As a sales professional managing a team of 20-50 people, keeping up with leads, managing follow-ups, and closing deals efficiently can be overwhelming without the right tools.

A CRM system with robust sales automation features can transform your mid-sized sales operation by automating repetitive tasks, tracking customer interactions across your entire team, and managing complex pipelines with multiple stakeholders. All in one centralized platform.

With the right CRM tailored for growing sales teams, you can save countless hours, maintain consistency across your organization, and empower your team to focus more on closing high-value deals.

What you'll learn

In this blog post, we'll explore the best CRM options for sales automation specifically designed for teams of 20-50 people, highlighting tools that will help boost your team's productivity and overall sales performance at scale.

Why you need a CRM

For sales teams of 20-50 people, a CRM offers a centralized platform for managing interactions, data, and workflows across multiple team members and departments. With the right sales automation features, it becomes the backbone that enables your growing organization to maintain consistency, accountability, and efficiency as you scale.

Challenges without a CRM

Without the right CRM in place, mid-sized sales teams of 20-50 people are likely to face the following challenges that can significantly impact their growth trajectory and team coordination.

• Disorganization: Scattered data across multiple team members and fragmented processes lead to major inefficiencies at scale.
• Missed opportunities: Lack of a unified system causes potential leads to slip through the cracks, especially with multiple salespeople managing different accounts.
• Inefficient processes: Manual tasks consume valuable time and resources across your entire team, creating bottlenecks in your sales pipeline.
• Lack of insight: Inadequate data analytics hinder strategic decision-making for team leads and managers overseeing multiple sales representatives.
• Inconsistent communication: Poor coordination between 20-50 team members results in a disjointed customer experience and conflicting messaging.

Benefits of a CRM

Fortunately, having the right CRM in your tech stack that has the sales automation features your growing team needs can help you address these challenges and dramatically enhance your team's performance at scale.

• Centralized information: All customer data and interactions from your entire 20-50 person team are stored in one accessible place.
• Enhanced efficiency: Automated workflows save time and reduce errors across multiple team members and departments.
• Improved customer relationships: Personalized interactions foster loyalty and satisfaction, with full visibility across your sales organization.
• Better decision-making: Data-driven insights guide strategic actions for team managers overseeing multiple sales professionals.
• Increased sales: Streamlined processes lead to higher conversion rates across your entire sales organization.
• Consistent communication: Unified messaging ensures a cohesive customer experience regardless of which team member handles the interaction.

How to evaluate and choose a CRM

With numerous CRMs on the market, it can be challenging for growing teams of 20-50 people to distinguish which one is right for your specific scale and has the sales automation features you need. To help you with your decision making process for your mid-sized sales organization, we've put together these top tips.

1. Define your requirements

Identifying the key features needed for your 20-50 person sales team is crucial when selecting the best CRM for sales automation. As a busy mid-sized sales organization, you should focus on features such as advanced lead management, multi-user workflow automation, seamless email integration, comprehensive analytics, and detailed reporting capabilities. These features can streamline your sales process across multiple team members, improve efficiency at scale, and boost your entire team's productivity.

Key features of a CRM for sales automation

• Automated processes: Streamlines tasks by automating repetitive workflows across your entire 20-50 person team.
• Contact management: Brings all contacts from multiple team members' inboxes and social media accounts to one centralized location accessible to your entire organization.
• Contact enrichment: Automatically finds leads and customers email addresses and contact information for your entire team, enhancing efficiency across your sales organization.
• Notes and reminders: Allows your team to take notes collaboratively across all 20-50 members, creating a single source of truth and assigning reminders so the right person follows up.
• Structured pipeline: Tracks leads and customers through defined stages with visibility across your entire sales team, ensuring process clarity and effectiveness at scale.
• Mail merge and email sequences: Increases communication efficiency with follow-up templates and automated sequences that work consistently across your growing team.
• LinkedIn connection: Seamlessly imports leads and customers from LinkedIn and Sales Navigator for your entire sales organization to leverage your collective network within the CRM.
• Analytics: Provides essential data analysis and predictive insights for better planning and management oversight of your 20-50 person sales team.

2. Budget considerations

Balancing cost and return on investment is essential for mid-sized teams of 20-50 people. Evaluate the pricing models of various CRM platforms and consider the long-term benefits they offer to your growing organization. An affordable CRM that provides robust sales automation features can significantly enhance your team's sales performance without straining your budget as you scale.

3. Selection process

Researching and choosing the right CRM platform for your 20-50 person team involves several steps. Start by reading reviews and testimonials from similar-sized organizations, comparing features that work well at scale, and seeking recommendations from other team leaders managing growing sales organizations. Additionally, check for customer support quality and the vendor's reputation with mid-sized businesses. This thorough vetting process ensures you select a reliable partner for your sales automation needs as your team grows.

