Really Simple Systems Review: Is It Right for Your Business?
Jess served on the founding team of a successful B2B startup and has used a wide range of sales and marketing tools over the course of her 15-year career. She uses her industry knowledge to deliver the best answers to your questions about sales tools and sales management.
Bianca is a staff writer at Fit Small Business who specializes in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.
This article is part of a larger series on CRM.
Really Simple Systems is one of our highly recommended, easy-to-use customer relationship management (CRM) software for sales, marketing, and service teams of startups and small businesses. We evaluated this provider and it scored high in pricing, ease of use, customer service, and expert scores. However, it got a lower score in general features because it lacks a mobile app and third-party integration options.
Overall Score:
3.86 / 5
What We Like
- Tools are easy to learn and operate
- Integrates with accounting software
- System has a robust set of customization options for design, layouts, and fields
- Offers a free-forever plan option for up to two users
- Built-in quote generation tools
What's Missing
- No mobile application
- Marketing tools require monthly add-on costs
- Customer service management features require additional costs
- No social media integrations
- Advanced auto-reporting tools are only available on the Enterprise plan
When to Use Really Simple Systems
- Simple CRM: This platform is one of our top recommended, easy-to-use CRMs for startups and small businesses.
- Free CRM: This program offers free and low-cost options with basic CRM functionality, email synchronization, and integration with accounting software.
- Customizable CRM: Even on the Free plan, users can customize their system to their business’ needs, including custom data fields, table grids, drop-down lists, dashboard layouts, and CRM page design.
When to Use an Alternative
- Email marketing: Read this guide to find affordable CRM systems with advanced marketing features like template designers and automated drip campaigns.
- Mobile CRM: Head on to this article to read an in-depth evaluation of mobile CRM products.
- Low-cost CRM for customer service: Try Bitrix24 if you need an alternative CRM that offers more affordable customer service tools.
Really Simple Systems is an easy-to-use CRM platform with a centralized set of tools for managing sales, marketing, and customer service activities. It provides traditional sales enablement features for contact and pipeline management, and customization capabilities for reports, data fields, dashboards, and charts. It also offers a free-forever plan. This software is best for startups and small businesses wanting a simple yet customizable CRM solution.
Really Simple Systems Deciding Factors
Supported Business Types | Startups or small businesses with sales, marketing, and support teams |
Standout Features |
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Pricing Plans |
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Contract Duration | Monthly and annual plans are available |
Key Integrations |
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Customer Support |
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Not exactly sure what to look for?
Look at our step-by-step guide to choosing a CRM to keep your selection process organized. It comes with a free downloadable template for choosing the right CRM provider for your business.
Really Simple Systems Alternatives
If this platform doesn’t meet your business needs, below are some highly rated alternatives to consider:
 |  |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Best For | Businesses with lengthy or unique lead nurturing processes | Companies that need visual representations of their sales pipelines | Teams wanting a free, no-frills CRM with basic features for unlimited users | Companies requiring simple pricing and easy-to-use core CRM tools |
Starting Price | Free (unlimited users) or $15 per user, per month* | $14.90 per user, per month* | Free (unlimited users) or $45 per month (2 users)* | $15 per user, per month** |
*Based on annual billing; monthly pricing is also available at slightly higher rates
**Monthly billing only
Really Simple Systems pricing nabbed a perfect score because of its free-forever plan for up to two users and affordable paid options. Its paid subscriptions cost between $14 and $46 per user on a monthly basis (billed annually), with options to add marketing, a service desk, and advanced customization capabilities. It comes out of the box with tools for contact and pipeline management, sales forecasting, products, document storage, reporting, and field customization.
Get started for free or sign up for its 14-day free trial to see how this CRM system works before you commit to a paid plan.
