Act! CRM (formerly Swiftpage) aims to empower small businesses to build and manage client relationships and leads, so the user always has a pipeline of new, repeat, and referral business under control. Users can manage their businesses with Act! CRM every day, since it’s more than a CRM – it’s designed to present everything needed to stay on top of relationships, see what’s most important and actionable, and run sales and marketing in one place.
$22
per month
EngageBay
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
EngageBay is presented by the vendor as a powerful, simple, affordable, and integrated all-in-one marketing, sales, and service automation platform with a free CRM, designed for small businesses and startups to grow their business to the next level. It comprises a marketing automation suite to help businesses save time, nurture audiences and automate routines, manual tasks; free CRM and sales automation designed to keep users organized by storing and categorizing all email contacts, track deals,…
$12.74
per month per user
Pricing
Act! CRM
EngageBay
Editions & Modules
Essentials
$22
per user, per month
Act! Premium - Basic
$37.50
per user, per month (billed annually)
Standard
$40
per user, per month
Expert
$55
per user, per month
Select - Extra Features
$79
per user, per month (billed annually)
Complete - Extra Features
$199
per user, per month (billed annually)
Advanced - Extra Features
$399
per user, per month (billed annually)
FREE
$0
per month per user
BASIC
$12.74
per month per user
GROWTH
$42.49
per month per user
PRO
$84.99
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Act! CRM
EngageBay
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
For SaaS version, discount available for annual subscription.
Swiftpage ACT! would be well suited if you are using a desktop computing environment. ACT! is an old product and they were on the desktop for many years (and still are). Also, ACT! would also be well suited if you are not as concerned about implementing a CRM product that might require a little more training (e.g. if you had employees/salespeople that needed to be trained). Also, ACT! seems to be more generic than some of the industry focused products you see nowadays. For example, MethodCRM works well with non-profits that are on the cloud.
I would absolutely recommend EngageBay to any customer looking to switch from Marketo or Salesforce that wanted a cheaper solution while still highly effective. Those platforms require hands-on integration consultants and full-time employees that know how to handle those CRMs. This CRM is easy to use for any beginner marketer.
Integrated Email Marketing: For a small business, you can have a strong method to handle email marketing in an integrated non-disparate solution.
Tailoring: There are no limits on what data you can store in the system and the ease of making changes can be done by a nontechnical person.
User Interface: The tool is easy to get around in both the desktop (fat client) and (webclient) which both are quite similar in functionality.
Integration: The tool integrates with Word, Excel, and Outlook nicely. And, it integrates with Google Mail and Contacts. There is a nice selection of third party tools available for various needs like AddressGrabber which allows for easy input of contacts from various sources such as email signatures, webpages, etc.
Templates: I have enjoyed being able to store tons of various templates for letters which we use over and over for various communications like sales proposals, quotes, and nudging clients along the funnel and sales process.
Automation: SwiftPage ACT! has a small business automation engine which allows for reminders and workflow to be administered by the system. It's not as sophisticated as some enterprise workflow automation solutions but for the price it's an awesome addition.
Maintenance: Very rarely have a problem which needs to be dealt with and costs to upgrade are minimal at best. We hosted the system internally for the web client and implemented it ourselves initially but had upgrades subsequently done by a local partner simply due to time/cost scenario. In other words, less to have someone else do it.
There are a lot of good SaaS options on the market but SwiftPage ACT still has a place in the mix today. It depends on your needs, goals, processes, and people
Try printing reports with each record's notes section - really awful output that you are embarrassed to show anyone. Want to add a new record to a group, ACT will present another record for the group assignment. Want to work seamlessly with email? Forget it!
EngageBay's incredibly easy to use. I was able to pick up the CRM and start using right away with little issues. Anyone with basic CRM knowledge should be able to get started on EngageBay easy. Their customer service team also makes onboarding very easy and will work with you on any issue.
There has been an ongoing problem with Google synchronisation which no one seems to be bothered about fixing, even though it clearly states on the website that the software synchronises with Google. When the customer-facing support team are on the phone, they are brilliant, it's the back-end development support which is severely lacking.
Their support team is incredibly response, with a livechat option anytime during business hours. I was able to work with them on a variet of issues and they were extremely hands-on. The same reps are always there and friendly and ready to work with. There isn't a CRM that has better customer service.
ACT! CRM is more cost effective than like a Salesforce, but that is for a reason, it lacks a lot of the functionality that a Salesforce has. Pipedrive is actually another cost effective platform I've been evaluating as a potential ACT! CRM replacement. I like it's modern day look and feel versus ACT!.
Salesforce and Marketo are the strongest CRM products out there in the space. The drawback they have is that they are immensely expensive and complex to set-up / use. Salesforce is extremely complex, especially when using in conjunction with Pardot. EngageBay is simple, easy to use, and easy to build from. And their customer service is far more responsive than those platforms.
