Table of contents
Looking for an Octopus CRM alternative? You’re not alone. While Octopus CRM has built a solid reputation as a LinkedIn automation tool, it’s not the perfect fit for everyone. Maybe you’re outgrowing its LinkedIn-only focus, need better CRM capabilities, or want to explore other options before committing.
The good news? There are alternatives that might better match your needs—whether you need a full-featured CRM platform, better sales automation, or multichannel prospecting.
This guide walks through the top Octopus CRM alternatives, breaking down features, pricing, and ideal use cases to help you decide.
Why consider Octopus CRM alternatives?
Octopus CRM works well for LinkedIn-focused prospecting, but teams look for alternatives for several reasons:
- Limited to LinkedIn only: Octopus CRM exclusively focuses on LinkedIn automation, which is restrictive if you need to reach prospects across multiple channels like email, phone, or other platforms.
- Lack of full CRM functionality: While it offers a basic personal CRM, it doesn’t provide the contact management, pipeline tracking, and deal management features that growing sales teams typically need.
- Scalability concerns: As your team grows, you may need better analytics, team collaboration tools, and integration capabilities that go beyond basic LinkedIn automation.
- Pricing structure limitations: With plans ranging from $9.99 to $39.99 per month, the feature restrictions at lower tiers can be frustrating, and the unlimited plan might not offer enough value compared to full-featured CRM alternatives.
- Compliance and safety considerations: Some organizations have concerns about LinkedIn automation tools and prefer platforms with established enterprise-level security and compliance features.
Different tools excel at different things. The key is finding the one that aligns with your sales process, team size, and growth goals.
What to look for in an Octopus CRM alternative
When evaluating Octopus CRM alternatives, consider these factors:
- Core CRM functionality: Look for robust contact management, deal pipeline tracking, task automation, and activity logging that can serve as your central sales hub.
- Multichannel capabilities: Consider whether you need outreach across multiple channels (email, phone, social media) or if LinkedIn-focused tools are sufficient.
- Integration ecosystem: Evaluate how well the platform connects with your existing tech stack, including email providers, marketing tools, and other business applications.
- Team collaboration features: Assess whether the platform supports team workflows, shared inboxes, assignment capabilities, and performance tracking across multiple users.
- Scalability and pricing: Make sure the platform can grow with your business and that the pricing structure aligns with your budget at different stages of growth.
Understanding these criteria will help you identify which alternative best fits your requirements.
Top Octopus CRM Alternatives
1. HubSpot
Overview
HubSpot is an AI-powered customer platform that brings together marketing, sales, and customer service in one place. Used by over 278,000 customers in more than 135 countries, HubSpot offers a comprehensive ecosystem that goes far beyond basic LinkedIn automation. It’s designed for businesses that want to unify their entire go-to-market strategy, from initial lead capture through customer retention.
Key Features
Marketing Hub runs complete campaigns with personalized content, tracks performance across channels, and automates your marketing workflows to nurture leads.
Sales Hub automates prospecting, manages your entire sales pipeline, and helps close deals faster with built-in tools for lead generation, email tracking, and meeting scheduling.
Service Hub scales your customer support operations with help desk functionality, customer feedback tools, and automated ticket routing to improve satisfaction and retention.
Smart CRM serves as your single source of truth, connecting all your business data and providing insights that help teams work together.
Content Hub creates, manages, and distributes content throughout the customer journey, keeping everything organized and up-to-date in one centralized location.
Pros & Cons
👍 Pros:
- All-in-one platform covering marketing, sales, service, and CMS
- Powerful marketing automation capabilities
- Highly scalable for growing businesses
👎 Cons:
- Can get expensive quickly as you scale beyond free tools
- Rigid annual contracts for premium features
- Lower-tier plans have significant feature limitations
Pricing
HubSpot offers various pricing plans across different hubs (Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub, CMS Hub, and Operations Hub). Each hub has Starter, Professional, and Enterprise tiers with varying features and pricing. HubSpot also provides free tools to get started, with the option to upgrade as your needs grow.
