Best CRM for tracking sales calls: 6 compared (2026)

Updated 15 October 2026.

Best CRM for tracking sales calls: overview

• HubSpot is best for mid-size teams that want calling, recording and transcripts in one easy CRM.
• Salesforce is best for large teams with an admin to set up the dialer and call insights.
• Close is best for outbound teams that live on the phone.
• Pipedrive is best for small teams that already pay for a dialer such as Aircall.
• Freshsales is best for the lowest price with a built-in phone.
• Zoho CRM is best for teams already running on Zoho apps.
• Claap is best for teams that keep their CRM and want each call to fill its fields.

Switching CRMs will not fill your call logs. On Claap's own sales calls (Claap call data, October 2025 to October 2026), 37% of buyers who named their CRM told us its call notes or fields were typed by hand, forgotten or empty, and the complaint came from HubSpot and Salesforce teams alike.

So pick the CRM for its phone and its pipeline. Then decide who fills the fields after each call: the rep, a workflow, or the call itself.

That choice costs real selling time. Reps spend only 40% of their week selling, according to Salesforce's State of Sales research, and logging calls is part of the other 60%.

With that in mind, we compared six CRMs on what matters for call tracking: how calls get logged, which plan records and transcribes them, what it really costs, and what G2 reviewers say.

Best CRM for tracking sales calls at a glance

Prices are per seat per month, billed yearly, for the cheapest plan that records calls inside the CRM. Transcription has its own column because most CRMs sell it on a higher plan or as an add-on.

Sources: each vendor's pricing page or the pricing guide linked in its section below, and each product's G2 page.

Why switching CRMs won't fill your call logs

Across Claap call data from October 2025 to October 2026, the buyers who named their CRM split like this:

• HubSpot runs at 60% of them and Salesforce at 21%, so 8 in 10 sit on one of the two (Claap call data, October 2025 to October 2026).
• Pipedrive runs at 8% of them (Claap call data, same period).
• Close, Freshsales and Zoho together run at about 2% of them (Claap call data, same period): they matter for phone-first teams, less for the buyers we meet.

In Claap call data from October 2025 to October 2026, 37% of those buyers described call notes or CRM fields that reps type by hand, forget, or leave empty.

Share of buyers who said their CRM call notes or fields are typed by hand, forgotten or empty, by CRM. Claap call data, October 2025 to October 2026.

The problem follows the reps from one CRM to the next. It showed up at 32% of HubSpot teams and 51% of Salesforce teams in Claap call data over the same period. Salesforce teams in our calls tend to be larger, with more required fields, which likely explains part of the gap.

Here is how buyers put it, in their own words:

• A head of revenue operations at a healthcare software company, on Salesforce: "Today, they don't fill it in. The CRM, simply... In the US, they logged four activities last month. That's not possible." (translated from French)
• A sales director at an engineering consultancy, moving from an older CRM to Salesforce: "When I look at the meeting reports in our current CRM, some were never written... If a rep leaves tomorrow, I have no information." (translated from French)
• A head of sales at an industrial technology company, on HubSpot: "I have a board meeting next week. Given what's missing in the CRM, I know I'm in trouble." (translated from French)
• A head of sales at a B2B services company, on HubSpot: "The pain point that we have at the moment is that we are having a lot of manual recording of all this information."
• A CRM specialist at a travel services group, on Pipedrive: "They have five meetings, six meetings... and then I am the one who follows them and says, put data in Pipedrive, update your data, update."

Three lessons come out of these calls:

• Reps skip the fields they see no use for, whatever the CRM.
• Transcription often belongs to the dialer, so a change of dialer can remove it overnight.
• Deal fields drift unless something updates them after each call.

How we built this comparison

We kept the six CRMs sales teams most often shortlist for calling and call logging, and compared them on five criteria:

• How calls get logged: a built-in phone, a native dialer add-on, or a dialer integration such as Aircall, RingCentral or Dialpad.
• Recording and transcription: which plan records calls, which plan transcribes them, and the limits.
• Price to do the job: the cheapest plan that records calls, with required add-ons and onboarding fees.
• AI on top of the call: summaries, call insights and field updates.
• Reviews: G2 rating and review count.

Our own call data comes from Claap's sales meetings between October 2025 and October 2026. A buyer is included only when someone at that company said in their own words which CRM they run, and a complaint only when a buyer described it. Prospects who book a call with a company like ours are more likely than average to have this problem, so read the percentages as what buyers shopping for help say, and the HubSpot versus Salesforce split as directional.

Important note: Gong, Salesloft and Outreach come up in the same searches. They are conversation intelligence and sales engagement tools that sit on top of a CRM, so they are out of this ranking.