4. Get a demo

Make sure you try the CRMs on your short list so your team leads and key stakeholders can experience how it adapts to your workflow and tech stack first hand. Most CRMs offer free trials or demos, allowing your team to test their features and usability at scale with multiple users. During this period, assess how well each CRM integrates with your existing tools and how effectively it automates your sales processes across your 20-50 person organization. Make your decision based on which platform best aligns with your business goals and operational needs as a growing sales team. Get started with a demo of folk to see why it's particularly loved by mid-sized sales teams looking to scale efficiently.

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

3 tips for implementing a CRM

At this stage, it's time to get excited about introducing your new CRM to your 20-50 person sales team. To help you create a smooth implementation process across your growing organization, we've rounded up the following tips.

1. Import your data into your new CRM

Transitioning to a new CRM can be seamless for your 20-50 person team if you properly import your existing data from multiple sources and team members. Most CRMs, including folk CRM, allow you to import data via CSV files from various team members and departments. This ensures that all your contacts, deals, and sales activities from across your organization are transferred accurately and consolidated in one place.

2. Create your first pipeline

Once your team's data is imported, the next step is to set up your first sales pipeline that works for your 20-50 person organization. Tailor the pipeline stages to reflect your sales automation process and ensure consistency across all team members. Typical stages for mid-sized teams might include Lead Generation, Qualification, Proposal, Negotiation, and Closing. Customizing these stages will help streamline your sales efforts across your entire team and provide clear visibility into each deal's progress for managers and team leads.

3. Onboard your team

Having 20-50 people use software they're not familiar with can be daunting for your organization. To empower your entire sales team, conduct comprehensive training sessions to familiarize all team members with the new CRM's features and benefits. Highlight how sales automation can save time and improve efficiency across your growing organization. Encourage team members to explore the CRM and provide feedback to refine its use across your sales team. A well-onboarded team of 20-50 people is more likely to leverage the CRM to its full potential, driving better sales outcomes for your entire organization.

The 5 best CRMs for sales automation

1. folk

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

Key features

• Sales cycle and pipeline management: Keep your 20-50 person team's leads and sales cycles perfectly organized with folk's easy-to-customize dashboards and use their sales automation features to enrich, segment and personalize communications instantly across your entire organization.
• Contact enrichment: Automatically enriches contact details by finding emails and LinkedIn URLs for your entire team, enabling efficient outreach without manual data entry or additional costs for email services across your growing organization.
• LinkedIn integration: Seamlessly import contacts from LinkedIn and Sales Navigator for your entire 20-50 person team to track contacts within folk, and use templates for quicker, streamlined communication across your sales organization.
• Mail merge and email sequences: Full email sync compatible with Gmail and Outlook with access to templates and tracking features, enabling your entire team to manage all communications directly from the CRM with full visibility.
• Notes and reminders: Allows your 20-50 person team to take notes collaboratively, creating a single source of truth and assign reminders so the right team member follows up consistently.
• AI-powered features: AI tools assist your growing team in managing contacts and relationships, automating routine tasks, and suggesting actions to improve productivity across your entire sales organization.
• Integrations: folk integrates seamlessly with over 6,000 apps, including Gmail, Zapier, and Make, allowing your 20-50 person team to centralize their workflow and reduce manual data entry across departments.
• Mobile access: While folk doesn't yet have a native iOS or Android app, it's fully optimized for mobile browsers (Chrome, Safari), allowing you to access, edit, and create contacts, companies, and deals on the go with live sync to desktop.

Pros

• Perfect for mid-sized teams: folk is specifically designed for teams of 20-50 people, with an intuitive interface that makes it accessible to all team members with quick onboarding and minimal learning curve for your growing organization.
• All-in-one solution: folk streamlines your team's workflow by allowing all 20-50 members to import contacts from LinkedIn, automatically find their emails, reach out through customizable email sequences, and track interactions in a unified pipeline, eliminating the need for multiple tools and saving significant time and money for your organization.
• Full personalization at scale: Custom fields, pipelines, dashboards, automation and workflows that work seamlessly across your entire 20-50 person sales team.
• Advanced permissions control: Team leads can precisely control what users across your 20-50 person organization have access to and can edit, ensuring security and accountability.
• Extensive integrations: folk integrates seamlessly with over 6,000 apps, including Gmail, Zapier, and Make, allowing your growing team to centralize their workflow and eliminate manual data entry across departments.

Cons

• Reporting: folk provides advanced analytics, including pipeline and deal stage reporting, revenue forecasting with weighted probabilities, performance breakdowns by owner, channel, industry, region, or any custom field, and revenue insights for better forecasting.
  

