Best PRM Software 2023: Top 7 Picks & Reviews
Reviewed by Kristina Knight, Journalist , BA
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PRM software provides key features that are essential for partner management, and they can save your company so much time and money. PRM software tools are on the rise currently, because of the value they can provide for companies everywhere.
7 Best PRM Software 2023
- PartnerStack: Best Overall
- Impact Partnership Cloud: Most Affordable
- Kiflo: Best Portal
- Salesforce PRM: Easiest to Customize
- Impartner PRM: Best Service
- Channeltivity: Best for Tech Companies
- PartnerPortal.io: Most User Friendly
What is PRM?
PRM stands for partner relationship management, and it entails using a system to manage your contractors in one place. Communication, support and payment can all be simplified in this type of software.
What is Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Software?
PRM software is an application or program used to consolidate relationship management tasks by keeping them on one interface. Anyone who works with contractors or vendors could benefit greatly from this type of software, since it allows for communication, finding the right partners to get referrals, training, and payment.
What Does Partner Relationship Management Software Do?
The beauty of partner relationship management software is in the simplification of a complicated process. Instead of going out and finding professionals to partner with in getting customers, some PRM software can provide you with the right audience to match your partnership needs. The software then helps you to manage these relationships through training, communication and payment.
Read more: Best Small Business CRM Software 2023
PartnerStack
- Recruit partners through reseller, recruiting and affiliate programs
- Onboard, reward and engage partners
- Promote your services to their 65,000 + partners
Impact Partnership Cloud
- Supports news and publisher partners to increase company visibility
- Grow your partner network and get new partners through the partner management software
- Automate referral incentives and payments for your affiliates in any currency
Kiflo
- Catered towards small and medium sized enterprise businesses
- Connects to your CRM and integrates to marketing tools
- Build your reseller, referral, and affiliate partnerships
Salesforce PRM
- Customizable access to information based on business partners’ status
- Onboarding process
- Channel sales from partnerships with partner training
Impartner PRM
- Syndicate your social media with their PRM platform
- Recruit, onboard and train partners through a single platform
- Microsoft integration to expand your abilities within customer relationship management
Channeltivity
- Many integrations offered
- Content management tools available
- Catered toward tech companies
PartnerPortal.io
- Permission based resources
- Self service partner centric portal
- Compare partner performance
Best Partner Relationship Management Software 2023
PartnerStack
Recruiting partners is PartnerStack’s forte. You don’t need to have any partners to begin with their PRM software, and you can pay a customized price to have them start recruiting partners for you. This feature is hard to find, but extremely relevant in today’s markets.
- Recruit partners through reseller, recruiting and affiliate programs
- Onboard, reward and engage partners
- Promote your services to their 65,000 + partners
- Automate partner pay
- Skilled in B2B partnerships
- Custom pricing isn’t transparent
- Some customers report issues with PayPal
PartnerStack’s B2B specialization comes in clutch for sales managers looking to get their business out there and trusted by their customers. It’s essentially partner marketing with incentives for sales your partners bring in. We appreciate the features available like customizable training modules, partner engagement and payment abilities.
Impact Partnership Cloud
Impact has a huge assortment of partnership programs you can choose from to grow your business. Their customer support team will help connect you to the very best contacts to increase your brand’s visibility and drive partner sales. We love their dedication to their customers within this process.
- Supports news and publisher partners to increase company visibility
- Grow your partner network and get new partners through the partner management software
- Automate referral incentives and payments for your affiliates in any currency
- Cloud based partner management software
- Customizable onboarding process
- Glowing customer service team reviews
- Customers say pricing is more expensive than other partner management programs
- Some say analytics and reporting available are not helpful
Impact’s partner program is helpful for those looking to push their partner relationship management marketing efforts to a new level. They offer onboarding, management, and payment for partner programs. They’ll even track your sales process to determine which partners channel sales to your business. We did find that their services are pricier than others, and their analytics might not be as helpful as they seem.
Kiflo
Kiflo is designed primarily for small and medium businesses, and they excel in the partner management arena. Our favorite feature they offer is their easy to use partner portal that provides everything a partner needs to get started with their partner marketing efforts.
- Catered towards small and medium sized enterprise businesses
- Connects to your CRM and integrates to marketing tools
- Build your reseller, referral, and affiliate partnerships
- Customizable partner onboarding and training for all your partners
- Transparency for both partner managers and partners to promote team mindset within partner relationships
- Partner managers and partners alike can view all sales and information the same in the partner portal
Kiflo’s CRM and application connection is also an honorable mention, since this isn’t offered by every partner marketing platform. We also love their commitment to transparency in showing partners and managers alike where sales are coming from and which marketing partnerships are proving profitable. However, some managers say this transparency is a bit too much to share within the partner ecosystem.
Salesforce PRM
Salesforce is a household name among sales managers, and it’s been around for awhile now. Their best feature, in our opinion, is their easily customizable API and their system that’s open to integrations. Salesforce can also function as your CRM, so it can truly be a one stop shop for the right type of business.
- Customizable access to information based on business partners’ status
- Onboarding process
- Channel sales from partnerships with partner training
- Create branded material for your partnerships
- Real time statistics
- Many customizable features
- Outdated partner ecosystem platform
On top of these customizable features, Salesforce helps managers create branded material, streamline onboarding and training through their partnership software, and they just have a pretty robust system. We have noticed that customers agree that their partnership program management interface is outdated compared to their competition.
Impartner
We love Impartner’s commitment to giving their customers a customized and seamless process that fits their needs perfectly. We appreciate that they have streamlined the partner management process to really fit any small businesses needs, and this dedication to tailoring it to any industry is admirable.