Best For
Small to medium-sized businesses, startups, and enterprises looking to integrate their marketing, sales, and customer service operations on a single platform. Particularly beneficial for growth teams and marketing teams that need comprehensive automation and want to align their entire customer-facing operations.
2. Salesforce
Overview
Salesforce is the world’s leading CRM platform, integrating apps, data, and AI to improve sales, service, commerce, marketing, and IT operations. With industry-specific solutions and enterprise-grade features, Salesforce is designed for organizations that need a powerful, customizable CRM that can handle complex business processes at scale.
Key Features
Sales Cloud offers comprehensive CRM with lead management, opportunity tracking, sales forecasting, and process automation to help teams manage customer relationships and close deals.
Service Cloud provides enterprise-grade customer service tools including case management, automated support workflows, and a knowledge base to improve service efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Marketing Cloud enables personalized customer interactions across email, social media, and mobile channels, with advanced campaign management and customer journey mapping.
Pros & Cons
👍 Pros:
- Extremely powerful and customizable for enterprise needs
- Global accessibility and reliability
- Extensive integration capabilities with thousands of apps
👎 Cons:
- High cost and significant upfront investment required
- Complex setup and customization can be overwhelming
- Customer support can be slow for lower-tier plans
Pricing
Salesforce offers a Starter Suite for small businesses at 250 SEK per user per month. Enterprise pricing varies significantly based on the specific clouds and features needed. A 30-day free trial is available with no credit card required.
Best For
Enterprise clients, large sales teams, and organizations with complex sales processes. Particularly valuable for businesses in financial services, retail, healthcare, technology, and other industries that need highly customizable CRM solutions with advanced automation and analytics.
3. Pipedrive
Overview
Pipedrive is a sales-focused CRM designed to help sales teams manage leads, track activities, and close more deals. Trusted by over 100,000 companies worldwide, Pipedrive emphasizes simplicity and usability with its visual pipeline approach, making it easy for teams to see exactly where each deal stands and what actions need to be taken next.
Key Features
Visual Sales Pipeline offers a Kanban-style dashboard that lets you track deals and sales activities visually, making it easy to organize customer data and follow up on opportunities at the right time.
Sales Automation automates repetitive tasks like follow-ups and lead routing with workflow automations or ready-made templates, freeing up your team to focus on closing deals.
Insights and Reports provides real-time analytics and visual reports to track sales metrics, monitor performance, forecast revenue, and make data-driven decisions.
Pros & Cons
👍 Pros:
- Intuitive interface with highly customizable pipelines
- Fast onboarding process gets teams up and running quickly
- Excellent mobile accessibility for on-the-go sales teams
👎 Cons:
- Lacks advanced marketing automation features
- No native email campaign tools, requiring integrations
- Limited customization for reporting dashboards
Pricing
- Lite: $14/seat/month includes lead and pipeline management, AI-powered reports, 500+ integrations
- Growth: $39/seat/month adds email sync, automations, forecast reports, and live chat support
- Premium: $59/seat/month adds lead generation, custom scoring, and AI-powered email tools
- Ultimate: $79/seat/month adds better security, data enrichment, and extended support
All plans are billed annually, with add-ons available from $6.67 to $41/month. Pipedrive offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.
Best For
Small to medium-sized businesses and sales teams that need a straightforward, visual CRM focused on pipeline management and deal tracking. Particularly beneficial for startups and growing teams that prioritize ease of use and want to optimize their sales processes without overwhelming complexity.
4. Zoho CRM
Overview
Zoho CRM is a comprehensive customer relationship management platform that helps businesses convert leads, engage customers, and grow revenue through sales automation, AI-driven insights, and analytics. With customizable solutions for various industries and business sizes, Zoho CRM offers an affordable yet feature-rich alternative that can scale with your organization.