1. HubSpot, best for mid-size teams that want one easy tool

HubSpot is the safe pick for a team of 10 to 50 reps that wants calling, recording and transcripts in the CRM without an admin. The catch is the plan: transcription needs a Professional or Enterprise seat, so budget for that seat from day one.

Who HubSpot works best for

• Mid-size sales teams that want reps productive within days.
• Teams already using HubSpot for marketing.
• Managers who want recordings and transcripts on the contact and deal timeline.

HubSpot overview

HubSpot Sales Hub lets reps call from the CRM, record the call and log it on the contact, company and deal. On Professional and Enterprise seats, HubSpot also transcribes the recording and adds call reviews and coaching (HubSpot knowledge base). The call lands on the timeline as an activity: the deal properties your forecast reads still need a rep or a workflow to change them.

HubSpot pricing

• Free CRM: $0 for up to 2 users (HubSpot pricing).
• Starter: $15 per seat per month billed yearly, with 500 calling minutes a month (HubSpot pricing).
• Professional: $90 per seat per month billed yearly, 3,000 calling minutes, transcription and conversation intelligence, plus a one-time $1,500 onboarding fee (HubSpot's pricing guide).
• Enterprise: $150 per seat per month billed yearly, 12,000 calling minutes, plus a one-time $3,500 onboarding fee (HubSpot's pricing guide).

For 10 reps who need transcripts, year one on Professional comes to $12,300 on HubSpot's list prices: $90 × 10 seats × 12 months, plus $1,500 onboarding.

HubSpot integrations

• Native calling inside the CRM, plus dialers such as Aircall and RingCentral from the App Marketplace.
• Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams for meeting recordings.

HubSpot pros and cons

Pros:

• Calls log to the right contact and deal without a click.
• Reps learn it fast.
• Recordings, transcripts and coaching sit in the same tool.

Cons:

• Transcription needs Professional seats, the jump from Starter is large.
• Onboarding fees land on top of year one.
• The AI call summary stays an activity note: deal fields still need a person or a workflow.

What G2 reviewers say about HubSpot

HubSpot Sales Hub holds 4.4 out of 5 across more than 13,400 reviews on G2. Reviewers praise ease of use and automation, and complain about cost as the team grows and features gated to higher tiers.

2. Salesforce, best for large teams with an admin

Salesforce is the right call for an enterprise team with complex deals and an admin or a partner to set up calling. A team without that person pays for power it leaves switched off.

Who Salesforce works best for

• Sales organizations above 50 reps, with several teams and regions.
• Companies that need custom objects, approval flows and strict permissions.
• Teams with a Salesforce admin or an implementation partner.

Salesforce overview

Salesforce is the largest CRM vendor, ranked first by IDC for the thirteenth year in a row with a 20.0% market share (Salesforce newsroom). Calls come in through Sales Dialer, a paid add-on, or through a telephony partner. Einstein Conversation Insights transcribes calls and flags topics such as competitors and pricing across every recording (Salesforce Trailhead).

Salesforce pricing

• Starter Suite: $25 per user per month billed yearly, for up to 10 users (Redress Compliance).
• Pro Suite: $100 per user per month billed yearly (eesel's Salesforce pricing guide).
• Enterprise: about $175 per user per month billed yearly since the August 2025 increase (Redress Compliance).
• Sales Dialer: from $5 per user per month, with call minutes billed on top (Salesforce).
• Einstein Conversation Insights: included in Unlimited with 120 processed call hours per license per year, extra on Enterprise (Salesforce Trailhead).

Salesforce integrations

• Sales Dialer, or telephony partners such as Dialpad, RingCentral and Aircall.
• Einstein Conversation Insights connects to Zoom, Sales Dialer, Dialpad and RingCentral.
• The AppExchange for the rest of the stack.

Salesforce pros and cons

Pros:

• Fits complex sales processes with several teams.
• Call insights search topics across every recorded call.
• Every major sales tool integrates with it.

Cons:

• Calling and call insights are add-ons or higher editions.
• Setup needs an admin or a partner.
• Reps need formal training before they use it well.

What G2 reviewers say about Salesforce

Salesforce Sales Cloud holds 4.4 out of 5 across more than 25,300 reviews on G2, the largest review base in this list. Reviewers give its setup lower marks than HubSpot's.

3. Close, best for high-volume outbound

Close is the pick for an SDR or inside sales team that makes dozens of calls a day. The phone is part of the CRM, and the Power Dialer moves to the next lead the moment a call ends.

Who Close works best for

• Outbound and inside sales teams under 50 reps.
• Startups that want calling, SMS and email in one tool.
• Managers who want call activity per rep without a separate dialer.

