SugarCRM 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.
Jill is a writer at Fit Small Business specializing on Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.
This article is part of a larger series on CRM.
Who SugarCRM Is Best For
- Businesses that require advanced sales automation: SugarCRM’s sales automation features let users close and predict opportunities using artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tools. It has excellent sales analytics functions that help users understand their customers better. However, you can also explore other options through our guide on the best sales automation software.
- Users who need robust marketing automation tools: SugarCRM’s marketing automation features offer email marketing tools and AI-driven analytics. These tools provide users an in-depth look at how contacts interact with their marketing materials. However, if you want to check out other providers that offer excellent marketing tools, particularly email marketing, check out our guide on the best CRMs for email marketing.
- Businesses that need excellent customer service tools: SugarCRM offers users omnichannel communication tools to provide the best support to their customers. Another software that provides extensive omnichannel customer support is Zoho CRM. You can also check out our article on how to use CRM for improved customer service.
Who SugarCRM Is Not a Good Fit For
- Teams that need a free or affordably priced CRM system: SugarCRM only offers paid plans. Moreover, its lowest-priced plan is at $52 per user, per month—a price point that’s significantly higher than the average CRM subscription. If your budget is limited, check out our guide on the best free CRM providers.
- Teams that require many third-party integrations: SugarCRM’s native integrations are limited to less than 10 apps and are mostly focused on marketing automation and customer experience (CX) tools. Users who need more extensive CRM integrations can consider other providers, such as Salesforce and HubSpot CRM.
SugarCRM Overview
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| Offers intelligent tools for lead management, such as scoring and customer interest prediction | No free plan, and the free trial is limited to seven days |
| Robust features for sales and marketing automation | Plans are generally more expensive than other providers in the market |
| Has specialized features for businesses that need excellent customer support tools | Only email support is available; phone support needs to be purchased separately |
SugarCRM Pricing
SugarCRM’s plans greatly vary from one another and are based on a business’ specific needs and priorities. It has five paid plans that start at $52 per user, per month, and are all billed annually. The increase in pricing doesn’t necessarily mean that all features in the lower-priced plan are included.
For example, SugarCRM’s Professional plan is its general-purpose plan and is the most affordable. Its Serve, Sell, and Enterprise plans are its mid-range plans and have similar pricing. However, Serve focuses on customer support, Sell focuses on sales automation, and Enterprise focuses on customer experience tools. Market, its most expensive plan, has features that are mostly designed for marketing automation.
Fundamental CRM features covered in all of its plans include contact, account, and project management, personalized dashboards and homepage, and advanced reporting.
Plans | Professional | Serve | Sell | Enterprise | Market |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Best For | Small to medium businesses that need robust lead and contact management tools | Businesses that need omnichannel support for their customers | Businesses that want excellent lead predictions and sales forecasting tools | Users that require sophisticated customer experience (CX) tools | Businesses that need effective and responsive marketing automation tools |
Annual Pricing ($/Month) | $52 per user, per month | $80 per user, per month | $80 per user, per month | $85 per user, per month | $1,000 per month |
No. of Users | Unlimited, minimum of 3 users | Unlimited, minimum of 3 users | Unlimited, minimum of 3 users | Unlimited, minimum of 3 users | Unlimited |
Contact Management | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Lead Management | ✔ | ✕ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Lead Routing | ✔ | ✕ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Sales Email Campaigns | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Lead Analysis and Scoring | ✕ | ✕ | ✔ | ✕ | ✕ |
Sales Opportunity Forecasting | ✔ | ✕ | ✔ | ✔ | ✕ |
Social Media Management | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✔ |
Click on the drop-down menu below for more information on SugarCRM’s plans:
Professional Plan
SugarCRM’s Professional plan is its general-purpose CRM plan with essential and fundamental functionalities. It includes account and contact management, activity management, lead and opportunity routing, and campaign and opportunity management. It also includes sales forecasting, sales quota monitoring, and sales email campaign management tools.
Serve Plan
SugarCRM’s Serve plan specializes in providing quick and reliable support to users’ customers. Apart from the fundamental features offered, its customer service-specific features include case routing and ticket management, service reports, and automated customer service workflows. It also has a call deflection feature that allows agents to turn down calls and let their customers resolve basic and common issues on their own with a self-service portal and knowledge base.
Sell Plan
SugarCRM’s Sell plan is focused on helping users build meaningful and lasting relationships with their customers. Apart from the basics, its customer relationship-centric features also include lead analysis, scoring, and prioritization. It also offers ideal company profile assessment and win-loss opportunity prediction.
Enterprise Plan
SugarCRM’s Enterprise plan is focused on delivering tailored, on-premise customer experience (CX) applications. Apart from offering essential features, such as contact and lead management, it provides specialized features such as support for MySQL Database, Microsoft SQL Server (2), and Oracle Database (2). It also includes a user management portal and a portal for secure communications with agents.
