Unclaimed: Are you working at Act!?
Act! Reviews: 3.9/5 — Good for the Price
Act! is one of the pioneer brands in its space that evolved into a customer relationship management platform, and cloud-app with a browser-based front end. It offers an integrated email marketing platform that is ideal for small to mid-sized companies. The software also has an easy-to-use dashboard designer with a good marketing automation workflow builder.
| Capabilities |
API
|
|---|---|
| Segment |
Small Business
Mid Market
|
| Deployment | Cloud / SaaS / Web-Based, Desktop Windows, Mobile Android, Mobile iPad, Mobile iPhone, On-Premise Linux |
| Support | 24/7 (Live rep), Chat, Email/Help Desk, FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base, Phone Support |
| Training | Documentation |
| Languages | English |
Act! sells three cloud tiers at $30, $45, and $60 per user, and what actually separates them is how many marketing emails you can send. Standard allows 2,500 a month, Professional 25,000, and Ultimate 50,000. The CRM underneath is broadly the same product throughout. Understand that and the pricing page stops looking like a capability ladder and starts looking like what it is — an email volume plan with a CRM attached.
- What it is: A long-established CRM for small and mid-sized businesses, bundling contact management with email marketing and, unusually, still offering an on-premise option.
- Best for: Small businesses that want CRM and email marketing from one vendor, and organizations with a genuine need to host data themselves.
- Pricing: Cloud Standard $30, Professional $45, Ultimate $60 per user monthly, billed annually. Premium Desktop $39. Verified July 2026.
- The honest catch: Premium Desktop costs $39 — more than the $30 entry cloud plan — so choosing on-premise is a premium, not a saving.
What Is Act!?
Act! is one of the oldest names in contact management, dating to the late 1980s and passing through several owners since. That history explains both its strengths and its reputation: it is deeply featured and genuinely mature, and it carries an interface lineage that reviewers routinely describe as dated next to newer competitors.
What distinguishes it in 2026 is scope. Most CRMs at this price handle contacts, deals, and activities and expect you to buy email marketing separately. Act! bundles both, and at the higher tiers adds marketing automation, lead scoring, quotes and payments, appointment scheduling, forms and surveys, website chat, event management, project management, and accounting integration. For a small business that would otherwise assemble four subscriptions, that consolidation is the real argument.
It is also one of very few CRMs still selling a genuine on-premise product. Act! Premium Desktop runs on your own infrastructure with networked access, which matters to businesses with data residency requirements or a firm preference for not putting their customer list in someone else’s cloud.
How Act! Works
- Cloud or desktop. Act! Advantage is the hosted line; Act! Premium Desktop is installed and managed by you.
- Email sends as the metering dimension. 2,500, 25,000, or 50,000 per month by tier — the clearest differentiator between plans.
- Contact and pipeline management. The core CRM, full-featured on every tier including the cheapest.
- Bundled marketing. Campaigns and nurture sequences from Professional, full marketing automation with lead scoring on Ultimate.
- Quotes, scheduling, forms, and chat. Standard versions from the entry plan, advanced versions from Professional.
- Cloud storage by tier. 15 GB, 25 GB, and 35 GB respectively.
Act! Pricing
Captured from Act!’s pricing page in July 2026, in US dollars. All plans bill annually.
| Plan | Price/user/mo | Email sends/mo | Storage | Key additions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud Standard | $30 | 2,500 | 15 GB | Full CRM, mobile app, Office 365 and Gmail, standard quotes, forms, chat |
| Premium Desktop | $39 | — | On your servers | On-premise deployment with networked access |
| Cloud Professional | $45 | 25,000 | 25 GB | AI writing assistant, nurture marketing, accounting integration, project management |
| Cloud Ultimate | $60 | 50,000 | 35 GB | Marketing automation, lead scoring, customer portal, custom industry tables |
What this means for your decision:
- The upgrade trigger is email volume, not CRM capability. Standard is described as a “full-featured CRM,” and it is. If you send 2,000 marketing emails a month, Professional’s extra $15 per user buys you send headroom and some marketing tooling, not a better CRM. Work out your send volume first — it is the number that picks your tier.
- 2,500 sends is genuinely tight. A list of 1,000 contacts emailed twice a month exhausts it. Any business doing real email marketing lands on Professional, making $45 the practical entry price.
- Desktop costs more than entry cloud. $39 against $30. On-premise is often assumed to be the cheaper, no-frills option; here it is a deliberate premium for control. Choose it because you need to hold the data, not to save money.
