As a painting contractor, your world is spreadsheets, leads, patterns, and collaboration. But with a business to grow and so much information to store, the last thing you need is disorganization getting in the way of making sales.
Time is a painting contractor’s ally, but if you don’t plan hours accordingly or waste hours on paperwork, time can become an enemy.
CRM allows painting contractors to stay organized, save time, and manage their business more efficiently.
Whether you’re just starting out as a painting contractor or have been in the business for years, customer relationship management (CRM) software will change the way your business communicates.
CRMs manage relationships, generate proposals, track projects, send emails, follow up on leads, and more. Some software will even automate, market your business, and keep up with your team.
The best CRM for painting contractors will replace the multitude of spreadsheets and databases cluttering your desktop with a single place to keep track of data.
How can a CRM help painting contractors?
You might be thinking that CRM sounds great, but why uproot your current system to use a CRM instead? How is a CRM better than a spreadsheet for painting contractors?
- Holds more data and tracks dynamic data
- Easily collaborate with your entire team by compiling all the date from your sales leads
- Identify consumer patterns and learn insights that lead to higher profitability
- Personalize outgoing or follow-up messages
- Automate the boring stuff like assigning tasks or sending follow-up emails
When choosing a CRM, the most important factors that painting contractors should consider are whether or not the CRM has the ability to export contacts and offers advanced Zapier integrations. It should be able to integrate with your estimating and project management tools.
You’ll also want to consider the cost of a subscription and what that subscription provides.
It may be tempting to choose a CRM that provides a boatload of features, but unless they’re necessary for your business, it’s not worth the extra money. Remember, you can always upgrade later.
And look into how nice the user interface is and what native automations the platform provides. Automations can deliver marketing campaigns, create template emails, send content to new leards, and more, so it’s an aspect that you shouldn’t overlook.
Lastly, if you’re a new business or are looking at a CRM with a difficult learning curve, it’s worth considering how quick the platform’s support team is and if they assist with onboarding. Support teams with instant chats or quick calls are ideal when setting up. No one wants to sit for hours listening to music they don’t like while on hold.
Now that you know the benefits of using CRM software, let’s look at the best CRMs for painting contractors.
The Best CRM for Painting Contractors
After careful research, we’ve come up with the best CRMs for painting contractors. We’ll get into the pros and cons, pricing, and benefits below.
- Pipeline
- Monday.com
- Hubspot
- Pipedrive
- HighLevel
#1 – Pipeline
One of the best CRMs for painting contractors is Pipeline, a sales-focused platform that offers easy setup, seamless integrations, and intuitive tools that help teams close deals faster.
This platform is Cloud-based and syncs in real-time, making it easy to collaborate and ensure your team stays on track. With Pipeline, your sales team can easily track leads, organize workflow, and manage your customer base.
This CRM platform is great for painting contractors as it directly integrates with PaintScout, so you can seamlessly add all your contacts to your estimates. As well, leads can be automatically created and updated, so contracts are easy to create and finalize.
PROS
- Directly integrates with PaintScout so you can seamlessly add contacts from your Pipeline account onto your estimates
- Free phone support
- Advanced reporting tools
CONS
- Does not have texting capabilities
PRICING
14-Day Free Trial. Prices starting at $25/mo
#2 – Monday.com
Monday.com provides everything your team needs to execute their best work, from basic projects to complex portfolio management.
Bring your team together over a shared platform to move projects forward seamlessly and align everyone involved. Its layout is easy to read and color-coded, so staying organized is a breeze.
Monday.com is a good choice for painting contractors as it offers a flexible system that automates various processes to make keeping track of projects and customers much easier. This platform can also connect to an invoicing board, making it simple for you to pay sales reps their commission.
PROS
- Highly customizable
- 200+ templates for creating boards and automations
- Organizes data for various departments
- Automates processes
- 24/7 customer support
CONS
- Automations are limited by number of actions each month
- Cannot integrate video files
PRICING
Free plan available. Paid plans starting at $11/mo
#3 – HubSpot
HubSpot is an industry powerhouse in the digital marketing space. Their innovative CRM is aimed at small businesses and has a free workable option with premium add-ons available to tailor your needs.
The interface is user-friendly, and the platform seamlessly integrates with other HubSpot products.
This CRM is great for painting contractors as it can integrate with PaintScout by creating a zap with Zapier to automatically populate information into PaintScout each time a new contact is created. It also helps with the internal collection of data, organization, and task reminders.
PROS
- Easy to use interface
- Has a library of thousands of free integrations
- Has a free version for new businesses
- Easy communication with prospects and customers
CONS
- The bigger the contracts/business needs, the larger HubSpot package you’ll need
- Steep pricing
PRICING
Free plan available. Paid plans starting at $45/mo
#4 – Pipedrive
Pipedrive is an award-winning CRM software designed to help small to large businesses throughout the sales process.
Pipedrive’s visual sales pipeline makes customer relationship management a breeze by allowing you to track leads, spot opportunities, measure key activities, streamline sales workflows, and focus on sales success.
Pipedrive is great for painting contractors as it can help manage clients, easily listing all their information to make it accessible to your team. It also helps create a sales funnel, showing you detailed information about a client’s sales journey.
PROS
- Integrates with over 350 different apps
- Offers an intuitive interface and deal-driven workflow
- Very customizable sales pipeline
- Easy contact management
CONS
- Limited custom fields and reports on most plans
- Phone support only on highest tier
- Limited number of open deals running through sales pipeline
- No separation between lists of contacts and new leads
PRICING
Free plan available. Paid plans starting at $14.90/mo
#5 – HighLevel
HighLevel is an all-in-one marketing platform that offers all the tools you need to market your business without the need to integrate with other platforms.
It is designed to replace apps such as Mailchimp, Clickfunnels, Zapier, WordPress, and more. HighLevel aims to help with client acquisition, client retention, and search engine optimization.
If you’re a painting contractor using multiple apps and platforms, HighLevel is a great solution to narrow it all down to one platform. HighLevel lets you create a full website with landing pages and menus that you can show your client. This makes it easy for them to learn more about you, fill out forms, schedule appointments, and learn more about your business.
PROS
- Change your brand name and resell the software as your own
- Create your own sales pages, checkout process, etc.
- Import emails, workflows, SMS campaigns, and more
- Unlimited pages, flows, etc.
CONS
- Page editor/visuals are basic
- Expensive
- Big learning curve
PRICING
14-Day Free Trial. Paid plans starting at $97/mo
Final thoughts on the best CRM for painting contractors
No CRM is the same as another. Recommending one over the other, or choosing based on popularity or price, isn’t ideal when every business has different needs.
Whether you’re prepared to handle a huge learning curve or are looking for out-of-box solutions, the best CRM for painting contractors needs to suit the needs of your business.
To recap, here are our top five best CRMs for painting contractors:
