Act CRM SaaS Options June 8, 2021
Act offers 3 plans for their relatively new Act CRM SaaS with monthly and annual payment options. SaaS stands for software as a service. Allow me to give you my feedback and thoughts on the three offerings.
Act CRM Essentials | $180 annually or $22 monthly | 2500 Emails & 2 GB of Storage
there are still a lot of Act users out there that have old Act software. Because of licensing software updates and changes, old Act software users, Act users that have versions older than 18 will have difficulty moving their Act software to a new computer or reinstalling the software if required to do so. The issue relates to the fact that you will not be able to register older Act software.
The $180 version is an inexpensive way to keep all your Act data accessible to you from any web browser. There is no software to install and that eliminates technical issues that many software users face. There is a free trial and a certain level of free technical support directly from Act.
Some people hate paying annual subscriptions. My feeling is this: get used to it. On one hand I can appreciate the concern, but on the other hand I understand how software companies must keep evolving and that makes a subscription the best way to keep the latest technology in front of their consumers.
If nothing else, for $180 all your data is backed up in the cloud and safer than having it on your computer in case something bad happens like a computer crash. This version will work with Microsoft Outlook to send and receive emails but will not work with Microsoft Word.
Act CRM Standard | $360 annually or $40 monthly | 10000 Emails & 4 GB of Storage
this version works with Microsoft Word and Outlook. In my opinion that is the major difference between this version and Act CRM essentials. If you are a small business this is what you will most likely use.
Act CRM Expert | $540 annually or $55 per month| 25000 Emails & 6 GB of Storage
This version has one key offering that the first two versions do not offer. The ability to add fields to Act. This is something that I really wish they would change because I think it takes away from what Act can be to consumers. I can understand how they might not want to add this option to the Essential’s version. It would be rare when I would suggest this plan to a consumer right off the bat. I could see potentially upgrading to it. Having said that, the downside to these subscriptions is that a company would have to upgrade all their users to the same plan.
To combat this issue, I would recommend that you start using Act CRM SaaS as a free trial and make sure that you add several spare fields to Act before converting one of the above plans.