- Everything is billed annually. There is no monthly option advertised, so the free trial is the only low-commitment evaluation.
- Per-user pricing compounds normally. Five users on Professional is $225 a month, ten on Ultimate is $600.
- Consolidation is the value case. At $45 per user you are getting CRM, email marketing, quotes, scheduling, forms, surveys, chat, and project management. Assembled separately from best-in-class tools, that stack costs considerably more.
Who Should Use Act!
- Small businesses wanting one vendor. The clearest case. CRM plus email marketing plus quoting from a single subscription genuinely simplifies both billing and integration.
- Organizations needing on-premise. Act! Premium Desktop is a rare option in a category that has almost entirely moved to cloud.
- Established businesses with existing Act! data. Decades of contact history is a real reason to stay, and migration is genuinely painful.
- Teams doing moderate email marketing. Professional’s 25,000 sends covers most small-business campaigning without a separate platform.
It fits poorly for teams that prize interface quality, where Pipedrive and monday CRM are markedly more pleasant; for businesses wanting a free tier, which HubSpot CRM and Zoho CRM provide; and for sales-led organizations needing deep pipeline analytics, where dedicated sales CRMs go further.
Honest Pros and Cons
Strengths
- Genuine breadth. CRM, email marketing, quotes, scheduling, forms, chat, and project management in one subscription.
- Full CRM on the entry plan. The cheapest tier is not a crippled version of the product.
- On-premise option. Rare, and decisive for organizations with data residency requirements.
- Mature and stable. Decades of development show in feature depth.
- Bundled marketing automation. Lead scoring and progressive profiling at Ultimate, without a separate platform.
- Dedicated onboarding specialist included from the entry tier.
Limitations
- The interface shows its age. The most consistent criticism, particularly against newer competitors.
- Tight email allowance at entry. 2,500 sends pushes most marketing-active businesses to $45.
- Desktop costs more than entry cloud. $39 versus $30, which surprises buyers expecting on-premise to be cheaper.
- Annual billing only. No monthly option for a low-commitment start.
- No free tier. Where several major competitors offer one.
- Bundled tools are adequate, not best-in-class. The forms, chat, and project management are convenient rather than excellent.
Act! Alternatives and How It Compares
- Zoho CRM is substantially cheaper with a free tier, and far stronger if you use other Zoho applications.
- HubSpot CRM has a genuinely free CRM tier and a more modern interface, with costs rising sharply as you add marketing.
- Pipedrive is the better sales-focused pipeline tool, with a cleaner interface and less bundled marketing.
- Keap is the closest philosophical competitor — CRM plus marketing automation for small business — at a higher price.
- Insightly combines CRM with project delivery, which suits services businesses.
- Freshsales and monday CRM are the modern-interface options at comparable cost.
For a broader survey, browse our CRM directory.
The Verdict
Act! is a consolidation play, and judged on those terms it holds up. For $45 per user a small business gets a full CRM, 25,000 monthly marketing emails, quotes and payments, appointment scheduling, forms and surveys, website chat, event management, project management, and accounting integration. Buying those capabilities separately from category leaders would cost noticeably more and require the integrations to be your problem. If you want one vendor, one invoice, and one support number, that is a legitimate and underrated reason to choose it.
The way to price it correctly is to start from email volume rather than user count. Standard at $30 includes the full CRM, so the $15 step to Professional is buying send headroom — from 2,500 to 25,000 a month — plus marketing tooling. A business emailing a list of a thousand contacts twice a month has already exhausted Standard, which makes $45 the realistic entry point for anyone doing marketing at all. Conversely, if you genuinely only need contact and pipeline management, Standard is a complete CRM and there is no reason to move up.
Two honest caveats. The interface is the most consistent criticism in reviews, and if your team has used Pipedrive or monday, Act! will feel dated — that is a real cost in daily use, even if the functionality is there. And note that Premium Desktop at $39 costs more than entry cloud at $30; on-premise here is a deliberate premium for holding your own data, not a budget option. Choose it for control, and if control is not your requirement, the cloud plans are both cheaper and less work.
FAQ
How much does Act! cost?
Act! Advantage cloud plans are $30 per user per month for Standard, $45 for Professional, and $60 for Ultimate, all billed annually. Act! Premium Desktop, the on-premise option, is $39 per user per month. Prices were captured from Act!’s pricing page in July 2026 in US dollars. A free trial is available; there is no free tier.
What is the difference between Act! plans?
