In 2020 Act! has announced the last version is Act! v22 and that support for the PC product is to be permanently ended in June 2021. - Snapshot
Introduced in 1986, ACT! CRM helped define Customer Relations in the early days of Personal Computers. Created by Pat Sullivan and Mike Muhney, it was sold famously to Symantec, and then purchased back by Pat Sullivan. Sage operated as Best ACT!, then Sage Act! and in 2013 sold the company to Bob Ogden's Swiftpage, Ogden left the company in 2019 and recently the company has dropped the Swiftpage moniker to be simply called; Act!
The legacy of Act! is significant. An entire generation of small business people came to handle all their customer management needs using a simple PC based CRM. Although Enterprise businesses came to embrace the cloud model, the Act! generation has never understood the high price and awkward User Interfaces that comes from cloud-based CRM tools.
Managing contacts and sales, Activities, To-Do's and recording a history of past Activities.
Adding User Defined fields that can track data that is unique to a given business.
An Opportunities Module that handles Sales Stages.
Integration with popular tools; Outlook and Google.
3rd Party tools that allow Sync of Act! to Mobile Devices.
Act! Pro – $199 per user one-time price - * This product has been discontinued.
Act! CRM - $360 per user per year – new name and pricing for Act! Pro.
Act! Growth Suite - $300/$600/$1080/$2400 per user recurring per year. Email Marketing service nominally tied to Act! CRM.
Insightly is a basic Cloud-Based CRM for small businesses. It supports linking records, like Act! and also supports custom fields. The cost is among the lowest available for Cloud Based Contact Management. However, at $348 per user per year, the “Plus” tier is missing many essential CRM features found in Act! Insightly has Android and iPhone Apps, and also you can access your full Cloud database using your phone browser.
Insightly Pricing $348 per user for “Plus” recurring per year.
Zoho is a unique India based CRM product with many features. It is a Cloud Based CRM. Zoho is has well rated mobile apps for Android and iPhone. The drawback in Zoho is that they are based in India, so if you need any support or assistance, you need to navigate their corporate culture. Many things that work well in other products, like recurring appointments on the calendar, are not fully functional with Zoho CRM.
Zoho Pricing - $144 per user for “Standard” recurring per year.
DejaOffice is well known a Mobile Platform for Outlook Sync. But the team recently made a jump to the Windows platform and it supports many of the basic features of Act! including Contacts with dated notes, Calendar, Tasks, History, and Opportunities (called Deals). Outlook, Google, Android and iPhone integration are included. DejaOffice is an On-Premise solution that stores the data on your PC or Office network drive.
DejaOffice Pricing: $130 for "Express" (single user), $200 for "Pro" 5 users ($40 per user) – one-time price.
Agile is an affordable Cloud based CRM. Their Free level is not really usable, but the "Starter" level is $15 per month per user and offers a good range of features. Agile is based in the US but uses offshore teams for technical support and development. Some reviewers complain that the interface is slow and difficult to set up.
AgileCRM Pricing - $180 per user for “Standard” recurring per year.
Salesforce is the name brand successor to CRM tools, and they manage to charge well for it. They have dozens of modules and capabilities. But they are highly overpriced for people who need simple contact management. Oddly, Salesforce Android an iPhone apps are just a web view, so if you do not have an active internet connection you cannot add or look up any data.
Salesforce Pricing: $300 per user for “Essentials" recurring per year.
Purchasing a CRM for your business is a difficult task. You need to consider the short term cost and capabilities, as well as the long term technical support and data access cost. We hope that this guide has given you some indication of the range of products that are available to replace Act! Pro as it is being discontinued.