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
Soffront CRM
Score 7.0 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Soffront offers Soffront CRM Software for Sales, Marketing and Service, which the vendor says is a comprehensive, yet user-friendly platform. All submitted, assigned and resolved cases are tracked within a customizable dashboard. Customer support ticket submissions are automatically routed to the most knowledgeable reps, ensuring the best support. Service Level Agreement (or SLA) Alerts make sure support never falls below committed levels of service. According to the vendor, the product…
$20
per month
Pricing
Act! CRM
Soffront CRM
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)
1,000 Emails
$4.00
per month
5,000 Emails
$15.00
per month
10,000 Emails
$25.00
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Act! CRM
Soffront CRM
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
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.
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.
The email marketing platform is wonderful. It allows for tracking and you can do AB testing with it as well.
Landing page and form placement with other companies have also been easy. Regardless of website or landing page that you use the forms integrate and you get an email notification whenever a new lead is added to the database.
The overall layout of the CRM is also nice to use. You can open up different tabs with information on and then go back to a previous tab without having to use the browser controls. It makes navigating and comparing information very easy to do.
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 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.
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!.
Soffront performs many of the same functions as both of these providers but it offers a great deal more all in one place. I do not have to log into different programs or switch programs to get the information that I need. This has greatly increased efficiency. The pricing for Soffront is also better when you add in the other features that it comes with, in fact it saved me money when I switched.
The software has been positive for especially on the email marketing side. I have seen about a 23% increase in revenue and new contacts by using the email marketing feature.
The landing page and form integration has averaged me about 20 new leads a month for my business which is plenty to keep us busy and on track for growth of the business.
