If you are looking for a simple and intuitive CRM, FreeAgent CRM and Copper CRM are likely on your short list.
Both of these CRM solutions are known for their ease of use, a rare commodity in the CRM industry.
They are also both designed for today’s users, with a modern interface that provides a lot of information at a glance.
Where they differ is versatility and cost.
Let’s take a deep dive into what these CRM systems offer and see how they compare against various criteria.
For this evaluation, we looked at the following factors:
- Ease of use: This is a significant consideration in CRM today. Old, clunky CRM software that adds redundancy and complexity to your work processes is no longer acceptable.
We looked at how easy it is to navigate these CRM platforms, what training you’ll need to get your team onboarded, and how simple it is to perform basic tasks like creating an account or adjusting a form field.
- Features: The features a CRM system offers dictate what that CRM system can be used for. For example, your marketing team requires different tools than your sales team or product/development team.
We looked at what tools and features these CRMs offer and how they are bundled and sold.
- Customization: CRM is not a one-size-fits-all tool. Customization helps you create work processes that fit your unique business needs.
We looked at how customizable these CRM tools are and how well they support different teams and use cases.
- Integration: CRM integration improves workflows. Today’s businesses run on various apps, and your CRM must complement the rest of your tech stack.
We looked at what tools these CRM systems can integrate with, and what (if any) options exist for integrating with tools outside the options provided.
- Reporting: A CRM can transform jumbled and convoluted data sets into insightful reports.
We looked at the reporting capabilities of these CRMs to evaluate how expansive, detailed, and easy to use they are.
- Security: Data security has become a serious concern for any company that captures customer information. A CRM can help ensure security compliance through gated access controls and codified work processes.
We looked at these CRM platforms’ security qualifications and the steps they take to ensure your data is safe.
- Pricing: Cost is always a factor when evaluating a product. While CRM is well regarded for its high ROI, price is still a primary selling point for leadership.
We looked at the pricing models of these CRM providers and considered the cost of implementation, expansion, and growth.
What we looked at when comparing FreeAgent and Copper
Ease of use
FreeAgent CRM and Copper CRM are both touted for their ease of use. Let’s look at how they achieve this and who does it better.
FreeAgent CRM
Copper CRM
User interface: FreeAgent features a user interface that is simple, elegant, and modern. All the information you need is displayed in an easy-to-access format that allows you to zoom in for more detail or zoom out for a big picture view with just a few clicks.
Usability: Even if you’ve never used it (or any other CRM) before, you’d be able to add a contact or create an account quickly and easily.
Self-service: FreeAgent offers self-service options. This means you can get started when you want, grow at your own pace, and experiment with different work processes without needing third-party engineers or implementation teams.
Google Workspace: Copper is designed to be fully compatible with Google Workspace (and the Google suite of tools). That means if you know how to use Google Workspace, you can use Copper easily.
Simplicity: Copper places a high priority on simplicity over all else. It sacrifices some capability (marketing automation features, project management tools) to deliver on this goal but does the basics well.
Contact profiles: Copper makes all the information you need to interact with a customer easy to find within the contact profile.
Side by side
In deciding which of these CRMs is easier to use, a clear-cut winner is hard to declare. Both rank amongst the top CRMs on the market in this category.
Copper CRM will be an easy choice if your business uses Google Workspace. If you are looking to support a variety of teams, FreeAgent may have the edge.
Features
What do FreeAgent and Copper have under the hood? Let’s examine their feature lists and see what they offer.
FreeAgent CRM
Copper CRM
Workflow automation: Automation is the bread and butter of modern CRM technology, and FreeAgent is a great representation of that. Its automation tools can support many different work functions (sales automation, marketing automation), and like almost everything in FreeAgent, they can be user-configured.
FreeAgent also boasts a powerful workflow engine capable of streamlining complex work processes through advanced automation and task alerts.
Analytics and tracking: Data tracking is a foundational feature for CRM. With FreeAgent, this goes beyond simply tacking leads or activities performed.
Every app and tool in FreeAgent is connected, giving you a 360-degree view of your operations. Every stage change, email sent, order placed, candidate interviewed, training module viewed, and more are captured and time stamped for easy analysis.
Customer support: FreeAgent handles all of its customer support in-house. This helps their team resolve issues faster and ensure a level of customer service that third-party support teams can’t equal.
Sales automation: Copper offers basic workflow automation features that primarily support its Google integrations (Google Workplace, Google Sheets). While not as robust as many CRMs (including FreeAgent) in this regard, its limited sales automation tools are simple and easy to set up. The biggest drawback is that these features are only available in the higher tier options, meaning you pay a hefty price to have them.
Lead management: While Copper is pretty feature-light all around, its lead management tools are an exception. It offers everything a sales rep needs to capture, track, and nurture leads.
Limited features: To keep things simple, Copper offers limited features outside of its sales management tools. It has some basic project management tools, but Copper will likely come up short for companies looking to support different teams (marketing, product/development).
Side by side
FreeAgent offers all the features users have come to expect from a modern CRM.
Copper has a decent amount of features to support the sales team and some basic marketing functions, but they are primarily Google-focused, and many require a significant cost investment to unlock.
Customization
How well can FreeAgent and Copper adapt to the unique needs of your business? Let’s find out.
FreeAgent CRM
Copper CRM
Adaptability: FreeAgent CRM can be uniquely adapted to work the way you do. You can:
- Create custom stages and fields to build out unique work processes
- Customize your menu items and admin controls to support different business structures
- Design custom apps to connect teams and tools in any way required by your business
Personalization: In FreeAgent, individual team members can personalize their dashboards and views to meet their preferences and needs. They can even share views with other team members to foster alignment and collaboration.
