Act! vs Commence Comparison: Everything You Need to Know Before Choosing

Commence is a customer relationship management platform from Commence Corporation, a US software company with a long history in business CRM, that combines sales force automation, marketing, help desk, customer portal and project management capabilities. Small and mid-sized businesses often end up using separate tools for each of these functions, which fragments customer data and makes it difficult to coordinate the handover from marketing to sales to service. Commence's approach is to provide an integrated system in which leads, opportunities, support tickets, projects and communications all relate to a single customer record, giving teams a shared view of every account. The company offers both cloud-hosted and on-premises options, and it places emphasis on personalised implementation and customisation services so that the system reflects each organisation's processes. Key modules include contact and account management, lead tracking and distribution, sales pipeline and opportunity management with forecasting, and marketing tools for email campaigns and lead nurturing. The help desk ticketing module manages customer service requests with routing, escalation and service level tracking, while a customer portal allows clients to submit and monitor their own tickets and access information. Project management features cover tasks, milestones and resource assignments, supporting delivery of services after the sale. Workflow automation, customisable forms and fields, and role-based security help tailor the system to different departments. Reporting and dashboards provide insight into sales performance, marketing effectiveness and service quality, and integrations with Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, QuickBooks and other applications keep data synchronised with everyday tools. Mobile access supports field sales representatives. Commence serves professional services firms, manufacturers, distributors, technology companies and financial services businesses of small to mid-size. Pricing starts from around USD 29, typically per user per month, and a free trial is available; there is no permanently free version.