If you're currently using Act! Premium or Premium Cloud, the case for upgrading to the Standard tier of Act! Advantage is pretty compelling given how many more features you get for the same or less money.
Interestingly, the cost justification for upgrading to the Professional or Ultimate tier is quite persuasive as well. These top two tiers not only provide advanced versions of most new features for all users, but they also offer significantly more benefits. Upgrades include increased storage, enhanced email entitlements, and superior technical support, along with some exclusive features available only to higher-tier users.
To help you decide if these upgrades are right for you, we've provided a list below of the top-tier benefits and the values associated with each compared to paying for them separately:
- Storage: If you’ve been working with your database for a while, you may have accumulated a lot of data that exceeds the Standard storage allotment of 15GB. Pro and Ultimate include 25GB and 35GB respectively, which is quite a savings when you consider storage upgrades normally cost approximately $10 per gig annually.
- eMarketing: if your email marketing needs exceed occasional one-off emails to 2500 contacts or less monthly, the Advanced eMarketing and Marketing Automation services included with Pro and Ultimate tiers may be more suitable. Previously these upgrades cost $79-199 per month, but now they’re available for only $15-30 more per user. This means smaller teams of 1-3 users can access response-driven nurture marketing, landing pages, surveys, detailed analytics, inbound CRM workflow, and up to 50,000 sends per month for a fraction of what it previously cost to get these features separately.
- Sales quoting: The top two tiers offer significant upgrades in quoting that include advanced reporting, payment processing, better image & document handling, and more advanced emailing options
- Online appointment scheduling: the advanced version includes meeting reminders, group calendars, and the ability to collect payment for appointment bookings.
Web forms: if you want to use web forms to harvest quote requests, the advanced web forms can automatically create Opportunities in Act!, as well as create drip campaigns as follow-ups.- Event Management: Pro and Ultimate tiers allow you to turn your webinars into revenue generators by collecting payment for event bookings.
- Website chat service: if you need to support multiple website chats, or have more than one employee involved in your website chat service, you’ll need the advanced version.
- Accounting Integration: Integration with QuickBooks Online and Zero is included free with the top two tiers of Act! Advantage, and allows you to download your transaction data into your database so you can better understand your contacts as customers
- Project Management: also free with the top two tiers of Act! Advantage, your team can manage both internal and external projects, while having the progress recording seamlessly to Act!
- Custom Tables or Hands-on Technical Support: If you use either of these, the Professional tier includes one or both at half price, while the Ultimate tier includes them free of charge. Combined, these two free Ultimate inclusions offer $20 savings per user, and easily justify the $30 upgrade cost from the first to the third.
While there are other upgrade perks included with the Professional and Ultimate tiers of Act! Advantage, like the customer service portal, extra e-marketing domains, and more, the list above should appeal to the widest number of people who are considering which tier is best for them. What should be of comfort to know is that all tiers offer unparalleled value, and that you can upgrade at any time.
Click HERE to read a more detailed cost/benefit analysis of Act! Advantage for smaller teams, or use our Online Cost Calculator to determine which tier offers the best value based on the features you need.
