Client portals have long been a popular service-based business tool, gaining even more prominence as businesses ramp up digitized processes. Up to 90% of customers now expect 24/7 self-service options, so if you're searching for a CRM, it makes sense to choose one with client portal functionality built in, for an integrated approach to customer management.
To simplify your search, we’ve curated the 5 best CRM solutions with client portals, covering features, use cases, pros, cons, and pricing.
What is a CRM with a client portal?
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems help businesses streamline interactions with their past, current, and potential customers. They centralize customer data, communication, and support tickets so that no opportunity or customer detail falls through the cracks.
However, customers can still face delays when waiting for support or sales representatives on simple tasks like accessing invoices, checking order history, or updating details. A client portal solves this by offering a user-friendly interface, enabling customers to handle these tasks on their own, without needing to contact sales or support teams, or dig through emails.
An integrated CRM and client portal offers the dual benefit of making internal processes more efficient and giving clients the autonomy they increasingly expect.
Why do businesses need a CRM with client portal functionality?
Here are the key workflows and benefits a CRM with a built-in client portal enables:
- Allows customers to self-serve information by simply logging into the customer portal and seeing only information that's relevant to them. This reduces the need for back-and-forth communication and manual checks.
- Centralizes customer data so that different teams (e.g., sales, marketing, support) can share information and updates on customer accounts.
- Improves response times by enabling customers to send inquiries, track support progress, upload documents, or even pay invoices, all from a single spot.
- Makes it easier for teams to collaborate effectively by keeping all customer information in one place for easy access, and ensuring it’s always up to date.
- Maintains transparency with customers by providing clients with the autonomy to access, edit, and delete their information via a client portal.
8 key features to consider when choosing a CRM with client portal
1. Centralized customer data management
CRM client portals centralize the storage and management of client data for seamless sharing or editing of customer information. With the latest CRM data, sales and support teams can provide on-point service delivery that aligns and updates as the customer’s needs change.
For example, sales teams can quickly view a client’s purchase history and tailor their approach for improved conversion.
2. Customizable client access and permissions
A good client portal allows you to control who has access to specific information. This feature allows your clients to see only what’s relevant to them, thus maintaining confidentiality and securing sensitive customer data.
For example, finance teams can grant clients access to billing information while restricting other sections.
3. Automated data updates and synchronization
Updating client data manually over basic apps like Google Sheets CRM templates leads to errors or duplications. With automated data updates using syncing or capturing, your teams save resources on ensuring data accuracy.
For example, when a client updates their contact details, the CRM automatically syncs this across all departments.
4. CRM with self-service portals for clients to view and update their information
CRM with self-service portals allows customers to view or update their data, track orders, or review project status. This leads to faster resolutions and fewer support requests as customers learn to navigate the portal and services independently.
For example, a client can download past invoices or update their address without contacting support.
5. Integration with other business tools and systems (e.g., email, calendars)
To reduce the investment of resources for manual data migration between the existing software stack and CRM client portals, make sure the chosen CRM provides robust integrations. Check for seamless integration with essential business tools like email platforms, calendars, digital business cards, or accounting software for an effective and streamlined transition.
For example, A sales representative can schedule follow-ups directly from the CRM by syncing with their Google Calendar.
6. Real-time tracking of customer interactions and history
The key to effective and unified customer experience lies in having access to past and real-time customer interactions. It helps customize current interactions for effective resolution and prepare for future customer expectations.
For example, the support team can review previous chats to resolve issues more efficiently.
7. Collaboration features for team and departmental communication
With integrated client portals, both internal teams and customers can share documents, feedback, and updates in real-time. Your teams stay on the same page for faster processing of this CRM data for their use.
For example, the sales and support teams can share notes on a client to provide consistent service.
8. Security and compliance features
Businesses in highly regulated and competitive markets have to invest in customer data security to comply with regulatory requirements. Hence, opt for a CRM client portal that offers robust encryption, user authentication, and data accessibility features.
