⚡ Quick Verdict:
- Pricing: Keap costs $299/month (annually billed). Nutshell CRM starts at $13 per user per month.
- Best for: Keap suits e commerce businesses that want sales and marketing automation in one dashboard. Nutshell CRM suits small B2B sales teams that want simple contact management.
- Key difference: Keap bundles a landing page builder, invoicing and payment processing, and a business line. Nutshell CRM sells a leaner CRM per user.
- Our pick: Keap, rated 4.2 against 2.8, because it replaces several third party tools at once.
Keap and Nutshell CRM both promise to tidy up a messy sales process.
They go about it in very different ways.
Keap bolts marketing automation, e commerce tools, and a CRM together.
Nutshell CRM keeps the feature list short and the monthly fee low.
One costs roughly twenty times more per month than the other.
Here is how to work out which side of that gap you belong on.
Overview
This Keap vs Nutshell CRM comparison covers pricing, key features, ease of use, and support.
We also break down which sales teams each platform actually fits.
Our writers spent hands-on time with both CRM platforms.
Those notes sit in the “What Our Team Noticed” sections below.
Everything else comes from vendor documentation, pricing pages, and G2 reviews.
What is Keap?
Keap is a customer relationship management platform built for small business owners.
It was called Infusionsoft before the 2019 rebrand.
The software joins CRM, sales and marketing automation, and e commerce features in one dashboard.
You get a visual sales pipeline, lead scoring, and a landing page builder.
Keap also includes a dedicated business line for calls and texts.
That keeps work messages away from your personal number.
The video below walks through the Keap app in action.
🏆 Winner: Keap
Keap automates almost every stage of the customer journey. It connects to more than 2,500 third party integrations. Start with the 14-day trial before you commit.
Keap Pricing
Keap plans are priced by contact volume, not by seat.
| Plan | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Keap | $299/month (Annually Billed) | Established small businesses running sales and marketing from one system |
Pricing verified August 2026.
Free trial: 14 days with access to all features. No long-term commitment during the trial.
Money-back guarantee: Keap does not advertise a blanket refund window. Cancel before renewal to avoid the next charge.
📌 Note: Extra seats are billed at $30 per user per month. Onboarding through the Expert Coaching service is a separate one-time fee of $499.
⚠️ Pricing conflict: Our research notes list Keap plans as Lite $79, Pro $169, and Max $199 per month for 500 contacts. Our CSV records a single $299/month annual figure, which is what every table here uses. Check the vendor page for your contact list size before you buy.
Key Benefits of Keap
Here is what makes Keap worth the higher price:
- Time back: Keap customers who use automation report saving 10 hours per week. The same group reports a 38% lift in revenue.
- Campaign Builder: A visual flowchart tool for building campaigns with drag and drop tools. Advanced automations run on simple when-then logic.
- Money in the door: Built-in invoicing, checkout forms, and payment processing integrations close the loop on e commerce sales.
- Deliverability: Keap claims a 99.5% delivery rate on email campaigns sent through the platform.
- Guided setup: Free migration, a dedicated success manager, checklists, and training webinars come with every plan.
- Lead management: Lead scoring ranks each new lead by engagement so your sales team works the warmest contact record first.
- One system: CRM, marketing, sales, and project work sit together, which cuts the tool count for a small business.
What Our Team Noticed
Our writer signed up for Keap and spent several days building campaigns, forms, and follow-up sequences. Here is what stood out from that hands-on time:
Keap Pros & Cons
✅ Pros
- Automates almost every stage of the sales journey
- Connects with more than 2,500 platforms and tools
- Built-in invoicing and many payment processing integrations
- Free migration and a dedicated customer success manager
- Most users finish basic setup in about 20 minutes
❌ Cons
- Pricing is steep for entry-level entrepreneurs
- Cost climbs sharply once contacts pass each threshold
- Expert Coaching onboarding adds a one-time $499 fee
- The user community is quiet compared to larger CRM platforms
What is Nutshell CRM?
Nutshell CRM is cloud-based CRM software for small to mid-sized B2B sales teams.
It handles contact management, deals, calendar sync, and click-to-call in one place.
Sales teams track work through multiple pipelines using Board, List, Map, and Chart views.
Email marketing, landing pages, and a web form builder ship without paid add-ons.
The design choice here is restraint rather than depth.
Nutshell skips complex features so a new user can be productive within days.
This walkthrough shows the interface and the pipeline views.
Runner Up: Nutshell CRM
Nutshell CRM ships unlimited contacts and no data limits on every plan. Free migration and free live support are included. A 14-day trial lets a single user test it first.
