Insightly is a CRM which aligns sales, marketing and projects of a business to give one view of their customers. Although Insightly calls themselves a CRM platform for growing businesses across all industries, there are several drawbacks that force users to look out for Insightly alternatives.
This blog talks about the drawbacks of Insightly, and we list 12 other CRM software vendors that can be a better fit for your business.
Why do businesses need an Insightly alternative?
All tools have their pros and cons and when it comes to CRM there is no best choice. You have to find the CRM or Project management tool that is the best fit for your business. When we started checking Insightly CRM reviews online, we found the following issues highlighted by their current and former customers:
- Difficult to maintain integration: It is difficult to integrate Insightly with other tools as they do not provide frequent updates. This affects the overall performance.
- Poor project management: They do not have a proper resource management, no visibility and email integration and task integration are rudimentary.
- Bad user interface and not intuitive: The user interface looks outdated and is not visually appealing.
- Steep Learning Curve: The setup of the CRM and getting acquainted with various tools and features takes time. The users find it difficult to understand the application of few features.
- Expensive: Insightly is expensive compared to a few other CRMs which provide similar or even better features.
- Poor Customer Service: The customer service of Insightly team is very slow and resolving customer issues takes time.
Insightly targeted the smaller businesses initially but now the new functionalities are aimed at the higher subscription plans and if the small businesses need those features they need to pay extra. This CRM is not an option for businesses that need heavy team coordination or project management needs. And these are the reasons, the businesses are in the lookout for Insightly alternatives.
Why are we reviewing Insightly alternatives?
Prior to building TeamWave – an all-in-one, productivity software for small business that combines features of CRM, Project Management and HRMS, we did extensive market research on the popular CRM solutions. Insightly is one of the top CRM apps that we have evaluated. Others namely:
- Engagebay
- Salesforce
- Pipedrive
- Freshsales
- Nutshell CRM
- Salesflare
- Scoro
- Agile CRM
- Nimble CRM
- Teamleader CRM
We have analysed each of the above software and understood the pros and cons, from a small business user perspective, and here is a summary of our findings.
12+ Insightly Alternatives & Competitors in 2021
#1 Insightly Alternative: TeamWave
TeamWave Highlights:
- Flat pricing of $39/month for UNLIMITED users.
- Visual Sales Pipeline that gives complete visibility of the pipelines across various stages.
- Customize CRM with custom fields to add more data, powerful filters and custom pipelines. Thus customizing the CRM as per your business needs.
- CRM, HRM and Task/ Project Management, all available in one place.
- Has a Mobile app that helps the team stay up-to-date about their deals and projects, even on the go.
- Contact Management
- Detailed reports and forecasts to gain real-time data and actionable insights.
- Email Integration to manage leads and keep track of all the conversations in one place.
- Built-in notifications and reminders to stay informed of all activities and tasks.
- Products Feature that creates a library of all the goods or services the business provides, links them to the deals and also allows the user to create custom fields that are specific to their business needs.
- Integrates with other third-party apps like Gsuite, Zapier and QuickBooks to get all the important information at one place.
How is TeamWave the best Insightly alternative?
| INSIGHTLY [ESSENTIAL PLAN] | TEAMWAVE |
|---|---|
| Poor reporting features as the users complain of fragmented export/ reporting process. | Sales Forecasts and Sales Reports that allow the users to get a big picture of their performance by measuring individual as well as team performance. Goal tracking is also available to track key metrics associated with a deal. |
| The user interface seems outdated and is not visually appealing | Highly intuitive and user-friendly interface. |
| Has a very steep learning curve and initially getting used to the software takes time. | As per customer reviews, TeamWave is an easy-to-use software for beginners as well as tech-savvy |
| Total Price for 10 Users = $260/month | Total Price for 10 Users = $39/month. In fact, TeamWave is $39 for UNLIMITED Users. |
Key Consideration: Flat price at US$39/month for unlimited users along with all the essential apps, reporting features, project management tools and integrations with other software, makes TeamWave one of the best alternatives for Insightly. Therefore, TeamWave CRM is an ideal choice for small businesses and startups as it will be easier for them to scale their businesses without incurring very high costs. Also, integrations with platforms like Mailchimp and Google Workspace, without any additional cost, help increase team efficiency and streamlines processes.