For example, a GDPR-compliant CRM ensures compliance, thus reducing any extra efforts or investment in additional measures.
Looking for client portal design inspirations? — explore 5 client portal example design.
Top 5 CRM with client portal solutions for enhanced and effective customer management
1. Softr
Softr is a no-code app builder that enables you to build a custom CRM with client portal, using data from Google Sheets, Airtable, HubSpot, and more. Its 20+ integrations, data syncing features, and ready-to-use CRM templates make it a perfect no-code tool to transition towards digitizing and scaling your customer relationship management workflows.
Get started by editing the sales CRM template, then reviewing the client portal template, as per your customer management requirements.
Softr key features
- Seamless data integration: Connect to your existing data sources — including Airtable, Google Sheets, and HubSpot — to consolidate your contacts and deals in one user-friendly CRM.
- Modern building blocks: Make it easy for users to visualize and interact with customer data and deal flow with modern building blocks: Lists, Kanban, Charts, Forms, Inbox, and more.
- Advanced permissions: Tailor CRM views and access for different user groups with advanced permissions, ensuring each team member sees and edits only what they need for their specific roles.
- Built-in conditional forms: Capture lead information, help desk requests, feedback, and more — no third party tools required.
- Branding features like custom domain, form fields, styling, and workflow automation.
Softr benefits
- Great for scaling existing CRM spreadsheets and customer data by adding a user-friendly interface.
- After you build your CRM, you can add a client-facing portal with custom permissions.
- Customize layout and logic based on your team and client needs.
- Centralize dashboard and reporting for customers and teams.
- GDPR and SOC2-compliant enterprise-grade security features
- Get both the web app and Progressive Web App (PWA) for mobile access.
Softr pros
- Easy setup and user-friendly builder
- Generous free plan with free custom domain
- Excellent support and resources ecosystem for new builders
Softr cons
- Limited support for marketing automation.
Softr use cases
- Small-to-medium businesses can transition from Google Sheets-based customer management to building custom CRM client portals without investing in expensive IT resources.
- Freelancers or solopreneurs can grow their businesses with an affordable and easy-to-use no-code CRM to streamline client interactions.
- Enterprises can integrate Softr’s custom CRM with existing databases and software to centralize client interactions and team collaboration.
- Agencies or consultants can improve client relationships by maintaining transparency about project progress, invoices, conversation history, contracts, etc with a client portal dashboard.
Softr pricing
- Free plan: allows publishing one app for up to 10 users with basic features and a custom domain. This is enough for a small business to test and launch their custom CRM client portal.
- Paid plans: to add more users, use custom code, and advanced security features, explore their paid plans starting at $49/month (paid yearly).
2. Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM is a part of the Zoho One suite that helps you streamline and automate your customer management workflows. Its CRM client portal with contextual AI helps craft emails, converse with customers, and gain customer insights with AI business intelligence.
Zoho CRM key features
- Workflow automation to create advanced conditional logic and AI automation flows
- 1000+ integrations under Zoho Marketplace to enhance CRM capabilities.
- Canvas Design Studio allows the custom design of CRM and client portals without using custom code.
- AI assistant Zia predicts sales outcomes, suggests the best times to contact leads, or analyzes email sentiment.
Zoho CRM benefits
- It provides many customization options for designing user interfaces, workflows, and branded styling.
- Integration with ChatGPT and Business Intelligence (BI) tools promotes productive and faster decision-making.
- Offers affordable pricing for startups and small businesses, with advanced features that scale for larger enterprises.
Zoho CRM pros
- Responsive customer support team
- Cost-effective solution for small businesses
- Mobile app access
Zoho CRM cons
- Poorly designed default user experience places a learning curve for new users.
- The user interface is slow to load and operate onto
- Small businesses may not benefit from too many available features versus the price paid.
- Not suitable for enterprises as they might find features limiting compared to other options on the market.