Price and plans

You can try folk for free with a 14-day free trial that works perfectly for testing with your 20-50 person team. After that, monthly or annual subscription plans are as follows, with volume discounts available for mid-sized teams.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month.
• Premium: $40 per user, per month.
• Custom: Starts from $60 per user, per month.

2. HubSpot

Hubspot CRM is a comprehensive platform offering integrated tools for managing sales, marketing, customer service, and operations, though it can become complex and expensive for mid-sized teams.

Key features

• Marketing hub: Includes email marketing, ad tracking, landing pages, and lead generation tools, though these can be overwhelming for focused sales teams.
• Sales hub: Provides deal tracking, pipeline management, sales automation, and reporting, but requires higher tiers for teams of 20-50 people.
• Lead scoring: Prioritize leads with predictive scoring, though setup can be complex for mid-sized teams.
• Automation capabilities: Offers tools for automating tasks like email marketing and sales workflows, but advanced features are locked behind expensive tiers.
• Customizable dashboard and reports: Create custom dashboards and reports, though full functionality requires professional plans that can be costly for growing teams.

Pros

• User-friendly interface: HubSpot is known for its intuitive interface, making it accessible for users across different skill levels in your organization.
• Comprehensive free plan: Offers a free version, though it's limited to 3 users - insufficient for teams of 20-50 people.
• Marketing integration: HubSpot integrates well with marketing tools, creating a unified platform for inbound marketing.
• Automation capabilities: Provides automation tools, though advanced features require expensive upgrades.
• Learning resources: HubSpot Academy offers extensive training materials for team development.

Cons

• Expensive for mid-sized teams: HubSpot's pricing becomes prohibitively expensive for teams of 20-50 people, especially when accessing professional features.
• Limited customization in lower tiers: The affordable plans lack customization options that growing teams need.
• Complex for focused sales teams: Many features are marketing-focused, creating complexity for sales-only organizations.
• Email marketing limits: Restrictive email limits in lower tiers are insufficient for active sales teams of 20-50 people.
• Reporting limitations: Advanced reporting features require expensive professional or enterprise plans.
  

Price and plans

On an annual subscription basis, HubSpot's Sales hub plans quickly become expensive for teams of 20-50 people.

• Starter: $15 per user, per month (limited features).
• Professional: $90 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: $150 per user, per month.

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3. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a web-based CRM focused on pipeline management, though it lacks some advanced features that teams of 20-50 people typically need for comprehensive sales automation.

Key features

• Lead and deal management: Centralized tools to manage leads and customer data, though lacking some automation features that mid-sized teams require.
• Sales automation: Basic workflow automation for routine tasks, but limited compared to more comprehensive solutions for growing teams.
• Email integration: Email sync and tracking features, though not as seamless as dedicated sales platforms.
• Basic reporting and analytics: Standard reporting tools, but advanced analytics require higher-tier plans that can be expensive.
• Customization options: Some customization available, though not as extensive as platforms designed for mid-sized teams.

Pros

• User-friendly interface: Known for its visual pipeline approach that helps sales teams track deals effectively.
• Pipeline focus: Specifically designed for managing sales pipelines with visual tracking.
• Basic customization: Allows for some customization of fields and workflows.
• Simple automation: Includes basic automation tools for routine tasks.
• Lead management: Offers standard lead management and tracking features.

Cons

• Limited advanced features: Lacks comprehensive automation and AI capabilities that teams of 20-50 people often need.
• Basic reporting in lower tiers: Advanced analytics require expensive upgrades, making it costly for mid-sized teams.
• No built-in email marketing: Requires third-party integrations for email marketing, adding complexity and cost.
• Expensive with add-ons: Costs increase significantly when adding features that growing teams need.
• No free plan: Unlike alternatives, offers no free option for testing with larger teams.
  

Price and plans

Pipedrive's annual subscription costs can add up quickly for teams of 20-50 people.

• Essential plan: Starts from $24 per user, per month (basic features).
• 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 comprehensive CRM system with sales automation features, though it can be complex to set up and manage for teams of 20-50 people who need quick deployment and ease of use.

Key features

• Sales automation: Automates sales tasks like lead management and deal tracking, though setup can be complex for mid-sized teams.
• Customizable dashboards and reports: Extensive customization options, but can be overwhelming for teams needing quick deployment.
• Multi-channel communication: Integrates various communication channels, though not as seamless as specialized platforms.
• Lead and contact management: Comprehensive contact management with advanced segmentation options.
• Workflow automation: Powerful automation capabilities, but requires technical expertise to implement effectively.

