Microsoft Dynamics 365 fast factsOverall score: 3.3/5 Pricing: Starts at $65 per user per month. Key features:
|
Dynamics 365 is a customer relationship management software from Microsoft. Dynamics 365 (formerly called Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM) offers AI-powered sales services and marketing applications. These apps are all part of the greater Microsoft tech stack and can be configured and connected to meet business goals like engaging with customers, team members and potential leads.
While adding Dynamics 365’s full CRM functionality makes sense — especially if you’re already a user of Microsoft applications — it is a pricey tool compared to other popular alternatives. In this review, we cover the pricing tiers and top features offered by Microsoft Dynamics 365, plus how it holds up against more simplified platforms.
Pricing
The free trial and onboarding for Dynamics 365 is competitive and allows for a lengthy 30-day platform trial and demo experience. Chat with their sales team to get any unanswered questions resolved.
Here’s the exact pricing breakdown for Microsoft Dynamics 365:
- Dynamics 365 Sales Professional: $65 per user per month. This plan includes core sales force automation, reporting dashboards, the mobile app, and Microsoft 365 interoperation.
- Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise Edition: $105 per user per month. This tier supports all Sales Professional features plus customizable automations, custom apps, and more advanced sales force automation.
- Dynamics 365 Sales Premium: $150 per user per month. This plan includes all Enterprise Edition features plus advanced sales engagement and Copilot capabilities like record updates, opportunity summaries, and email and meeting assistance.
- Microsoft Relationship Sales: Contact directly for a quote. This plan is the Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise plus LinkedIn Sales Navigator and requires a 10-seat minimum.
Key features of Microsoft Dynamics 365
Lead scoring
Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers AI-based scoring models that assign each contact, project, and opportunity a score that users can track. This tool helps ensure users are focusing their efforts on the right customers at the right time. Based on these lead and opportunity scores, deals can be filtered through a prioritized work list and data visualizations.
Opportunity summaries
Opportunity summaries are dashboard views within Microsoft Dynamics 365 that show a variety of key details about any given project—where customers are in the buyer journey, contact information, timelines, files, and next meetings. These summaries act as a hub for automation capabilities like email drafts and email or meeting summaries as well.
Sales sequences
Users can create visual sales sequences that reflect each step of engagement when nurturing leads. This feature is great for tracking different lead nurturing strategies, such as cold emailing or calling and what sales reps should do after an email is opened. It also gives timelines for when each step in the sales sequence is ideally completed.
Native integrations and automations
The same up-to-date information can be accessed from different Microsoft 365 applications. Users can be in their Outlook account parsing emails from multiple clients and then open the Dynamics 365 integration, Copilot for Sales. Verify notes or contact information while minimizing app-switching with automatic updates across the suite.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 30-day free trial. | Platform has a steep learning curve. |
| Phone and web customer support available for all tiers. | Costly tiers compared to other mid-market CRMs. |
| 24/7/365 data security guarantee. | Users report difficulty with the user interface. |
3 Best Alternatives to Microsoft Dynamics 365
While Dynamics 365 is not an open-source CRM software, it can require some intense configuring of individual applications and features to get a setup specific to a business’s needs. There are other top enterprise CRM software, like HubSpot, Pipedrive, and monday CRM, that offer similar core features at a lower cost.
| Software | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Advanced AI tools | ||||
| Custom dashboards | ||||
| Pipeline management | ||||
| Native or third-party integrations | ||||
| Free trial | ||||
| Starting price, when billed annually |
HubSpot
Similar to Dynamics 365, HubSpot is part of a suite of multiple applications and supports a multitude of integrations that are both native and via third-party apps. For this reason, both are great options for organizations looking to truly customize their CRM with additional add-ons and integrations. Microsoft Dynamics 365 can be pricey, while HubSpot’s free CRM can support up to five users, with basic pipeline management and lead scoring making it more cost efficient. HubSpot’s conversation intelligence tool also allows reps to use data-backed insights as coaching tips for lead nurturing.
SEE: Read our complete review of HubSpot for a full breakdown of its offerings.
Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a strong sales CRM software that offers advanced pipeline management and tracking tools. Just like Dynamics 365, Pipedrive has a variety of automations that can follow sales sequences to reduce mundane tasks like sending follow up emails, scheduling meetings and more. Both platforms strive to cut out admin work for reps so there’s more time for selling and relationship building. Pipedrive’s additional communication tracking feature allows users to filter and sort emails and meeting responses to understand intent and schedule future touchpoints.
SEE: If you want to learn more, head over to our complete review of Pipedrive.
monday CRM
monday CRM is an operational CRM that helps businesses manage pre- and post-sale processes. It’s affordability and project management capabilities make it a great option for small businesses. Similar to Dynamics 365, monday CRM can be adapted to many industries with customizations and advanced automations. Microsoft Dynamics 365 is the more expensive option between the two but it does have more AI functionality than monday CRM.
SEE: Check out our complete individual review of Zoho CRM.
How can Microsoft Dynamics 365 improve sales and marketing efficiency?
Dynamics 365 helps sales, marketing, and all customer-facing initiatives by empowering teams with AI-backed automations and transparency between departments. With the help of features like task management, AI-powered lead qualification, and pipeline tracking, Dynamics 365 users can score and segment incoming leads while also monitoring ongoing deals from an intuitive and flexible dashboard. This way, businesses can improve their customer experience from beginning to end, and sales reps can be prepared to scale the most effective selling strategies.
Review methodology
I used a custom rubric to score and review Microsoft Dynamics 365 and its core CRM software offerings. This rubric consists of defined criteria related to the most important factors when choosing a CRM software. I relied on Dynamics 365’s own online resources in addition to real user feedback, scores, and reviews.
The following is the breakdown of the criteria used to score Microsoft Dynamics 365:
- Cost: Weighted 25% of the total score.
- Core features: Weighted 25% of the total score.
- Customizations: Weighted 15% of the total score.
- Integrations: Weighted 15% of the total score.
- Ease of use: Weighted 10% of the total score.
- Customer support: Weighted 10% of the total score.