Price for UNLIMITED users: $39/month
#2 Insightly Alternative: Engagebay
Engagebay Highlights
- Drag-and-drop form and landing page builder
- Intelligent lead scoring
- Powerful A/B testing tools
- Built-in social suite
- Robust set of automation tools
- Two-way calendar sync
- Smart data analytics
Key Consideration: EngageBay is an all-in-one marketing, sales, and service platform with free CRM. The software is designed with startups and SMBs in mind, thus providing a comprehensive set of tools at affordable pricing. Its pricing plan is perfectly tiered to cater to businesses of all kinds. Though EngageBay is hands down one of the best platforms for startups and SMBs, it could do away with more pre-built templates.
Price for 10 users:US$ 89.9/month[Basic]
#3 Insightly Alternative: Salesforce CRM
Salesforce CRM Highlights
- Lightning platform helps users to build app for customers as well as partners
- Workflow automation that supports complex business processes
- Advanced customization options using point and click tools or coding.
- Easily integrates with accounting systems, Ecommerce websites etc
- Trailblazer community offers opportunities that help users to practice and learn the software on their own.
- Social Media Integration
- Territory Management
Key Consideration: Salesforce CRM has a lot of functionalities, but for small businesses, this software is highly expensive. Because, as customization increases, the costs involved increase. Therefore, for businesses that do not have a dedicated sales or marketing team, they will not need such complex software. Also, compared to Insightly the learning curve is much higher for this CRM. Additionally, the configuration is time-consuming. Having so many features causes confusion and new users find it very difficult to use this CRM. Users also complain about poor customer service.
Price for 10 users: US$ 250/month [Sales Cloud CRM]
#4 Insightly Alternative: Pipedrive CRM
Pipedrive CRM Highlights
- Users can customize everything
- Can set goals and have detailed reporting features
- Mobile apps and Email Integration
Key Consideration: Pipedrive is an easy-to-use tool. This CRM helps businesses find the right leads and thus grow their business. Pipedrive CRM is best for small businesses but data management is difficult. Especially when businesses start to grow, handling tasks become highly complex. It requires a lot of manual work and there is a need for automated workflow. At present, there are few time-consuming jobs. Few users have reported that customer service has declined one has upgraded from trial to actual plan.
Price for 10 users: US$ 120/month [Essential Plan]
#5 Insightly Alternative: Freshworks CRM
Freshworks CRM Highlights
- AI-based lead scoring system
- Smart workflow automation
- Personalized templates and can send multiple emails
- Can call clients directly from the app and has other options like personalised welcome messages and auto-dialling.
- Sort and filter options that help the users find bad deals, bestsellers or closed deals.
Key Consideration: Freshworks CRM is a simple CRM software for small businesses. But the downside is that the number of third-party integrations, compared to other CRM software, is small. Also, it does not have the flexibility for customizing lead scores. While looking at customer reviews, we found a number of complaints against their customer support services. As the business grows and the need for advanced functionalities increases, it can be difficult to manage operations with Freshworks CRM.
Price for 10 users: US$ 190/month
#6 Insightly Alternative: Nutshell CRM
Nutshell CRM Highlights
- Provides advanced pipeline automation tools
- Unlimited contacts and data storage
- Fully customizable marketing process automation
- Smart search function
Key Consideration: Nutshell CRM is known for its ease-of-use. Users also say that it is good to set calls, emails or meeting reminders. Few users feel that this CRM is more expensive compared to its competitors and the learning curve is slightly higher. Also, their advanced search feature does not always provide accurate results.
