Best CRM for Financial Advisors: Which One Fits Your Workflow?

Most CRM advice for advisors sounds like this:

“Pick one and use it consistently.”

True, but not helpful.

A CRM is not a trophy you win. It’s a system you live inside. The best CRM is the one that fits how you actually work: how you prospect, how you follow up, how you track next steps, and how your team stays consistent when things get busy.

This guide helps you choose based on workflow, not hype.

First, decide what you really need your CRM to do

Before you compare logos and pricing pages, pick your “non-negotiables.” For most advisory firms, they fall into five buckets:

1) A single source of truth

Contacts, households, relationships, notes, and history in one place.

2) A follow-up engine

Tasks, workflows, reminders, and automation that prevent leads from going cold.

3) Advisor-friendly structure

Households, family relationships, COIs, beneficiaries, business entities.

4) Reporting you will actually use

Pipeline stages, activity tracking, follow-up completion, conversion rates.

5) Integrations that reduce duplicate work

Email and calendar sync, marketing tools, planning tools, custodial or portfolio systems (where applicable).

If a CRM can’t do #2 well, you’ll feel it. That’s where most “we have a CRM” practices quietly leak growth.

The 5 CRM “fit types” (pick the one that sounds like you)

Below are the most common advisor workflows, and which CRM category usually fits best.

Fit Type 1: “I want something built for advisors”

Best fit: Advisor-specific CRM (often Redtail, Wealthbox, Advyzon, etc.)

If you want household-centric data and fewer workarounds, “built for advisors” usually wins.

• Redtail positions itself as purpose-built for financial services, with a big emphasis on workflows and being audit-ready.
• Wealthbox positions itself as a modern, simple CRM for advisors, and is straightforward to adopt across a team.

Who this is best for: solo advisors, RIAs, small-to-mid firms that want CRM adoption to be realistic, not aspirational.

Fit Type 2: “I want a top-of-funnel CRM built for growth”

Best fit: Planswell

Traditional CRMs are built to manage relationships once they exist. They are great once someone is already a client, already a prospect, already in motion.

But if your main goal is growth, your biggest problem is not “Where do I store contact records?”
Your biggest problem is turning new connections into real conversations, and real conversations into clients.

That is where a top-of-funnel CRM wins.

Planswell is best for advisors who want a growth system that helps them:

• Identify and prioritize new households worth reaching out to
• Move quickly from first touch to booked meeting
• Keep follow-up consistent without spending hours doing admin work
• Build a reliable pipeline from new connections, not just manage an existing book

Who this is best for: advisors who are actively prospecting, want to grow faster, and need a workflow that supports outreach and conversion, not just contact storage.

How to think about it:
If a traditional CRM is the system you use to manage your book, Planswell is the system that helps you build it.

Fit Type 3: “I hate admin work and want speed”

Best fit: Wealthbox-style “lightweight, fast” CRM

If your biggest threat is “I won’t use it,” prioritize speed and daily usability.

Wealthbox publishes simple tiered pricing, starting at $59/user/month (Basic) and going up to $99/user/month (Premier).

Who this is best for: advisors who want a clean interface, quick logging, and strong adoption without a months-long setup project.

Fit Type 4: “My team needs process discipline”

Best fit: Redtail-style workflow-forward CRM

If you have staff, shared clients, and multiple moving parts, your CRM needs to enforce consistency.

Redtail emphasizes workflows, team coordination, and audit readiness.

Who this is best for: practices where service work and follow-ups must be trackable, not tribal knowledge.

Fit Type 5: “I mostly need a pipeline and follow-ups for growth”

Best fit: Any CRM that nails activity + follow-up, plus simple reporting

If you’re focused on prospecting and conversions, the CRM choice matters less than the system you build inside it:

• Pipeline stages that match your actual sales process
• Follow-up cadence templates
• Activity tracking you review weekly

This is also where a lot of CRM decisions go wrong: firms pick “powerful,” then never build the minimum system required to make it useful.

Fit Type 6: “I need maximum customization”

Best fit: Enterprise CRM (Salesforce FSC, Dynamics 365)

If you have multiple teams, custom processes, complex reporting requirements, and a dedicated admin or ops support, enterprise CRMs can be worth it.

• Salesforce Financial Services Cloud is priced starting at $350 USD per user/month billed annually (per Salesforce).
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 is often considered when firms want CRM tightly connected to broader business operations.

Who this is best for: larger firms, multi-location teams, firms with ops support, or firms that already live in Salesforce/Microsoft ecosystems.

Reality check: enterprise CRM success usually depends more on implementation than software.

The decision checklist (this beats “best CRM” lists)

Use these questions to narrow fast:

Workflow fit

• Do you work by household or by individual contact?
• Do you need relationship mapping (spouses, kids, COIs, entities)?

Follow-up execution

• Can you easily see:
  • who needs follow-up this week?
  • what the last touch was?
  • what the next action is?

Team usage

• Will staff actually log notes and tasks?
• Does it support handoffs without losing context?

Reporting

• Can you pull simple numbers without effort?
  • touches per week
  • booked meetings
  • conversion rates by stage

Total cost and time

• What will implementation cost you in hours?
• Do you need a consultant to make it usable?
• What will it cost per user when your team grows?

Quick guide: which CRM is “best” by scenario

• Best for simple adoption and speed: Wealthbox
• Best for advisor workflows and team process: Redtail
• Best for advanced customization at scale: Salesforce Financial Services Cloud
• Best if you want CRM tied into broader business ops: Dynamics 365

(Notice what’s missing: “best overall.” There isn’t one. There’s only “best for how you work.”)

How Planswell fits into your CRM choice

Your CRM is only as useful as the consistency of your follow-up and the quality of your outreach prioritization.

Planswell helps advisors reduce wasted effort by giving clearer context on households and a cleaner path to prioritizing outreach and next steps. When your follow-ups are more relevant and your outreach is better targeted, the CRM becomes easier to use because you’re not fighting ambiguity all day.

A simple “CRM setup” that works regardless of platform

If you do nothing else, set up these four things:

1. A pipeline with 5–7 stages (simple, clear, no fantasy stages)
2. A follow-up cadence template (so no one is reinventing each touch)
3. A weekly review (30 minutes, same day each week)
4. A “next action required” rule (every active lead must have one)

That’s the difference between “we have a CRM” and “our CRM drives growth.”