What’s the Best Customer Success Software for Small Tech Startups?

Hi all,

I’m looking into customer success tools that work well for small tech startups. We need something that’s not just powerful but also startup-friendly—affordable, intuitive, and ideally something that helps our small team stay proactive about churn and engagement.

Here are a few platforms that seem to come up often on G2’s Customer Success Software category. I’d love to hear if you’ve used any of these and what your experience has been like:

• Salesforce Service Cloud—Part of the larger Salesforce ecosystem, this one’s super feature-rich with built-in AI and automation. It's great for support and case management, but I wonder if it’s too heavy for a small startup.
• Custify – Tailored for SaaS businesses and focused on small to mid-sized teams. It offers solid health scoring, automation, and task management without the complexity of larger platforms. Seems like a good fit for startups wanting quick onboarding and visibility without needing a CS operations team.
• ChurnZero – Purpose-built for SaaS companies with strong automation and in-app messaging tools. Looks like a good fit for early-stage teams that want real-time insights and proactive customer engagement.
• Vitally – Designed specifically for B2B SaaS startups and scaleups. Combining customer success features with productivity tools and offering good visibility across accounts without needing a ton of setup.
• Planhat offers flexibility and modularity, which could be ideal for growing startups. It’s clean, modern, and data-driven, but does it deliver enough out of the box for teams without a dedicated CS ops person?

If you’ve used any of these tools—especially as part of a lean startup team—what did you go with and why? What’s helped you retain users or scale your CS strategy? Would love to hear what’s worked and what hasn’t. Looking forward to your experiences!