Pros

• Competitive pricing: Offers reasonable pricing tiers that can work for mid-sized teams.
• Extensive customization: Highly customizable platform for businesses with specific needs.
• Zoho ecosystem: Integrates well with other Zoho products for comprehensive business management.
• Multi-channel support: Supports various communication channels from one platform.
• AI features: Includes AI assistant for insights and automation.

Cons

• Steep learning curve: Complex setup and customization can be overwhelming for teams of 20-50 people who need quick results.
• Complex implementation: Requires significant technical expertise and time investment that growing teams may not have.
• Outdated interface: Some users find the interface less intuitive compared to modern CRM platforms.
• Performance issues: Can be slow with large datasets, problematic for active sales teams.
• Limited third-party integrations: Focuses mainly on Zoho ecosystem, limiting flexibility for diverse tech stacks.
  

Price and plans

Zoho's free plan is limited to three users, insufficient for teams of 20-50 people. Annual subscription plans are 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 comprehensive CRM platform designed for large enterprises, but it's often overly complex and expensive for mid-sized teams of 20-50 people who need efficient, straightforward sales automation.

Key features

• AI Integration: Salesforce Einstein offers advanced AI features, but implementation is complex and expensive for mid-sized teams.
• Enterprise customization: Highly customizable platform, but requires extensive resources and expertise to implement properly.
• Extensive integrations: Wide range of third-party integrations, though many require additional costs and setup time.
• Advanced analytics: Powerful reporting tools, but accessing full functionality requires expensive enterprise plans.
• Mobile accessibility: Robust mobile app, though it inherits the complexity of the main platform.

Pros

• Comprehensive features: Covers extensive business functions beyond basic CRM needs.
• Enterprise-grade customization: Highly customizable for complex business requirements.
• Wide integration ecosystem: Extensive third-party integration capabilities.
• Scalability: Can handle very large organizations and complex workflows.
• AI capabilities: Advanced AI features through Salesforce Einstein.

Cons

• Prohibitively expensive: Cost becomes excessive for teams of 20-50 people, especially with required add-ons and professional services.
• Overwhelming complexity: Designed for large enterprises, creating unnecessary complexity for mid-sized sales teams.
• Requires expert implementation: Complex setup requires certified consultants, adding significant costs and time.
• Poor user experience: Interface can be confusing and outdated compared to modern, user-friendly alternatives.
• Overkill for focused sales teams: Many features are unnecessary for teams of 20-50 people focused on sales automation.
  

Price and plans

• Starter suite: $25/user/month (very limited features).
• Pro suite: $100/user/month.
• Enterprise plan: $165/user/month.
• Unlimited plan: $330/user/month.
• Einstein 1 Sales: $500/user/month.

👉🏼 Try folk now to never miss a follow-up

Conclusion

For sales teams of 20-50 people looking to implement effective sales automation, folk CRM emerges as the clear winner. Unlike enterprise-focused platforms like Salesforce that are overly complex and expensive, or basic tools that lack the features growing teams need, folk CRM strikes the perfect balance. It offers powerful automation features specifically designed for mid-sized sales organizations, with intuitive setup that doesn't require technical expertise or lengthy implementation periods. The platform's pricing is transparent and affordable for teams of your size, while providing enterprise-grade features like contact enrichment, LinkedIn integration, and AI-powered tools that can significantly boost your team's productivity. Whether you're managing 20 or 50 sales professionals, folk CRM provides the scalability, ease of use, and comprehensive automation features your growing organization needs to drive consistent results. Don't hesitate to try folk CRM for free here and experience why it's become the preferred choice for mid-sized sales teams.

Need a helping hand? Use our free tool to find your perfect CRM match.

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FAQ

What is the best CRM system for small businesses?

For small to mid-sized teams, folk offers quick setup, pipelines, contact enrichment, email sequences, and LinkedIn import at affordable pricing. HubSpot, Pipedrive, or Zoho fit if deeper marketing features are needed. Trial demos before choosing.

What features matter most in a CRM for a 20–50 person sales team?

Prioritize multi-user pipeline management, automated workflows, full email sync and sequences, contact enrichment, LinkedIn import, role-based permissions, and analytics. Ensure easy onboarding and integrations with tools like Gmail, Zapier, or Make.

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

Typical ranges per user/month on annual billing: folk $20–$40 (Custom from $60), HubSpot $90+ for Pro, Pipedrive $24–$129, Zoho $20–$50, Salesforce $100–$500+. Costs rise with add-ons, emails, and reporting tiers.

How to implement a new CRM across a 20–50 person team?

Import contacts, companies, and deals from CSV and inboxes; build a stage-based pipeline; set owner and reminders; train users on sequences and tasks; test integrations; run a 2–4 week pilot, then roll out with clear permissions and KPIs.