Key Features
Advanced Workflow Automation streamlines sales processes with no-code workflows and cadences that eliminate manual tasks and keep deals moving forward efficiently.
AI Assistance through Zia and ChatGPT integration provides smarter work capabilities, including email rewriting, anomaly detection, and predictive insights.
Real-time Customer Interaction engages customers contextually across multiple channels for better relationship building.
Pros & Cons
👍 Pros:
- Highly affordable compared to enterprise competitors
- Extensive customization options for unique business needs
- Seamless integration with other Zoho products and third-party applications
👎 Cons:
- Occasional performance issues reported by users
- Steep learning curve for new users unfamiliar with the platform
- Reporting features less robust than some competitors
Pricing
- Standard: €29/user/month billed annually
- Premium: €69/user/month billed annually
Best For
Small to medium-sized businesses, startups, and enterprises seeking a customizable and user-friendly CRM solution at an affordable price point. Particularly beneficial for sales, marketing, and customer support teams that require collaboration and automation.
Why not consider multichannel outreach?
If you’re evaluating Octopus CRM alternatives, you might also want to consider a different approach: multichannel outreach platforms. While the CRMs listed above excel at managing customer relationships and sales pipelines, they’re fundamentally different from what Octopus CRM actually does: automated prospecting and outreach.
La Growth Machine
La Growth Machine is a multichannel sales automation platform that takes the concept of LinkedIn automation several steps further. Instead of limiting your outreach to just LinkedIn like Octopus CRM, La Growth Machine lets you reach prospects across LinkedIn, email, Twitter/X, calls, and even voice messages—all from one platform.
Key Features
Multichannel Prospecting combines LinkedIn, email, calls, voice messages, and Twitter/X to reach leads on their preferred channels. This multichannel approach delivers up to 3.5x more replies than email-only outreach.
LinkedIn Voice Messages with AI Voice Cloning lets you record your message once, and AI clones your voice to personalize it for each prospect (saying “Hi {{Firstname}}”). This can double your response rates compared to standard text messages.
Lead Enrichment automatically enriches leads with verified emails using 9 providers, double validation, and scoring. Find missing information like job titles, company details, and contact information without manual research.
How La Growth Machine complements Octopus CRM
While Octopus CRM focuses on LinkedIn automation within a basic CRM framework, La Growth Machine specializes in multichannel prospecting automation. If you’re finding that LinkedIn-only outreach isn’t generating enough responses, or you want to test whether combining LinkedIn with email and other channels could improve your results, La Growth Machine offers a fundamentally different approach.
You could even use both: Octopus CRM for LinkedIn-specific automation within your workflow, and La Growth Machine when you need to run comprehensive multichannel campaigns that engage prospects wherever they’re most responsive.
Pricing
La Growth Machine offers transparent, all-inclusive pricing:
- Basic Plan: €50/month per identity
- Pro Plan: €100/month (includes Lookalike Search, LinkedIn Intent Data, Social Warming)
- Ultimate Plan: €150/month (adds advanced CRM integrations and webhooks)
- Agency Plan: 20% discount for agencies
All plans include a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.
Octopus CRM alternatives compared
| Tool | Starting Price | Free Trial | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Octopus CRM | $9.99/month | 7 days | LinkedIn-only automation on a budget |
| HubSpot | Free tools available, paid plans vary | Available | All-in-one marketing, sales, and service platform |
| Salesforce | 250 SEK/user/month | 30 days | Enterprise-grade CRM with advanced customization |
| Pipedrive | $14/seat/month | 14 days | Visual sales pipeline management for SMBs |
| Zoho CRM | €29/user/month | Available | Affordable, customizable CRM for growing teams |
Which Octopus CRM alternative is right for you?
Choosing the right alternative depends on your specific needs and growth stage:
If you need a full-featured CRM ecosystem that unifies marketing, sales, and service, HubSpot or Salesforce might be your best bet. HubSpot works well for SMBs looking to scale, while Salesforce excels for enterprises with complex requirements.
