights.
• Strong mobile platform: Full-featured mobile app for on-the-go lead management.

Cons

• Excessive cost for medium teams: Salesforce is prohibitively expensive for teams of 20-50 people, with licensing fees that can easily exceed budget constraints.
• Overwhelming complexity: The platform's extensive features create unnecessary complexity for medium-sized sales teams who need simplicity and efficiency.
• Requires specialized expertise: Implementation and ongoing management often require certified consultants, adding significant costs.
• Outdated user experience: Many users find Salesforce's interface less intuitive compared to modern alternatives like folk CRM.
• Overkill for growing teams: Salesforce's enterprise features are excessive for teams of 20-50 people who need focused lead management tools.

Conclusion

Choosing the best CRM for lead management is crucial for the success of any sales team of 20-50 people. After evaluating the top options available, folk CRM emerges as the clear winner for medium-sized sales teams seeking an optimal balance of functionality, ease of use, and cost-effectiveness. Unlike expensive enterprise solutions like Salesforce and HubSpot, or complex platforms like Zoho, folk CRM is specifically designed for growing teams who need powerful lead management capabilities without unnecessary complexity or prohibitive costs. With its seamless LinkedIn integration, automated contact enrichment, collaborative features, and affordable pricing starting at just $20 per user per month, folk CRM delivers everything your sales team needs to streamline lead management and drive growth. Get started by trying folk for free here.

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FAQ

What is the best CRM system for small businesses?

The best CRM depends on team size, budget, and tools. For 20–50 person teams needing lead management and collaboration, folk offers pipelines, LinkedIn import, email sequences, and automation at $20–40/user/mo. Also compare Pipedrive, Zoho, and HubSpot.

How do you choose a CRM for a 20–50 person sales team?

Define must-haves (pipelines, automation, analytics, permissions), check integrations, test usability with a demo, verify pricing at scale, and confirm onboarding and support. Shortlist 2–3 vendors and run a 14‑day trial with real data and users.

What features matter most for lead management?

Prioritize contact enrichment, multi-pipeline deal tracking, automated follow-ups and sequences, email and LinkedIn syncing, shared notes and tasks, lead scoring, and reporting/forecasting. Ensure role-based permissions and easy import from CSV.

How much does a CRM cost for a 20–50 person team?

Expect $20–$80 per user monthly for most tools. Examples: folk $20–40/user/mo; Pipedrive $24–129/user/mo; Zoho $20–50/user/mo. Some suites charge flat fees (HubSpot Pro $450+/mo) or higher enterprise rates (Salesforce often $100+/user/mo).