Apparently 61% of salespeople say selling is harder now than 5 years ago.

B2B sales tools have made it unimaginably competitive out there.

If you're not using them, you will get eaten alive. But which ones are worth your investment?

This guide dives into:

• 10 B2B sales tools you need to add to your arsenal

• Their key features + benefits and ROI

• Who each tool serves best

Ready? Let's go.

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Criteria Breakdown

Choosing the right B2B sales tools involves evaluating several critical factors. Here's a summary of the criteria we used to assess each tool in this roundup:

By thoroughly evaluating each B2B sales tool against these criteria, we've identified the top performers that can truly elevate your sales process and drive results in 2024.

1) ListKit - Best for Verified B2B Leads for Cold Outreach

Pricing: Starts at $97/mo_‍

Good For: Outbound sales teams and small-to-medium-sized businesses that need verified, accurate leads to save time and maximize ROI on email and phone outreach campaigns.

In B2B sales, having verified leads is your secret weapon because it saves you a lot of time avoiding bounced emails or numbers. That's where ListKit comes in. It's a go-to solution for sales leaders who need quick access to decision-makers, making the lead-generation process smooth and efficient.

ListKit offers several features that enhance the sales process and set it apart from other B2B sales tools:

• Triple-Verified Data: ListKit offers a 626M+ b2b lead database (one of the biggest in the market). But unlike Apollo or Zoominfo, which draw criticism for data accuracy, ListKit has a special multi-step verification process that allows users to only pay for Triple-Verified emails and phone numbers. This avoids wasting time, money, and campaign resources on invalid leads.

• Get a bird’s eye view of your TAM or niche: With clear pie charts, bar charts, and world maps, you can instantly see industry breakdowns, key job titles, geographic reach, and platform usage. Plus, get deeper insights on company size, revenue, intent, and audience demographics like age, gender, and income. These tools make it easy to adjust your targeting at a glance.

• Slack community & weekly coaching calls. How many other sales intelligence platforms offer personalized onboarding, weekly coaching calls from 7-figure entrepreneurs, and an activeSlack with 1000+ members? With decades of real-world cold outreach experience, we don’t just offer a product—we uniquely help you maximize ROI every step of your outbound campaign (+ Active ListKit users get a free 1:1 list-building strategy call - don’t sleep on this!).

• Sync with your sales stack via rapid integrations: ListKit integrates smoothly with HubSpot, Smartlead, Pipedrive, Zoho, Zapier, Slack, Google Sheets, and more. With direct contact transfers to these tools, your sales process flows effortlessly, keeping your team focused on high-impact tasks.

Considerations

• Learning Curve: While generally user-friendly, mastering all of ListKit's features may require some time and training.

• Enterprise companies should contact sales: Some users have mentioned that the credit system, while cost-effective, can be restrictive, especially for businesses that need a high volume of lead data regularly - these companies should get a tailored quote by contacting sales.

What actual ListKit users have to say

• "This is my favorite source of leads” - said Michael, a small business owner. “Their search interface is very easy to use. I can drill down to exactly the sorts of leads myself and my clients want to prospect for… Customer service is great, and the no-cost onboarding/training call was incredibly helpful. I use ListKit regularly to prospect and generate lead lists for my outbound sales.”

• "You won't find higher quality leads anywhere else,"  - Nick, a small business owner, said in a G2 review... "the platform is so easy to use, and all the leads are triple verified, so you don't have to do anything else after downloading them. Plug them into your software and you're good to go. Highly recommend it.

Read next:

• How to do B2B Prospecting Right in 2024 (+ Tricks & Tools)
• 15 Best Sales Prospecting Tools Compared
• B2B Email Marketing Guide: Generate Leads That Convert

2) SmartLead: Best for AI-Powered Cold Email Outreach

Pricing: Starts at $39/mo

Good for: Sales and marketing teams focused on scaling cold email outreach while maintaining high deliverability and personalized communication.

Key Features for B2B Sales Teams:

• Smart Sequences: Allows you to set up automated follow-ups based on specific triggers with time delays, ensuring consistent communication.
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• Email Warm-up: SmartLead offers unlimited email warm-up across its plans, which significantly helps in improving email deliverability by gradually increasing email activity to avoid spam filters.
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• Unified Master Inbox: Consolidates communication across multiple email accounts, making it easier to manage outreach from one dashboard.