- Limited support resources for DIY troubleshooting
Zoho CRM use cases
- Small businesses looking to adopt AI automation for their CRM data and workflows.
- Businesses looking to use no-code tools to create CRM client portals from scratch.
- Organizations looking to adopt multiple Zoho products can opt for Zoho CRM as a part of their customer management software stack.
Zoho CRM pricing
- Free plan: allows access to Zoho CRM platform for up to 3 users
- Paid plan: to add more users, their entry standard plan starts at $15/user/month. To access their multi-user customer portal, you need to purchase their Enterprise plan at $36/user/month.
3. Salesforce Sales Cloud
Salesforce offers CRM with a self-service portal as a part of its Salesforce's Service Cloud. It focuses on enhancing customer interactions and streamlining support processes by providing customers with the tools they need to assist themselves.
Salesforce Sales Cloud key features
- Peer-to-peer forum to allow customers to ask and answer questions with personalized feed.
- Einstein bots are multilingual chatbots that can capture queries across multiple channels and use CRM data to resolve them.
- Experience builder helps design branded CRM with a self-service portal using low code to create custom style pages, flows, and app design.
Salesforce Sales Cloud benefits
- Knowledge management features enabled with AI help create a unified knowledge base sourced from third-party software and client data.
- Salesforce provides multichannel support and integrations.
- The self-service platform is optimized for both desktop and mobile devices.
Salesforce Sales Cloud pros
- Comprehensive configuration choices to integrate knowledge, support, and customer management workflows.
- Availability of DIY resources to upskill in the Salesforce software ecosystem.
- Provides a 360-degree view of the customer across channels.
- Advanced reporting capabilities.
Salesforce Sales Cloud cons
- Complex initial setup with a steep learning curve.
- Requires investing in Salesforce consultants for any feature additions or changes.
- Expensive and complicated pricing plans, add-ons, and support purchases make it unsuitable for small businesses with limited budgets.
Salesforce Sales Cloud use cases
Salesforce solutions are suitable for large enterprises that can afford to invest in dedicated Salesforce resources and align with pricing structures as the business grows. It is also suitable for brands aiming to foster community via forums and use Generative AI for sales and CRM automation.
Salesforce Sales Cloud pricing
- Free plan: Salesforce provides a 30-day free plan.
- Paid plan: The annual contracts for the customer management platform start from $24/user/month, but to access self-service portals you need to purchase their Enterprise plan starting at $165/user/month. Note that there are separate charges for support and advisory packages depending on your chosen licenses.
4. Zendesk
Zendesk’s CRM client portal software focuses on enabling businesses to personalize their customer management workflows. It uses AI to help you invest your resources right — for example, it will tell you which help articles require updates and new topics to cover based on customer interactions.
Zendesk key features
- Design help centers to centralize knowledge management for customers to access articles, FAQs, and guides on demand.
- Analytics and reporting help monitor article views, community engagement, and customer satisfaction metrics.
- Automated responses based on past and current customer conversations.
Zendesk benefits
- Helps reduce the costs of maintaining active support channels
- Reduces effort required to resolve per ticket with customer insights and automated responses.
- User-friendly software negates the requirement of developers or consultants for setup.
Zendesk pros
- Robust knowledge base features that continuously improve due to AI-driven insights.
- Simple user interface with core features set.
- Helps track support and sales team performance.
Zendesk cons
- Purchasing add-ons and plugins for additional features impact ROI on Zendesk for small businesses.
- Reviews report slow loading and refresh rates.
- Slow response time by Zendesk’s support team.
- High-pricing plans make it unaffordable for small businesses.
- Vendor-lock-in with the Zendesk platform can impact productivity — for example, you can’t send an email directly to a team member, they need to open Zendesk to view the email.
Zendesk use cases
Zendesk is suitable for medium to large businesses looking to focus on knowledge management to implement a robust help center for customers. Its multilingual support also makes it suitable for global companies catering to diverse customers.
