Palby Sales Tracker
Updated 8 min read

Sales productivity tools: test each for a week before you pay

You don't need twelve apps to sell well. You need one tool for each job in your day, from booking meetings to guarding the hours you set aside for calls, and one number that tells you whether a new tool earned its place.

By Leo Tan, founder of Palby Sales Tracker

What a sales productivity tool is for

A sales productivity tool is anything that gives you more time in front of buyers, or makes that time count for more. An app that does neither is a distraction with a login, however good the demo looked.

Most lists you'll find are written for big teams with an operations person to set things up. On Google's first page for this search, the ranked lists run from 10 to 30 tools, and three of them put the publisher's own product at number one. You don't need that many. Your day has six jobs in it, and each job needs one tool at most.

Here are the jobs:

  1. Booking meetings without the back and forth
  2. Making calls and writing down what happened
  3. Taking notes in meetings
  4. Following up on the right day, from a list of every deal
  5. Messaging buyers where they already chat
  6. Protecting the hours you've set aside for calls

Prices change, so check each tool's own site before you buy. The plans below are what those sites listed on 26 October 2026.

How to measure sales productivity

Sales productivity is what you get out of selling for what you put in. Pick one output, like meetings booked, deals won or revenue, and divide it by one input, like hours on the phone or calls made. Six meetings from five hours of calling is 1.2 meetings an hour.

MeasureHow to work it outWhat it tells you
Meetings per calling hourMeetings booked divided by hours on the phoneWhether call time turns into meetings
Calls per meetingCalls made divided by meetings bookedHow many dials one meeting costs you
Win rateDeals won divided by deals that reached a decisionHow well meetings turn into business
Selling shareHours with buyers divided by hours workedHow much of the week is selling at all

Pick one or two, write down this week's figure, and work it out the same way every week. Then test every new tool against it. For ways to raise it without buying anything, read sales productivity tips.

The tools, sorted by the job

Booking meetings: Calendly

Calendly gives you a booking page that shows your free times, so a buyer picks a slot instead of trading five emails with you. Its pricing page lists a free plan with one event type, one calendar connection and a customisable booking page. The paid Standard plan adds unlimited event types, more calendars, and automations and reminders.

One kind of meeting? The free plan covers it. You'd only pay once you want a short intro call and a longer demo as two separate links, each with its own length.

Calls and the call log: your phone, plus somewhere to write it down

For most reps the calling tool is the phone already in your pocket. What goes missing isn't the dialler. It's the note of what happened: who picked up, what they said, and when you promised to call back.

A plain sales call log with one row per call does the job for a week or two. After that, the notes need to live next to the deal, which is the CRM's job below.

Meeting notes: Otter

Otter records and transcribes meetings, so you can listen properly instead of typing. Otter's pricing page lists a free Basic plan with live transcription, 300 transcription minutes a month and apps for iOS and Android, and it works with Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet.

Ask before you record. Some buyers are fine with it, and some will go quiet the moment the bot joins.

Follow-ups and deals: HubSpot or Pipedrive

A CRM holds every contact and deal, what was said last and what happens next. If you're choosing your first one, what is a CRM explains what it does in plain terms.

HubSpot's free CRM says it's free with no expiration date and no credit card needed. It covers contacts, deals, tasks and a pipeline view, and there's a mobile app for iOS and Android.

Pipedrive's pricing page starts at the Lite plan, US$14 per seat a month billed annually, with a free 14-day trial. Lite covers lead, calendar and pipeline management, and includes a transcript of every call with CRM updates ready to approve. Growth adds full email sync, automated follow-up sequences and a meeting scheduler.

Pick one, not both. A CRM with half your deals in it is worse than a spreadsheet with all of them.

Selling on your own? You need a CRM once you have more deals than you can remember. Until then, one spreadsheet with every deal, its next step and a date does the job, as long as it's the only list.

Messaging: the WhatsApp Business app

If your buyers answer WhatsApp faster than email, keep your selling chats in the Business app rather than your personal one. Its features page lists a business profile with your hours, an automatic greeting for new chats, away messages outside your hours, quick replies for messages you send often, and labels to sort conversations.

Labels do a surprising amount of work. Tag each chat as new, waiting on them or waiting on you, and your follow-up list is sitting right there in the app.

Focus time: Toggl Track

Most reps plan two hours of calls and make forty minutes of them. A timer makes the gap visible. Toggl's pricing page lists a free plan, for a limited number of users, with manual and real-time timers, a focus mode and Google and Outlook calendar connections.

Start the timer when the call block starts and stop it the moment you open email. Most people are surprised by the weekly total the first time they see it.