If you want a straightforward, sales-focused CRM without the complexity, Pipedrive offers an intuitive visual pipeline approach that gets teams productive quickly. Zoho CRM provides similar capabilities at a lower price point, though with a steeper learning curve.
If you’re specifically looking for better prospecting results rather than CRM functionality, consider whether your challenge is really about managing relationships or about getting more responses from outreach. Tools like La Growth Machine solve a different problem: multichannel prospecting automation, which may be what you actually need.
Consider your channel strategy: Are you committed to LinkedIn-only outreach, or would you benefit from reaching prospects across multiple channels? If multichannel is important, you’ll want to evaluate tools specifically designed for that purpose rather than traditional CRMs.
Frequently asked questions
What’s the main difference between Octopus CRM and traditional CRM platforms?
Octopus CRM is primarily a LinkedIn automation tool with basic CRM features, designed for prospecting and lead generation on LinkedIn. Traditional CRM platforms like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Pipedrive are comprehensive customer relationship management systems that handle the entire sales process from lead to customer, with features for pipeline management, deal tracking, team collaboration, and often multichannel communication.
Can I use LinkedIn automation tools like Octopus CRM alongside a CRM platform?
Yes, many teams use LinkedIn automation tools in conjunction with a full CRM platform. For example, you might use Octopus CRM for LinkedIn prospecting and outreach, then sync those leads to your main CRM (like HubSpot or Pipedrive) for relationship management and deal tracking. However, this creates workflow complexity and potential data sync issues.
Are there any risks to using LinkedIn automation tools?
LinkedIn has specific terms of service regarding automation, and using automation tools can potentially put your account at risk if not used carefully. Most reputable tools, including Octopus CRM, implement safety features like activity limits and randomized timing to mimic human behavior. However, it’s important to use automation responsibly, avoid excessive activity, and stay within LinkedIn’s guidelines.
How do multichannel prospecting platforms differ from LinkedIn-only tools?
Multichannel prospecting platforms let you reach prospects across multiple channels (LinkedIn, email, phone, social media) in coordinated sequences, typically resulting in higher response rates. LinkedIn-only tools like Octopus CRM are limited to LinkedIn automation. If prospects aren’t responsive on LinkedIn or you want to test different channels, multichannel platforms offer more flexibility and often better results.
What should I prioritize: CRM features or prospecting automation?
This depends on your current needs. If you’re managing existing customer relationships, tracking deals, and need team collaboration, prioritize CRM features. If your main challenge is generating new conversations with prospects and filling the top of your funnel, prospecting automation should be your focus. Many businesses need both but should evaluate which problem is more urgent to solve first.
Conclusion
While the CRM alternatives we’ve covered (HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, and Zoho) are all powerful platforms for managing customer relationships and sales pipelines, they serve a fundamentally different purpose than LinkedIn automation tools like Octopus CRM.
If you’re looking to replace Octopus CRM’s automation capabilities, consider whether you actually need a full CRM platform or a better prospecting tool. Many teams find that what they really need isn’t just a better CRM, but a better way to reach prospects across multiple channels.
La Growth Machine offers a compelling alternative if multichannel prospecting is your priority. By combining LinkedIn, email, voice messages, calls, and Twitter/X in one platform, you can get significantly better response rates than LinkedIn-only automation while still maintaining the automation benefits you value. And with features like AI voice cloning and advanced lead enrichment, you’re getting capabilities that go well beyond what traditional LinkedIn automation or even full CRM platforms typically offer.
The right choice ultimately depends on what problem you’re trying to solve: managing customer relationships or generating more conversations with prospects.
Get 3.5X more leads!
Do you want to improve the efficiency of your sales department? With La Growth Machine you can generate on average 3.5x more leads while saving an incredible amount of time on all your processes.
By signing up today, you’ll get a free 14-day trial to test our tool!
Comments