Plans | Free | Starter | Professional | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Best For | Startups | Growing businesses | Multi-sales teams | Large businesses |
Monthly Pricing ($/User/Month) | $0 | $18 | $38 | $55 |
Annual Pricing ($/User/Month) | $0 | $14 | $30 | $46 |
User Limit | 2 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Company Records | 100 | 1,000 | 5,000 | Unlimited |
Document Storage | 100MB | 1GB | 5GB | Unlimited |
Contact & Pipeline Management | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Email & Accounting Software Integrations | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
VoIP Telephone Integrations | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
Quote Generation Tools | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
Custom Charts & Scheduled Reports | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
Really Simple Systems Add-ons*
- Simple Marketing: $22 per month (free for Enterprise plan with five or more users)
- Advanced Marketing: $55 per month
- Service Desk: $55 per month (free for Enterprise plan with five or more users)
- Customization Service: Contact sales for a customized quote
*Based on annual billing
For more information on Really Simple Systems CRM pricing options, select a plan from the drop-down menu below:
For up to two users and storage for up to 100 records, users on the Free plan get basic features, including contact management, pipeline management, opportunity stage tracking, and sales forecasting. They also can integrate their calendar into the CRM system and create task reminders. A few features not included in the Free plan are integrations with email, accounting, voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP), and single sign-on software—plus the ability to set security permission levels.
The Starter plan allows for an unlimited number of users and expands on everything in the Free plan. This includes feature capabilities for integrations with accounting software, email systems, and geolocation tools using Google Maps. The Starter plan is also the first tier that allows the option to purchase simple or advanced marketing add-ons.
The Professional plan includes everything in the Starter plan and adds built-in quotation tools and the ability to set system permission levels within the CRM. Integration capabilities widen slightly by allowing VoIP telephone integrations. The Professional plan also allows users to purchase the optional service desk add-on.
With unlimited records, contacts, and document storage, the Enterprise plan includes everything from the Professional tier plus advanced and auto-scheduled CRM reports. Users can also include customizable charts for their dashboard and integrate with single sign-on software. The plan allows up to five users to use the marketing and service desk add-ons at no additional cost.
Really Simple Systems Features
Really Simple Systems CRM review, we gave this provider a score of 3.88 out of 5 for its general features. Its sales CRM allows your business to manage customer, prospect, and supplier contacts by organizing information, monitoring interactions, and managing tasks associated with specific contacts. On the higher-tiered plans, you can also integrate your business email and VoIP phone system into the CRM, and synchronize contact data and communications.
This program has pipeline management tools that allow your business to create and track sales opportunities. You can customize sales opportunities by adding deal values and probabilities of closing the deal. This helps you generate more accurate sales forecasting reports for your business. Professional and Enterprise plan users have access to built-in quote generation tools from an opportunity record. Your sales reps can create, download, and send a business proposal to a prospect.
Check out this platform’s general features below:
- Sales CRM
- Contact and pipeline management
- Quotes
- Sales weightings and probability (assigning a percentage to the likelihood of a successful sale)
- Opportunities
- Product lines
- Tasks, events, and calendars
- Document storage
- Geolocations via Google Maps
- Email integration
This provider got a score of 2.5 out of 5 for its specialized features mainly because of the additional fees required to access its marketing and service tools. Its other standout features include sales forecasting, user permission levels, and customized reports and dashboards.
For marketing features, this platform offers optional Simple Marketing (an additional $22 per month) and Advanced Marketing (an additional $55 per month) add-ons. These allow website integrations and workflow automation to automatically add new account records captured from your online webforms. Drip campaigns that send automated emails to your contacts can also be deployed based on schedule intervals to send newsletters, special offers, and event invitations.
For an additional $55 per month, your business can also access this platform’s service desk features for managing customer support. Within that feature is the service level agreement (SLA) tool that automatically prioritizes customer cases. You can customize your support system with target response times and triggers to identify urgent cases.
One standout attribute of this platform’s CRM reporting features are its sales forecasting capabilities available on the Free plan. Forecasts, along with outstanding tasks, the current sales funnel, and revenue breakdowns, can all be presented on the CRM dashboard.
Reports can be designed to your business’ needs with custom widgets and charts, as well as the specific data being pulled and analyzed. However, some of the more advanced reporting features that generate report summaries, allow data filtering, and create auto-scheduled reports are only available on the Enterprise plan.
This software does not offer a mobile application for iOS or Android system download. Mobile use is limited to viewing its desktop version on a mobile device. While it’s not an app native to the operating system of the mobile device, it will automatically fit the size of your device’s screen since the website is mobile-responsive.
