Keap CRM Review 2023: An SMB Savior?









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Bonfire Rating: 4.7/5 Keap is the perfect tool for SMBs looking to automate and scale their efforts across the board. 
















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As a small business owner, it can be tough to find a CRM that fits the specific needs of your business . With so many choices out there, it’s easy to pick the wrong one without the right info. I’m AJ, and I’ve spent the last decade building my business , using tons of customer management tools along the way. After I sold my business (for a seven-figure exit), I started Small Business Bonfire with the mission of helping fellow entrepreneurs and business owners succeed . One way that we do this is by creating comprehensive reviews about products that we think are awesome, like Keap CRM. So, let’s get into everything Keap has to offer! FYI—we compiled a list of the best CRMs for small businesses for you to check out when you’re done reading.











You Can Trust Small Business Bonfire Since 2009 Small Business Bonfire has been testing and rating thousands of business software to help you (our small business owners) start & scale your organizations. If you want to know more about how we test, please read this article here. 











What is Keap CRM (Customer Relationship Management)?



Keap CRM is an automation-focused CRM designed to streamline the entire customer lifecycle process while you scale your business. Keap is great for helping SMBs do the following: Nurture leads Acquire new customers Upsell existing customers Retain current customer Measure success with in-depth reporting One thing we loved about Keap’s automation is that they keep (pun slightly intended) it simple. For instance, the platform offers two distinct tabs for automation— easy and advanced . This allows you to get started with automation quickly and easily without feeling overwhelmed by all the options. Then, once you’re ready for more advanced automation, the sky’s the limit to what you can accomplish. Here are some features Keap CRM offers: Great contact management Sales and marketing automation Analytics and reporting Email marketing capabilities Lead Management/Capture Mobile app Keap is great for small and midsize businesses (SMBs) that want to take the hassle out of sales and marketing, so you can focus on what matters— building customer relationships and growing your business .



Pros and Cons of the Keap





Keap Pros







Tons of sales and marketing automation




Intuitive user interface




Email and landing page creation (with templates)




Mobile app is easy to use




Helpful lead capture and management features










Keap Cons







No free plan




Payment structure can be very costly if you're not careful


















Visit Keap For Pricing







Who is Keap Best Suited For?



We think that Keap is great for SMBs across the board. In this section, we’ll narrow it down as to who it’s best suited for. Keap is great for the following business types: Small Businesses – Keap is fantastic for small businesses that are looking to scale both their entire sales process and their marketing efforts in a big way. Midsize Businesses – Keap is also great for midsize businesses that could benefit from having a ton of automation for a number of tedious tasks. Sales and marketing teams – Keap is great for sales and marketing teams that need a CRM to keep track of their contacts, automate lead nurturing, and measure success. It’s a fantastic sales and marketing platform across the board.



Who is Keap Not Suited For?



Throughout our testing, Keap has proven to be a great platform. However, there are some cases where it might not make the most sense. Here are some businesses that Keap is not well suited for: Startups – We don’t think Keap is necessarily suited for startups because of the price tag and the fact that there is no free plan. Large Enterprises  – Keap charges based on how many contacts your business has. If you have an enterprise with a lot of contacts, Keap CRM might not be the best fit. There are other CRM options that don’t have a contact limit with their advanced plans. 

















Keap Software Pricing



Keap has a unique pricing structure in that you pay for how many contacts you have. For example, the base plan starts at $159/month for a minimum of 1,500 contacts . The more contacts you add, the higher the price becomes. Both plans allow additional users for $29 / month (per user).  Here are the two base plans that Keap CRM offers: Pro – $159/month, $29/additional user Max – $229/month, $29/additional user








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How Does Keap Pricing Compare?



As we mentioned before, Keap’s pricing structure is unique and can become costly if you have a ton of contacts. To give you an idea of how it compares to other CRMs, here are the first-tier pricing plans of three alternative solutions: Keap Pro – $159/month for 2 users ($29/additional user) Zoho Standard – $14/month per user Salesforce Essentials – $25/month per user HubSpot Starter – $50/month per user As you can see, when it comes to basic pricing plans, Keap is a bit more expensive than the other CRMs we compared it to. Especially considering HubSpot and Zoho CRM offer free plans , whereas Keap does not. However, let’s look at the more advanced plans. For example, Salesforce charges $300/month for their highest tier plan, whereas Keap only costs $229/month (for 2,500 contacts). In this case, Keap is the more affordable option. HubSpot CRM’s most advanced plan is much more expensive than both, at a whopping $5,000/month . So, despite the price tag for Keap CRM appearing high at first glance, it’s important to put it in perspective.