Primarily email send volume and bundled marketing. Standard includes the full CRM with 2,500 monthly sends and 15 GB storage. Professional raises that to 25,000 sends and adds an AI writing assistant, nurture marketing, accounting integration, and project management. Ultimate provides 50,000 sends plus marketing automation, lead scoring, a customer portal, and custom industry tables. The core CRM is full-featured on every tier.
Is Act! Desktop cheaper than Act! Cloud?
No — it costs more. Act! Premium Desktop is $39 per user per month against $30 for the entry cloud plan. On-premise deployment here is a premium option for organizations that need to host their own data, rather than a budget alternative. It also means you take on hosting, backups, and updates yourself, which the cloud plans include.
Is Act! still a good CRM in 2026?
It remains functional and unusually broad, bundling CRM with email marketing, quoting, scheduling, and project management in a way few competitors match at the price. Its weakness is the interface, which reviewers consistently describe as dated relative to newer tools. It suits businesses valuing breadth and vendor consolidation over daily polish, and existing Act! customers with substantial contact history.
What is Act! best for?
Small and mid-sized businesses that want CRM and email marketing from one vendor rather than assembling a stack, and organizations with a genuine requirement to host customer data on their own infrastructure. It is a weaker fit for teams prioritising interface quality, for anyone wanting a free tier, and for sales-led organizations needing deep pipeline analytics.
Compare Act! with other popular tools in the same category.
One place to keep track of all your contacts, send emails, letters, campaigns, notes, tasks, organized, easy and never lost data.
Not the easiest to customize, but nothing is life is easy.
All the issues I have had with ACT have been resolved with the technical team.
WHAT CAN I FIND BY COMPANY, BY CONTACT, BY STATE OR COUNTRY BY E MAIL WHO I'M LOOKING FOR
AS I HAVE MANY PENDING CALLS SOMETIMES I AM DIFFICULT TO CHANGE QUICKLY FROM ONE CONTACT TO ANOTHER OR SOMETIMES LIKE THAT IT WORKS
I HAVE A LOT OF ORDER IN MY WORK AND IT IS VERY EASY TO FIND THE CUSTOMER I AM LOOKING FOR AND WITH THIS I MAKE MY WORK FASTER. MY PROBLEM IS THAT SOMETIMES A LITTLE BUT I HAVE TO CLOSE AND OPEN AGAIN. I WOULD LIKE THAT THE SAME PROGRAM WILL ELIMINATE THE CALLS, CLIENTS OR DUTIES APPLIED AND I DON'T KNOW HOW TO CARRY OUT THIS LAST STEP
Flexible organization of all my contact history and ease of access Also, immediate and excellent tech support whenever I call
Difficult to customize layout of the screen I use most often
I can group and organize all my contacts regarding genealogy; notes; attachments.
I like it that you have to take action on all tasks and to do's you can reschedule if needed and delete them but then you just kidding yourself
I don't really dislike anything however getting to grips with some of the new features when adding them can be a bit time consuming
Act ensures that any enquires and actions required are done when required
ACT! is user friendly, robust, easily handles data and manipulation and helps keep me in close contact with my client base. Have used it for years, since the training was on cassette tape, and rarely had any problems with the software or updates.
The e-mail interface occasionally goes down but closing and rebooting the computer have corrected it. Just inconvenient but doesn't happen often. With the change of ownership, the customer service level has changed which has occasionally been frustrating.
Reminders help keep me organized and make sure I follow up with my client base. Easy to do e-mail blasts to my customers or create spreadsheets with selected contacts. Am able to put my database on an iPad device so that I have it when attending trade shows and events so I can easily recall the last interaction with my clients. It's a great piece of software and well-supported over the years.
We are a small business using ACT. We like the ease of use and the way it works with our email system to record email interactions with our customers. Customization is easy to do and lets you tailor ACT to your specific business requirements. I definitely recommend ACT to any business looking to get ahead.
Setting everything up by yourself would be difficult. I would highly recommend hiring an ACT certified consultant to keep you ahead of anything new and help move through any technical difficulties. I would like some more features added to the new ACT E-marketing, SwiftPage used to have a survey feature that is no longer available with ACT E-marketing. Bring it back. ACT needs management to be good and effective. Having an in-house ACT manager will make ACT more effective and easier to use. I always say that ACT is only as good as the information that is inputted. You need complete buy in from your team.
We are keeping track of customers making it easy for everyone in the office to be on the same page in terms of where a customer is at. ACT E-marketing makes it easy to keep customers informed of what is new at Cameron Instruments. We can keep track of our sales team by using the opportunities, they can keep track of sales and where they are at for the month. They can easily track long-term opportunities.
