Modern CRM: The Tools Scored on One Grid
Short answer. On this page, a modern crm means a tool for managing customer relationships, scored from tagged reviews on ease of setup, feature depth, value for money, support quality and activity capture and sync.
Close scores highest of the thirteen tools on this modern crm grid, 8.0 on 37 tagged reviews, with value for money at 8.8. The grid scores every tool on the same five dimensions, from tagged reviews up to September 2026.
Every score on this page validated by the site owner · latest validation Oct 16, 2026 · How we score
The top three
Rank follows score, nothing else; the full table of 13 is below.
Close scores 8.0 on 37 tagged reviews: ease of setup scores 9.6, with 23 of the 25 tagged reviews on it positive, and feature depth 8.1, with 21 of the 35 tagged reviews on it positive.
PhoneBurner scores 7.9 on 18 tagged reviews: ease of use has 24 favourable mentions and no negative one, while price level draws 7 negative mentions and feature range 6.
Zendesk scores 7.7 on 1 tagged review. Its Suite Professional plan adds an IVR phone tree and skills-based routing to what the Suite Team plan includes.
Highest-scored for your situation
One tool per situation: the highest-scored of the 13 whose reviews describe that situation. Each card names what it gives up.
Close scores 8.0, the highest of the tools with team reviews, and 18 of its 37 tagged reviews come from teams; its Growth plan includes 1,500 AI credits per user a month.
Close scores 8.0, the highest of the tools with agency reviews, but only 4 of its 37 tagged reviews come from agencies; its Essentials plan lists unlimited contacts and leads but does not include workflows.
Monday scores 7.0 on 77 tagged reviews, the highest of the tools with solo reviews, yet only 2 of them come from solo users; its plans start from 3 users.
All 13, side by side
Sorting reorders the table; it never changes a rank. Rank follows score, nothing else.
Sort by
| Rank | Tool | Score | Entry price | Trial | Best for | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Close |
8.0 | $19/seat /mo | Team | ||
| 2 | PhoneBurner |
7.9 | $165/seat /mo | Team | ||
| 3 | Zendesk |
7.7* | $55/agent /mo billed annually | Team | ||
| 4 |  Intercom |
7.6* | $19/seat /mo (billing period not stated) | |||
| 5 |  Brevo |
7.6* | $9/mo | Team | ||
| 6 |  Affinity |
7.5 | $2,000/seat /yr | Team | ||
| 7 |  HubSpot |
7.3 | From $7/seat /mo (billing period not stated) | Team | ||
| 8 |  Salesforce |
7.0 | $25/seat /mo billed monthly or annually | Team | ||
| 9 | Monday |
7.0 | ≈ $15 (CA$21)/seat /mo | Team | ||
| 10 |  Pipedrive |
6.8 | ≈ $24 (CA$34)/seat /mo | Team | ||
| 11 |  Apollo |
6.8 | $65/seat /mo | Team | ||
| 12 |  Zoho |
6.5 | ≈ $18 (CA$25)/seat /mo | Team | ||
| 13 |  HighLevel (GoHighLevel) |
6.5 | $97/mo | Team |
Entry prices read on each vendor's public pricing page; the oldest reading dates from Sep 28, 2026. Some of these prices have not been read again for 6 months. Check the vendors' pages before you buy. ≈ marks our US dollar conversion at European Central Bank euro reference rates of Sep 30, 2026. * Under 10 tagged reviews: the score is weighted toward the site average; with none, it comes from the averages of the tools we score. How we score
The top six, in detail
The first six rows of the table, in rank order: what the reviews and the vendor's pages say about each one.
Close scores 8.0 on 37 tagged reviews up to September 2026. Close's ease of use theme has 831 mentions, all favourable. Customization draws 96 mentions for Close, 95 of them negative, and learning curve 94 mentions, 92 of them negative. Solo is $19 per user a month, billed monthly. Prices were read on the vendor's page on Sep 28, 2026.
