PlanPlus Online vs. Sparkcentral (discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
PlanPlus
Score 10.0 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
PlanPlus Online is planning and organization software that integrates productivity tools into a complete customer relationship management solution.
$34.99
Per User per Month
Sparkcentral (discontinued)
Score 9.9 out of 10
N/A
Sparkcentral was a social customer care solution and cloud-based customer engagement platform that catered specifically to customer care teams within large enterprises, enabling them to deliver real-time social customer service. Sparkcentral was acquired by Hootsuite in January 2021. The product has since been discontinued.N/A
Pricing
PlanPlus OnlineSparkcentral (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
PlanPlus Online Professional Edition
$34.99
Per User per Month
PlanPlus Online Planner Edition
$69.99
Per/Year
PlanPlus Online Business Edition
$199.99
per 5 users/per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
PlanPlusSparkcentral (discontinued)
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup Fee$1,500 Up to 12 hours of Account Configuration Assistance Setup Include: Provision accounts and licenses (1hr), Kick-off Call (1 hr), and 10 additional hours of account configuration assistance to be used toward the following items, as needed by customers internal administrator: User Setup, Record Access, & Personal Preferences; Data Migration; Custom Fields & Page Layouts; Web-forms & Surveys; Views & Reports; Standard Sales Processes; Project Templates. Exact accomplishments may vary from this list based on Administrator's skills and requirements.No setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
PlanPlus OnlineSparkcentral (discontinued)
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
PlanPlus OnlineSparkcentral (discontinued)
Sales Force Automation
Comparison of Sales Force Automation features of Product A and Product B
PlanPlus Online
8.6
3 Ratings
11% above category average
Sparkcentral (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Customer data management / contact management10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow management9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Territory management7.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Opportunity management10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with email client (e.g., Outlook or Gmail)10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Contract management7.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Quote & order management5.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Interaction tracking10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Channel / partner relationship management9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Customer Service & Support
Comparison of Customer Service & Support features of Product A and Product B
PlanPlus Online
9.0
3 Ratings
18% above category average
Sparkcentral (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Case management9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Call center management9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Help desk management9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Marketing Automation
Comparison of Marketing Automation features of Product A and Product B
PlanPlus Online
10.0
3 Ratings
28% above category average
Sparkcentral (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Lead management10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Email marketing10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
CRM Project Management
Comparison of CRM Project Management features of Product A and Product B
PlanPlus Online
9.7
3 Ratings
24% above category average
Sparkcentral (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Task management10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Billing and invoicing management9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
CRM Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of CRM Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
PlanPlus Online
9.7
3 Ratings
24% above category average
Sparkcentral (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Forecasting10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Pipeline visualization10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable reports9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
PlanPlus Online
8.5
3 Ratings
11% above category average
Sparkcentral (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Custom fields10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom objects9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Scripting environment8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
API for custom integration7.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
PlanPlus Online
7.0
3 Ratings
17% below category average
Sparkcentral (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Single sign-on capability6.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-based user permissions8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Social CRM
Comparison of Social CRM features of Product A and Product B
PlanPlus Online
8.0
2 Ratings
9% above category average
Sparkcentral (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Social data8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Social engagement8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Integrations with 3rd-party Software
Comparison of Integrations with 3rd-party Software features of Product A and Product B
PlanPlus Online
9.5
3 Ratings
28% above category average
Sparkcentral (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Marketing automation10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Compensation management9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform
Comparison of Platform features of Product A and Product B
PlanPlus Online
8.0
3 Ratings
6% above category average
Sparkcentral (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Mobile access8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
PlanPlus OnlineSparkcentral (discontinued)
Small Businesses
Salesmate
Salesmate
Score 9.8 out of 10
Simplify360
Simplify360
Score 7.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Creatio
Creatio
Score 9.1 out of 10
Emplifi Social Marketing Cloud
Emplifi Social Marketing Cloud
Score 8.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Creatio
Creatio
Score 9.1 out of 10
Emplifi Social Marketing Cloud
Emplifi Social Marketing Cloud
Score 8.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
PlanPlus OnlineSparkcentral (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(3 ratings)
10.0
(16 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(4 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
PlanPlus OnlineSparkcentral (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
PlanPlusOnline
I would recommend this for businesses that have the time to invest in doing things the right way. Garbage in equals garbage out. If you can get over the somewhat steep learning curve and adopting their process this product would be a good fit. If you are short on time (and maybe cash) you may want to look for a simpler and less expensive solution.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
Sparkcentral has an extremely dedicated customer service team The platform UX is brilliant Reports are very detailed & easy to export The system is stable more than 98% of the time Queue management is extremely easy They need to work on a mobile app / making the website mobile friendly The ability to add more social media channels is essential
Read full review
Pros
PlanPlusOnline
  • Weekly and Monthly Planner is very productive.