Keap Pricing Tips 



Let’s go over a couple of pricing tips to get the most out of Keap CRM.





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Annual Plans Save By paying for an upfront annual plan, you can save 20% on either of Keap's plans. We recommend doing this both to save money in the long run and to budget your business expenses more effectively.









Free Trial Keap also offers a free 14-day trial, so you can use the platform and really get a feel for it before committing. We always recommend taking advantage of free trials when available. This essentially negates the opportunity cost of switching CRMs if you find something more suited to your business.









Keap CRM Core Features





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Contact Management















In terms of contact management, Keap has you covered. You can easily add contacts to your CRM, segment them into different lists, and send targeted emails & texts quickly. You can also set up custom fields and track contact data in the system for follow-up purposes. Keap allows you to easily import contacts from the following places: Excel Google contacts HubSpot Keap mobile app Mailchimp QuickBooks online For the purposes of testing the software, we tried both. We were able to easily upload some affiliate marketing and PPC campaign clients from an Excel spreadsheet. We also put in contacts manually to fully test the platform. Here's the "add a contact" interface to give you a better idea of how straightforward it is . Keap CRM keeps it simple by displaying the most important contact info and letting you click "show more fields" if you want to add more detailed information. Some more information that you can enter includes: Website links Language Time zone Nickname Spouse name We thought this was a nice touch because it gives your sales reps the ability to easily input and recall this information when talking to clients. Having the information stored in these fields also allows you to access it with the many automation capabilities that Keap has to offer.
















Sales and Marketing Automation Software















In terms of sales and marketing automation, Keap is one of the best in the business. We say this not only because they provide a ton of automation capabilities to make the lives of your sales and marketing teams easier, but they also make it straightforward to set up. One way Keap streamlines the automation process is by providing two categories to choose from. These include the following: Easy Advanced This means that beginners can start with easy automations and work their way up from there. For the purposes of making things easier, we'll give an overview of each section individually. Easy In the easy section, you'll find the building blocks of marketing and sales automation that are easily set up and ready to use. These include the following: Ask new customers for a review Deal follow up Landing page leads Invoice reminder Here's an example of the "deal follow-up" template. As you can see, the interface is sleek and easy to read, making a complicated concept extremely easy to implement. We were able to easily set up the automation process with our sales pipeline with just a few clicks. In terms of ease of use with simple automation, Keap might be the best in the game. Advanced Things get a little more complicated with some of the advanced automation capabilities that Keap provides. Luckily, they provide a free Advanced Automations course, available with your Keap ID. We went through the course during our testing and were impressed by how much useful information it offered . The whole course lasted about five and a half hours (34 lessons in total). We certainly left feeling more knowledgeable about automation in general. With advanced automation creation, we were able to achieve a ton in terms of automation with their intuitive drag-and-drop interface . There is a bit of a learning curve to creating advanced automations, but the free course did a great job of making it easier. Here's a screenshot of the interface to give you a better idea. It would almost be easier to list off the types of automation that aren't possible (there aren't many) than it would to list off everything Keap can do. However, here are some advanced automations we came up with in our testing: Converting leads from web forms Creating email marketing sequences throughout the customer lifecycle Creating automations for segmentation and customer support Creating custom forms with conditional logic At Small Business Bonfire, we love any tools that make our lives easier, and our business run more smoothly. With Keap, they somehow manage to provide both in the form of powerful, user-friendly automations that don't require an expert to set up .
















Lead Capture and Management















Are you tired of losing track of your leads and missing out on potential sales? Fear not, my fellow SMB owners—Keap's lead capture and management feature is here to save the day! During our testing of the platform, we were blown away by how easy it was to capture and organize leads . Keap offers a variety of lead capture forms that can be embedded directly onto your website, making it simple for visitors to provide their information without ever leaving your page . Plus, with advanced customization options, you can ensure that your lead capture forms match your brand's aesthetic and messaging . But the lead capturing fun doesn't stop there. Once you have your new leads' information, Keap allows you to easily organize them into specific categories for targeted marketing efforts. You can also assign leads to specific team members so everyone knows exactly who is responsible for following up and keeping track of their progress in the sales funnel.
















