13 Best Sales Tools to Close More Deals

Sales tools should make the selling system easier to run, not just give reps another place to log activity. The right stack helps your team find the right accounts, run consistent outreach, keep CRM data clean, coach reps from real conversations, and enforce the steps that protect deals from slipping.

This guide focuses on durable sales tools that earn a clear job in a modern B2B stack: CRM, prospecting data, sales engagement, revenue intelligence, forecasting, LinkedIn prospecting, AI enrichment, and workflow enforcement. Use it to decide which tool solves your current bottleneck, not to buy every product at once.

Here are 13 sales tools worth evaluating for your team.

• Process Street
• Salesforce
• HubSpot CRM
• Apollo.io
• ZoomInfo
• Pipedrive
• Gong
• Outreach
• Salesloft
• Clari
• Close
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator
• Clay

Process Street

Process Street is a Compliance Operations Platform that turns sales processes into automated, repeatable workflows. CRMs record deal data. Process Street makes sure the required steps happen: qualification, handoff, proposal review, approvals, contract routing, customer onboarding, and renewal preparation.

Best for: Sales teams that need consistent deal execution, especially in regulated industries or organizations where approvals, handoffs, and audit trails matter.

Key features:

• No-code workflow automation for lead qualification, proposal approvals, handoffs, and onboarding
• Conditional logic that adapts workflows by deal size, region, risk, product line, or customer type
• Integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, DocuSign, and 5,000+ direct integrations
• Cora, the built-in AI compliance agent, for workflow generation and process oversight
• Audit trails and task history that prove every required sales step was followed

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans are published on the Process Street pricing page.

Where most CRMs show what happened, Process Street enforces what should happen next. For sales leaders managing complex sales processes, that difference matters. Every workflow runs the same way every time, with accountability built into the work itself.

Salesforce

Salesforce Sales Cloud remains the default CRM for large sales organizations that need customization, governance, reporting, and a deep app marketplace. Agentforce adds autonomous sales agents, while Einstein supports lead scoring, opportunity insights, next-best actions, and forecasting.

Best for: Mid-market and enterprise organizations that need a highly configurable CRM across sales, service, marketing, finance, and operations.

Key features:

• Custom objects, fields, workflows, permissions, and dashboards for complex sales organizations
• Agentforce and Einstein features for lead qualification, next-best actions, pipeline updates, and forecasting
• AppExchange ecosystem for sales, service, finance, data, and automation integrations
• Territory management, CPQ, account planning, and revenue analytics
• Strong enterprise controls for permissions, data governance, and administration

Pricing: Public plans start with SMB packages, while enterprise deployments usually depend on edition, seats, add-ons, and implementation scope.

Salesforce is the safe enterprise choice when CRM has to support several departments and a complex operating model. The trade-off is administration. Smaller teams should be honest about whether they have the process maturity and admin capacity to get full value from it.

HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM combines contact management, deal tracking, email tools, meeting scheduling, sales automation, reporting, and AI assistance in one approachable platform. It is especially strong when marketing, sales, and service teams need shared customer context.

Best for: Startups and growing teams that want a CRM they can adopt quickly, then expand into sales automation, marketing automation, and service workflows.

Key features:

• Free CRM basics for contacts, companies, deals, activities, and pipeline tracking
• Sales Hub features for sequences, playbooks, forecasting, automation, and call tracking
• AI tools for prospect research, email drafting, summarization, and customer context
• Native connection to HubSpot Marketing Hub, Service Hub, and Operations Hub
• Clean reporting and lifecycle tracking across the full funnel

Pricing: Free CRM available. Paid Sales Hub tiers scale by seats, automation depth, and reporting needs.

HubSpot wins on adoption. Reps usually understand it quickly, and leaders get cleaner handoffs between marketing and sales. Costs rise as teams need advanced automation, custom reporting, and multiple hubs, so map the full platform path before committing.

Apollo.io

Apollo.io combines B2B contact data, account search, enrichment, email sequencing, calling, LinkedIn steps, and AI-assisted personalization. It is one of the clearest examples of the data plus engagement stack collapsing into one product.

Best for: SMBs and growth-stage teams that need prospecting data and outbound execution without buying separate enterprise data and sequencing tools.

Key features:

• Large B2B contact and company database with email and phone data
• Search filters for title, company attributes, buying signals, technologies, and geography
• Multi-channel sequences across email, phone, and LinkedIn tasks
• AI-assisted email writing, enrichment, and prospect research
• CRM sync with Salesforce, HubSpot, and other common sales systems

Pricing: Free tier available. Paid tiers scale by credits, seats, automation, and data access.

Apollo is often the first serious outbound tool for startups because it covers list building and sequencing in one place. Enterprise teams may still prefer dedicated data providers or engagement platforms, but Apollo is hard to beat for speed and cost efficiency.