We can all deal with a multitude of issues but not at exactly the same time. ACT keeps everything teed up for action at a time when that action is actually "timely". No forgetting and no regrets.
I mostly dislike my limited personal time to learn all of the features of ACT. It is so much more capable than I am.
No forgets and no regrets!
ACT! allows me to create templates for frequent activities and then merge my contacts using Word or Outlook. This is a huge time saver precluding me from having to retype or cut and paste. The opportunities allow me to track sales and insight in the sales process.
Not having ACT! Create invoices with unique invoice numbers.
Keeping track of customers. Being able to access documentation of past transactions and receive insights in how to best serve our clients now and in the future.
The ease of setting up the database and the ability to query for needed information.
Although our organization does not use a lot of what Act! offers, since we just use it for a membership database, I have not found anything that I dislike.
We are able to maintain an accurate membership database. It is easy to query for information, such as expired members to send renewal notices to or new/renewed members to send new membership cards to. We also Act! to come up with our mail or email lists to send out our quarterly journal and weekly e-newsletter.
I've worked with ACT and other CRM's for different employers over the last 20 years and I still like the format ACT offers. It's intuitive and not challenging to understand on a simple level. This is a new subscription with a new company but I did try some of the suggested CRM's and either the cost was high and/or the learning curve was high. I didn't know what to expect by the tech calling me for a walk through but essentially I just let him remote in and setup everything from desktop installation to syncing with online version. I realized by watching the tech how so many issues could develop if I attempted the process myself. I had been using just the cloud version because I was concerned about messing things up if I installed the desktop version, so this was one of my questions to the tech. Then they handled it. He spent almost two hours making sure everything ran properly. The tech was pleasant and patient with me when I had to take a call in between his work. So over all, I had a very good experience.
Since I use only the CRM features I haven't found much. The online version sometimes requires a refresh to get the ALL contacts list to load and sometimes there is lag in the up front load to start. But not significant to delay work. Most likely its the connection to the internet I have than the cloud version. I did realize I had to whitelist the online Version to get the task alerts to pop up.
The biggest problem for me is keeping track of the hundreds of contacts and what I discussed with them. ACT does a great job of displaying the history for me to quickly remember when I'm talking with a contact or before I call them. The ACT format saves me a lot more time and gives me less headaches.
I like that we can modify it as needed and its easy to use. you can store documents and all communication in one place. so the whole team knows what is going on.
You can't have multiple note sections. We have 2 items we sell and we can't have notes separate for each in the same record
It stream lines our work load. Multiple people can help if somebody is out and a customer calls.
Easy to navigate for what I use it for. Keeps me organized.
Not much, really. Maybe the price is a bit high to stomach for an individual user such as me, but I know software is expensive to develop and support.
Act keeps me organized, so I can focus on selling.
Robust contact manager, ability to store virtually unlimited amounts of information, remote syncing and keeping my world together.
Getting my ACT data to my phone where I need my contacts and calendar. Also, the exporting wizard should never have been set to default to all.
Keeping track of all tasks, including calls, meetings, etc. I have used ACT since 1990 and it has enabled me to handle a higher level of volume than my competitors with an increase in quality of response.
Act! It has been an easy-to-use software, an incredible user interface that allows us to customize our designs for sales, the price is incredibly cheap. What I liked the most and it is significant, is that it has several language options available and there is the possibility of requesting a demo, extension tool such as history, activities, call tracking, tasks and more
Definitely so far the problems have been literally non-existent and I am very happy with the service provided by Act! to the Real Estate organization
We have the option of managing the activities of the entire sales team to track their tasks, have customizable areas and we can easily integrate it with Gmail and Outlook
When I come into the office each morning, ACT tells me who to contact, when to contact and what to say. ACT is literally my assistant in box and I don't pay this assistant any wage or benefits. The main features I use are the Groups (I have 130 Groups and 30 subgroups), the Activity Series for drips to my clients, the seamless link to Microsoft Outlook for all my email, the letter and email templates, the Documents tab to store files, customized tabs to fit my mortgage business and the ACT Scheduler for automatic backups.
ACT is so complex, sometimes it is overwhelming. I have been using ACT for 18 years and I'll bet I only use 40% of the program. I currently use ACT eMarketing. In an effort to upgrade, I took a webinar with Andy Wood on the new ACT Marketing Automation and it seemed very complicated for small users such as myself. ACT Marketing Automation seems to be geared toward larger higher volume blast email users.