Counting the week: ActivityTracker

ActivityTracker is where the day's counts add up. You log calls and meetings in one tap, every callback stays on today's list, and you can see whether your week is enough for your target while you can still change it. Its focus timer times the hour you set aside for calls, in sessions of 15, 25, 50 or 90 minutes, and shows this week's focus minutes.

It's one option, and it overlaps with a CRM on follow-ups. If your team already logs everything in a CRM and reads the numbers weekly, you don't need it.

The jobToolFree plan on its site?
Booking meetingsCalendlyYes, one event type
Meeting notesOtterYes, 300 minutes a month
Contacts and dealsHubSpotYes, free CRM
Contacts and dealsPipedrive14-day trial
Messaging buyersWhatsApp Business appDownload the app
Focus timeToggl TrackYes, limited users
Tasks that aren't dealsTodoistYes, 5 projects
Moving details between appsZapierYes, 100 tasks a month
First draftsChatGPTYes, with limits

The tool you'll actually open every day is the one that shows whether the week is working. ActivityTracker logs calls and meetings in one tap, keeps every callback on today's list, and shows whether your week is enough for your target while you can still change it.

See ActivityTracker for sales reps

Tools for the jobs around selling

Three more jobs turn up in a rep's week, and none of them is selling. A free plan covers each one.

Other to-dos: Todoist

Not every to-do belongs on a deal. Expense claims, a training module, the quote template you keep meaning to fix. Todoist's pricing page lists a free Beginner plan with 5 personal projects, task reminders, list and board layouts, and connections to your email and calendar.

Keep deal follow-ups out of it. A follow-up belongs next to its deal, which is the CRM's job.

Moving details between apps: Zapier

Retyping a lead from a web form into your CRM is a job a connector does better. Zapier's pricing page lists a free plan with 100 tasks a month and two-step Zaps: one trigger and one action, like a new form entry creating a contact. If each new lead uses one task, that's three leads a day. Past that, the Professional plan starts at US$19.99 a month.

First drafts: ChatGPT

A general AI chat writes the first draft of a follow-up or tidies your call notes in seconds. ChatGPT's pricing page lists a free plan with unlimited text chats, subject to abuse guardrails, and limited uploads and memory.

Keep client names and numbers out of a free plan, and read every draft before it goes out. AI tools built for selling, from call notes to outreach, are in AI sales tools.

What to look for before you sign up

Run any tool through five checks before you hand over a card:

  1. It replaces a step you do every week, and you can name the step.
  2. It works on your phone, because half your selling happens away from a desk.
  3. It writes into the place your deals already live, so nothing gets typed twice.
  4. It has a free plan or a trial long enough to test for a week.
  5. You can get your data out as a spreadsheet if you leave.

The third check sinks most tools. Anything that means typing the same thing twice gets skipped within days.

What to cut

Each new tool brings a login and one more list to keep current, so cut an old one before you add a new one. These usually go first:

  • The second CRM. If deals live in a CRM and also in a spreadsheet, one of them is wrong. Keep the one you open daily.
  • The to-do app that isn't where your deals are. Follow-ups belong next to the deal, so your list and your pipeline can't drift apart.
  • Notifications from tools you check anyway. Turn off everything except new buyer messages and today's reminders.
  • Any tool nobody has opened in a month. If it had a job, something else is doing it now.

No app makes the calls for you. A rep with a phone, a notebook and a fixed call block will beat a rep with ten tools and no block.

Test a new tool in one week

Judge a tool by a normal week of your own selling, not by its demo. Pick one number it should move and write down last week's figure. Then use the tool for five working days and compare the two.

Made-up example: a rep selling office cleaning contracts wants to try a booking page. Last week she sent 14 "when suits you?" messages and booked 5 first meetings. The back and forth took 40 minutes across the week.

Monday: she sets up the free plan with one 20-minute meeting type, linked to her work calendar. She adds the link to her email signature and her WhatsApp quick replies.

Tuesday to Thursday: every prospect who says "sure, let's talk" gets the link instead of three suggested times.

Friday: she books 7 first meetings from 15 messages. The back and forth is down to 10 minutes. Two prospects ignored the link and asked her to "just pick a time", so she keeps a quick reply for that too.

The number moved, so she keeps it. If it hadn't, she'd have deleted the account on Friday and moved on.

One tool per week, one number per tool. Test two at once and you won't know which one did it.

Where to start

If you're starting from nothing, set these up in this order:

  1. A fixed call block in your calendar, every working day. It's free, and a daily sales routine shows what one looks like.
  2. One place for contacts, deals and follow-ups: a CRM or, for now, a single spreadsheet.
  3. A way to count the week's calls and meetings, so Friday isn't the first time you find out it was light.
  4. A booking link, once you're sending more than a handful of "when suits you?" messages a week.

Notes and messaging tools come after that, when you can see where the time is going.

Keep reading

Questions people ask

Sources

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