Nutshell CRM Pricing
Nutshell CRM plans are sold per seat. Five tiers cover solo sellers through larger sales teams.
| Plan | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Foundation | $13/user/month | A single user tracking a simple contact list |
| Growth | $25/user/month | Small teams adding sales automation |
| Pro | $42/user/month | Teams needing multiple pipelines and personal email sequences |
| Business | $59/user/month | Teams that want the full reporting suite |
| Enterprise | $79/user/month | Larger teams needing an audit log and priority support |
Pricing verified August 2026.
Free trial: 14 days, free for new users. You can import contacts from any source with a CSV file during the trial.
Money-back guarantee: None published. The low entry tier keeps the risk small either way.
📌 Note: Free data migration and live support come with every plan, including Foundation. Most rivals reserve that help for premium tiers.
⚠️ Warning: The per user model looks cheap at one seat and stops looking cheap at ten. A ten-person team on Pro pays $420 each month.
Key Benefits of Nutshell CRM
Here is where Nutshell CRM earns its place:
- Short learning curve: Reviewers rate it among the friendliest CRM platforms for small teams. Most people are productive within days.
- No data caps: Unlimited contacts ship as standard. Your contact list can grow without a surprise upgrade.
- Free migration and free live support: Chat and email support cover every customer, with priority queues for enterprise plans.
- Lead discovery: ProspectorIQ finds new contacts. VisitorIQ names the company browsing your site so you can chase more leads.
- Integrations: Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Gmail, Outlook, Slack, MailChimp, and Zendesk connect directly. Zapier adds over 5,000 more.
- Reporting: Customizable dashboards track sales KPIs and funnel health without a data analyst.
What Our Team Noticed
Our writer ran a test pipeline in Nutshell CRM for a week, importing contacts and firing off email templates. Here is what stood out:
Nutshell CRM Pros & Cons
✅ Pros
- Minimal learning curve for a new sales team
- Free data migration and live support on all plans
- Unlimited CRM contacts with no data limits
- Well-reviewed mobile apps for iOS and Android
❌ Cons
- Automation is less advanced than HubSpot or Salesforce
- Email attachment handling draws complaints in G2 reviews
- No native invoicing, checkout forms, or e commerce tools
- Per-seat billing gets expensive as headcount grows
Feature Comparison
Both platforms share a foundation of contact records, deals, and reporting. The split shows up in how far each one follows the customer journey past the sale.
| Feature | Keap | Nutshell CRM |
|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | $299/month (annual) | $13/user/month |
| Free Trial | ✅ 14 days | ✅ 14 days |
| Marketing Automation | ✅ Advanced automations | ✅ Basic |
| Landing Page Builder | ✅ | ✅ |
| Invoicing & Payment Processing | ✅ Built in | ❌ Quotes only |
| Business Line for Calls and Texts | ✅ | ❌ |
| Multiple Pipelines | ✅ | ✅ Pro and above |
| Free Migration | ✅ | ✅ |
| Third Party Integrations | 2,500+ | 5,000+ via Zapier |
| Best For | E commerce businesses automating sales and marketing | Small B2B sales teams wanting simple CRM software |
1. Sales Automation
Keap: The Campaign Builder is a visual flowchart where you drop triggers and automated actions onto a canvas. Marketing automations run on when-then logic, so a form fill can tag a contact, start a sequence, and alert an owner. Templates cover the common sales campaigns, and drag and drop tools handle the rest.
Nutshell CRM: Sales automation here means lead routing, follow-up notifications, and automated tasks that stop deals from going quiet. It works well and takes minutes to set up. It is also less capable than what HubSpot, Salesforce, or Keap offers.
2. CRM and Contact Management
Keap: Every contact record holds email history, purchases, tags, and custom fields in one view. Because e commerce sits in the same system, you can see what someone bought and trigger cross sells from the same screen.
Nutshell CRM: Contact management covers calendar sync, click-to-call, custom fields, and shared notes so a whole team can pick up a conversation. You can import contacts from any source with a CSV file. Enterprise plans add an audit log for tracking who changed what.
3. Sales Pipeline Management
Keap: The sales pipeline is a visual board where deals move by drag and drop. Stage changes can fire automation, so moving a card to “Proposal Sent” can send a quote and set a reminder.
Nutshell CRM: Drag-and-drop boards handle the same job, and Pro plans unlock multiple pipelines for teams selling more than one product. Map view is the unusual one, plotting deals by geography for field sales territories.
4. Reporting and Dashboards
Keap: Reporting ties revenue back to the campaign that produced it, which is the payoff for keeping sales and marketing in one dashboard. You can watch conversion rates by sequence rather than guessing which email did the work.
Nutshell CRM: Customizable dashboards track sales KPIs, funnel stages, and rep activity. The full reporting suite arrives on the Business plan, so cheaper tiers get a lighter version of the same analytics.
⚠️ Warning: Reporting depth is gated on both sides. Confirm the reports you need exist on the plan you can afford before you migrate any data.