  • Task Delegation and Pipeline Tracker are easy to use and efficient.
  • Goal Planning helped us as well to identify our chances.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
  • The biggest advantage of the Sparkcentral platform is its "inbox zero" philosophy. With this, our customer support requests are queued within the app, and agents need to work down the queue to keep it empty.
  • The app is designed from the ground up for customer care - instead of taking a generic social platform, and sprinkling in some customer care tools. Everything about Sparkcental is designed for helping our customers.
  • Sparkcentral allows us to do much better CRM. We can make customer notes, see recent interactions, determine who helped the customer (and when).
Read full review
Cons
PlanPlusOnline
  • When it came time to move on due to larger issues the friendliness was not there from the account reps. We did not leave due to them, but due to our growth and need for more.
  • The inability to make personalized the labels for our insurance terms.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
  • In the beginning our team had the option to see what another user was typing as they responded to a post. With the latest update, this was taken away. That feature was key for us to shadow agents remotely who are still in training to provide real time feedback.
  • Our company has a number of different brands that we manage. Having a truly unified queue would be a great addition for us!
  • The bulk resolve should allow the option to select on the posts that you wish to resolve instead of selecting a time frame for bulk resolve. Often we find that marketing posts generate more volume in the evening. However, there are sometimes posts where the customer needs assistance during that time. So, if we were to bulk resolve for a certain number of evening hours we would potentially miss a customer's concern through that option as it is currently. But, if the option was to go through and select on all marketing posts and then bulk resolve you would ensure that you are not missing a post where a customer needs assistance.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
PlanPlusOnline
No answers on this topic
Discontinued Products
Sparkcentral has never given us a good reason to consider any other option. Aside from all the positive points I mentioned in previous areas of this review, something else that has really impressed us is their customer service (makes sense, they're a customer service company after all!). Any time we have a question or concern, we send them an email and we get a response almost instantly.
Read full review
Usability
PlanPlusOnline
It's great once you get the hang of it. I feel like it could be cleaned up a little. Some elements could be moved around or hidden. Overall it's a solid UI
Read full review
Discontinued Products
The system meets all my expectations.
Read full review
Support Rating
PlanPlusOnline
There are some cases where we just need something simple to get the job done. In our case, we needed a solution with a lot features for our complex setup. A lot of CRMs fell short. PlanPlus Online didn't. They had everything we needed. We didn't have to rely on multiple disparate solutions, and it was within our budget.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
Incredible customer service team that replies back very quickly, follows up on the reported issue till it's resolved in a very timely manner.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
PlanPlusOnline
PlanPlus Online is much nicer than Salesforce and also much faster.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
Sparkcentral does what it has offered to do, where other software made empty promises, Sparkcentral delivers. They also inform us, anytime they are undergoing maintenance or when Twitter or Facebook has an API change, where in previous cases we would have to discover this ourselves.
Read full review
Return on Investment
PlanPlusOnline
  • Better lead management
  • Increased lead efficiencies with drip programs
Read full review
Discontinued Products
  • Customers appreciate fast responses to the things they post on social media. This tool allows that to happen.
  • The dashboard allows us to keep up with how many are waiting in our queue so we can keep up with how busy we are during the day and manage it.
  • Customer satisfaction has seemed to increase while using this tool.
  • Being able to add notes with the customers address and phone info is awesome as well.
Read full review
ScreenShots

PlanPlus Screenshots

Screenshot of Mobile interface on iPadScreenshot of Mobile interface on iPhoneScreenshot of Desktop browser interfaceScreenshot of Another screenshot of desktop browser interface