act vs salesforce

ACT! versus Salesforce.com: The Truth

Just like you, many ACT! customers also considered Salesforce before making their final decision. After comparing both products, and the companies and partners behind them, they decided that ACT! provided a clear advantage for their businesses.

With over 20 years of experience focused on the specific needs of the small business owner, as well as the most qualified partner channel in the industry, ACT! works collaboratively with you to provide exactly what you need, at the time when you need it most.


Here are a few key examples of how ACT! outperforms Salesforce* that will positively impact your business—and your bottom line.

Compared to ACT!, Salesforce is a high cost, high risk proposition – especially during the down economy.

  • Salesforce may look attractive in the beginning with its seemingly low, upfront cost. But over the lifetime of the solution, the punitive charges for additional subscriptions, access, and basic services start to add up!
  • Salesforce charges you heavily as your requirements grow. For example, Group Edition does not accommodate more than 5 users, and if you want to add a 6th, you are forced to jump subscription levels and go from $8.25 per user per month for Group Edition to the $65.00 per user per month for Professional Edition—that’s over a 750% increase.
    • ACT! provides a simple pricing structure so there are no nasty surprises down the line. ACT! customers benefit from a low total cost of ownership with most paying the equivalent of between $20 and $30 per user per month over the lifetime of the solution.
    • Here’s another number that may grab your attention. On average, a company with 25 ACT! users will save over $50,000 compared to Salesforce.
  • Salesforce is inflexible to changing business needs with lengthy contract terms, advance payment requirements, auto-renewals, price hikes, and no provisions for contract changes!
  • Salesforce limits you to only one access method to your critical customer data—on-demand over the Internet. Imagine your team at a complete stand-still while Salesforce is down due to service disruptions, upgrades, and Internet outages.
    • You choose what’s best for your business. ACT! can be delivered to users over your network, over the Web with an ACT! hosted partner provider, or as a standalone solution—whatever combination of access methods makes the most sense for your business.
Salesforce makes it difficult for companies to truly leverage the business value of their application.

  • Salesforce imposes a crippling range of limitations and usage restrictions across their versions, and access will cost you. Did you know?...
    • Offline access is not available for Salesforce Group Edition and is an extra cost option for Professional Edition, increasing the cost to $90 per user per month.
    • Data storage is limited to only 20MB for each user. After that, you will have to pay $1,500 per year for 500MB.
      • Unlike Salesforce, ACT! gives you full flexibility and control over the usage and access of your software and customer data.
      • ACT! Premium allows users to continue using their application in the same, consistent manner offline as online, and will automatically synchronize when reconnected—all at no additional cost.
Salesforce claims its on-demand service can be deployed rapidly and easily, but who can you turn to when you hit a snag?

  • Salesforce’s "on-demand" model sounds easy—but a successful CRM implementation still requires a rock-solid plan that includes project scoping, customer data migration, configuration, customization, and integration—regardless of the deployment model.
  • Salesforce has very few partners on the ground, and most specialize in larger-scale, enterprise deployments.
    • ACT! is supported by a nationwide network of ACT! Certified Consultants who offer on-the-ground, local advice and support for small businesses like yours in order to ensure that you get the very most out of your investment.
Before you get locked into a lengthy contract only to discover that Salesforce does not meet your basic needs without substantial upgrades and additional costs, consider that over 2.8 million business users decided that with ACT!—the difference was clear.

CONTACT US TODAY to learn more about ACT!

* Products were compared using the most current versions available in May 2009. Statements are subjective and based on Sage’s internal software evaluation and documentation. Additional features that may appear in competitor’s product may not be listed here. Functions in ACT! and Salesforce vary by product version. Some features discussed may not be available in every product version.
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