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As the market becomes more competitive and people’s attention span continues to go down the slippery slope, customers are more likely to switch brands if businesses don’t constantly keep them engaged or are not responsive.
So, how do you stay on top of the customer relations game?
If you follow the standard approach of segmenting every customer and catering to their individual needs, it can quickly get overwhelming since today, businesses have more connections to customers than ever before—and with more connections comes more customer data.
Therefore, you need a modern CRM system designed with flexibility and scalability in mind to make the most of your customer data.
Keap, now known as Infusionsoft, is one of the most popular CRM software in the market currently. But, if you’re looking for one that offers different features, or something more affordable, we have curated a list of some of the best CRM software to help you find the right one.
We will cover the pros and cons of each software and what tasks they are best suited for so you can make the right pick as per your requirements.
8 Best Keap Alternatives
1. ActiveCampaign
Over 130,000 businesses across 170 countries use ActiveCampaign for their CRM needs. The software comes with over 500 automation features capable of supporting businesses of various sizes.
It can track customer behavior across various stages of the customer’s lifecycle, as well as various custom attributes for each individual. ActiveCampaign uses this data to determine the best possible content to be sent at the perfect time to maximize the effectiveness of marketing strategies.
The focus is on providing an excellent customer experience through automation. ActiveCampaign can replicate personal experiences for every customer regardless of business size.
This software is great for businesses that want to focus more on the customer relations aspect of their marketing operations. Besides, it also puts all your marketing, sales, and customer relation operations under a single interface—all for a competitive monthly fee.
Pros:
- Built to meet all your marketing funnel needs under one program
- Provides concise reports that focus only on the necessary details
- Includes features beyond email marketing, helping drive sales
Cons:
- Sometimes the email preview doesn’t precisely match the sent emails
- Has a significant learning curve
- Possible overwhelming caused by the customizations
Best suited for: Digital marketers for businesses of all sizes
Pricing: ActiveCampaign offers four pricing plans charged annually: Lite is priced at $9 per month, Plus at $49, Professional at $129, and Enterprise at $229.
2. Hubspot CRM
Hubspot’s CRM is an all-in-one tool designed to cover all your bases when it comes to customer experience. It comes as four major “hubs,” each one made to focus on the four key customer contact areas—marketing, sales, service, and CMS.
The “Growth Suite” combines the marketing, sales, and service hubs if you don’t require the CMS functions. You can use each hub individually or in sync with each other. The marketing hub is packed with features that include email marketing, workflow automation, social media control, and analytics tracking.
The team at Hubspot regularly keeps in touch with shifting market trends, as can be seen by their social media handles and blog posts. That way, you can take solace in the fact that your tool would also be relevant to the dynamic marketing landscape and not become outdated within a few months of usage. Interestingly, Hubspot also provides you with the latest knowledge and tools to keep your business fresh.
Pros:
- Provides various courses and certifications to keep you up to date on the latest marketing and customer service knowledge.
- Scalable for your growing business needs
- Provides integrations across various platforms that can be found on the Hubspot App Marketplace.
Cons:
- Can get expensive over time as your business scales
- Low tier packages don’t offer A/B testing
- Editing email templates can be complicated if you don’t know CSS
Best suited for:
Medium to large size businesses that require an all-in-one solution
Pricing:
Hubspot does offer CRM for free, but the functions are limited. You might need to opt for one of their subscription plans to fully utilize their services for your business. The Starter CRM suite costs 45$ a month, the Professional suite costs $1,600 a month, and the Enterprise suite costs $5,000 a month.
3. Ontraport
One of the most affordable CRM options, Ontraport provides stellar services for a fraction of the price charged by others in this list, including visual data analytics, deep campaign automation, and tagging.
It’s easy to design your e-mail templates using the drag and drop feature on the software. You can also segment your email contacts across various parameters for your convenience—this is great if you have more complex campaigns that target multiple segments.