5. Email Marketing Campaigns
Keap: Email marketing runs off CRM tags and segments, so email campaigns can be narrow rather than blasted at everyone. Keap claims a 99.5% delivery rate on mail sent through the platform.
Nutshell CRM: You can build lists, send bulk mail, and run drip campaigns without a separate marketing tool. Personal email sequences send from a rep’s own Gmail or Outlook account, which suits one-to-one B2B selling.
6. AI Tools
Keap: Keap AI drafts email copy and suggests automations from a plain-language prompt. It is aimed at people who know what they want to say but not how to build the sequence.
Nutshell CRM: AI here points at revenue-driving work: summarising calls, timelines, and next steps. It supports the rep rather than replacing the writing.
7. Lead Capture and Lead Scoring
Keap: Lead scoring rates each prospect by engagement, so your team can score leads and work the hottest first. Lead management and tracking then log every touch against that lead score.
Nutshell CRM: Lead capture runs through a web form that drops submissions straight into the pipeline. VisitorIQ identifies which company visited your site, and AI meeting summaries keep the context attached to the person.
8. Landing Pages, Checkout Forms and Invoicing
Keap: The landing page builder lets you publish one landing page or connect multiple landing pages into a single funnel. Checkout forms, invoicing and payment processing sit behind those pages, which is why e commerce businesses tend to pick Keap.
Nutshell CRM: Landing pages exist and quotes can be generated, but there is no native checkout. You send an invoice from another app once the deal closes.
9. Third Party Integrations
Keap: More than 2,500 platforms and tools connect to Keap, including most payment processing gateways. Because invoicing is native, you need fewer third party tools in the first place.
Nutshell CRM: Direct integration covers Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Slack, MailChimp, and Zendesk, plus over 5,000 apps through Zapier. The catch is that more of your stack stays outside the CRM.
10. Communication and Support
Keap: A business line handles calls and texts inside the app, so client replies land next to the deal. Support runs 24/7 on chat and email, with phone support on weekdays for U.S. customers. Free on-demand training, training webinars, and a knowledge base cover setup.
Nutshell CRM: Live chat and email support reach every customer, and enterprise accounts get a priority queue. There is no phone line built into the product, so calls happen elsewhere.
11. Pricing & Cost
The two products do not price the same way, which makes a straight comparison tricky.
| Plan | Keap | Nutshell CRM |
|---|---|---|
| Entry | — | Foundation: $13/user/month |
| Mid | — | Growth: $25/user/month |
| Upper Mid | — | Pro: $42/user/month |
| Advanced | — | Business: $59/user/month |
| Top Tier | $299/month (Annually Billed) | Enterprise: $79/user/month |
| Billing Model | By contact volume | Per user |
Keap: The monthly fee is high and the price climbs as your contact list crosses each threshold. Extra seats cost $30 per user per month. That maths works for a business already earning from repeat business, and badly for a brand new one.
Nutshell CRM: Foundation is one of the cheapest ways to run real CRM software. Cost scales with headcount instead of contacts, so a five-person team on Business pays $295 each month and lands close to Keap.
Different Scenarios
| If You Need… | Choose | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The lowest monthly fee | Nutshell CRM | Starts at $13 per seat |
| Sales and marketing automation | Keap | Deeper automated actions |
| Invoicing and payment processing | Keap | Native checkout forms |
| A simple CRM for a small sales team | Nutshell CRM | Minimal learning curve |
| E commerce features in the CRM | Keap | Sells and bills in one system |
| Unlimited contacts on a budget | Nutshell CRM | No data limits at any tier |
💰 Your Budget
Keap asks for $299 a month before you have sent a single email. Nutshell CRM lets one person start for the price of a takeaway lunch.
🔌 Your Tech Stack
Already paying for a mail tool, a page builder, and an invoicing app? Keap can replace all three. If your stack is settled, Nutshell CRM slots in beside it.
📝 Your Sales Process
Long B2B cycles with a handful of clients suit Nutshell CRM. High-volume funnels that need automated follow-up to increase conversions suit Keap.
🎓 Your Experience Level
Nutshell CRM is the more user friendly of the two on day one. Keap rewards patience, and the free coaching means help is there when you have needed assistance.
🆓 Free Trials and Demos
Both give you 14 days. Load your real contact list into each one, not a sample, because the difference shows up under real data.
🛟 Support Options
Keap answers on chat 24/7 and by phone on weekdays. Nutshell CRM keeps live chat and email free for everyone, which is rare at $13 a seat.
Switching Guide
Already on one of them? Here is what changes when you move.
🔄 Switching from Keap to Nutshell CRM?
