Best 10 lead generation software tools

The growth of your business depends on finding new leads and nurturing them until they become loyal customers. So your sales reps need to effectively and consistently attract leads. Unfortunately, manually searching for and attracting customers can be time-consuming and imprecise. That’s why businesses turn to software tools for assistance.

How does lead generation software work?

Lead generation software helps you generate and nurture leads and close deals at scale to grow your business.

• Captures sales leads’ contact information as users interact with your brand. Common ways to capture leads include: landing pages with opt-in web forms, quizzes and surveys, webinar sign-ups, demo sign-ups, lead generation chatbots, and exit-intent popups.

• Sorts and manages data into a usable form. Look for robust integrations with your CRM to establish a single source of truth and facilitate easy handoffs.

• Scores leads according to various criteria. Advanced tools like Freshsales allow for custom rules and enhance suggestions with AI.

• Automates routine tasks. Sales and marketing automations might include auto-populating publicly available data, real-time reminders and notifications for your sales reps, phone number dialers, and email drip campaigns.

• Facilitates creating content and marketing campaigns that clients will click on and interact with. These tools include landing page builders and templates, popup builders, ad builders, SEO tools, and A/B testing tools.

Top 10 lead generation software tools in 2024

The market is full of lead generation tools. Here is a list of the top 10 lead-generation software tools to get you started.

1. Freshsales

Freshsales is the sales CRM from Freshworks, a leading creator of easy-to-use cloud-based business software. Their powerful lead generation tools are part of their robust customer relationship management (CRM) system. This all-in-one platform gives teams the ability to deliver personalized experiences at scale and improve lead engagement. With a free plan designed to get you up and running fast, Freshsales is a great choice for businesses of all sizes.

Key features of Freshsales

• Powerful CRM. A CRM tool that communicates with all of your other tools and platforms is vital for success. Freshsales’ feature-rich CRM gathers and tracks lead information and follows them throughout their buying journey. You can customize stages based on your unique sales process.

• AI-powered lead contact scoring. Let Freddy AI manage all important contact scoring. You define your own lead routing rules that accommodate your sales reps’ workloads and skill sets as well as other criteria based on your needs.

• Automations. Automations add so much value to your lead generation process. By automating basic tasks, you free up your salespeople to focus on higher-level tasks, improve response times for first contact with leads, and facilitate timely communication in response to lead behavior. Leverage Freshsales, web forms as well as workflows to support your sales process.

• Pipeline management. Move deals leads effectively along your pipelines—and keep track of them every step of the way. You can set up and manage multiple sales pipelines to suit your needs. Use the sales forecasting feature to help you set and reach goals, and use reports and visual tools to help you evaluate how you’re doing and make changes as needed.

Pros and cons of Freshsales

Freshsales has a lot to offer businesses, including versatile AI features and an easy-to-use interface. For companies looking to improve their lead generation efforts, you’d draw great benefit from contact scoring and assignment as well as a full suite of automation. 

The UI isn’t as flashy as some competitors, but it is very easy to use and improves onboarding time. While some features are not available with the free version, you will get a strong benefit from the free version, and you can add additional features as needed.

Pricing

• Free: $0 per month for 3 users

• Growth: starting at $15 per user per month

• Pro: starting at $39 per user per month

• Enterprise: starting at $69 per user per month

2. HubSpot

HubSpot was an early player on the inbound marketing scene. Their lead generation tools integrate with their CRM. In keeping with their brand, inbound lead generation is their focus. Their tools are aimed at both sales and marketing teams.

Key features of HubSpot

• Seamless CRM system that provides a single source of truth and integrates with many other tools.

• Easy-to-use tools like drag-and-drop editing to facilitate editing templates and content creation.

• Premium hosting and security to keep your data and your lead and customer data safe.

• AI content assistant to provide personalized customer experiences to leads and allow your teams to focus on interactions that require a human touch.

Pros and cons of HubSpot

Pros and cons

HubSpot excels at easy data importation and integrations. Plus the free version of their HubSpot CRM contains many robust features. However, many of their higher-end features are cost-prohibitive. In addition, their AI capabilities are limited.

