Choosing the right CRM can feel like trying to pick out a new car. Overwhelmed by options?
You’re not alone.
Two popular choices often pop up Insightly and Salesforce.
In this post, we’ll break down the key differences between Insightly vs Salesforce; which suits you better?
Overview
To give you the most accurate comparison, we’ve spent weeks testing both Insightly and Salesforce.
We dug deep into their features, explored pricing plans, and even spoke to current users to get their honest feedback.
Now, let’s see how they stack up!
Need a CRM that goes beyond sales with robust project management tools? Insightly’s got you covered.
Pricing:Â It has a free trial. The premium plan starts at $29/month.
Key Features:
- Project Management
- Workflow Automation
- Relationship Linking
Ready to explore the world’s leading CRM? Sign up for a free trial of Salesforce today!
Pricing: It has a free trial. The premium plan starts at $25/month.
Key Features:
- Lead management
- Sales forecasting
- Opportunity management
What is Insightly?
Ever feel like your business is a juggling act?
Insightly can help! This CRM is like a personal assistant for your customer relationships.
It keeps all your contacts, emails, and important notes organized in one place.
No more scrambling for information!
Also, explore our favorite Insightly alternatives…
Our Take
Insightly is a solid choice for businesses that need a scalable CRM with project management capabilities.
Key Benefits
- Scalable for growth: Adapt the platform as your business expands.
- Project management features: Keep your projects organized and on track.
- Customizable dashboards and reports: Get the insights you need to make informed decisions.
- Integrations with popular apps: Connect with your favorite business tools.
Pricing
- Plus: $29/user/month.
- Professional: $49/user/month.
- Enterprise: $99/user/month.
Pros
Cons
What is Salesforce?
Need a CRM that can handle just about anything?
Salesforce is your go-to. It’s like the Swiss Army knife of customer relationship management.
This powerful platform can help you with sales, marketing, and even customer service.
It’s a one-stop shop for growing your business!
Also, explore our favorite Salesforce alternatives…
Our Take
It’s incredibly powerful and flexible. The free plan is very generous, and it has many features for managing projects.
Key Benefits
Salesforce helps businesses connect better with customers. It gives a full view of each customer.
This helps improve sales and service.
- 360-Degree Customer View: See all customer interactions in one place.
- Boosts Sales by 39%: Many users report higher sales and productivity.
- Powerful Automation: Automate tasks like emails and lead tracking.
- Huge AppExchange: Connects with thousands of other apps.
- Scalable for Growth: Grows with your business, from small to large.
Pricing
- Starter Suite: $25/user/month.
- Pro Suite: $100/user/month.
- Enterprise: $165/user/month.
- Unlimited: $330/user/month.
- Einstein 1 Sales: $500/user/month.
Pros
Cons
Feature Comparison
Insightly and Salesforce are prominent contenders in the crm software space, but they target different market segments.
Insightly is an attractive option for the small business and medium sized businesses market, prioritizing a clean user interface and integrated project management.
Salesforce is the industry giant, built for enterprise-scale customization and robust sales process management.
This comparison explores their pricing tiers and key crm technology features.
1. Target Audience and Scalability
- Insightly: Specifically designed for the small business and medium sized businesses market. Its simple setup and moderate pricing tiers make it an attractive option for growing teams.
- Salesforce: Primarily built for large enterprises and corporations. While it offers starter plans, the true power and complexity of the platform scale to require extensive customization, often leading to a steep learning curve.
2. User Interface and Learning Curve
- Insightly: Features a clean, intuitive user interface that is highly praised for ease of use. It requires minimal training, allowing teams to quickly adopt the insightly crm.
- Salesforce: The user interface is deep and highly configurable but often criticized for being complex or clunky for new users. The extensive features result in a steep learning curve, requiring dedicated administration staff.
3. CRM Integration and Foundation
- Insightly: The insightly crm unifies core crm software features like sales, marketing, and project management in a single platform, making it easy for sales teams to manage the entire customer journey.
- Salesforce: Functions as the largest crm software ecosystem in the world, built on expansive crm technology. Its integration is seamless with the rest of the Salesforce product family (Sales Cloud, Service Cloud).
4. Pricing Tiers and Affordability
- Insightly: Offers competitive pricing tiers that are generally lower than Salesforce’s comparable plans. The availability of a free crm version for up to two users is an attractive option.
- Salesforce: The salesforce pricing is notoriously high for mid-to-large users. Its entry-level plan is competitive, but full crm technology requires significant investment in higher pricing tiers.