Considerations

• Best for Email-Focused Outreach: While SmartLead offers some multi-channel capabilities, it's primarily focused on email outreach.
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• Learning Curve: The AI features can take some getting used to, but the platform is generally user-friendly.

Overall, users appreciate SmartLead for its innovative features like AI-driven personalization and dynamic sequences, which have enhanced their email outreach campaigns. The platform’s seamless integration with CRMs and email providers, combined with outstanding customer support, has made it a preferred choice for many businesses looking to scale their outreach efforts.

3) ZappX: Best for Cold Calling

Good for: Sales teams and startups who want to ramp up their phone-based outreach as their primary channel for lead generation and need advanced dialing tools to maximize efficiency.

Bonus perk: ZappX seamlessly integrates with both Smartlead and ListKit, meaning you can power both your cold email and cold calling campaigns with Triple-Verfied contact data you can't find anywhere else, all without the manual exports and file-saving.

Key Features for B2B Sales Teams:

• Parallel Dialing: Dial up to 5 prospects simultaneously, dramatically increasing your daily connection rates.
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• AI-Powered Insights: Get automated call transcriptions, sentiment analysis, and call summaries to work smarter, not harder.
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• Intent-Based Prioritization: Integration with Smartlead ensures you're calling prospects who've shown interest through email interactions.
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• CRM Integration: Seamlessly sync data with popular platforms like Apollo, HubSpot, and GoHighLevel.

Considerations

• New Player: Launched in May 2024, ZappX is a fresh entrant in the market.
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• Focused on Calling: While it offers SMS capabilities, its core strength is in phone-based outreach.

Overall, ZappX is positioned as a powerful tool for startups looking to enhance their cold-calling efforts, making it easier to connect with prospects and close deals effectively.

4) Zapier: Automate Your Sales Workflow

Free plan available

Pricing starts at $20/mo

Good for: B2B sales teams looking to streamline repetitive tasks, integrate multiple tools seamlessly, and focus on high-impact selling activities. Zapier is the duct tape of the internet, connecting your apps and automating workflows so you can focus on selling, not shuffling data.

Key Features for B2B Sales Teams

1. Thousands of Integrations: Connects your CRM, email marketing tools, and communication platforms, allowing B2B sales teams to centralize their operations and ensure seamless data flow across applications.
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2. Zaps: Enables salespeople to create automated workflows (called "Zaps") without any coding knowledge, simplifying the process of automating tasks that would otherwise consume valuable time.
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3. Multi-Step Zaps: Allows for the creation of complex workflows that can trigger multiple actions from a single event, helping sales teams manage intricate processes like lead nurturing and follow-ups more efficiently.
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4. Filters and Formatting: Customizes Zaps to trigger only under specific conditions, ensuring that sales teams receive relevant notifications and data tailored to their needs, which helps prioritize high-value tasks.
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5. Task History: Provides a comprehensive view of Zap activity, allowing sales teams to track performance and troubleshoot any issues, ensuring that automated processes run smoothly and effectively.

Considerations

• Complexity: While user-friendly, creating complex Zaps can require some learning.
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• Pricing: Free plans have limited tasks, and higher tiers can get expensive for large teams.

We've put toether this table of popular use-cases for Zapier when it comes to B2B sales:

5) HubSpot Sales Hub: Best for Inbound Sales and Marketing Alignment

Pricing: Starts at $45/mo

Good for: Sales and marketing teams that need to work together seamlessly by sharing data, tracking lead interactions, and ensuring consistent communication throughout the sales process, especially for inbound-focused strategies.

Key Features for B2B Sales Teams:

HubSpot Sales Hub is part of HubSpot's broader CRM platform, offering a comprehensive suite of sales management tools just for sales teams. It's particularly well-suited for businesses that want to align their sales and marketing efforts, especially those focused on inbound methodologies.