Pricing

• Free: $0 per month

• Starter: starting at $45 per month

• Professional: starting at $450 per month

• Enterprise: starting at $1200/month

3. Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM provides an integrated CRM with a wide variety of lead management tools. A hallmark of their product is their integration with Salesforce. They focus on the entire customer journey, beginning with lead collection and lead scoring and ending with conversion.

Key features of Zoho CRM

• Salesforce automation allows you to use their CRM alongside Salesforce’s many products.

• Powerful email marketing tools can drive engagement and conversations with leads to help improve outcomes.

• Easy-to-use drag-and-drop tools make lead generation assets easy to create, personalize, revise, and deploy.

• A/B testing ensures that all of your assets are performing as well as they can, which in turn increases engagement and conversion.

Pros and cons of Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM offers competitive pricing and a wide range of tools. However, they don’t have a built-in telephony solution. And their products can be difficult to scale.

Pricing

• Standard: $15 per user per month

• Professional: $23 per user per month

• Enterprise: $40 per user per month

• Ultimate: $52 per user per month

4. Pipedrive

Pipedrive seeks to help you manage unlimited pipelines in a way that integrates with their CRM. As such, their lead management tools also integrate with the CRM. A chatbot and auto-nurturing tools are key features to help sales teams convert leads.

Key features of Pipedrive

• Ability to create unlimited pipelines gives you great flexibility in driving lead generation.

• Lead generation chatbot leverages AI to bring a high level of personalization in interactions with potential leads.

• Auto-nurture capabilities free up your agents to focus on other activities and the most high-value qualified leads.

• Import lead data from across the internet to make lead generation more efficient and effective.

Pros and cons of Pipedrive

Pipedrive’s strength lies in managing unlimited pipelines at every level. Their highly customizable sales forms and user-friendly intuitive design mean that you can easily adapt their tools to your needs. However, they lack tools such as lead scoring and sales sequences. In addition, their solution is not as scalable as other offerings in this space.

Pricing

• Essential: $14.90 per user per month

• Advanced: $27.90 per user per month

• Professional: $49.90 per user per month

• Power: $64.90 per user per month

• Enterprise: $99 per user per month

5. Zendesk

Zendesk began with customer service tools and has expanded into sales and marketing software to address the entire customer journey. For lead generation, they capture and score leads and offer email integrations and automated sales sequences.

Key features of Zendesk

• Email integrations

• Mobile app

• Content scoring tools

• Email and task sequences for lead engagement

Pros and cons of Zendesk

Pros

Zendesk began with a focus on customer support, and their sales and lead generation platform integrates very well with their support platform. They also have a wide variety of tools to choose from. However, key lead generation features such as content scoring and sales sequences are not available at all price points. Although they do have built-in analytics, they lack the functionality to create reports from scratch.

Pricing

• Sell Team: $19 per agent per month

• Sell Growth: $55 per agent per month

• Sell Professional: $115 per agent per month

6. Monday CRM

Monday CRM’s customizable automations and email integrations support lead generation and conversion.

Key features of Monday CRM

• In-app, customizable automations mean an easy path toward taking the stress of menial tasks off of your sales reps.

• Email templates facilitate email campaigns to help attract potential leads, drive engagement, and nurture leads once they show interest.

• Lead capturing tools and integrations make the process of collecting lead data easier and minimize the human error of entering information into multiple software tools.

Pros and cons of Monday CRM

Monday CRM’s attractive UI and ease of use score high marks. They also offer a solid library of customizable templates. However, all plans limit the number of automations, so you could find yourself prioritizing needs and your agents may find themselves doing more menial lead generation tasks. Their trial period is only 14 days, which isn’t necessarily enough to evaluate the product.

Pricing

• Basic CRM: $10 per user per month

• Standard CRM: $14 per user per month

• Pro CRM: $24 per user per month

• Enterprise CRM: contact for pricing details

7. Salesforce

Salesforce is a leader in software as a service. They offer a full range of tools to help businesses find, manage, and convert leads as well as solutions for customer service, content creation, and beyond. Their lead generation tools integrate with all of their products to ensure a seamless experience.

Key features of Salesforce

• Workflows are designed for complex sales processes, so they can accommodate almost anything your company can throw at them.

