Compare the Top Software Tools for Startups in 2021

Running a startup is difficult, but fortunately there are a variety of effective tools and software solutions that enable startup founders to streamline all aspects of their startup so they can focus on building a successful business. Building a startup from scratch requires much different considerations in the software tools needed when compared to operating an established larger business. Startups have cost considerations to take into account, so it's important to look for low-cost solutions, or freemium solutions that are able to scale as the business grows. There are many solutions for startups including collaboration tools, web hosting, website building, payment processing, HR, payroll, sales force automation, social media management, graphic design, scheduling tools, SEO, password management, cloud storage, email marketing, project management, and more. Here are the best software tools for startups:

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    GoToMeeting
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    GoToMeeting

    LogMeIn

    GoToMeeting provides a fast, easy and reliable online meeting solution designed to power workforce productivity. Build better relationships and drive business outcomes by meeting face to face, sharing presentations and chatting with colleagues all with the click of a button. Leveraged by many of the largest companies around the world, GoToMeeting is trusted by millions of people everyday for professional real-time virtual communication and collaboration. Meet confidently with crystal clear audio and video over a simple and intuitive interface. GoToMeeting Smart Assistant takes productivity to the next level with time saving features like meeting transcripts. GoToMeeting mobile apps give you the power to meet seamlessly no matter where you are in the world.

    Starting Price: $12.00/month
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  • 2
    SurveyLegend
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    SurveyLegend

    SurveyLegend

    SurveyLegend is the next generation of online surveys — engaging, platform-independent, & beautiful. We empower companies - large & small - & individuals, to create mobile-friendly, gorgeous surveys. Create great-looking surveys, forms, polls, voting, questionnaires, NPS, customer satisfaction, customer experience, employee satisfaction surveys... on your computer or tablet, customize the look of your survey however you like, & display collected data with eye-catching and insightful graphics. Creating questionnaires is done simply by drag & drop, & you don't need to be a market research expert to use our tool. It has never been this easy to listen to customer demand, measure customer or employee satisfaction, manage client experience, or maintaining student & employee engagement. SurveyLegend has users all over the world, from amazing companies like L'Oréal, Universal, Harvard, Greenpeace, Airbnb, Sony, CocaCola, Roche, to awesome start-up companies and individuals.

    Starting Price: $19.00 per user per month
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  • 3
    Odoo

    Odoo

    Odoo

    Odoo is a fully integrated, customizable, open-source software packed with hundreds of expertly designed business applications. Odoo’s intuitive database is able to meet a majority of business needs, such as: CRM, Sales, Project, Manufacturing, Inventory, and Accounting, just to name a few. Odoo is an all-in-one software solution designed to meet the needs of companies, regardless of their size (or budget). The unbeatable, seamless nature of Odoo helps businesses become more efficient by reducing redundant manual processes, which helps companies save countless hours of labor. Every module is interconnected to provide a fully-integrated experience from app to app, and users can automate many processes that would’ve otherwise required manual inputs into multiple applications. Odoo keeps all business functions in one place, allowing teams to collaborate with other departments from one unified platform in the most efficient way possible.

    Starting Price: $12.00/month/user
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  • 4
    ScaleGrid

    ScaleGrid

    ScaleGrid

    ScaleGrid is a fully managed Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) platform that helps you automate your time-consuming database administration tasks both in the cloud and on-premises. Easily provision, monitor, backup and scale your open source databases with high availability, advanced security, full superuser and SSH access, query analysis, and troubleshooting support to improve the performance of your deployments. Supported databases include: - MySQL - PostgreSQL - Redis™ - MongoDB® database - Greenplum™ (coming soon) The ScaleGrid platform supports both public and private clouds, including AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), DigitalOcean, Linode, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), VMware and OpenStack. Used by thousands of developers, startups, and enterprise customers including Atlassian, Meteor, and Accenture, ScaleGrid handles all your database operations at any scale so you can focus on your application performance.

    Starting Price: $8 per month
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  • 5
    Semrush

    Semrush

    Semrush

    Get your FREE 14-day trial exclusive via SourceForge - click the "Visit Website" button! Semrush is an online visibility management and content marketing SaaS platform that ensures businesses get measurable results from online marketing.

    Starting Price: $119.95/month
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  • 6
    1Password Business

    1Password Business

    1Password

    1Password is a secure, scalable, and easy-to-use password manager that's trusted by the world's leading companies. Using 1Password makes it easy for your employees to stay safe online. Once 1Password is part of their workflow, good security habits will become second nature. 1Password Advanced Protection is now available with 1Password Business. Set Master Password policies, enforce two-factor authentication team-wide, restrict access with firewall rules, review sign-in attempts and require your team to use the latest version of 1Password. Our award-winning apps are available for Mac, iOS, Linux, Windows, and Android. 1Password syncs seamlessly across devices, so your employees always have access to their passwords. When everyone uses 1Password, your risk goes down — and your productivity goes up.

