What Is Act!?

Act! Premium, a powerful CRM and Marketing Automation tool in one platform, is perfect for small and midsize businesses looking to market better, sell more, and create customers for life. With unparalleled flexibility and freedom of choice, Act! Premium accommodates the unique ways you do business, whether it’s on-premises (Act! Premium Desktop), in the cloud (Act! Premium Cloud), or, you can leverage a hybrid deployment for maximum flexibility!

Who Uses Act!?

Act! empowers small and midsize businesses to build and manage client relationships and leads, so you always have your pipeline of new, repeat, and referral business under control.

Act! Software - Customizable dashboard
Act! Software - Opportunity details for every deal
Act! Software - Rich customer management
Act! Software - Power Marketing Automation – Real-time results

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Reviews of Act!

Average score

Overall
3.7
Ease of Use
3.7
Customer Service
3.3
Features
3.7
Value for Money
3.7

Reviews by company size (employees)

  • <50
  • 51-200
  • 201-1,000
  • >1,001
Thomas
Thomas
Director, Business Development in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Pharmaceuticals, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Love the ease of use for both entering data and retrieving info

5.0 5 years ago

Comments: I use it to track my clients and prospects and I can tell anyone the last time I made contact, what that was - letter, Email, Phone Call, etc. and it allows me to connect important info to any of my clients, prospects, friends and family.

Pros:

The fact that I was able to use the product immediately with no instruction was a great pro. Entering data and retrieving info about a client is easy, and building history of calls, Email messages, letters in a record is great.

Cons:

I am not happy with support as all they do is provide a fix when there is a problem, but not direction in how to build reports or use other functionality. I have had to fix the same problem with direction from their service group several times. If I ask for help with reports they tell me I need to find a consultant for that.

Fritz
CEO in US
Human Resources, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

Small Business Owner & ACT! User since V2

5.0 2 months ago New

Comments: I'm a small business owner, mostly focused on selling services and ACT! has enabled me to manage all aspects of selling, marketing, client communications and far more. Great customer support over the past almost 30 years as an ACT! user.

Pros:

Ability to customize the product for my preferred activities - follow-ups, invoicing, managing client relations, sales pipeline tracking and more.

Cons:

Nothing to complain about as they've gotten the product to work efficiently with the past 6 or 7 versions. Upgrading used to be inconvenient but they've made the upgrade process seemless

Act! Response

2 months ago

Hey thanks Fritz, it sounds like Act! is helping you out. You're helping us out by spreading the word - so thanks for taking the time to share!

Kris
CEO in US
Financial Services, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source
Source: SoftwareAdvice

Long time user

1.0 3 weeks ago New

Comments: I use ACT 10 hours a day, but it is clunky.

Pros:

I understand the interface because I have used ACT daily for over 30 years.

Cons:

ACT does almost everything poorly. It does not sync with multi-user unless you call support. You cannot move your data out of ACT onto a competitive product. They keep raising the price of support. I have tried all three different mass email programs they have offered over the years, but none of the mass email systems worked. The email system required support from ACT to make them work, and still a major problem. I have used ACT for over 30 years, have 10K contacts, and I cannot leave ACT. If you have not bought ACT, do not. If you are going to work on this everyday, pay the money and go with SalesForce.

Act! Response

2 weeks ago

Kris, Thank you for letting us know about your issues with marketing automation- this is not the experience we strive to provide our customers. We hope you'll give our Support team another try. Please reach out to https://www.act.com/resources/contact/ or call 866-873-2006 so we can get a few more details, and provide some possible solutions.

Andrew
Engineer in US
Nanotechnology, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

Good first CRM

5.0 2 months ago

Comments: Positive experience and we are using the custom fields. I wish you could make some fields limited based on other field inputs. ACT! is great if you are just getting into CRM and want to get your business up and running quickly, this is one of the reasons it is such a popular choice. They have been doing CRM for a very long time.

Pros:

Easy to setup and have customized fields. They have an option to run on your own server to avoid monthly fees of other CRM options.

Cons:

Once you have over 10,000 contacts. It is harder and slower to organize CRM. Works much better for smaller contact lists.

Act! Response

2 months ago

Hey thanks Andrew, it sounds like Act! is helping you out. You're helping us out by spreading the word - so thanks for taking the time to share!

Manuel
Attorney at Law in US
Legal Services, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

I used to love Act!, but now I'm looking for a better product that actually works for me

4.0 2 months ago New

Pros:

I have been using Act! for decades via its various owners and takeovers. It served me well in sales and marketing, and now I use it to track my legal clients and court hearings, trials, etc.

Cons:

It does not work in Windows 11, which came with my new computer. Your Tech Support was no help, telling me simply that Microsoft knows about it and "someday" will have a fix. Meanwhile, with a local technician, I had to roll back to Windows 10 (hundreds of dollars paid), then I had to pay a remote Act! specialist (not your employee) to help to get it to "work" even in Windows 10. It barely works now, freezing up constantly and repeatedly throughout my workday. It is practically useless, but I bear with it until I can find another product that works for me.

Act! Response

2 months ago

Thank you, Manuel, for your feedback. We appreciate you taking the time to let us know how Act! is working for you. We see that you had Microsoft 11 compatibility issues last fall, and according to our records, moved to Windows 10 to restore your database and functionality. We are sorry to hear you are still experiencing issues and hope that you'll reach back out to our Support team for further assistance at https://www.act.com/resources/contact/ or call 866-873-2006. In addition, we are happy to share the following Knowledgebase article published by Microsoft with more details about the issue and resolution. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/sql/database-engine/database-file-operations/troubleshoot-os-4kb-disk-sector-size