• Automations to free up sales teams for higher-level tasks, which means your team is working smarter, not harder, and having more positive outcomes.

• Lead scoring and distribution tools are available and are vital to improving your lead generation process.

Pros and cons of Salesforce

As a pioneer in this space, Salesforce offers robust functionality across the board. All tools are highly customizable, so you can easily adapt the platform to your company’s unique sales cycle and pipeline. However, their price points for anything above basic access is high for a SaaS. And although their tools are customizable, that customization can be very complex and lead to a long onboarding period.

Pricing

• Starter: $25 per user per month

• Professional: $75 per user per month

• Enterprise: $150 per user per month

• Unlimited: $300 per user per month

8. Insightly

Insightly bills its customer relationship management system as a modern CRM. Their tools focus on pipeline management. Look for lead distribution and other integrations to streamline your processes to close deals fast.

Key features of Insightly

• Google Workspace integrations are highly attractive to businesses already using that platform and makes onboarding much easier.

• Automations and email tools for sales and marketing allow you and your teams to easily create email campaigns to attract and nurture leads as well as provide personalized communications without taking up room in your teams’ schedules.

• Lead assignment and routing makes these tasks much easier and more immediate. This means your agents can connect with leads as soon as possible, and that increases conversions.

Pros and cons of Insightly

Insightly offers affordable prices and many important lead generation tools. Their solutions are built to scale with you. However, they offer limited features on the Plus plan and lack built-in phone features across the board.

Pricing

• Plus: $29 per user per month

• Professional: $49 per user per month

• Enterprise: $99 per user per month

9. Copper

A cornerstone of Copper’s tools is their seamless integration with Google Workspace. Because it works with the tools your teams are already using, onboarding is highly simplified. Their lead generation tools are also well-integrated with your existing platform.

Key features of Copper

• Easy integration with Google Workspace and Gmail means your teams don’t have to learn new office tools, so onboarding is easy and they can hit the ground running.

• Phone support is available on the highest plan so you can get quick help and optimize your investment.

• Ability to manage multiple pipelines is especially useful if you have a diverse sales process.

• Visual sales pipeline tools further your ability to manage various pipelines at a glance.

Pros and cons of Copper

Easy onboarding is a hallmark of Copper, which makes it popular for companies looking to transition quickly and start reaping the benefits of the software. Their variety of robust integrations further eases transition and allows you to add to your tech stack over time without issues.

However, key features such as phone support are only available at higher price points. This means you don’t have the tools you need to truly improve lead generation. The limitation on record storage can also interfere with your ability to manage high volumes and scale up.

Pricing

• Basic: $23 per user per month

• Professional: $59 per user per month

• Business: $99 per user per month

10. Pipefy

Pipefy designs tools to assist teams across your business. That means something for everyone from HR to accounting to sales to marketing. Their lead generation tools are built-in. AI boosts productivity, and their automations and integrations allow teams to work seamlessly.

Key features of Pipefy

• True no-code AI means you can leverage that technology without intensive training and optimize your investment.

• Integrates teams across departments, which prevents siloing information and lack of communication.

• Automatic reports on all metrics make it easy for teams to see what’s working and what’s not, and to adjust accordingly.

• Automations for all teams means this software goes beyond lead generation to benefit your entire company.

Pros and cons of Pipefy

Pipefy’s ease of use and no-code tools makes it an appealing choice for companies with limited IT resources. You can customize the tools as needed with no coding required. However, although they do integrate with other tools, some integrations are complex, which can cause a wide variety of issues. 

Pricing

• Starter: Free

• Business: $25 per user per month

• Enterprise: Contact for pricing info

• Unlimited: Contact for pricing info

11. Bitrix 24

Bitrix24’s lead generation and management tools are part of the CRM and are aimed at both sales and marketing teams. Look for tools that help you gather and manage leads and track them through the pipeline.

Key features of Bitrix24

• Robust free version is a great introduction to the product and is especially helpful if you’re just getting your feet wet with lead generation tools.

• Virtual office facilitates real-time and asynchronous team communication, which streamlines many processes.

• Wide variety of project management tools including task management and time-tracking tools helps you improve lead generation effectiveness.

