Is the top-ranked CRM on a review site the right one for my team?
Summary
Not necessarily. Review-site rankings mix user ratings with search popularity and company size, and Capterra says openly that sponsorship can affect the order of some lists. A ranking tells you which products are widely used and reasonably liked; whether one fits your sales process is something only a trial with your own deals can show, and most trials run 14 to 30 days.
How Capterra orders its lists
Capterra's Shortlist scores products on two things. Ratings come from user reviews written in the past 24 months, and Popularity comes from the average monthly search volume for a standard set of keywords about each product. Each is weighted and scaled to a value between 1 and 50, and a product needs at least 20 reviews on Capterra within 24 months to be considered.
Profiles are free for vendors, but a vendor can sponsor its profile to get premium placement in some marketplace content. For the "Best" lists, Capterra states that sponsorship has no influence on which products are selected, though it may affect the order they appear in. The CRM category page has a "Featured Partners" sort option.
What goes into a G2 Score
G2 builds its score from Satisfaction and Market Presence. Satisfaction leans hardest on ease of use, meeting requirements, and quality of support, and it gives more weight to recent reviews and to reviews collected without an incentive. Market Presence pulls in review counts plus employee counts from ZoomInfo, LinkedIn, and Crunchbase, revenue figures, and web traffic data, which means a large, well-known vendor scores higher on that half than a small one with equally happy users. Category pages are sorted by G2 Score by default.
How long you get to test
- Pipedrive: 14 days with full access, no credit card.
- monday CRM: 14 days, no credit card.
- Close: 14 days with no credit card, and a 30-day money-back guarantee after you pay.
- Zoho CRM: 15 days, no credit card, plus a free plan for up to three users.
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales: 30 days.
- HubSpot: no trial clock on the free plan, which covers up to two users.
Comparing prices on equal terms is covered in the effective-rate guide and the two-vendor comparison.
Sources
- https://www.capterra.com/resources/proprietary-data-research/
- https://www.capterra.com/customer-relationship-management-software/
- https://documentation.g2.com/docs/research-scoring-methodologies
- https://www.pipedrive.com/en/pricing
- https://monday.com/crm/pricing
- https://www.close.com/pricing
- https://www.zoho.com/crm/signup.html
- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics-365/free-trial
- https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/sales
Related on this site
- Every provider, with published prices
- Seat cost calculator
- How to read the effective-per-seat column, and why ten seats
- How to choose between two CRMs on price, and when not to
- How do Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive and four other well-known CRMs differ, and what does each cost to start?
- How far can a free CRM plan take you before it gets in the way?
Written by Kaz (pen name). Published September 27, 2026. The figures above come from the vendor and review-site pages listed under Sources. We have not used these products. Corrections: contact form.