- Close's ease of use: 831 favourable mentions
- Close's support quality scores 8.5 on 8 tagged reviews
- Close customization: 95 negative of 96 mentions
- Close learning curve: 92 negative of 94 mentions
PhoneBurner scores 7.9 on 18 tagged reviews up to Sep 2026. Ease of setup scores 8.7, and 9 of the 11 tagged reviews that discuss setup read as favourable. Learning curve has 4 mentions, 3 of them negative. Standard is $165 per user a month, billed monthly, read on the vendor's page on Oct 6, 2026.
- Ease of use: 24 favourable mentions, none negative
- Results and time saved: 29 favourable mentions
- Price level: 7 negative mentions, none favourable
- Feature range: 6 negative mentions among 11
Zendesk is a customer service platform. Only 1 tagged review sits behind its 7.7 score, so Zendesk's score is weighted toward the site average. Suite Team is $55 per agent a month, billed annually, and Suite Professional $115 per agent a month, billed annually. Prices were read on the vendor's page on Sep 29, 2026.
- SOC 2 Type II and single sign-on available
- Ticketing, messaging, telephony and AI agents
- Zendesk is scored on only 1 tagged review
- Phone support only Monday to Friday, 8 to 18 ET
Intercom lists an inbox covering email, live chat, phone, SMS and WhatsApp, read on Sep 28, 2026. Essential is $19, Advanced $85 and Expert $132 per seat a month, billing period not stated, read on Oct 11, 2026. The pricing FAQ says there is no free plan, and a 14-day free trial needs no credit card. The site holds no tagged review counts for Intercom.
- Email, live chat, phone, SMS and WhatsApp in one inbox
- Fin AI agent listed on every plan
- Intercom lists no free plan; the trial lasts 14 days
- Fin is billed from $0.99 per outcome
Brevo scores 7.6 on 2 tagged reviews up to August 2026, too few to set a theme count. The vendor lists email, SMS, WhatsApp and push campaigns, read on Sep 28, 2026. Starter is $9 a month, Standard $18 and Professional $499, all billed monthly, read on Oct 5, 2026, and phone support starts on Professional.
- Email, SMS, WhatsApp and push campaigns on one platform
- Drag-and-drop campaign editor and built-in marketing automation
- Free plan capped at 300 emails per day after approval
- Phone support only on Professional, $499 a month billed monthly
Affinity scores 7.5 on 10 tagged reviews up to August 2026. Support quality scores 7.9 on the 4 tagged reviews of Affinity that discuss it, while feature depth scores 5.9, with 7 mixed and none positive among the 10 tagged reviews on it. Essential is $2,000 per user per year, billed annually. Prices were read on the vendor's page on Oct 5, 2026.
- Affinity's support quality scores 7.9 on 4 tagged reviews
- Relationship scoring and warm-introduction path finding
- Affinity's feature depth scores 5.9 on 10 tagged reviews
- Scale and Advanced cap API calls at 100,000 a month
Beyond the scores
The sections below cover setup, AI agents, prices, then value and support. The grid has no retail-specific score, so it ranks no modern retail crm or modern crm toolkits for retail separately.
Ease of setup and learning curve vary widely across these CRMs
Salesforce scores 4.8 on ease of setup on the 69 tagged reviews that discuss it, and its learning curve draws 1,122 mentions, 1,119 of them negative. HighLevel scores 4.5 on ease of setup on 30 tagged reviews, 4 of them positive. HubSpot scores 6.8 on 58 tagged reviews, and its learning curve draws 400 mentions, 394 of them negative.
Pipedrive scores 8.6 on ease of setup on 79 tagged reviews, 56 of them positive, while its learning curve draws 114 mentions, 112 of them negative. These scores come from tagged reviews up to September 2026.