HubSpot Sales Hub offers a wide array of features to support sales teams:

• CRM Integration: Seamlessly integrated with HubSpot's free CRM for a unified view of customer data.
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• Email Tracking and Notifications: Get real-time notifications when prospects open emails or click links.
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• Meeting Scheduler: Allow prospects to book meetings directly into your calendar.
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• Sales Analytics and Reporting: Access detailed reports on sales activity, productivity, and pipeline health.
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• Automated Sequences: Create and automate personalized email sequences.
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• Predictive Lead Scoring: Leverage AI to identify your most promising leads.
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• Conversation Intelligence: Record, transcribe, and analyze sales calls for coaching opportunities.
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• Quote Generation: Create and send professional quotes directly from the platform.

Considerations

While HubSpot Sales Hub offers robust features, there are some factors to consider:

• Pricing Tiers: Some advanced features are only available in higher-priced tiers.
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• Learning Curve: While user-friendly, mastering all features can take time.
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• Best Value with Full Suite: Maximum benefit is often realized when used alongside other HubSpot tools.

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Additional users can be added at an extra cost. Prices are for annual billing.

HubSpot Sales Hub stands out as a top B2B sales tool for 2024, particularly for businesses looking to align their sales and marketing efforts and those who value an intuitive, all-in-one sales engagement platform.

6) Close: Built for Inside Sales Teams

Close is a CRM designed specifically for inside sales teams who live and breathe phone calls and emails. It's known for its simplicity and focus on closing deals.

Pricing: Starts at $29/user/month (billed annually)

Good for: Inside sales teams focused on managing high volumes of phone and email outreach, who need a streamlined CRM with built-in calling, email sequencing, and deal tracking to boost productivity.

Must-Have Features in Top B2B Sales Tools:

1. Built-in Calling & Power Dialer: B2B inside sales teams can make and receive calls directly from the CRM, streamlining their workflow and increasing productivity. The power dialer feature enables them to efficiently work through their call lists, maximizing the number of contacts made.
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2. Email Sequences & Templates: Close allows B2B sales teams to automate their email outreach while still maintaining a personalized touch. This feature helps them scale their communication efforts without sacrificing the personal connection that is crucial in B2B sales.
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3. Pipeline Management: The platform's pipeline management tools provide B2B sales teams with real-time visibility into their deals, allowing them to track progress and identify bottlenecks. This helps them make data-driven decisions and optimize their sales process.
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4. SMS Messaging: In addition to email, Close enables B2B sales teams to reach out to prospects and customers via text message. This multi-channel approach increases the chances of engagement and can be particularly effective for time-sensitive communications.
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5. Reporting & Analytics: Close's reporting and analytics features give B2B sales managers the insights they need to track team performance and identify areas for improvement. This data-driven approach helps teams continuously optimize their strategies and drive better results.

Integrations

Close connects with popular tools like Gmail, Zapier, and Slack, making it easy to fit into your existing workflow.

Considerations

• Limited Marketing Features: Close focuses primarily on sales, so if you need extensive marketing automation, you'll need to integrate with another tool.
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• Not Ideal for Field Sales: If your sales team is out in the field a lot, Close's mobile app might not be as robust as some other options.

Reviews:

• "Close has a clean, beautiful simple design that is deceptively powerful. It has an enormous wealth of features that make a daily workflow for an entire sales motion flow extremely smoothly." - Tim B., Sales Director
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• "Currently contacts are attached to the lead you create. If Close could link the Contacts in an address book format that would make it perfect." - Ronnie H., Office Manager

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The higher tiers unlock additional features like custom objects, multiple pipelines, and predictive dialing

Remember, the best CRM software for your business depends on your specific needs and processes. Do your research and consider a free trial before making a decision.

7) Paperflite: Streamlining Content, Proposals, and Contracts

Pricing: Starts at $29/user/month

Good for: B2B sales teams that rely on highly customized proposals and contracts, as well as those needing centralized content management to close deals faster.

Paperflite is designed to simplify the management of sales content, proposals, and contracts, helping your sales team close deals faster while maintaining focus on selling.