    Starting Price: $3.99/month/user
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  • 7
    Duo Security

    Duo Security

    Duo Security

    Founded in 2010, Duo Security is a software organization based in the United States that offers a piece of software called Duo Security. Duo Security features training via documentation, live online, webinars, and in person sessions. The Duo Security software suite is SaaS software. Duo Security offers business hours, and online support. Duo Security offers a free version, and free trial. Duo Security is endpoint protection software, and includes features such as credential management, multifactor authentication, password synchronization, single sign on, and user management. Software pricing starts at $1.00/month/user. Some competitor software products to Duo Security include JumpCloud DaaS, 1Password Business, and LastPass.

    Starting Price: $1.00/month/user
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    Zoom
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    Zoom

    Zoom Video Communications

    Enterprise video conferencing with real-time messaging & content sharing with Zoom Meetings & Chat. Simplified video conferencing and messaging across any device. Enable quick adoption with meeting capabilities that make it easy to start, join, and collaborate across any device. Zoom Meetings syncs with your calendar system and delivers streamlined enterprise-grade video conferencing from desktop and mobile. Enable internal and external communications, all-hands meetings, and trainings through one platform. Bring HD video and audio to your meetings with support for up to 1000 video participants and 49 videos on screen. Multiple participants can share their screens simultaneously and co-annotate for a more interactive meeting. End-to-end encryption for all meetings, role-based user security, password protection, waiting rooms, and place attendee on hold. Record your meetings locally or to the cloud, with searchable transcripts. Zoom also offers a HIPAA compliant plan for healthcare.

    Starting Price: $14.99 per user per month
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    Dropbox
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    Dropbox

    Dropbox

    Dropbox Business is more than just secure file storage—it’s a smart workspace where teams, tools, and content come together. Create, store, and share cloud content from Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, Microsoft Office files, and Dropbox Paper alongside traditional files in Dropbox. Dropbox Spaces brings your files and cloud content together, so that your PowerPoints can live next to your Google Docs, Trello boards, and whatever tools your team wants to use. Easily access your team’s work from your computer, mobile device, or any web browser. Keep your team’s files and the conversations about them in the same place by connecting tools like Slack and Zoom. Intelligently suggested files and folders keep your team one step ahead by giving everyone the content they need, when they need it. A secure, distributed infrastructure—plus admin tools for control and visibility—keep your company’s data safe on Dropbox.

    Starting Price: $12.50 per month per user
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    HubSpot CRM
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    HubSpot CRM

    HubSpot

    At HubSpot CRM they care about how sales teams perform from top to bottom, not just sale. Their full-suite platform gives users a better focus by eliminating unnecessary data-entry, the automated data sorting and collection function provides an intuitive layout for each contact. Metrics are immediately improved because of the streamline sales process, giving leaders a better outlook on business projections. In addition, features like Lead Scoring, Marketing Automation, Referral Tracking, and Sales Pipeline Management are also some of the top-notch tools available within the suite.

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    Asana
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    Asana

    Asana

    Track your work and get results with Asana, a leading project management tool for modern teams. Asana provides teams access to a wealth of features that lets them stay in sync, hit deadlines, and reach goals. From the small stuff to the big picture, Asana organizes work so teams are clear what to do, why it matters, and how to get it done. The platform includes visual boards, timeline, integrations, calendar, dashboards, and more. Bring your team’s goals, plans, tasks, files, and more together in one shared space. And view your work any way you want. Organize and assign tasks. With lists, teams see immediately what they need to do, which tasks are a priority, and when work is due. See how work maps out over time. Manage dependent, overlapping, and unscheduled tasks—and create plans your team can count on. Make it easy for your team to focus on tasks currently at hand. Define each stage of work to see what’s important and where things are getting stuck.

    Starting Price: $10.00/month/user
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    Basecamp

    Basecamp

    Basecamp

    Before Basecamp: You’re wondering how you’ll quickly transition your team to remote work. People are stressed, work feels scattered, projects are slipping, and it’s tough to see + manage everything. After Basecamp: Soon you’ll be feeling like �hey, we got this�. Everything will be organized in one place, your team will be working together (even though they’re apart), you’ll be on top of things, and a sense of calm will set in. Because of COVID-19, your company is likely scrambling to figure out how to transition to remote work. It may feel daunting, but you’re in the right place with Basecamp. We built Basecamp to run our entire remote company - and we've been working remotely for 20 years. We know what it takes, we do it every day, and we built those learnings into Basecamp. Tens of thousands of other companies rely on Basecamp every day.