5. Third Party Integrations
- Insightly: Natively integrates well with essential productivity google apps and offers third party integrations via its AppConnect tool. It also connects smoothly with many accounting systems.
- Salesforce: Boasts the massive AppExchange marketplace with thousands of third party integrations, allowing complex connections with virtually all popular tools, including deep integration with accounting systems.
6. Sales Process and Automation
- Insightly: Streamlines the sales process with built-in task management and basic workflow automation. The sales process is visual, designed for rapid pipeline progression by sales teams.
- Salesforce: Offers deep sales automation, lead scoring (via Einstein AI), and tools designed to optimize every stage of the sales process for large, high-velocity sales teams.
7. Marketing Campaigns and Tools
- Insightly: Includes native marketing campaigns automation (Insightly Marketing). This makes it a comprehensive platform for the small business market.
- Salesforce: Features dedicated platforms like Marketing Cloud (a separate product) for running complex, large-scale marketing campaigns that require advanced segmentation and multi-channel orchestration.
8. Mobile Functionality and Access
- Insightly: The insightly mobile app is functional, allowing users to manage contact management and tasks on the go, often praised for its simplicity.
- Salesforce: Provides a robust insightly mobile app that gives users near-full desktop functionality and real-time reporting, essential for highly mobile digital marketing agencies and large sales teams.
9. Reporting and Customization
- Insightly: Offers comprehensive, yet often pre-configured, reporting and custom dashboards. Its customization is simpler, focusing on fields and layouts that suit medium sized businesses.
- Salesforce: Provides superior reporting and custom dashboards from its lowest plan. Its extensibility allows digital marketing agencies and enterprises to customize every module to their exact needs.
What to Look For in a CRM Platform?
- Think Long-Term: Consider your future needs. Will the CRM scale with your business?
- Support Matters: Check out the support options. Will you need phone support, or are you okay with email and online resources?
- Don’t Overlook Reporting: How easy is it to get the data you need? Robust reporting features are essential for tracking performance and making informed decisions.
- Free Trials Are Your Friend: Take advantage of free trials to test drive the CRM and see if it’s a good fit for your team.
- Consider Your Budget: CRM pricing can vary significantly. Factor in the cost per user and any additional fees for features or support.
Final Verdict
In the battle of Salesforce vs Insightly, Insightly takes the crown.
While Salesforce has a user-friendly interface and is great for small businesses, Insightly offers more power and flexibility.
Its advanced features & customization options make it ideal for growing businesses.
Insightly empowers your sales team with comprehensive sales automation and reporting.
The best CRM depends on your needs and budget.
However, for a platform that can grow with your business and provide the tools you need to succeed, Insightly is our top pick.
We’ve helped countless businesses choose the right CRM, and we’re confident in our recommendation.
More of Insightly
Here’s a brief comparison of Insightly with these software solutions:
- Insightly vs Pipedrive: Insightly focuses on CRM with integrated project management; Pipedrive specializes in visual sales pipeline management, often preferred by sales-centric teams.
- Insightly vs GoHighLevel: Insightly is great for combining CRM with project management. It helps track sales and projects together. GoHighLevel is an all-in-one platform for marketing agency needs. It offers strong marketing and sales automation tools and can manage multiple clients.
- Insightly vs Keap: Insightly offers a robust CRM with project tracking; Keap provides powerful marketing automation, email campaigns, and comprehensive sales features.
- Insightly vs ActiveCampaign: Insightly merges CRM with project management capabilities; ActiveCampaign excels in advanced marketing automation, email sequencing, and lead scoring.
- Insightly vs HubSpot: Insightly offers a strong CRM with project management, while HubSpot provides a vast all-in-one platform for marketing, sales, and customer service.
- Insightly vs Clickfunnels: Insightly is a CRM with project management; ClickFunnels is primarily a sales funnel builder for creating landing pages and automating sales processes.
- Insightly vs Folk: Insightly is a comprehensive CRM with project management capabilities; Folk is a more streamlined, collaborative contact management tool.
- Insightly vs Instantly: Insightly offers a robust CRM and project management solution; Instantly focuses on automated cold email outreach and lead generation.
- Insightly vs ClickUp: Insightly integrates CRM and project management; ClickUp is a versatile work management platform that can be configured for CRM tasks.
- Insightly vs Monday: Insightly combines CRM with project management; Monday CRM is a highly customizable work operating system, adaptable for various CRM needs.