Zendesk pricing
- Free plan: Zendesk offers a 14-day free trial for its professional plan. Startups can apply for 6-month free access.
- Paid plan: The team plan starts from $55/agent/month. But to access the self-service customer portal, you need to choose their growth plan or beyond starting at $89/agent/month.
5. Odoo CRM
Odoo provides a comprehensive suite of open-source business apps, including a customer relationship management (CRM) system. The CRM client portal can provide access to important customer documents, progress, reports, and more by designing personalized portal access.
Odoo key features
- Allow read-only access to customers, thus ensuring data integrity while still providing transparency.
- Notify, onboard, and authorize customers to edit their details and streamline support.
- Multi-user access management system helps effectively manage clients and stakeholders.
Odoo benefits
- Businesses do not need to separately create customer portals.
- Reduces customer support tickets related to status updates.
- An intuitive user interface minimizes the learning curve for new and non-technical users.
Odoo pros
- Offers a simple way to have a CRM client portal without significant investment.
- Odoo's free plan allows unlimited users making it great for small businesses or large teams.
- Open-source software
- Access to complete Odoo business apps at a single pricing plan.
Odoo cons
- Lacks adequate customization features
- Paid setup and customer support
- Reviews report a buggy CRM platform and customers still got charged for the support.
- Limited documentation makes it tough for users to customize CRM and its setup.
Odoo use cases
Odoo suits small businesses looking to digitize without significant investment or technical resources. However, Odoo lacks customization, scalability, and AI automation features, which makes it unsuitable for enterprise businesses.
Odoo pricing
- Free plan: provides forever free plan on one app with unlimited users.
- Paid plan: to use their cloud-hosting, Odoo studio, and external API, their paid plans start at $9/user/month.
5 best CRM software with client portal — compared
How to implement and optimize CRM with client portals?
Choosing client portal features in CRM software doesn't automatically enable customer self-service strategy — you must ensure it aligns with your customer management issues.
These 8 steps to adopt CRM customer portal software will align your operational workflows:
- Define CRM customer portal requirements by listing problems and corresponding CRM features that help solve the problem. For example, if your team struggles with tracking customer interactions, prioritize CRMs that offer robust interaction history features.
- Choose the best CRM client portal software that includes the required features, integrates with your existing software, and can scale as the business grows. Check for industry alignment too — for example, one may want to check CRM for law firms to explore dedicated features that cater to this industry.
- Set up your CRM system by redesigning default settings or available templates, importing and mapping existing data, configuring user roles, and designing KPIs to track CRM customer portal performance.
- Customize CRM customer portals with branded styling and intuitive user interface.
- Implement automation workflows like automated notifications, data synchronization, and scheduled follow-ups.
- Train your team to use the designed CRM solutions for client management as intended. Conduct pilot tests to gauge adoption and identify gaps.
- Monitor improvement in sales and support team performance based on set KPIs and actively track them for your chosen CRM customer portal.
- Optimize CRM workflows and user experience design of the CRM customer portal to meet the KPI standards.
Edit Softr’s custom CRM template to get started
If you're unsure whether a CRM with self-service portal features suits your business, Softr offers a generous free plan to test it out. Get started with a pre-made sales CRM template (+ instructional video here).
You can then add more features when you need them, like Kanban, providing payment options to customers, setting global data restrictions, and more.
All this, without writing a single line of code — explore Softr no-code app builder today.
What is Softr
Softr is the easiest way to turn your data into powerful business apps—no code required. Connect to your spreadsheet or database, customize layout and logic, and share with your team or clients.
Join 700,000+ users worldwide, building client portals, internal tools, CRMs, dashboards, project management systems, inventory management apps, and more—all without code.
Join 700,000+ users worldwide, building client portals, internal tools, CRMs, dashboards, project management systems, inventory management apps, and more—all without code.
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Harshala Chavan
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