Ontraport is a more intensive CRM option due to its eCommerce support features. If your business includes online sales or you wish to expand into that territory, this software may be ideal for you. Its analytics display also makes it easier to absorb vast amounts of information, making it easier for you to make strategic decisions.
Pros:
- Incredibly affordable as it provides full access to all the features
- Great for lead generation
- Create custom objects, an enterprise feature on most CRM platforms
- eCommerce features including payment collection, upselling, and cross-selling
Cons:
- Dashboard interface lacks visual appeal in terms of data presentation
- Limited options for integration
Best suited for: Small and medium-sized businesses
Pricing: The Basic plan is priced at $79 per month, the Plus at $147 per month, the Pro at $297 per month, and Enterprise at $497 per month.
4. GetResponse
What started as an email marketing tool, GetResponse, is now an all-in-one eCommerce and online marketing tool. They’ve since added features like website builder, chat, webinar hosting, landing pages, automated sales funnels, and split testing.
GetResponse also generates some unique reports that you normally wouldn’t find on other platforms. Email ROI, one-click retargeting, per-user information, newsletter performance reports can help you achieve your KPIs.
The email marketing feature is still the star of GetResponse. This software works best for a small business that’s just starting out due to the low cost and ease of use. You can explore the various tools without having to worry about your investment being wasted.
Pros:
- Impressive discounts when paying annually
- Flexible data segmentation
- Unique webinar feature
- In-built website builder with adherence to GDPR requirements
Cons:
- The drag and drop feature lacks precision
- Offers split testing only for the subject line and content excludes sender and time
- Only the Professional plan comes with phone support
Best suited for: Small businesses that have a budget constraint, and freelancers
Pricing: Apart from the Free plan, GetResponse offers three monthly subscription plans—The Basic plan at $12.30, the most popular Plus plan at $40.18, and the Professional plan at $81.18.
5. Agile CRM
Agile CRM maintains a log of recipients’ actions through email integration. You can refer to this log later to optimize your marketing strategies and use it as a central integrated interface for all your marketing and sales endeavors.
It provides several sales, marketing, and customer service functions, including SaaS campaigns, eCommerce and email campaigns, and web rule automation.
Agile CRM is perfect for beginner marketers who want to explore automated services for their operations. It doesn’t overwhelm you with many tools like other providers, which is great if you only want to focus on a few key areas.
Pros:
- Sales pipelines can be automated
- Easy to use for beginners
- Simplifies contact management
Cons:
- The starter pack is limited to one integration
- Services are comparatively limited
- The reporting feature is inadequate
Best suited for: Small businesses and startups that are fairly new to digital marketing and freelance marketers
Pricing: Agile CRM has four pricing plans. The free plan is ideal for a trial run though limited in its use. The Starter plan costs $8.99, making it one of the cheapest base plans for CRM solutions. The most purchased plan is the Regular plan at $29.99, while the biggest plan is Enterprise at $47.99.
6. Salesforce
Salesforce is a cloud-based solution that offers custom applications for businesses and organizations to streamline their operations. It’s considered the leader in sales and customer service automation.
Salesforce essentially tailors the software to precisely meet your requirements and focuses more on automation to help your business run more efficiently. The software has widgets and tools to provide industry-specific analytics that you can compare against and tweak your strategies for better results.
The software is high in demand among digital marketers due to the host of features available on the platform. Since it requires a higher investment than most providers, Salesforce is ideal for large businesses with complex operations and a large customer base.
Pros:
- Large ecosystem of third-party extensions
- Wide range of customization, tools, and capabilities
- The cloud-based platform makes it easier to access
Cons:
- Additional cost to add users and custom features
- Limited technical support if assistance is required
- Can be confusing to use initially
Best suited for: Established businesses that require an intensive CRM solution for their business growth, small businesses that want to focus on building a customer base.
Pricing: The basic plan for small businesses starts at $25 per month. However, if you want to include email marketing, you’ll need to opt for the second tier. The $75 monthly fee for the second tier is still a bargain with all the additional features that become available for use. The marketing suite costs $1,250 per month.