- Syndicate your social media with their PRM platform
- Recruit, onboard and train partners through a single platform
- Microsoft integration to expand your abilities within customer relationship management
- Transparent pricing (starting at $2,000)
- Impartner assigns a customer success manager to each customer to focus on partner relationship management solutions
- Customers say some application integrations are slow and difficult
This customizable mindset is coupled with transparent pricing and a highly dedicated customer service team, which contributes to Impartner’s happy customers. As far as managing relationships, Impartner has you covered. On the other hand, some customers have complained that their integrations could use some work on the backend.
Channeltivity
Channeltivity is a partner recruiting and channel management software catered towards tech companies. They really deliver when it comes to Salesforce and Hubspot integrations, customizable processes, and an excellent support team. These features all support tech companies looking to expand their reach.
- Many integrations offered
- Content management tools available
- Catered toward tech companies
- Customizable email notifications
- Transparent pricing (starting at $1,599)
- Customer support receives excellent reviews
- Channel lead management and connect business processes to optimize sales
- Catered towards small businesses
- Partner portals aren’t as visually appealing
This dedication to tech teams also comes with a platform to manage relationships and communications in a concise way. Customers are happy with the abilities they gain in streamlining processes and communications through Channeltivity. We will note that some complain that the customer portals aren’t as visually appealing as one would hope.
PartnerPortal
As a startup, PartnerPortal is performing quite well. Our favorite aspect of their partner portal is its simplicity and intuitive design. Customers say that this helps keep the onboarding process from becoming cumbersome. The self-serve aspect of this business can be seen as a pain, but we see it as a strength since their PRM platform presents key features, and there aren’t too many choices to make up front.
- Permission based resources
- Self service partner centric portal
- Compare partner performance
- Customize partner experience
- Automated partner onboarding and automated workflows to channel partners toward success
- Simple and intuitive program
- Free version available
- Limited customizable options and payment options
On top of the simplicity, we like the permission aspect of information sharing to allow managing partners’ access to information. This keeps prudent data private, and the partner portal gives partners just what they need. Since PartnerPortal is still in its startup phase, there are a few options customers say aren’t quite up to par with what they’d like. However, since most of their plans are very inexpensive (or free), we don’t expect the world of them.
Benefits of Using a PRM Software
Using partner relationship management (PRM) software can be a great solution to manage partners and track partner activity. Here are some other benefits we want to point out.
Reduced Costs
Instead of manually tracking your new partners, save money and time by using a platform to manage your affiliate program.
Expand Partner Program
Partner recruitment can be arduous, and partner management software can eliminate the online searching and vet and channel partners your way.
Partner Tracking
PRM software rolls allow customers to view data in real time, and see which partners are building new customer relationships and driving sales your way. This partner tracking can be essential for your business.
Fraud Prevention
In vetting your new partners, the PRM program takes on some liability for choosing legitimate marketing partners to promote your services professionally.
How to Choose The Best PRM Software
There are so many PRM softwares out there, but which is the best partner management software? There are several factors to determine which is right for you.
Price
First of all, consider the price. PRM services can get pricey, but some might offer a free trial or discounted rate. Very few are free, but a free trial can help you determine if you’d benefit from the services before you spend thousands a year on PRM software.
Ease of Use
Next, consider if the PRM solutions are easy to navigate. A learning curve might cost you time and money if it takes you weeks to understand how to use your new PRM system.
Partner Onboarding Automation
The ability to onboard more partners quickly will be key to your success. Does the PRM system you’re considering include the ability to onboard partners automatically?
Portals for Centralized Resources
One of the best PRM tools is a single platform for communication and partner management. Make sure you like the function and look of the portal you’re considering using.
Real-Time Sales Analytics
Real-time data analysis can be crucial for managing multiple partners within the deal management process. You’ll want to make sure your PRM software includes this type of data analysis so you can view your deal distribution at the click of a button.
Customer Supports
Customer support is an essential function to any software tools, but especially with PRM tools. Make sure the company you’re considering has excellent customer service reviews.
Final Thoughts
When choosing a PRM software, you’ll have many options. It’s important to look at all the options before you make a decision, and consider the ways a PRM system could drive sales for your company in the future. PRM tools can be so helpful when used the right way, so the cost of a PRM solution could certainly be worth it for enterprise companies.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Deal registration is the process of informing a company about a sales lead you have conjured up as a partner. This deal registration is an essential part of the partner relationship.
Sales enablement is the process of setting an organization or partner up with the best possible training and resources to make a sale. Lead distribution (providing information on leads) is a huge part of this process.
This type of service is designed to keep certain data private, safe and compliant.
PRM services help businesses streamline their partner management information into one system.
A partner can be an affiliate, a publisher, a reseller or another type of contractor within a business outside contacts.
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- PartnerStack PRM | Grow Partner Relationships and Revenue. partnerstack.com. Accessed February 14, 2023. https://partnerstack.com/
- Increase Partnership Revenues with Automation. impact.com. Accessed February 14, 2023. https://impact.com/partnership-cloud/
- Kiflo. Kiflo | Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software. https://www.kiflo.com/. Accessed February 14, 2023. https://www.kiflo.com/
- Partner Relationship Management. Salesforce.com. Accessed February 14, 2023. https://www.salesforce.com/products/sales-cloud/features/channel-partner-management/
- The Channel Management Platform for Leading Partner Ecosystems. Impartner PRM. Accessed February 14, 2023. https://impartner.com/
- Home. Channeltivity. Accessed February 14, 2023. https://www.channeltivity.com/
- PartnerPortal.io Automate your Partner Portal Software – Home. www.partnerportal.io. Accessed February 14, 2023. https://www.partnerportal.io/