Amazing Complete CRM & Automation software: Great Infusionsoft or Salesforce alternative, for 10% of the price tag

As a small business owner, and founder of Bloominari.com, a digital marketing agency helping small businesses to grow their companies online through beautiful design, automation and marketing tactics I was in search of the best CRM and marketing automation software for a truly affordable price. After literally about 2 months of research of various CRM and marketing automation platforms I finally decided to take AgileCRM for a spin (It was easy to try it, as they have an always-free lite version). Immediately I fell in love with it's interface, ease of use, and easy-to-setup platform. I previously worked with Salesforce.com and Solve360 CRMS, and have also tried BaseCRM, SugarCRM and many others throughout my business life.

Pros

- Super affordable for the amount of tools, features and applications it includes. Starting at $10/user/month for it's starter version. - Great user interface - Easy to setup and use - Lots of native integrations with lots of web-based (Saas) apps such as Gmail, Quickbooks, Twilio and many many others. - Integration with Zapier, which basically let's you now integrate AgileCRM with 700+ other web apps, so this feature was a KEY for me. - All your emails automatically load from your Gmail inside AgileCRM, no need to BCC some email address. - Lots of sales, marketing, support, landing page, and amazing features added on at no additional cost. - Now you can purchase add-ons such as user permissions, triggers, additional automation campaigns and others without having to upgrade all your users to the next subscription level (this is something I requested, and their team listened and did implement this). -Their tech support is great, they care, they listen, and they modify/improve their system based on your feedback - Their team update the app every few days

Cons

- Their standard subscription is $30/user/month if pre-paid for 2 years, otherwise $50/month, without too many added benefits for this level - Their starter subscription limits your marketing campaigns (automation) to only 5 campaigns, with 10 nodes (steps) on each. The standard gives you 10 campaigns, with 25 nodes each (much better). - Some updates happen without prior notifications to the user, and sometimes changes the User interface too drastically for some features. - Their E-mail templates are limited, but you can still bring in your HTML templates or use their WYSIWYG editor.

All I need to work in one place

The biggest benefit that this software has given me has been to optimize everything that has to do with the world of sales and marketing, generating the reports I need to demonstrate in the company how useful our strategies are, what aspects to improve, and generate our own leads, all in a very organized way and as its name says "agile".

Pros

I started working with this platform a little less than a year ago. My job consisted (and still is) in generating leads for the company and developing marketing and sales campaigns from scratch. Agile CRM has been fundamental, since it integrates perfectly with everything I need. I have my contacts in one place, which I can follow very easily. Its greatest strength is the ease of use and integration with multiple tools. Something as simple as managing notifications and alerts make the most of my time and organize my agenda in a practical way. I can generate reports where the effectiveness of the different strategies is established. For example, the result of phone calls, mail campaigns, newsletters, and more. I was able to import all the contacts in a very simple way and clean my list in a short time. Another great thing: the mobile app and the possibility of integrating with other programs. Today I have it integrated with Bria and Skype, also linkedin and facebook. Everything in one place, is the most practical CRM platform that someone like me (who has just started and was analyzing options) has found, and I´m very satisfied with this software.

Cons

I think it would be convenient that in the future they made some training videos to explain how to correctly configure the automation tools, since I think it has been the most difficult to understand.

The most cost-effective marketing automation and CRM solution I can find

I was originally looking for a marketing automation system for myself, but most are incredibly expensive. I decided to try it and, after a brief learning period, have really fallen in love with it. I've ended up recommending it many of my B2B clients and startup clients, who similarly are limited in budget. They are sceptical at first but then realise just how much it can do and how it can replace lots of existing disjointed (and expensive) tools. Look, I'm sure Hubspot and the likes have benefits in some areas - but when you account for the cost difference it really is difficult to justify spending so much more!

Pros

- it's almost an all-in-one product, but at a much more accessible price - for the most part, the product is easy to use and I like how you can setup automations in an intuitive way - when used correctly, the power of the product is so insightful - PRICE!

Cons

- I think the platform overall could do with a cleaner design - Sometimes it can be a bit tricky to find the thing you need (but customer service have always been quick to help) - Would love some newer and more modern templates in emails etc. - LinkedIn integration would make a huge difference

Shoddy CRM backed by terrible support

Overall a very bad experience. I can't find an option in the UI to cancel the subscription — there's a pause option but not a cancellation one. The support is unprofessional and rude.

Pros

The automation/workflow builder seemed to work

Cons

I was drawn to AgileCRM while searching for a cloud-hosted CRM that could help me build a basic drip email automation sequence. What I found was that AgileCRM is a buggy CRM that is not suitable for business users. Countless have pointed this out, but let me add my voice: unbranded emails are not standard and require paying an extra fee. This means that unless you pay extra (yes, to the paid plan), every email you sent through the CRM will have "Send with Agile", or something similar, in the footer. This reeks of extortion and this hidden cost instantly turned me off continuing with my evaluation. In addition, the India-based support team is incompetent. Everything is "no problem, I understand your concern" and nothing actually gets resolved. I wasn't able to add several professional SMTP servers and the team didn't even seem capable of understanding why that was happening (hint: your SMTP editor should accept usernames even when they are not formatted as email addresses). My advice to any business user: stay well clear.

My Review Of AgileCRM

I love it, and have also installed the free version for my own brand

Pros

I like the ease of integration this product has and its functionality

Cons

Getting it set up, I feel it would benefit to have a way of installing key features for a number of real life business models for example - a walk through of installing key modules that would aid someone that was using it for example a "Real Estate", "Insurance" or "Car Salesman" business, so the user could follow a custom integration following a set of parameters that best meet the style of business that they are using it for.