Price for 10 users: US$ 190/month
#7 Insightly Alternative: Salesflare CRM
Salesflare CRM Highlights
- Intensive sales monitoring
- Users can add custom fields to individual accounts
- Integration with Google Workspace and other platforms
Key Consideration: Salesflare CRM users talk about a few cool features like updating client notes from the phone. But the user interface is out of date and this CRM lacks customizable features. Therefore, preventing it from catering to various business needs. And the price compared to other CRMs is very high which makes it a very expensive option for small businesses.
Price for 10 users: US$ 300/month
#8 Insightly Alternative: Scoro
Scoro Highlights
- Dynamic dashboards so that the users can track real time results
- Streamlined workflow
- Detailed enterprise level reports
- Integrations with softwares like Xero and Zapier
Key Consideration: Scoro CRM is a management software that simplifies work and reduces time spent on routine tasks and has a set of a few good features. And that is the exact reason we have added it to the list as Insightly alternatives. But one major let down is the report section as it is extremely limited. The software needs to be a lot more intuitive and also it has a steep learning curve. Additionally there are many glitches in the software which worsens the customer experience. These reasons clearly show that this does not provide the value for money.
Price for 10 users: US$ 260/month
#9 Insightly Alternative: Agile CRM
Agile CRM Highlights
- It automates sales, marketing and services at one place. This helps to maintain communication consistency.
- Dynamic Webform
- Advanced marketing metrics
- It is easy to link social media profiles to campaigns and contact views
- It can send personalized messages and includes mobile messaging in campaigns
- The landing page builder creates mobile responsive landing pages and results in high conversion rates
Key Consideration: Agile CRM, is an all-in-one system that does not have a high learning curve. One major drawback is its starter package users can use only single integration. The reports are uncluttered and confusing and users need to take higher plans to review activity reports. In conclusion, this CRM is very expensive with such limited features.
Price for 10 users: US$ 99/month
#10 Insightly Alternative: Nimble CRM
Nimble CRM Highlights
- Can organize the contacts into different lists and take bulk actions such as group messages.
- Provides a detailed list of completed or scheduled activities, thus helping the team to keep track.
- Automatically links the team tasks and activities to the respective deal so that everyone stays updated.
- Email templates for efficient engagement. It also tracks emails to see the open and click rates.
- Easy integration with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.
Key Consideration: Nimble CRM is an easy-to-use CRM, which provides a summary of all deals and contacts in the same location. But there are few issues that need to be addressed. It is hard to access emails within the Nimble app and also to forward emails to it. In addition, the user needs the ‘sync’ tool to integrate Nimble with other applications.
Price for 10 users: US$ 250/month
#11 Insightly Alternative: Teamleader CRM
Teamleader CRM Highlights
- Connect with accounting software and follow the invoices easily
- Record incoming and outgoing calls, emails and other communications
- It is synchronized with the calendar so that all meetings and appointments are updated constantly.
Key Consideration: Teamleader CRM has a nice user interface. In this CRM, where to find different functions, is clearly defined. But the features for each function lacks detailing and is worse compared to other CRMs. The integrations and add-ons come at an additional cost.
Price for 10 users: 250 Euros/month
#12 Insightly Alternative: Method:CRM
Method:CRM Highlights
- #1 QuickBooks CRM sync on the market
- Automate any workflow with Method’s flexible no-code platform
- Powerful lead and customer management capabilities
- Ability to personalize your transaction templates
- Unlimited custom reports
- Integrations with your everyday tools like Gmail and Outlook
Key Consideration: Method:CRM is the best CRM for QuickBooks Online and Desktop users. The software aims to fuel business growth for small and mid-sized businesses across industries. Method:CRM’s key features include strong workflow automation, custom reports and data capture, as well as online portals that create an excellent customer experience. For now, a drawback to Method:CRM is that it is currently only designed for QuickBooks Online and Desktop users.
Price for 10 users:US$ 250.00/month [Contact management]
CONCLUSION
Businesses should consider a variety of factors before choosing the right CRM to provide the best possible experience for their leads, prospects and employees.
You are a click away from trying out the TeamWave CRM. Signup for our free trial and you will know why we call it the best!!