Market Plan
SugarCRM’s Market plan has features focused on improving lead conversion. Its lead conversion-centric features include lead analysis, scoring and prioritization, lead nurturing with real-time statistics, dynamic list segmentation, and unlimited lead and account scoring profiles. You’ll also get all the fundamental features offered in all of SugarCRM’s plans.
SugarCRM Features
SugarCRM provides tools fundamental to managing and nurturing customer relationships. These include tools to track leads and deals, monitor pipelines, analyze sales, and manage customer service activities.
Below are some general and standout features we like best from SugarCRM.
General Features
- Contact management
- Account management
- Project management
- Lead management
- Customizable dashboard
- Scheduled reports
- Advanced reports
One of SugarCRM’s key features is that it offers specialized solutions and tools based on a business owner’s priority area. These include marketing automation, sales automation, and customer service. An important thing to note is that these features are usually grouped in particular plans, so you should be mindful of this when choosing between SugarCRM’s different plans.
SugarCRM can also be natively integrated with select third-party software, letting you sync your accounts with other marketing automation and CX tools.
Below is a breakdown of some of the specialized features that SugarCRM offers:
Sales Automation
SugarCRM’s sales automation tools, mostly found in its Sell, Professional, and Enterprise plans, help users close deals and predict opportunities using its AI-powered lead conversion tool and Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) feature. Its sales analytics tools let users gain insights and understand the behavior of their customers by assessing their purchase, action, and sentiment history.
SugarCRM’s sales dashboard shows the overall sales status and projected performance of a business.
(Source: SugarCRM)
Marketing Automation
SugarCRM’s marketing automation features, mostly found in its Market plan, provide tools that let you easily connect and engage with your customers. It offers inbound and outbound email marketing tools and AI-driven analytics, providing users with an in-depth look at how their contacts interact with their marketing materials. It also lets users create conversion-focused emails, landing pages, and forms with intuitive drag-and-drop builders.
SugarCRM provides all important information in each lead profile, including personal information, business details, and notes.
(Source: SugarCRM)
Customer Service Tools
SugarCRM’s customer service features, mostly found in its Sugar Serve plan, offer users a customer portal and omnichannel support to provide the best service to their customers. It lets users route cases intelligently and create customer service workflows. It also allows agents to turn down calls for easy and common issues, which compels customers to resolve issues on their own by directing them to a self-service portal and knowledge base.
SugarCRM’s customer service tools let users closely monitor the progress of customer tickets and queries.
(Source: SugarCRM)
Third-party Integrations
SugarCRM has native integration capabilities with select marketing automation and CX tools through its Sugar Integrate functionality. This gives users the ability to synchronize all their customer data into the platform. Users get a 360-degree view of their customers’ profiles where they can sync their marketing data between systems.
SugarCRM’s native integrations include:
- Salesforce CRM
- Infor CRM
- Microsoft Dynamics
- NetSuite
- Sage
- Bullhorn
- Google Analytics
- Google Ads
- Google Paid Search
Customer Service
SugarCRM provides email and live chat support for all of its plans. Users who need phone support can purchase it as an add-on via customized SLA pricing. Users can also refer to its community page, SugarClub Community, to answer their questions.
Ease of Use
SugarCRM has a straightforward interface and is generally easy to use. While beginners and new users could experience some degree of a learning curve, there is a rich pool of resources they can refer to on its SugarClub Community page. It also offers extensive tutorial videos on its YouTube channel. Many customers also said that using its various tools, such as lead and contact management, is simple and easy.
SugarCRM Alternatives
If SugarCRM doesn’t meet your business needs, below are some alternatives you can consider:
 |  |  | |
Best For | Users who need a free CRM with excellent email marketing automation tools | Companies that need enterprise-level CRM with advanced reporting and analytics tools | Businesses that want an affordable CRM with excellent analytics tools |
Starting Price | Offers a free plan, while paid plans start at $45 per month for a minimum of 2 users | Starts at $25 per user, per month | Offers a free plan while paid plans start at $14 per user, per month |
Reviews |
You can also check out our article on the best CRM for small businesses for more options.
What Users Think of SugarCRM
Overall, SugarCRM has positive reviews. Certain features that users highlighted include its robust sales and marketing automation tools, as well as its ability to handle and manage large volumes of leads on a daily basis. Users who left negative reviews said that the pricing options are expensive, and the system experiences occasional lags and data duplicates.
At the time of this publication, SugarCRM had the following review scores from popular user review sites:
- G2: 3.7 out of 5 based on 607 reviews
- Capterra: 3.8 out of 5 based on 351 reviews
- GetApp: 3.8 out of 5 based on 351 reviews
Bottom Line
SugarCRM is an extensive and sophisticated CRM tool that provides specialized features for particular areas of focus—particularly sales and marketing automation, as well as customer support. For small businesses, their lowest-priced plan is more than enough to manage leads and opportunities. However, businesses needing highly advanced marketing automation tools need to spend more on their Market plan.