7. Insightly
Insightly is a unified customer relationship management (CRM) platform for growing businesses in all industry segments, such as manufacturing, technology, healthcare, media, education, retail, construction, and others.
The in-built project management system unifies the contact records through sales and post-sales processes. Thus, helping small businesses centralize their customer data for easy accessibility and better workflow optimization.
Pros:
- Project management tool with a command center and project tracking along company pipeline
- Simple and intuitive CRM Interface
- Offers Gmail, Google Apps, Outlook, Quickbooks integration
- Range of pricing plans to suit organizational need based on size and complexity
- Automated Marketing features
Cons:
- Poor storage capabilities not suited for large corporations
- Outdated UX design with dull graphics
- Limited integration with email tools and software
- Restricted reporting capabilities
- Lack of synchronization with Office 365 contacts
- Poor technical support
- Lack of graphical and visual views of data
Best suited for: Small and Medium-size businesses
Pricing: Insightly CRM offers a range of plans and pricing such as Free plan, Basic plan at $12/user per month, Plus plan at $29/user per month, Professional plan at $49/user per month, and Enterprise plan at $99/user per month.
8. Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM is part of the Zoho suite of business management tools and the brainchild of one of the largest organizations in the CRM sector. The emphasis is on accessibility, with companies of all sizes in mind. In addition to integrating with other Zoho products, Zoho CRM integrates with a wide range of third-party applications.
The low-cost pricing plans are perfect for small to medium-sized businesses that want a comprehensive CRM solution. The software handles marketing, sales, and customer support processes under one easy-to-use interface. This makes it easier to streamline your operations and save on cost, time, and effort.
Pros:
- Powerful real-time analytics engine
- Rich UX with powerful artificial intelligence engine
- Built-in live chat software
- Reliable business phone system and smart call management
- Separate form builder and optimization app
- Built-in social media management software
Cons:
- Lack of free support for onboarding
- Limited depth of functionality for scaling
- Reports of unfixed bugs and glitches
- Limited third-party extensions
Best suited for: Businesses of all sizes, Not-for-profit trusts, and entrepreneurs
Pricing: ZOHO CRM is available in a myriad of pricing plans. The Free Edition is forever free for up to three users, Standard Edition at $14 per user/month, Professional Edition at $23 per user/month, Enterprise Edition at $40 per user/month, and Ultimate Edition at $52 per user/month (billed annually).
A bit about Keap for those who haven’t tried it yet
Keap is a CRM solution that offers email marketing support to small businesses. It also acts as a sales platform and offers fully customizable marketing campaigns, sales automation, and over 300 app integrations for sales teams to work seamlessly.
Besides, its marketing automation features are explicitly designed t o help small businesses grow. Unlike any other automation tool, the campaign builder is complete with an intuitive building sequence.
Pros:
- visually appealing user interface creates a fun experience
- Great API for integration with third-party tools
- Universal tracking logs customers across multiple channels
- Offers eCommerce features like payment, cart, and inventory tracking
Cons:
- Expensive one-time kickstart fee
- Additional costs to integrate with some third-party tools
- Delivery rates by Keap may be lower than what is projected
Best suited for: Small businesses with a strong customer base
Pricing: Infusionsoft offers four monthly plans: Essentials costs $199, Deluxe Sales and Deluxe eCommerce each cost $299, and Complete costs $379.
Conclusion
Keap is a CRM solution that works best for small businesses that want to strengthen their customer relations. It’s an intuitive solution capable of efficiently supporting a business as it grows.
While Keap is a great CRM tool for most businesses, it’s certainly not a one-size-fits-all solution. You may have a smaller budget, or your business might need one feature over everything else that Keap doesn’t offer. So, carefully scrutinize the tools keeping your business goals in mind before deciding that directly affects your marketing workflow.
Use this article to carefully analyze different Keap alternatives and make the right decision for your unique business needs.
About Rachel Bowland
Rachel Bowland is the content manager at Social Marketing Writing. She likes to write about marketing and design.