Top 5 sales management tools in 2026

Why sales teams need sales management tools

Sales teams face increasing challenges in today's competitive landscape, from managing extensive lead lists to ensuring timely follow-ups and closing deals efficiently.

Without the right tools, sales professionals can easily get overwhelmed, leading to lost opportunities and revenue.

In this blog post we unpack everything you need to know about the top 5 sales management tools and review:

• HubSpot
• folk
• Pipedrive
• Zoho 
• Salesforce Sales Cloud

👉🏼 Try folk now to never miss a follow-up with your sales pipeline

What are sales management tools?

Sales management tools are software solutions designed to help sales teams organize, track, and enhance their sales processes. These tools typically offer features like lead management, sales pipeline tracking, reporting and analytics, automation, and integrations with other business applications. The goal of sales management tools is to improve efficiency, enhance customer interactions, and drive higher revenue.

Some of the key functions of sales management tools include:

• Lead Tracking: Monitoring potential customers throughout the sales funnel.
• Pipeline Management: Visualizing and managing sales opportunities from prospecting to closing.
• Sales Automation: Automating repetitive tasks like follow-ups and email sequences.
• Reporting and Analytics: Providing insights into sales performance, forecasting, and team productivity.
• CRM Integration: Connecting sales tools with customer relationship management platforms for seamless data flow.

With the right sales management tool, businesses can gain a competitive advantage by ensuring their sales teams are equipped with the necessary resources to close deals faster and more effectively. For sales managers leading teams of 20-50 people, finding a solution that balances simplicity with powerful functionality becomes crucial for sustained growth.

Top 5 sales management tools in 2025

1. Salesforce

Salesforce is a robust CRM platform for large enterprises, offering tools for sales, marketing, service, and analytics, with extensive scalability.

‍Key features of Salesforce

• Comprehensive ecosystem: A unified platform offering CRM, marketing automation, customer service, and custom app development, suitable for the varied needs of large enterprises.
• Customization and scalability: Salesforce is highly customizable and scalable, allowing large organizations 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 large businesses optimize their strategies.
• Extensive integration capabilities: With Salesforce's AppExchange, large companies 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 large organizations handling sensitive customer data.

2. HubSpot

HubSpot CRM is a user-friendly, scalable platform offering integrated tools for managing sales, marketing, customer service, and operations efficiently.

‍Key features of HubSpot

• Marketing hub: Includes email marketing, ad tracking, landing pages, and lead generation tools.
• Sales hub: Provides deal tracking, pipeline management, sales automation, and reporting.
• Service Hub: Offers customer service tools like ticketing, live chat, and knowledge bases.
• Operations hub: Syncs and automates business processes across different systems.
• Lead scoring: Prioritize leads with predictive scoring to improve sales efficiency.

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 of Pipedrive

• 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.

4. folk

folk is a multi-award-winning CRM platform celebrated for its simple, plug-and-play setup. Highly versatile and customizable, folk CRM stands out as the best solution for sales teams of 20-50 people who need powerful functionality without overwhelming complexity. Designed to grow with your business, it's ideal for solopreneurs, small to mid-size teams, and even large enterprises.

Key features of folk

• Capture contacts anywhere: Import leads from LinkedIn, Instagram, and X using folkX extension
• Sales research: Find emails in 1 click, identify a lead's strongest connection, and import data from your prospect's website with AI
• Personal outreach, at scale: Schedule emails and automate sequences
• 6,000+ Integrations: Connect your emails, calendar, social platforms, and thousands of other tools
• AI follow-ups: Know the best leads to follow-up with based on your past conversations using AI

5. Monday CRM

Monday CRM is a sales focussed customer relationship management platform built by the team behind Monday.com, designed to help sales teams manage contacts, sales pipelines, and workflows.

Key features of Monday CRM

• Contact management: Provides a central place to store and organize contact details, track communications, and maintain records of interactions with clients and leads.
• Deal management: Allows users to track the progress of deals across stages, helping teams monitor the sales pipeline and update deal statuses as they progress.
• Task management: Users can create tasks related to deals or contacts, assign them to team members, and track their completion to ensure follow-up actions are taken.
• Lead tracking: Features tools for capturing and managing leads, assigning them to team members, and tracking their progress through different stages of the sales funnel.‍
• Pipeline customization: Enables users to customize their sales pipelines to align with specific business processes, allowing different stages and workflows based on deal.

Conclusion

Choosing the right sales management tool depends on your team's specific needs. Whether you prioritize AI-driven insights, workflow automation, or ease of use, the tools listed above offer robust solutions for streamlining sales processes and improving performance in 2025. For sales managers overseeing teams of 20-50 people, folk CRM emerges as the clear winner, combining intuitive design with enterprise-grade features that scale perfectly with growing sales operations.

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

More resources

• Pipedrive problems? Here are 3 Signs it's time to consider an alternative

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FAQ

What are sales management tools?

Sales management tools are software that organize leads, track pipelines, automate tasks, and report performance, helping teams close deals faster and improve forecasting.

What features should a sales management tool have?

Must-haves: lead and deal tracking, visual pipelines, email and calendar sync, automation, analytics and forecasting, integrations, role-based permissions, mobile access, and AI-assisted prioritization.

How do you choose the right sales management tool?

Map your process and team size, list must-have integrations, test ease of use, check automation and reporting depth, verify security and pricing per seat, run a trial with real deals, and confirm scalability and support.

What is the best sales management tool for teams of 20–50?

For 20–50 person teams needing power without complexity, consider folk CRM for quick setup, customizable pipelines, outreach sequences, and AI-assisted follow-ups. Learn more at folk.