✅ What you’ll gain:
- A much smaller bill for a single user or a tiny team
- Unlimited contacts with no threshold pricing
- A simpler interface your reps will actually update daily
❌ What you’ll lose:
- Native invoicing, checkout forms, and e commerce tools
- The dedicated business line for calls and texts
- Advanced automations built around lead scoring
📋 How to switch:
- Export contacts, custom fields, and open deals from Keap as CSV
- Start the Nutshell CRM trial and ask for the free migration
- Rebuild your pipelines, then move billing to a separate invoicing app
🔄 Switching from Nutshell CRM to Keap?
✅ What you’ll gain:
- One system for CRM, marketing, and e commerce sales
- A drag and drop Campaign Builder for building campaigns visually
- A dedicated success manager and free on-demand product training
❌ What you’ll lose:
- Per-seat pricing that stays cheap for one or two people
- Map view and the lighter, faster daily interface
- ProspectorIQ and VisitorIQ lead discovery
📋 How to switch:
- Export your contacts and deal history from Nutshell CRM
- Open the 14-day Keap trial and use the free migration offer
- Rebuild one campaign first, then move the rest once it works
What Our Review Didn’t Cover
This comparison looked at small businesses and small sales teams. We did not test either platform at 50+ seats, and we did not audit security certifications, data residency across territories, or how each one handles other languages. Enterprise contracts and custom pricing sit outside what we checked. Both products update often, so confirm the current feature list on the vendor site before you sign.
Final Verdict
| Category | Winner |
|---|---|
| 💰 Pricing | Nutshell CRM |
| 🚀 Marketing Automation | Keap |
| 🎯 Lead Management | Keap |
| 👶 Ease of Use | Nutshell CRM |
| 🛒 E Commerce and Invoicing | Keap |
| 🔌 Integrations | Keap |
| 🛟 Support and Onboarding | Keap |
| 🏆 Overall Winner | Keap |
🏆 WINNER: KEAP
Keap wins 5 of 7 categories and holds a 4.2 rating against 2.8.
Best for: E commerce businesses, service firms chasing repeat business, and owners who want sales and marketing under one roof.
These are not really the same product. Keap is an automation platform that happens to include a CRM, while Nutshell CRM is a CRM that happens to include some marketing.
If your business strategy depends on follow-up sequences, checkout forms, and one dashboard for everything, Keap earns the price. We recommend Keap CRM for owners at that stage, and the free coaching removes most of the setup risk.
Nutshell CRM is the smarter buy for a small B2B team that wants clean contact management and nothing more. Match the tool to your growth goals rather than to the feature list.
More of Keap Compared
Here is how Keap holds up against the other CRM platforms buyers shortlist:
Keap wins on: native invoicing, the built-in business line, cheaper entry to full automation
HubSpot wins on: a genuine free tier, reporting depth, a far larger app marketplace
Keap wins on: payments and checkout in the same system, guided onboarding, small business fit
ActiveCampaign wins on: email deliverability tooling, cheaper starting tiers, finer segmentation controls
Keap vs GoHighLevel
Keap wins on: a calmer interface, hands-on coaching, a more stable release cycle
GoHighLevel wins on: agency sub-accounts, white labelling, unlimited contacts at a flat rate
Keap wins on: marketing automation, e commerce features, follow-up that runs without a rep
Pipedrive wins on: per-seat pricing, deal-focused simplicity, faster rollout for a pure sales team
More of Nutshell CRM Compared
And here is where Nutshell CRM sits against its closest rivals:
Nutshell CRM wins on: included email marketing, free migration and live support, Map view for territories
Pipedrive wins on: forecasting tools, a wider add-on catalogue, more mature workflow rules
Nutshell CRM vs Freshsales CRM
Nutshell CRM wins on: unlimited contacts, plain onboarding, support that is free at every tier
Freshsales CRM wins on: a free starter plan, built-in phone, deeper AI scoring
Nutshell CRM vs Capsule CRM
Nutshell CRM wins on: lead discovery with ProspectorIQ, richer pipeline views, stronger mobile apps
Capsule CRM wins on: a free plan for two users, lower mid-tier pricing, lighter setup
This video runs through the alternatives worth checking before you decide.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Keap used for?
Small business owners use it to store customer data, automate follow-up, run email campaigns, build landing pages, and take payments. It replaces several separate apps with one system.
What is the difference between Infusionsoft and Keap?
They are the same company. Infusionsoft rebranded as Keap in 2019 to signal a focus on small business automation rather than enterprise marketing.
Is Nutshell a good CRM?
For small B2B sales teams that value simplicity, yes. Reviewers rate the ease of use highly. Automation depth is the trade-off you accept for that simplicity.
How much does a CRM cost per month?
Most sit between $13 and $80 per user each month. All-in-one platforms priced by contact volume, like this article’s winner, start far higher at $299 monthly.
Which is #1 CRM software?
Salesforce leads on market share, but the best CRM is the one your team opens daily. Between these two, Keap takes the win on features and rating.
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