Capsule CRM Review

Customer relationship management (CRM) software can be overwhelming to set up and use -- but not Capsule's. The platform takes a uniquely user-friendly approach to CRM, making its software an ideal choice for small businesses. You won't get as much customization as bigger CRMs, but you will get helpful features that won't bust your budget.

Capsule is best for small- and medium-sized businesses that need to manage their customers and sales but don't have large teams. Capsule has excellent features that are easy to use, but large companies may need more robust customization.

Smaller companies will appreciate that there's a free version to use, and even upgrading to the paid tiers will be affordable for many businesses. If you're looking for a reasonably-priced CRM with great features and don't want to spend a lot of time learning how to use it, Capsule is a great choice.

Capsule has well-built features that are easy to understand for new users. You won't find all the bells and whistles that more expensive CRMs offer, but most small businesses will likely get more than they need from Capsule's software. Here are a few standout features.

Contact management

One of Capsule's core features is its contact management. If you've used a CRM before, you may notice that Capsule's layout is a little more user friendly than others. This can be a good thing for people and companies looking for a way to manage contacts that isn't overwhelming.

You can add people or companies to the CRM manually or by uploading them using a CSV file. Once you've added or imported your contacts, you can search for them in the system, add files to their profile, link them to an organization, view the opportunities your company has with them, and view their tasks and contact history.

Opportunity management

Capsule's opportunities tool makes it easy for your business to track opportunities with clients. Within each client or company contact, you can select "opportunities" and list what the opportunity is (e.g., a product sale or business deal).

You can list details like the deal's value, when it's expected to close, what stage of the deal you're in (meeting, negotiation, contract, etc.), and what tasks are associated with the deal. Once a deal reaches the end of its life cycle, you can designate whether it was won or lost.

Sales pipeline

All of your opportunities are combined to create the sales pipeline feature in Capsule. Once you create an opportunity, the CRM automatically adds it to the sales pipeline feature so you can keep track of all of your opportunities and see their potential value in one place.

The sales pipeline dashboard shows you the total pipeline value, potential sales timeline, milestones each opportunity has reached, and your company's conversation rate over the past month, quarter, and year.

As with much of Capsule, the layout and design of the sales pipeline features is easy to understand. There is little guessing at what you're looking at or how to add information. You can also view your sales information as a pipeline, list, or dashboard view with charts.

Reports

Capsule's reporting tool lets you track sales made by team members and individuals. For example, you can view which team has the most sales wins/losses, the reasons why sales are won or lost, the average sales value, and much more.

You can also view other users' activity to keep track of their tasks, emails, meetings, calls, etc., related to sales projects. This can be helpful if you're monitoring which teams within your company are closing the most deals and how much communication they've had with clients to help make that happen.

Projects

This feature allows you and your team to create projects in Capsule that you can track so that everyone is on the same page. For example, if your company has an upcoming presentation with a big client, and there are a lot of people involved with it and lots of work to be done to get it right, tracking it in Capsule's projects tool is a smart idea.

You can specify the project's status with multiple stages of completion, designate users to participate in the project, and list tasks to be completed. You can also connect projects to specific sales opportunities so your team knows what to do with a client after you've closed a sale.

Workflow automation

Another helpful Capsule feature is workflow automation, which allows you to automate processes for opportunities and projects. This feature allows you to assign a specific opportunity or project to a user or team when it reaches a certain milestone.

For example, you can build workflow automation that automatically tells your marketing team to begin working on a new email campaign once you close a deal with a new client.

One of the best things about Capsule is that it's straightforward to learn. I spent some time testing the software and found its core features easy to understand and intuitive. Not all CRMs are like this. If you're new to content management software or want a straightforward system for your company, Capsule is a great option.

Like most CRMs, Capsule has multiple tiers and add-on features that can raise the cost. The prices listed here are based on monthly costs, but you can choose to be billed annually, which will save you up to 15%.

You can also sign up for a 14-day free trial of any version, but you'll need to add a credit card.

Tip: There is a free version of Capsule that gives two users access to basic CRM features and the ability to add up to 250 contacts.

Starter plan

This basic plan is good for businesses that want to organize their contacts and leads and manage conversations with them. Some reporting is available, and you can build one sales pipeline with this plan. You can also integrate about 50 different apps into Capsule with this plan, including QuickBooks, Zapier, and Gmail.

Growth plan

The Growth plan builds on the Starter plan and adds more customization, workflow automation, and detailed reporting. With this plan, you can add double the number of contacts as the Starter plan and have five sales pipelines instead of one. You can also assign user roles and permissions.

Advanced plan

The Advanced plan has the same features as the Growth plan, but you get more of nearly everything. For example, you'll have double the contacts as the Growth plan, 50 sales pipelines instead of five, 50 project boards compared to five, and 500 email templates instead of 50.

Ultimate plan

This plan is for large companies with up to 240,000 contacts and includes 100 sales pipelines and 100 project boards. In addition to including all of the features from the lower tiers, the Ultimate plan also includes customer training, import assistance, a dedicated account manager, and priority customer support.