Several vendors list AI agents, but no score here measures them
Several of these tools list AI agents on their vendor pages, read between Sep 25 and Sep 29, 2026. Monday lists a Lead Sourcing Agent that finds and scores leads daily and a Calling Agent that qualifies leads and books meetings, and its automation theme has 136 mentions, 5 of them negative. Apollo lists AI agents for research, outreach and follow-up, and its AI features theme has 6 mentions, 1 of them negative. Salesforce lists Agentforce for Sales and Agentforce Coworker on its Max plan, $550 per user a month, billed annually.
A vendor's agent list is not a score: the five scores on this page come from tagged reviews, and none of them is an AI score.
Per-seat prices, seat minimums and onboarding fees differ across vendors
Seat prices, minimums and fees differ across these tools, on pages read between Sep 29 and Oct 12, 2026. Salesforce's Pro Suite plan is $100 per user a month, billed annually, and its Core plan is $195 per user a month, billed annually. Apollo's Organization plan is $119 per seat a month, billed annually, with a minimum of 3 seats. HubSpot's Professional plan needs a $1,500 one-time onboarding fee, and its Enterprise plan $3,500.
Monday, Pipedrive and Zoho publish their prices in Canadian dollars. Monday's Basic plan is CA$21 per seat a month, billed monthly, and its plans start from 3 users. Pipedrive's Lite plan is CA$34 per seat a month, billed monthly, and Zoho's Standard plan is CA$25 per user a month, billed monthly.
Value for money and support quality, tool by tool
Zoho scores 9.1 on value for money on the 66 tagged reviews that discuss it, yet its support quality scores 4.7 on 28, and support draws 88 mentions, 81 of them negative. Apollo's support quality scores 5.4 on 21 tagged reviews. HighLevel's support quality scores 6.4 on 40 tagged reviews, and its support theme draws 61 negative mentions and 155 favourable mentions. Pipedrive's support quality scores 7.5 on 29 tagged reviews. Salesforce's support quality scores 8.5 on 12 tagged reviews.
Value for money and support quality are scored separately, so a tool can score well on one and poorly on the other, as Zoho does. Scores were last recalculated on Oct 16, 2026.
Before you choose
This page does not define a legacy CRM; it scores thirteen current tools on one grid. It shows how they differ today: HighLevel lists funnels, payments and booking calendars alongside its CRM (read Sep 28, 2026), and Affinity lists relationship strength scoring from communication patterns (read Sep 27, 2026).
This page does not test whether built-in AI makes a CRM worth switching to. It shows what vendors list: Zoho lists AI agents for sales, Close a built-in AI sales agent, Chloe, and Zendesk AI agents billed per automated resolution, read between Sep 28 and Sep 29, 2026.
This page does not test whether a non-developer can build with no-code tools. It counts what reviewers say about customization: HubSpot draws 300 mentions, 292 of them negative, and Monday draws 54 negative mentions and 122 favourable mentions. Salesforce lists drag-and-drop workflow automation (read Sep 29, 2026).
This page does not test how reps adopt a CRM. It counts learning curve mentions instead: Apollo draws 469, 467 of them negative, and Zoho 138, 137 of them negative, while Monday's ease of use has 245 mentions, 2 of them negative.
This page does not advise on replacing a CRM or test migrations. It shows which tools list a connection to CRMs teams already run: PhoneBurner lists Salesforce, HubSpot and Zoho CRM integrations, and Apollo lists HubSpot and Salesforce, read between Sep 25 and Sep 29, 2026.
Where to go next
The pages this ranking links to: its category, neighbouring rankings and guides.
* Under 10 tagged reviews: the score is weighted toward the site average; with none, it comes from the averages of the tools we score.
Affiliate linksThis page contains affiliate links: some vendors pay us a commission when you subscribe through their Try button. Scores come from public user reviews, on the same grid for every scored tool. Affiliate disclosure
Score colours: under 77 to 7.47.5 to 7.98 and above* Under 10 tagged reviews: the score is weighted toward the site average; with none, it comes from the averages of the tools we score.
Four dimensions only. The fifth changes with the category, so it would not compare.