- Insightly vs Capsule CRM: Insightly is a more feature-rich CRM with project management, while Capsule CRM is a simpler, straightforward contact and sales opportunity tracker.
- Insightly vs Freshsales: Insightly offers a robust CRM with project management; Freshsales CRM provides advanced sales automation, AI insights, and multichannel communication.
- Insightly vs Salesforce: Insightly is a comprehensive CRM with integrated project management; Salesforce is an enterprise-grade, highly customizable, and expansive CRM solution.
- Insightly vs Zendesk: Insightly is a CRM with project management features; Zendesk primarily focuses on customer support and service ticketing.
More of Salesforce
Here’s a brief comparison of Salesforce with these software solutions:
- Salesforce vs Pipedrive: Salesforce is a comprehensive, highly customizable CRM for sales, marketing, and service, while Pipedrive focuses on intuitive visual sales pipeline management for streamlined sales processes.
- Salesforce vs GoHighLevel: GoHighLevel is an all-in-one platform for marketing agencies, offering white-label options and extensive automation.
- Salesforce vs Keap: Salesforce offers a vast, customizable CRM ecosystem for businesses of all sizes; Keap provides integrated sales and marketing automation, particularly strong for smaller firms.
- Salesforce vs ActiveCampaign: Salesforce is a broad, enterprise-grade CRM with powerful sales automation, whereas ActiveCampaign excels in marketing automation, email campaigns, and customer journey visualization.
- Salesforce vs Hubspot: Salesforce emphasizes deep customization and robust reporting for complex business needs, while HubSpot offers an integrated suite of marketing, sales, and service tools with a more user-friendly interface.
- Salesforce vs Clickfunnels: Salesforce is a comprehensive CRM for managing customer relationships and sales; ClickFunnels is specifically designed as a sales funnel builder to guide customers through a conversion path.
- Salesforce vs Folk: Salesforce is a highly scalable, feature-rich CRM for complex operations and large enterprises; Folk provides a simpler, collaborative contact management and relationship-building tool.
- Salesforce vs Instantly: Salesforce is a broad CRM platform that covers various aspects of customer management; Instantly specializes in automated cold email outreach and lead generation for targeted campaigns.
- Salesforce vs ClickUp: Salesforce is a dedicated, powerful CRM for managing customer interactions and sales processes; ClickUp is a versatile work management platform that includes CRM functionalities within its broader project management tools.
- Salesforce vs Monday: Salesforce is a robust CRM with extensive data models for complex workflows across diverse industries; Monday CRM offers highly customizable visual workflows and is often used by companies already on Monday.com for project management.
- Salesforce vs Capsule: Salesforce is an enterprise-grade CRM suitable for large organizations with complex needs; Capsule CRM is a simpler, user-friendly CRM, ideal for small to medium-sized businesses focused on core contact and sales tracking.
- Salesforce vs Insightly: Salesforce provides a comprehensive, highly customizable CRM for diverse business needs; Insightly offers a versatile CRM with integrated project management, often favored by small to mid-sized businesses for its ease of use.
- Salesforce vs Freshsales CRM: Salesforce is a highly customizable and scalable CRM with advanced features for large organizations; Freshsales CRM focuses on AI-driven sales insights and automation for streamlined sales management, often preferred by smaller teams.
- Salesforce vs Zendesk: Salesforce is a comprehensive CRM that covers sales, marketing, and customer service; Zendesk is a specialized customer service platform designed for ticketing, support, and omnichannel customer interactions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Insightly really easier to use than Salesforce?
Yes, generally speaking, Insightly is more intuitive and easier to get started with. It has a cleaner interface and fewer features, which can be less overwhelming for new users.
Can I import my data from another CRM to Insightly or Salesforce?
Absolutely! Both platforms allow you to import data from spreadsheets or other CRM systems. They also offer data migration services if you need assistance.
Which CRM is better for small businesses with limited budgets?
Insightly is often a better choice for small businesses due to its affordability & ease of use. It offers a free plan, and its paid plans are generally less expensive than Salesforce.
Does Salesforce offer any discounts on its pricing?
Yes, Salesforce occasionally offers discounts for nonprofits and educational institutions. They also sometimes have promotions for new customers.
Can I customize both Insightly and Salesforce to fit my specific needs?
Both platforms offer customization options, but Salesforce provides more flexibility. It has a larger AppExchange marketplace with thousands of apps and integrations, allowing you to tailor it to your exact requirements.
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