FreeAgent also offers a wide selection of personal branding options companies can use to make their FreeAgent instance their own.
User-configurable: Many of FreeAgent’s customization and personalization options can be user-configured with no coding knowledge required. This allows teams and individuals to experiment with different options until they find what’s right for them.
Google focused: To support a niche group (Google Workspace users), Copper has traded flexibility for specialization. Limited customization options exist, such as creating custom fields for forms and determining how and where your data is captured.
Sales centered: Copper CRM primarily supports your sales process. Options for supporting other teams and work processes are limited, making customized workflows that support your entire business difficult to achieve with Copper alone.
Side by side
FreeAgent takes this one. Both offer a range of customization options, FreeAgent simply offers more. This may not matter as much for Google Workspace users since the Copper platform is so compatible with these tools, but for everyone else, FreeAgent can do more.
Integration
Your business already relies upon a number of software tools to manage your day-to-day. Let’s see how well FreeAgent CRM and Copper CRM can support your existing tool.
FreeAgent CRM
Copper CRM
Plug and play: FreeAgent CRM has a long list of integrations ready to go. Some, such as Zapier, come native with the platform, while others can be added as plugins.
While not an exhaustive list of every tool on the market, FreeAgent definitely has all the basics covered right out of the box.
Custom integrations: The FreeAgent platform is flexible enough to integrate with almost any tool you need, and their support team will create custom integrations when required.
It all comes standard: FreeAgent integrations are not secured behind a paywall. You pay only for the amount of time required to install the integration — no monthly fee, no minimum plan requirements.
Google suite synergy: Copper integrates seamlessly with Google Workspace and the Google suite of apps, though you need to be on at least the “Professional” tier to access most of these integrations. Given the popularity of Google tools, most businesses will benefit from this compatibility.
Add-ons add up: Copper does offer custom integrations as part of their “Business” tier, but this is hardly cost-effective for most businesses.
Side by side
Copper wins the integration category. Google tool optimization is a valuable asset in today’s business world, and Copper CRM does this better than anybody. While FreeAgent has a lot to offer in this area, Google gives Copper the edge.
Reporting
A CRM’s reporting features must be expansive, detailed, and easy to use. How do FreeAgent CRM and Copper CRM stack up against those requirements? Let’s dig a little deeper.
FreeAgent CRM
Copper CRM
Expansive: FreeAgent offers a wide assortment of report types, from bar graphs to bubble charts. Coupled with configurable Dashboards, FreeAgent gives you the power to visualize your data however you need.
Detailed: FreeAgent tracks activity across all applications, allowing you to create reports based on any number of parameters. This will enable you to look beyond wins and losses and evaluate your work processes across every stage.
Easy to use: Generating reports in FreeAgent is fast and easy. For reports you need to generate, again and again, reporting parameters can be favorited for quick access.
Expansive: Copper offers quite a few options for custom reporting, but these, like many of Copper’s best tools, are only available in the higher tiers. Still, those willing to invest will find everything they need to view their data in any way they like.
Detailed: Copper CRM can provide the data you need to generate reports on all sales functions (win/loss reports, cycle time analysis, etc.).
Easy to use: Copper CRM is nothing if not easy to use, and its reporting features are no exception. Its drag and drop functionality is quite intuitive and the reporting templates are comprehensive.
Side by side
Copper wins this one by a hair. Both FreeAgent and Copper have robust reporting features and options, but generating reports with Copper is a breeze.
Security
Protecting your sensitive data requires guidelines and best practices that can be enforced. FreeAgent and Copper offer tools to support this, but who does it better?
FreeAgent CRM
Copper CRM
Role-based access controls: FreeAgent’s user-configurable role-based access controls allow you to dictate what your team can do and see within the platform (or individual app or account). This allows you to set guidelines that make sense for your business.
Customer data encryption: FreeAgent encrypts customer data in-transit and at-rest, ensuring sensitive information is always secure.
Certifications: FreeAgent CRM is HIPAA compliant and GDPR compliant, providing a security standard that is hard to match by any CRM on the market.
Role-based access controls: Copper has strict access controls that ensure only admins and account owners have complete access to specific customer data.
Compliance: Copper CRM complies with a number of security best practices such as SSO, API, and OAth.
Side by side
When it comes to security, FreeAgent is tough to beat. Copper is up to the industry standard and takes security seriously, but FreeAgent goes the extra mile with HIPAA compliant and GDPR compliance.
Pricing
Pricing is always a consideration when looking at a new tool. Let’s look at how FreeAgent and Copper match up on this key selling point.
FreeAgent CRM
Copper CRM
Simple, transparent pricing: FreeAgent CRM’s pricing plans are clear and concise, with no hidden fees or minimum users.
No long-term contracts: FreeAgent doesn’t try to lock you in with long contract periods with high buy-out costs. Clients can sign up for a month to try it and stop payments whenever they like. This makes FreeAgent virtually risk-free, a deal unheard of in B2B SaaS.
Gated tools: Copper keeps their best features and customization options locked behind a paywall. This means you could end up paying a premium to access tools that only a small number of your team (or one sales rep) will use, lowering your ROI significantly.
Side by side
FreeAgent wins the pricing war with competitive, transparent, and predictable pricing that allows businesses of all types and sizes to adopt a CRM with little risk.
Which one is better for your business?
FreeAgent CRM can support a broader range of business needs and use-cases and can do so at a lower price. This means for most companies; the right choice is FreeAgent CRM.
That said, for businesses that run exclusively in Google Workspace and are strictly sales-focused, Copper CRM may be a better option (though still a more costly one).
Try FreeAgent CRM today and discover what the future of CRM looks like.