Landing Page Builder















Keap offers a fantastic landing page builder to help further your marketing efforts. We were impressed with how easy it was to create a simple yet effective landing page . The first step was choosing from one of their helpful templates (shown below) It was a hard decision because there were so many great templates, but ultimately we went with the "Creative Agency" template to get started. We loved the drag-and-drop interface to easily add and customize content, but what was really awesome was the "auto width scaler." This allowed us to easily change the size of our logo without having to resize the photo at all. Here's what our landing page looked like after just 10 minutes of customization. We've touched on how Keap makes a lot of complicated tasks seem easy, and their landing page creation is no exception.
















Email Marketing















At Small Business Bonfire, we use email marketing to connect with our clients regarding affiliate marketing and PPC campaigns. So naturally, we wanted to see what Keap had to offer. As it turns out, Keap has all of the features you could need when it comes to email marketing. You can do everything from the following: Setting up custom templates Scheduling emails Tracking analytics Automating your campaigns This is a true time-saver for marketing teams because you don't have to manually enter customer information or write emails every day. Plus, Keap offers a ton of beautiful templates (shown below) to make creating your emails easier . We especially liked how you could filter templates by "industry" and "usage." For example, here are some usages we could filter by: Abandoned cart E-commerce Events Newsletter Product launch This makes it to find the perfect template for your business and get started quickly. We went with a "newsletter" template and were able to customize it with our logo, font, colors, and content. We especially loved how easy it was to create our own unique layout using the drag-and-drop interface. Here's what we came up with for our first newsletter email. Overall, we were more than impressed by Keap's email marketing toolset. We've tested a lot of email marketing tools, and Keap CRM is easily one of our favorites.
















Mobile App















Keap has a mobile app that allows you to access your CRM from anywhere . The app is available for both IOS and Android. During our testing, we downloaded the app on IOS. We were able to access our clients easily, as well as contact them by email while on the go . Here's our view from mobile. Other than contacts, the only other feature we were able to easily access was our tasks. We've tested a lot of CRMs at SBB, and typically with other CRM apps, we can at least access our pipelines, analytics, or marketing efforts. It was a bit disappointing that we were limited in our access with the app, but it was still nice to be able to reach out to our leads and clients while on the go.
















Reporting and Analytics















For any small or medium-sized business, being able to analyze and track their customer data is crucial—and Keap makes it a breeze . With its robust reporting tools, you can easily keep tabs on key performance indicators, sales funnels, and campaign success rates. But that's not all—Keap goes beyond simply providing generic graphs and charts. Their reporting features are fully customizable, allowing you to see exactly what you need when you need it . Want to see a breakdown of revenue by product category? No problem. Keap has powerful revenue forecasting capabilities . Need to know which sales rep is bringing in the highest numbers? Keap's got your back . And for those who crave a bit more automation in their lives (and let's be real, who doesn't?), Keap's reporting can even trigger alerts and reminders based on specific metrics. So if you set a goal for a certain number of leads captured in a week and you're coming up short, Keap will give you a gentle nudge to get back on track.
















Pipeline Management















At SBB, we consider pipeline management to be a crucial aspect of any good CRM. Being able to track every aspect of your sales process is integral to customer relationship management. With Keap, you can easily customize and manage all your pipelines in one place . We like to think of Keap's pipeline management as a well-oiled machine. Just like how a machine requires different parts to work in unison to perform well, Keap's pipeline management relies on various stages to streamline your sales process . They are as follows: At the beginning of the pipeline, you have your leads (which are like raw materials) Through careful nurturing and qualification, these leads are then converted into opportunities (much like how raw materials are refined into usable products) These opportunities are then worked on further until they finally culminate in closed deals During our testing, we were consistently impressed with Keap's pipeline management capabilities. We were able to get started by choosing one of the following templates: Sales pipeline Project pipeline Custom pipeline At Small Business Bonfire, we typically deal with affiliate marketing deals and PPC campaigns , so we decided to go with a custom pipeline that we titled "Partnerships." From there, we were able to customize each stage of the pipeline to our specific needs. One thing that we really liked about Keap's pipeline management was how easy it was to add "when/then" automation at every stage of each pipeline. For instance, we were able to create an automation that sent a notification to the contact owner whenever a new partnership was added to the "prospecting" stage in the pipeline. Here's what the automation process looked like for us. We tried it out, and it worked seamlessly! Within seconds, we got a mobile, email, and desktop notification about any new partnerships that we added. This is fantastic for SMBs that need to be able to track and easily manage their deals in real time . Here's an example of our pipeline with our partnerships added to give you a better idea of the layout. Keap Review - Partnerships Pipeline