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
CosmoLex
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
CosmoLex in New Jersey offers their legal practice management application which supports all business administration needs, as well as accounting and billing internally, without needing to integrate with accounting software.
$99
per month per user
Pricing
Act! CRM
CosmoLex
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)
CosmoLex
$89
per user/per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Act! CRM
CosmoLex
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
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.
Because it is cloud based, CosmoLex is well suited for a lawyer starting up a practice as there is no need for a server. It is also very easy to use from home as it doesn't require a remote session to login, but can be used from any device. It is not well suited for a practice that requires a very fast pace for accounting as it takes a bit of time for each transaction to load, frustrating the user and causing them to lose momentum. On the other hand, if time is taken to set things up, there are a few tools that make importing expenses much quicker, and time can be made up by just taking some time to set things up.
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!
There is far too much reliance on symbols versus words, and it is sometimes difficult to navigate to the function you need. CosmoLex offers great support, knowledge base, and training, but sometimes you just don't have an hour to spend learning how to do a basic function that you have forgotten, and you just need it to WORK. It would be great to have the option of having word labels instead of picture symbols. It would also be great to have full functionality in the smartphone app. It just is not good. Not good. Pretty much everything keeping me tied to CosmoLex is on the money management side.
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.
I think that CosmoLex actually relies so much on its stellar support infrastructure that it forgets we don't actually want to have to use it. Just make the darn thing easier to navigate and understand, and you won't need all that client-facing support. You can choose chat, email, phone, knowledge base, embedded training videos within the different pages, but darn it all, I just want it to be more intuitive instead.
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!.
I used CosmoLex over PC Law mostly because it was cloud-based, and I used it over Clio because the accounting for Clio required the use of both Clio and QuickBooks which made for very inefficient data entry. CosmoLex is slower than PCLaw when inputting entries, but I believe that in the long run, it will be better as CosmoLex is better situated to move forward with new technology.