Close overview

Close has calling, SMS and email built in, and logs each call on the lead. Essentials records calls with 30-day retention, and Scale keeps recordings with no time limit and adds a predictive dialer (Costbench). AI transcription and call summaries come from Call Assistant, a paid add-on (Costbench's hidden-costs breakdown).

Close pricing

• Solo: $9 per month billed yearly, for one user (Costbench).
• Essentials: $35 per user per month billed yearly, with call recording (Costbench).
• Growth: $99 per user per month billed yearly, with the Power Dialer and workflows (Hackceleration).
• Scale: $139 per user per month billed yearly, with unlimited recording retention and the predictive dialer (Hackceleration).
• Calls: billed by usage, about $0.013 per minute in the US (MarketBetter).

Close integrations

• Built-in phone, SMS and email.
• Zapier connectors, including a trigger on new call recordings.
• Dialers such as CloudTalk and JustCall through Zapier.

Close pros and cons

Pros:

• The phone is part of the CRM, nothing else to set up.
• The Power Dialer cuts dead time between calls.
• Reps rate it easy to use.

Cons:

• Transcription and summaries cost extra.
• Call minutes are billed on top of the seat.
• Recordings are kept 30 days below the Scale plan (Costbench).

What G2 reviewers say about Close

Close holds 4.7 out of 5 across more than 2,000 reviews on G2, the highest rating in this list. Reviewers praise its design and support, and mention mobile app limits and usage charges they did not expect.

4. Pipedrive, best for small teams with a dialer

Pipedrive suits a small team that thinks in pipeline stages and already pays for a dialer. It has no phone of its own: Pipedrive closed its native Caller to new customers in October 2022 (Pipedrive support).

Who Pipedrive works best for

• Small sales teams that want a visual, drag-and-drop pipeline.
• Teams already paying for Aircall, CloudTalk or JustCall.
• Founders who want a CRM reps like using.

Pipedrive overview

Pipedrive organizes deals on a visual board, and call tracking comes from Marketplace dialers. With Aircall, calls log on their own, the AI call summary lands in the activity note and the recording attaches to the deal (Pipedrive Marketplace).

Pipedrive pricing

• Lite: from $14 per seat per month billed yearly (Zeeg's Pipedrive pricing guide).
• Growth: $39 per seat per month billed yearly (Zeeg's Pipedrive pricing guide).
• Dialer: Aircall starts around $30 per user per month, on top of the Pipedrive seat (CloudTalk).

Pipedrive integrations

• Dialers: Aircall, CloudTalk, JustCall and others from the Marketplace.
• Aircall lets admins choose per call type whether a call logs as an open activity, a closed one or nothing.
• Zoom and Google Meet through Marketplace apps.

Pipedrive pros and cons

Pros:

• Easy to set up and easy for reps to keep current.
• The board shows where each deal is stuck.
• Low entry price.

Cons:

• No built-in phone, so every team pays for a dialer too.
• Transcription and AI summaries depend on the dialer.
• Reporting stays light for large teams.

What G2 reviewers say about Pipedrive

Pipedrive holds 4.3 out of 5 across about 3,000 reviews on G2, with high ease-of-use scores. Most reviewers work at small businesses.

5. Freshsales, best for the lowest price with a built-in phone

Freshsales gives a small team calling and call recording inside the CRM on its cheapest paid plan. Choose it when budget decides, and expect to pay extra for transcription.

Who Freshsales works best for

• Small teams on a tight budget.
• Teams that want phone, email and chat in one CRM.
• Companies already on Freshdesk or other Freshworks products.

Freshsales overview

Freshsales includes a built-in cloud phone with call recording, call logs, voicemail and numbers in more than 90 countries (Business News Daily). Freddy AI Copilot, a paid add-on, adds AI meeting notes and call transcription (AI Tools Atlas).

Freshsales pricing

• Free: $0 for up to 3 users (Costbench).
• Growth: $9 per user per month billed yearly, with the built-in phone and call recording (Costbench).
• Pro: $39 per user per month billed yearly (Costbench).
• Enterprise: $59 per user per month billed yearly (Costbench).

Freshsales integrations

• Built-in phone, email and chat.
• Freshworks apps such as Freshdesk.
• Zoom and Google Workspace through the Freshworks Marketplace.

Freshsales pros and cons

Pros:

• Calling and recording at the lowest paid price in this list.
• A free plan for very small teams.
• One vendor for phone and CRM.

Cons:

• AI transcription needs the Copilot add-on.
• Fewer third-party integrations than HubSpot or Salesforce.
• Reviewers find the settings crowded.

What G2 reviewers say about Freshsales

Freshsales holds 4.5 out of 5 across 1,235 reviews on G2.