    Starting Price: $99.00/month
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    Hootsuite

    Hootsuite

    Hootsuite

    Social is your superpower. Easily manage all your social media and get results with Hootsuite. Discover what’s possible when you unite your social campaigns on one platform. Schedule and publish content to the right channels at the right time, track effectiveness in real time, and crank the volume on your top-performing content. View and manage all your social content in a single collaborative calendar. Make it easy for your entire team to create beautiful, engaging posts for every social network. Keep your social presence active 24/7 by automatically scheduling posts to fill the gaps in your calendar. From building your brand to delivering customer care, keep the conversation flowing seamlessly across public channels and private messages so you can connect with customers on social at every step of their journey. Build social intelligence into your brand strategy. Make sense of millions of customer conversations happening in real time, stay on top of trends, and set strategies.

    Starting Price: $29 per month
  • 14
    LastPass

    LastPass

    LastPass

    When it comes to secure and hassle-free password management for the enterprise, turn to LastPass. LastPass helps enterprises solve password security challenges without slowing down employees through its wide array of advanced and secure features. With LastPass, enterprises can ensure secure password storage, centralize admin oversight, control shared access, automate user management, and receive a dedicated service, among others.

    Starting Price: $6 per user per month
  • 15
    Google Hangouts

    Google Hangouts

    Google

    Use Hangouts to keep in touch. Message contacts, start free video or voice calls, and hop on a conversation with one person or a group. • Include all your contacts with group chats for up to 150 people. • Say more with status messages, photos, videos, maps, emoji, stickers, and animated GIFs. • Turn any conversation into a free group video call with up to 10 contacts. • Call any phone number in the world (and all calls to other Hangouts users are free!). • Connect your Google Voice account for phone calling, SMS texting, and voicemail integration. • Keep in touch with contacts across Android, iOS, and the web, and sync chats across all your devices. • Message contacts anytime, even if they’re offline.

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    Canva

    Canva

    Canva

    Design anything. Publish anywhere. Use Canva’s drag-and-drop feature and professional layouts to design consistently stunning graphics. Design presentations, social media graphics, and more with thousands of beautiful layouts. It has everything you need for amazing design. Design with millions of stock photographs, vectors and illustrations. You can even upload your own. Edit your photos using preset filters or get advanced with photo editing tools, you’ll never be stuck for choice. Use icons, shapes and elements with ease. Choose from thousands of elements for your designs, or upload your own. Access a great selection of fonts perfect for every design. All ready to go and accessible within Canva. Canva is used and loved by millions of people around the globe.

    Starting Price: $9.95 per month
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    Amazon Web Services (AWS)

    Amazon Web Services (AWS)

    Amazon

    Whether you're looking for compute power, database storage, content delivery, or other functionality, AWS has the services to help you build sophisticated applications with increased flexibility, scalability and reliability. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform, offering over 175 fully featured services from data centers globally. Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—are using AWS to lower costs, become more agile, and innovate faster. AWS has significantly more services, and more features within those services, than any other cloud provider–from infrastructure technologies like compute, storage, and databases–to emerging technologies, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, data lakes and analytics, and Internet of Things. This makes it faster, easier, and more cost effective to move your existing applications to the cloud.

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    Stripe

    Stripe

    Stripe

    The new standard in online payments. Stripe is the best software platform for running an internet business. We handle billions of dollars every year for forward-thinking businesses around the world. Stripe builds the most powerful and flexible tools for internet commerce. Whether you’re creating a subscription service, an on-demand marketplace, an e-commerce store, or a crowdfunding platform, Stripe’s meticulously designed APIs and unmatched functionality help you create the best possible product for your users. Millions of the world’s most innovative technology companies are scaling faster and more efficiently by building their businesses on Stripe. We believe that payments is a problem rooted in code, not finance. We obsessively seek out elegant, composable abstractions that enable robust, scalable, flexible integrations. Because we eliminate needless complexity and extraneous details, you can get up and running with Stripe in just a couple of minutes.

    Starting Price: 2.9% + 30¢ per successful charge
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    Shopify

    Shopify

    Shopify

    Build your business. You’ve got the will. We’ve got the way. One platform with all the ecommerce and point of sale features you need to start, run, and grow your business. Find a business name, buy a domain, and create a brand with our free tools. Use one platform to sell products to anyone, anywhere—online with your ecommerce store, online marketplaces, and social media, and in-person with point of sale. Take the guesswork out of marketing with built-in tools that help you create, execute, and analyze campaigns on Facebook and Google. Use a single dashboard to manage orders, shipping, and payments anywhere you go. Gain the insights and knowledge you need to grow. Add features and functionality to your business with 3,200+ apps that integrate directly with Shopify.