ZoomInfo

ZoomInfo is a B2B data and go-to-market intelligence platform for teams that need deep company data, contact records, org charts, intent signals, enrichment, and account-based targeting. Its value is strongest when data quality is a direct pipeline constraint.

Best for: Mid-market and enterprise teams that need broad B2B coverage, buying signals, and enrichment across large target-account lists.

Key features:

• Company and contact intelligence with emails, direct dials, firmographics, and org data
• Buyer intent and website visitor intelligence for account prioritization
• Technographic data showing tools and platforms prospects already use
• AI-assisted account insights and recommended actions
• Integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, Salesloft, and data warehouses

Pricing: Custom pricing. Most teams evaluate it as an annual GTM data investment rather than a lightweight point tool.

ZoomInfo earns its place when sales, marketing, and RevOps all depend on the same data foundation. Smaller teams should compare it against Apollo or specialist enrichment tools before committing to an enterprise contract.

Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a CRM built around visual pipeline management and activity-based selling. Its drag-and-drop deal boards help reps see what needs attention and keep deals moving without the weight of an enterprise CRM.

Best for: Small and mid-size sales teams that want a practical CRM focused on pipeline movement, next actions, and rep adoption.

Key features:

• Visual pipelines with customizable stages, fields, and deal views
• Activity reminders that push reps toward the next selling action
• Email sync, templates, open tracking, scheduling, and automation
• AI sales assistant features for deal risk, recommendations, and summaries
• Forecasting, reporting, and add-ons for lead generation and campaigns

Pricing: Public paid plans are available, with pricing based on seats, plan level, and add-ons.

Pipedrive does one thing especially well: it makes pipeline management feel usable. If reps avoid CRM updates, Pipedrive can improve adoption. Teams that need heavy marketing automation or complex enterprise controls may outgrow it.

Gong

Gong is a revenue intelligence platform that captures calls, emails, meetings, and CRM activity, then uses AI to analyze what is happening inside deals. It helps leaders coach reps from real conversations instead of summaries and guesswork.

Best for: Sales organizations that need conversation intelligence, deal risk detection, coaching, and pipeline inspection based on real buyer interactions.

Key features:

• Call recording, transcription, summaries, and AI conversation analysis
• Deal intelligence that flags risks, missing stakeholders, and next-step gaps
• Coaching insights based on talk tracks, objections, competitors, and winning behaviors
• Forecast and pipeline analytics connected to CRM activity and buyer signals
• Integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and sales engagement tools

Pricing: Custom pricing, usually evaluated by seat count, platform scope, and implementation requirements.

Gong is valuable because it closes the gap between CRM hygiene and deal reality. A rep can log an opportunity as healthy while the buyer conversation tells a different story. Gong surfaces that risk early enough to coach or intervene.

Outreach

Outreach is an enterprise sales execution platform for outbound sequences, calling, email, LinkedIn tasks, pipeline workflows, rep productivity, and sales leadership analytics. It sits between the CRM and the rep’s daily work.

Best for: Mid-market and enterprise outbound teams running structured prospecting motions with multiple reps, managers, territories, and sequences.

Key features:

• Multi-step sequences across email, calls, social touches, and tasks
• AI-assisted email drafting, sequence optimization, and prospect engagement insights
• Rep workflows for task prioritization, follow-up, meeting booking, and call execution
• Pipeline inspection, deal workflows, and sales execution analytics
• Deep CRM integration, especially for Salesforce-led teams

Pricing: Custom pricing. Enterprise teams usually evaluate by seats, packages, and required platform modules.

Outreach is strongest when outbound execution has to be standardized across a serious SDR or AE team. It can be too heavy for very small teams, but it gives mature teams the controls and analytics needed to manage prospecting at scale.

Salesloft

Salesloft is a sales engagement and revenue orchestration platform for cadences, call workflows, buyer engagement, coaching, and deal management. Its combination with Clari strengthens the forecasting and revenue intelligence layer around engagement execution.

Best for: Teams that want outbound execution, coaching, buyer engagement, and revenue process management in one connected platform.

Key features:

• Cadences for email, phone, social, and task-based sales motions
• Conversation intelligence, coaching workflows, call summaries, and team scorecards
• Buyer engagement and deal management views for next steps and risk signals
• Revenue forecasting and pipeline analytics through the broader Clari ecosystem
• CRM integrations with Salesforce and other major sales systems

Pricing: Custom pricing based on seats, modules, and revenue platform scope.

Salesloft is a good fit when engagement quality matters as much as activity volume. It gives managers a structured way to improve rep behavior while also tracking whether those behaviors are creating pipeline progress.

Clari

Clari is a revenue orchestration and forecasting platform that gives sales leaders a live view of pipeline health, forecast risk, deal inspection, and revenue process execution. It is less about individual rep activity and more about whether the business will hit the number.

Best for: Revenue leaders, RevOps teams, and sales managers who need forecast accuracy, pipeline inspection, and deal risk signals across complex sales motions.