Pros and cons of Bitrix24

Bitrix24’s flat-rate pricing makes it easy to plan your budget and reduces the penalty as your company scales. Automated workflows are available and are particularly helpful in improving your lead generation outcomes. However, these all-important automations are only available at the highest tier. Their UI is also more complex than competitors’, which makes onboarding and day to day use more complex.

Pricing

• Basic: $43 for all users per month

• Standard: $87 for all users per month

• Professional: $175 for all users per month

• Enterprise: $325 for all users per month

Benefits of using lead generation software

Understand more about your customer

Lead generation software with strong reporting capabilities gives you more insight into your customers. These tools capture when and why customers show interest, whether it's through a landing page web form or a social media ad. These insights allow you to refine your marketing and sales activities over time. Some tools like Freshsales harness the power of AI to provide even more actionable insights.

Find more and better leads

Lead generation tools can help you find more leads in many ways. These methods start with helping you create content to draw in your target audience. Robust tools include ways to design landing pages and web forms to help you capture lead data. And then the tools can help you score and prioritize high-quality leads so your sales team can focus on those potential customers most likely to make a purchase. After all, not every website visitor is ready to buy, and not every type of lead belongs in your sales funnel. Your sales team needs to go after qualified leads, and using a sales funnel platform can help them identify and target the right prospects more effectively.

Increase efficiency of sales prospecting and lead management

Lead capturing tools can automatically populate a wide variety of potential customer data and streamline your processes. This means your sales teams don’t have to spend their valuable time researching and qualifying leads. Instead they can focus on lead nurturing and converting leads. Advanced tools can also help manage leads once they are in the pipeline by sending targeted email campaigns and personalized messaging.

Improve conversion rates

Tools can help you convert leads with timely, personalized client experiences. When a prospective client shows interest, time is of the essence. Lead generation tools allow you to automate many time-sensitive tasks and reach out to or follow up with leads at the perfect time. Lead segmentation tools help you target exactly what your lead is interested in so you can tailor outreach to those interests.

How to choose the right lead generation software

Choosing the right products is a multistep process.

1. Identify your goals and needs

You’ll need to get clear about what you want to accomplish with your software. Consider factors such as price, team size, and number of leads you want to accommodate, as well as what functionality you’ll need.

2. Research available options

There are many products out there. Research a wide variety of options. Look at ease of use, length of onboarding, range of features, and availability of customization and automations. Consider if you need a lead generation platform or lead generation tools integrated into a CRM.

3.Test the software

Try before you buy and take advantage of free versions and trial periods. Use the drag-and-drop builder to see just how easy it is and make sure the software integrates with your existing tools.

4. Gather feedback before you make a final decision

Ensure that all stakeholders are on board with these important tools. And if you can, seek referrals from other similar businesses.

Pitfalls to avoid when choosing lead generation software

While the right software can boost sales and efficiency for your team, the wrong software can be detrimental. Here are some pitfalls to avoid while making this important decision.

Software doesn’t integrate with other sales tools

The best lead generation software will integrate seamlessly with your CRM tools. If you choose tools that don’t integrate, you’ll miss out on valuable benefits. For example, a tool that helps you send targeted emails won’t do you any good if it doesn’t integrate with your email system.

Software won’t scale with you

You might be a small business now, but that’s not where you want to stay. Make sure to choose tools that will scale with you. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck with limited numbers of leads, users, integrations, and more.

Software has too many limitations

It’s one thing to outgrow your tools, but make sure you’re at least starting with what you need. Beware of limits on key features like automations, integrations, AI sessions, and email lists. If you aren’t sure what you’ll need, take advantage of trial periods to test things out. Consider a comprehensive unified platform like Freshsales to make sure you aren’t missing out on key functionality.

Software doesn’t capture all types of leads and data from all sources

There are many types of leads, and you need to stay on top of them all. Look for tools that capture inbound and outbound leads. And make sure there’s room for all the data you might need, whether it’s social media activity, emails, or phone numbers.

Company offers limited customer support options

When you purchase or subscribe to software, make sure the company provides support to help you get up and running and to solve problems going forward. Although most companies aim for intuitive UI and ease of use, there are bound to be problems along the way. Quality customer support ensures that you get your money’s worth.