    Starting Price: $14.00/month
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    Google Workspace

    Google Workspace

    Google

    G Suite just got better — introducing Google Workspace (formerly G Suite). Everything you need to get anything done, now in one place. An integrated workspace that’s simple to use, Google Workspace lets you spend less time managing your work and more time actually doing it. Address what’s important and let Google handle the rest with best-in-class AI and search technology that helps you work smarter. Work from anywhere, on any device – even offline – with tools to help you integrate, customize, and extend Google Workspace to meet your team’s unique needs. Similar to G Suite, all Google Workspace plans provide a custom email for your business and includes collaboration tools like Gmail, Calendar, Meet, Chat, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Sites, and more. We have a variety of plans that are designed to meet your unique business needs. Discover which plan best fits your business needs on our plans and pricing page.

    Starting Price: $6 per user per month
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    Calendly

    Calendly

    Calendly

    Calendly helps you schedule meetings without the back-and-forth emails. We take the work out of connecting with others so you can accomplish more. Learn how painless scheduling can be with Calendly. Setup is easy. Let Calendly know your availability preferences and it’ll do the work for you. Share your Calendly links via email or embed it on your website. They pick a time and the event is added to your calendar. Works with your Google, Outlook, Office 365 or iCloud calendar so you’re never double booked. Set buffer times between meetings, prevent last minute meetings, create secret event types, and more. Supports 1-on-1, round robin and collective availability meetings. Seamless timezone detection for your invitees so everyone’s on the same page. Automate tasks with Salesforce, GoToMeeting, Zapier and more. Works great for individuals, teams and departments.

    Starting Price: $8 per user per month
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    Squarespace

    Squarespace

    Squarespace

    Everything you need to grow online. Simple tools for your big ideas.Start your free website trial today, no credit card required. Choose your website template. Select from any of our industry-leading website templates, designer fonts, and color palettes to best fit your personal style and professional needs. Add the tools you need. Explore which tools you want to add—whether it’s setting up an online store, booking services, or adding your favorite third-party extensions. Reach your audience. Stand out in every inbox and social feed. On-brand email campaigns and social tools make it easy to grow your audience across multiple channels. Create an ecommerce store, or integrate Squarespace Member Areas with your site to create gated, members-only content, deepen your connection with your site visitors, and grow your online presence. Start with award-winning templates, then customize to fit your style and professional needs.

    Starting Price: $16 per month
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    Namecheap

    Namecheap

    Namecheap

    Ideal for setting up your personal website, WordPress blog or business landing page, these hosting plans are simple and affordable. Ideal if you’re a solopreneur, e-commerce specialist, or web developer looking to add more power and speed to your company website or online business. Perfect for websites that demand the highest performance, enjoy all the flexibility and security with sole access to every resource. Whether it’s for personal or business use, you need a web hosting service like Namecheap's to get your ideas online. No matter which plan you choose, you can count on us for reliability, security, and a stress-free experience.

    Starting Price: $1.44 per month
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    Usersnap

    Usersnap

    Usersnap

    Usersnap provides a user feedback platform to help businesses understand, process, analyze, and monitor feedback, improving their companies and themselves by tracking growth and progress along the way. The extensive feedback use cases enable your business to get feedback along the user journey including: QA, CSAT, NPS, feature requests, bug tracking, visual design feedback and more. More than 20,000 companies have collected over 3 million customer feedback items with Usersnap, including Microsoft, Facebook, Canva, Lyft, and many more.

    Starting Price: $19.00/month
  • 25
    ContentStudio

    ContentStudio

    Lumotive

    Streamline your social media and content marketing. Powerful content marketing and social media management platform for publishers, brands, agencies and, startups who want to share the best content consistently and increase their reach. All the tools you need to centralize your content marketing operations for all the channels including blogs, social networks and, newsletters. No more lack of data, email threads, spreadsheets, approval delays and, disconnected workflows. Find, analyze and share top performing content for any topic or industry. Plan and collaborate with your teams on an intuitive editorial calendar. Schedule content to all of your channels and networks from a single place. Track KPIs and measure performance across all the channels.