6. Zoho CRM, best for teams already on Zoho

Zoho CRM gives the most features per dollar and makes sense when the team already runs on Zoho apps. Skip it if your calls are not in English: Zia transcribes English only.

Who Zoho CRM works best for

• Cost-conscious teams that need a full CRM.
• Companies already on Zoho Mail, Zoho Books or Zoho Voice.
• English-speaking teams, for call transcription.

Zoho CRM overview

Zoho CRM connects to telephony providers from its marketplace. With recording on, Zia transcribes calls and writes a one- or two-line summary with sentiment and intent, up to 300 hours of calls a month per organization (Zoho).

Zoho CRM pricing

• Free: $0 for up to 3 users (Zeeg's Zoho pricing guide).
• Standard: $14 per user per month billed yearly (Zeeg's Zoho pricing guide).
• Professional: $23 per user per month billed yearly (Zeeg's Zoho pricing guide).
• Enterprise: $40 per user per month billed yearly, with the full Zia assistant (Zeeg's Zoho pricing guide).

Zoho CRM integrations

• Telephony: RingCentral, Zoom Phone and other providers from the Zoho marketplace.
• Zoho's own apps for email, accounting and support.
• Dialers such as Kixie for power dialing and call logging.

Zoho CRM pros and cons

Pros:

• Low seat prices on every tier.
• Call summaries with sentiment and intent through Zia.
• A free plan for very small teams.

Cons:

• Calling needs a separate telephony provider.
• Call transcription is English only.
• The interface feels older than HubSpot or Freshsales.

What G2 reviewers say about Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM holds 4.1 out of 5 across 2,893 reviews on G2, the lowest rating in this list.

Keep your CRM and let each call fill its fields

A quick note: Claap is our product. To keep this comparison fair, we relied on third-party reviews and linked every major claim to its source.

Most teams searching for a call-tracking CRM already have one. If your phone setup works and the fields stay empty, a migration buys you months of data moves and retraining, and the new CRM still logs the call as a note.

Claap fills your CRM fields from each conversation instead:

• Typed values in your own properties. Claap writes the next step, the close date, the champion or the objections into HubSpot and Salesforce fields as text, dates, numbers or ratings, so reports can filter on them.
• Rules per field. "Only if empty" leaves a value a rep typed alone, "append" builds a running list of objections, and "always overwrite" keeps the latest next step.
• Calls from your dialer. Aircall, Ringover, Allo and lemlist VoIP calls come in natively, transcribed in 99+ languages (Claap dialer recording).
• Pipedrive and Attio connect too, and Zapier, Make, n8n and webhooks cover the rest.

Claap Basic is free, and Pro costs $32 and Business $60 per seat per month billed yearly (Claap pricing). CRM field filling and AI coaching are on Business. Claap holds 4.6 out of 5 across more than 480 reviews on G2.

Use Claap on top of your CRM when your reps already have a phone they like and the deal fields are the problem. Skip it if your team logs every call by hand already and your managers trust the fields.

How to set up call tracking in your CRM

• Pick where the phone lives. Choose between the CRM's own phone and a dialer integration, and make sure only one of them records each call, so you don't store duplicates.
• Track outcomes beyond minutes. Track connected conversations, calls that end with a booked next step, and talk-to-listen ratio, per rep.
• Map the fields each call should fill. List the fields managers read in pipeline reviews (next step, close date, budget, competitor) and decide which ones a rep fills and which ones the call fills.

For a step-by-step on one CRM, see our guide to tracking sales calls in Salesforce. For activity metrics beyond calls, see our comparison of sales tracking software.

Call recording consent and your CRM

• United States: federal law needs one party's consent, and about a dozen states, including California, Florida and Illinois, need every party's consent (Viirtue's state guide). Our guide to one-party consent states has the full list.
• Europe: under GDPR a recorded voice is personal data. Tell people about the recording, set a retention period and handle deletion requests.
• Automate the disclosure with a pre-call announcement or a visible recording bot, so reps don't have to remember a script.

Best CRM for tracking sales calls: takeaways

• Choose HubSpot if you want one easy tool and can pay for Professional seats, because transcription lives there.
• Choose Salesforce when you run a complex, multi-team process and have an admin, because its call insights need configuring.
• Pick Close if your reps make dozens of calls a day, because its Power Dialer removes the dead time between calls.
• Pick Pipedrive when you already pay for Aircall or another dialer, and Freshsales when budget decides.
• Skip Zoho CRM if your calls are not in English, because Zia transcribes English only.
• Start with the fields before you change CRM, because a new CRM inherits the same empty fields. Let each call fill them, with a workflow or with Claap.

This advice is wrong if your reps already keep every field complete by hand and managers trust the forecast: then your problem is the phone setup, and the list above is all you need.