Key features:

• Forecast management with rollups, commit views, and manager inspection workflows
• Pipeline coverage, risk signals, slipped-deal analysis, and change tracking
• Deal inspection based on CRM activity, engagement data, and revenue signals
• Revenue process workflows for forecast calls, account reviews, and leadership reporting
• AI-assisted insights that help managers focus on the deals most likely to move the forecast

Pricing: Custom pricing, usually tied to revenue team size, platform scope, and data integrations.

Clari deserves a dedicated slot because forecasting is now a core sales-tool job, not a spreadsheet side quest. If your CRM tells you what reps entered but leaders still run forecast calls in spreadsheets, Clari addresses that operating gap.

Close

Close is a CRM built for inside sales teams that live in calls, email, and SMS. It puts communication and pipeline management in one workspace so reps do not have to bounce between a dialer, inbox, and CRM.

Best for: Inside sales teams and SMBs that sell primarily by phone and email and want a fast, focused CRM with built-in communication tools.

Key features:

• Built-in calling with power dialer, predictive dialing, call recording, and voicemail drop
• Email sequences, SMS, templates, and follow-up reminders inside the CRM
• Smart views for lead prioritization and rep workflows
• AI call summaries, note capture, and activity insights
• Pipeline reporting and team activity tracking for managers

Pricing: Public plans are available, with pricing based on seats and calling or automation needs.

Close is intentionally narrower than Salesforce or HubSpot. That is the point. It works best when the sales motion is phone-heavy and speed matters more than broad platform coverage.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn Sales Navigator gives B2B sales teams advanced search, account mapping, lead recommendations, relationship intelligence, and alerts from LinkedIn’s professional network. It is the default tool for social selling and account research.

Best for: B2B teams that use LinkedIn for prospecting, warm outreach, account mapping, and relationship-based selling.

Key features:

• Advanced lead and account search with filters for role, company, geography, activity, and relationship paths
• Lead recommendations based on saved accounts, personas, and selling behavior
• Alerts for job changes, company news, hiring, content activity, and prospect movement
• InMail and relationship tools for outreach beyond first-degree connections
• CRM integrations for saved leads, activity sync, and account workflows

Pricing: Public plans are available for individuals and teams, with enterprise options for larger organizations.

Sales Navigator is valuable because timing and context matter. A job change, funding announcement, hiring signal, or active post can turn a cold account into a warm conversation. Most B2B teams should treat it as a prospecting layer, not a full sales engagement platform.

Clay

Clay is an AI-native enrichment and outbound preparation platform that lets revenue teams pull data from many sources, run waterfall enrichment, research accounts, and generate personalized outreach inputs at scale. It is especially useful when generic prospecting data is not enough.

Best for: Sales and RevOps teams that want custom enrichment, account research, and AI-assisted personalization before prospects enter an outreach sequence.

Key features:

• Waterfall enrichment across many data providers to find emails, firmographics, signals, and account attributes
• AI research agents for company summaries, trigger events, hiring signals, and custom account facts
• Tables and workflows for building targeted outbound lists and enrichment pipelines
• Integrations with CRMs, Apollo, Outreach, Salesloft, webhooks, and data tools
• Personalization inputs for email sequences without asking reps to research every prospect manually

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans scale by credits, workflows, enrichment usage, and team needs.

Clay pairs well with Apollo, Outreach, Salesloft, and LinkedIn Sales Navigator. It handles the research and enrichment layer, while the sequencer handles delivery. The trade-off is setup skill: Clay is powerful, but teams need a clear outbound hypothesis before building complex workflows.

How to Choose the Right Sales Tools

Choosing sales tools is not about collecting the highest-rated products on review sites. It is about finding the bottleneck in your sales process, then buying the tool that removes that bottleneck without creating a new one.

Start by mapping where deals stall. If your team loses track of follow-ups, fix CRM adoption and task execution. If pipeline creation is weak, prioritize prospecting data and sales engagement. If managers cannot tell which deals are real, add conversation intelligence or forecasting. If reps know the process but skip steps under pressure, add workflow enforcement with Process Street.

Evaluate each tool against these criteria:

• Stack fit. The tool must sync with your CRM and the systems your team already uses. A strong tool that creates a data silo will become another cleanup project.
• Adoption risk. Reps will abandon software that feels like admin work. Favor tools that make the next action clearer, faster, or easier.
• Process control. Activity tracking is useful, but process enforcement is stronger. Critical sales motions need clear owners, required steps, approval paths, and audit history.
• Total cost of ownership. Compare software price, implementation time, admin load, training, migration cost, and the cost of bad data.
• Durability. Prefer tools that solve a persistent operating problem, not a novelty feature that your CRM or engagement platform may absorb next year.

A practical sales stack usually has five layers: CRM for customer records, prospecting data for account discovery, engagement tools for outreach execution, intelligence tools for coaching and forecasting, and workflow automation for process enforcement. Buy the layer that solves the current constraint first, then expand when the next bottleneck is clear.

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