    Starting Price: $25 per month
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    Workable

    Workable

    Workable Software

    Workable is the software of choice for today's recruiting industry and HR teams, trusted by over 6000 companies to streamline their hiring. Finding the right person for the job has never been easier, from posting a job to sourcing candidates, users will now have the power to manage multiple hiring pipelines at once. With the ability to take Workable from desktop to mobile, admins will also have more control of the applicant tracking process, without needing multiple programs like email and spreadsheets. The entire operation begins with a simplified way of advertising jobs, followed by the in-app tool to receive applications after filtering them, then setting up interviews and finally making great hires.

    Starting Price: $50.00/month
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    Salesmate

    Salesmate

    Salesmate

    Salesmate, a web-based integrated CRM platform, provides users with additional functionality for business automation, acceleration, and sales management. Salesmate is ideal for small businesses and startups across North America and Canada. With Salesmate, users can get more leads and manage their sales pipelines easily. Salesmate also allows users to monitor lead conversation, distribute leads among sales personnel, track new leads, delegate follow-ups, and more. If you are a small business and using calling for your business, then we have a great news for you all!! 🆕 Salesmate CRM is now coming up with the built-in calling 📲 and bulk SMS features. Which means, no more integrations, no add on hardware cost. Just make and receive more sales calls from your CRM system. You can also make use of your smartphone for this feature.

    Starting Price: $12.00/month/user
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    Gusto

    Gusto

    Gusto

    Gusto offers a solid and fully integrated platform that takes away the complexities of payroll, benefits, and HR task management. Trusted by more than 40,000 businesses, Gusto delivers a comprehensive range of features that automates payroll, benefits, and HR tasks, helping small business owners and operators focus on doing what they do best: grow their business. Gusto also offers integrations with leading business software, including expense management, time tracking, banking, and accounting software. Grow your business with a platform that supports your team. Take care of your team on payday and every day. Introducing the people platform for small businesses. One place to run payroll, manage benefits, and support your team. A successful business starts with a successful team. Build an incredible workplace and grow your business with Gusto’s all-in-one platform. Grow your team and make it look easy.

    Starting Price: $45.00 per month
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    Webflow

    Webflow

    Webflow

    Break the code barrier. Build better business websites, faster. Without coding. Build production-ready experiences without coding. Bring your design vision to life in clean, semantic HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript — with the Webflow Designer. Build completely custom databases for dynamic content types, including online stores. Easily create immersive interactions and animations. Go live on a fast, reliable, and hassle-free hosting network that scales with your business — with a click. Built to scale — on the same network as Netflix, Pinterest, Airbnb, Slack, and Adobe. So you don’t have to worry about your site going down. No updates to run, packages to install, or headaches to deal with. Create, launch, and iterate on new marketing campaigns without distracting your product team. Metadata controls, automatic XML sitemaps, easy 301 redirects, and canonical tags. Connect your marketing tools with built-in integrations and the flexibility of custom code.

    Starting Price: $12 per month
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    Launchrock

    Launchrock

    Startups.com

    Build a launch site in minutes to capture early users and supercharge your marketing. Build a beautiful marketing page in minutes and begin building your audience before your next big launch. With a modern, block-based builder and fully customizable templates, building a launch-ready site has never been easier. Engage your customers directly using simple email capture, surveys, and custom social-sharing tools. Access a comprehensive suite of marketing tools including self-guided courses, masterclass videos, and over 1,000 how-to-guides. Never built a marketing page before? With our custom page builder, you’re covered. Spend less time building your page and more time capturing customers. Built-in, customizable templates take the guesswork and hassle out of building your page. Whether you’re launching a mobile app or a brewery, we’ve got options to suit every possible business. Good news! You don’t have to know code to create and modify your page with a drag 'n' drop WYSIWYG editor.

    Starting Price: $29 per month
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    Prospect.io

    Prospect.io

    Prospect.io

    Cut down your time spent on prospecting by 75% by automating the tedious aspects of the job. Find emails, reach out, track, integrate. - Find any email address - In just 2 clicks, capture email addresses on professional social networks, company websites or from anywhere on the internet based on the first name, last name and company name of your prospect. - Send drip campaigns - Send highly personalized email campaigns at scale thanks to our cold emailing tool. Send up to 400 emails per day per sending address with multiple personalization variables. - Measure everything - Track the result of each campaign step and compare your campaigns to the rest of your industry and keep track of your team's performance through our reporting and analytics tool. - Integrate with other services - Integrate your Prospect.io account with hundreds of other services through our native CRM integrations (Salesforce, Pipedrive, Close.io and Hubspot CRM) or through Zapier and PieSync.

    Starting Price: $99.00/month

Related Categories

Collaboration
Business Management
Equity Management
Team Chat