Mobile access (Source: Really Simple Systems)
This program integrates with popular small business applications like Gmail, Office 365, and Zapier on the Free plan. The Starter plan expands capabilities to accounting software like Xero, Sage Business Cloud, and Kashflow. Your business can integrate voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) telephone systems once subscribed to the Professional plan. Meanwhile, single sign-on functionality can be attained on the Enterprise plan with OneLogin and Microsoft Azure integrations.
Integration with QuickBooks via Zapier (Source: Really Simple Systems)
This platform provides customer support during standard business hours by phone, email, and live chat. In addition to its customer support channels, there are also supplemental tools you and your team can access. These include webinars, a blog, tutorial videos, and a customer support hub with step-by-step instructions and how-to guides.
Customer Support Hub (Source: Really Simple Systems)
No Really Simple Systems review would be complete without noting that it’s an excellent product for users new to operating a CRM. At most, a minimal skill level is needed to set up and use the platform. It’s also easy to navigate because the interface only uses a few buttons on the vertical left tab: Sales, Marketing, Service & Support, and History.
Home dashboard (Source: Really Simple Systems)
The Really Simple Systems CRM reviews left by customers are fairly consistent across the board. For the most part, users give relatively high marks when reviewing this system’s ease of use, value for money, and customer support. They also like the high level of customization that it offers.
At the time of this publication, we noted the following scores from Really Simple Systems reviews posted on popular user review sites:
- Capterra: 4.4 out of 5 based on 369 reviews
- G2: 4.4 out of 5 based on 144 reviews
- TrustRadius: 7.6 out of 10 based on 43 reviews
Most of the poor reviews of this provider stem from a functional element of the platform, such as the fact that it lacks a mobile application. Some noted that it could not integrate with social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter. Others wished that it came with out-of-the-box supplemental tools for marketing and customer service. However, most users say it’s an intuitive platform that’s easy for an entire sales team to adopt.
Methodology: How We Evaluated Really Simple Systems
To evaluate this program against other CRM software, we tested each system ourselves. We examined different crucial areas, such as pricing, core CRM features, quality of customer support, and ease of use. We also looked at recent CRM ratings about this platform from credible review sites.
Click through the tabs below for our Salesforce Essentials evaluation criteria:
10%
Pricing
10%
General Features
30%
Niche Features
20%
Ease of Use
20%
Support
10%
Expert Score
10% of Overall Score
Cost is typically an essential criterion for any business, so it was one of our considerations when evaluating the cost-effectiveness of this provider. We usually give a high score to providers that offer a starter plan that costs $30 or less. We also check the availability of a free plan, scalable pricing options, and options to pay monthly or annually.
10% of Overall Score
We looked at overall features we feel are necessary for any CRM system, such as integration options, reporting, and analytics tools. We also considered the availability of a mobile app—which is crucial for sales reps who are always on the go.
30% of Overall Score
We also looked at the niche and targeted features of the software to see the value a user can get by subscribing. For this CRM system, we checked if they offer specialized features such as lead scoring, email and SMS marketing, workflow automation, and appointment booking.
20% of Overall Score
We evaluated this provider’s platform usability and the level of technical experience needed to use the system. This was analyzed in terms of the expertise required to set up an account, the learning curve to use its features, and the ease of integrating with other third-party applications.
20% of Overall Score
Support is a critical part of running any CRM tool, especially for small businesses that don’t have in-house technical support. We analyzed the types and availability of support offered by these providers through live chat, email, and phone.
10% of Overall Score
We looked through existing and best CRM reviews on credible sites to measure the level of satisfaction current users have and any problems they typically encounter. We also added our thoughts and expert opinion on essential features, value for money, and popularity.
*Percentages of overall score
Bottom Line
Based on our Really Simple Systems review, we find it is a low-cost (or even free) CRM that provides the basic features of most sales CRMs. The lack of a mobile app and additional costs for add-ons is offset by the robust customization and the easy-to-use CRM tools. Plus, with optional add-ons for managing marketing and customer service operations, you can decide when to make the investment for the more advanced features as your business scales.
You Might Also Like…
- Are you looking for a CRM that comes at no cost? Check out our picks for the best free CRM software for small businesses.
- Looking to make the most out of your CRM investment? Here are some CRM best practices for small businesses.
- Do you want to save time creating sales projections? Download our free sales forecast templates for small businesses.