ACT allows me to stay in touch with my clients on a regular basis even if the call back is scheduled far into the future. I use ACT for all of my meetings, To Dos and Calls. I like the fact one can prioritized these activities with color codes such as red (high priority), blue (medium priority) and black for no priority. I am able to print labels and envelopes seamlessly by simply altering the stock templates that come with ACT. I like the new subscription format allowing me to contact support at any time without having to purchase support packages as we did in the past.
The features are comprehensive and the ease of use is why it's my favorite CRM solution.
Any lacking features have usually been addressed in updates.
I have multiple projects in progress at any given time. I maintain various databases in ACT for each client / project. ACT is invaluable for me to keep track of the history, tasks to be completed, and opportunity I have for each prospect. The ease of use of ACT features is important to me. For advanced features, there is a wide range of documentation and user manuals available on the market.
Activity Tracking and notes! Act! keeps track of all my jobs on the schedule and receivables so I don't miss anything.
E-mail interface is lacking. Should be able to work with other e-mail platforms such as Thunderbird.
We keep track of 30 year's worth of client data. Helps us stay on track.
The ability to customize the fields to fit my business.
The Mobile App needs a lot of work...would love to see it more like the desktop version. I'm not able to use in it's current state
Keeping track of the history with my clients is a huge benefit.
I'm old school, so I like the desktop version; however, I travel alot, so it's nice to be able to use this program anywhere I have an internet connection.
Not an ACT! problem, but if I don't have a good internet speed, it takes me a while to access information.
I love that my names and addresses are available for me anytime day or night.
The technician was patient, knowledgeable and very easy to work with.
That I had to contact support for help - but it turned out GREAT!
Remote database access
Act is very customizable. You can make it work exactly how it needs to for your business.
It sometimes overlaps data. Sometimes you can be in one record within the database and other data will be in there that is not accurate
ACT has made my job extremely easier. It allows for me to keep track of talks that need to be done, create reports for my company, and makes sure we have all of the info we need for customers
I am able to schedule on behalf of my employees and boss no matter where they are. They can see immediate changes as long as I sync throughout the day
The calendar times change every time you log on from the web.
To solve the time changes when logging onto the WEB, I type all date and time details
The ability to query the system or export to an Excel sheet.
Nothing that I can think of at this time.
Maintaining a membership database. Benefit is to be able to query and export informatino.
I can set up all my email campaigns at the start o the year and leave ACT! to it. It's like having another staff member who is better than me.
The inevitable set up niggles BUT the tech support team are so good it's never stressful. They speak human not tech and get stuff sorted.
It's saved me hours of stress in busy times because I've been able to set up all my campaigns in my quiet season.
Search capability of nearly all fields, integration with Outlook and Gmail, single place for organizing all sorts of contact and company data, accessible from Web, Windows and mobile.
The program is not without bugs, like all software but ACT has an excellent online knowledge-base and end user community who support each other and provide fixes for known issues.
CRM functions, mailing lists, keeping track of contact points with various contacts, clients and company records. Storage of important documents tied to either a contact or a company.
Great tool for keeping track of contacts and appointments as well as when to follow-up with clients. I never miss a appointment when I use ACT!
I really do not dislike anything about ACT! Maybe I dislike the fact that over the years, I have become dependent upon my ACT!
I never have to worry about "when did I see this client last". I never have to worry about "when should I follow-up this Proposal?' ACT! makes my follow up times and following tasks so simple.
Overall it is by far the best contact manager I have used. The ability to group, and have a large database is better than any other. the interface with Google and Outlook is much improved.
Not much. Scanning business cards is not as easy.
Best phone book, and abilty to market to customers.
I have been using ACT now for 15 years and have found it to be the most consistent CRM out there
I dislike very little, the mobile APP needs some upgrading to make it less clunky.
We use ACT to communicate (with a personal touch) to thousands of clients.
The ease of customisation The variety of installation options - On-premise; Self Hosted Web, Swiftpage hosted Web, Mobile Application Flexibility Ease Of Use
The built in quotation features are not sufficient and require the use of add on products Inability to globally update Contacts linked to Companies
Act! will only offer a good ROI if it is customised to suit the business requirements and users are properly trained. When Act! is implemented correctly businesses will have a full audit trail of client interactions. Once a customer has seen how Act! should be configured and they have been trained properly they love it.
ACT is intuitive and very easy to use. It imports and exports nicely from or to Excel. Customizable fields are great.
The only thing that I disliked was upgrading the software to a new version. The process was far more painful than necessary.
I use ACT to maintain relationships with referral sources, prospects and clients.