Key features for B2B Sales Teams

• Content Hub: Centralize all your sales and marketing content in a single, easily accessible hub. Sales teams can quickly find, customize, and share content with prospects, ensuring consistent messaging across all channels.
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• Proposal Creation: Use customizable templates and drag-and-drop functionality to create professional-looking proposals in minutes. This enables your team to respond swiftly and effectively to client needs.
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• Interactive Microsites: Present content, proposals, and contracts through interactive microsites that offer a dynamic, engaging experience for your prospects, increasing the chances of conversion.
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• eSignatures: Gather secure, legally-binding eSignatures directly within Paperflite, accelerating the contract approval process and reducing administrative bottlenecks.
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• Document Tracking: Gain insights into how prospects interact with your documents. Track when a prospect views or signs a document, allowing your team to time follow-ups effectively and keep the sales process moving forward.
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• Content Performance Analytics: Monitor how your content performs with detailed analytics. Understand which materials are most effective at different stages of the sales funnel, and refine your strategy accordingly.

Considerations:

• Limited CRM Functionality: While Paperflite excels at content management, proposal creation, and contract management, it’s not a full-fledged CRM. You’ll need to integrate it with your existing CRM for comprehensive sales management.

Bottom Line: If you want to close deals faster and make a great impression with your proposals, Paperflite is worth a look.

8) Pipedrive: Simple, Visual Sales Pipeline Management

Pricing: $14.90/user/month (billed annually)

Good for: Sales teams that value visualizing their entire pipeline and prefer an intuitive, drag-and-drop CRM for deal tracking and task automation.

Pipedrive is a CRM designed for visual thinkers. Its drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to track deals, manage your pipeline, and stay on top of your sales activities.

Key Features for B2B Sales Teams:

• Visual Sales Pipeline: See where every deal stands with an intuitive, customizable pipeline view.
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• Activity Tracking: Log calls, emails, and meetings to stay organized and focused.
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• Email Integration: Send and track emails directly from Pipedrive.
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• Mobile App: Access your sales data and stay connected on the go.
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• Automation: Automate repetitive tasks to save time and improve efficiency.

Considerations:

• Limited Marketing Features: Pipedrive focuses primarily on sales pipeline management. If you need robust marketing automation, you'll likely need additional tools.

Bottom Line: If you're looking for a user-friendly CRM that helps you visualize your entire sales process, Pipedrive is a great option.

‍9) ChartMogul: Subscription Analytics Made Simple

Pricing: Free (up to $10K MRR)

Good for: Subscription-based businesses and SaaS sales teams that need clear insights into revenue metrics like MRR, churn rate, and customer lifetime value.

ChartMogul takes the complexity out of subscription analytics. This tool helps you track key metrics like MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue), churn rate, and customer lifetime value, giving you a clear picture of your subscription business's health.

Key Features for B2B Sales Teams:

• Subscription Metrics Tracking: Monitor MRR, churn, LTV, and more with easy-to-understand dashboards.
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• Revenue Recognition: Ensure accurate revenue reporting in compliance with accounting standards.
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• Customer Segmentation: Analyze customer behavior and identify high-value segments for targeted campaigns.
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• Cohort Analysis: Track the performance of customer groups over time to understand churn patterns.
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• Integrations: Connect with your payment gateway, CRM, and other tools for seamless data flow.

Considerations:

• Limited to Subscription Businesses: ChartMogul is specifically designed for subscription-based businesses.

10) SavvyCal: Scheduling Meetings Without the Hassle

We've all been there - the endless back-and-forth emails trying to find a meeting time that works for everyone. SavvyCal eliminates that headache with its smart scheduling features, boosting your productivity and letting you focus on closing deals.

Pricing: Free, or $15/user/month (billed monthly)

Good for: Sales teams needing a streamlined scheduling tool that eliminates back-and-forth emails and simplifies coordination with prospects.

• Personalized Scheduling Links: Create custom links that show your real-time availability, making it easy for prospects to book meetings without the hassle.
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• Time Zone Detection: SavvyCal automatically adjusts for different time zones, so you never have to worry about scheduling conflicts.
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• Team Scheduling: Coordinate schedules across your entire team, ensuring everyone's time is used efficiently.
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• Integrations: Connect SavvyCal to your calendar and other tools for a seamless workflow.
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• Customization: Brand your scheduling links and customize your booking page to match your company's look and feel.

Considerations:

• Limited Features: While SavvyCal excels at scheduling, it doesn't offer additional productivity tools like task management or project tracking.