Capabilities of Open Source Sugar

[RChadwick7]

I've been looking for a CRM/Helpdesk solution for my small business for almost 2 years now. I was using v t iger but the inability to turn off email notifications forced me to abandon it. I was considering Splenda (Well, something that sounds something like that), but it appears the email capabilities aren't as advanced as the latest Sugar. Although Sugar is the Granddaddy of CRM, I couldn't afford to consider it. I'll only have 5 employees at most for quite some time. I assumed the Open Source version would be too stripped down to be usable, but I'm now starting to wonder if available add-ons might make it more comparable to the better versions. Specifically, I need invoicing (Preferably PDF), full email handling, a customer portal, and I'd really like to access via my WM Phone (But can't justify the cost). Is the Open Source SugarCRM a viable alternative? Do I need to be a PHP Programmer to make it work (I'm not)? Any advice and/or opinions very welcome!

[dtokeefe]

Hi RChadwick7,

Sugar Pro for your 5 man company will cost $1800, which is less than it would cost to put MS Office on the same machines. It has Quotes (which can be sent as Invoices), email handling, very useful workflow administration, excellent reporting and a mobile interface. You can use our free portal (Sugar Portal for Zend Framework, see in SugarForge) for your customer portal.

A reasonable budget to hire someone to configure everything and train your users would be $2000 - $5000.

Software is an investment. If expanding and managing your sales pipeline more effectively, being more operationally efficient and more responsive to your customers by using SugarCRM Pro will generate $5000 - $10000 more business in a year, then you should go for it.

Please feel free to give me a call or ping me on Skype (dtokeefe) to discuss your project and the potential ROI from SugarCRM Pro.

Best regards,

David

[RChadwick7]

I appreciate the response, but my budget is around $500. If I REALLY found something I absolutely LOVED, and knew 100% it would meet my needs, I might be able to scrape together $1000. I'm a startup, currently with no employees or income. You would think a smart CRM company would make it easy to get into their product, and charge more when the company is bigger, but many of the CRM solutions, even the 'cheaper' ones, make it expensive to get into, unless if you can live with a stripped-down version. Unfortunately, I need full functionality from day one. All the 'cheap or free' versions strip out functionality I need now. I'd mention some of the ones I've been looking at, but it seems the competition gets censored here. I used an offshoot of Sugar, and it seemed perfect. Then I realized there was a fatal flaw that meant I most definitely could not use it. If I had just spent $1800 on it, I could be out of business before I even started. Then again, since it was an offshoot of Sugar, I'm not 100% convinced that Sugar doesn't have the same flaw. Also, I emailed Sugar to verify pricing, and never got a response. For the price they charge, I'd expect 1/2 hour response. The 'One Man' CRM companies I've dealt with often had excellent response time.

Basically, Sugar has 0% chance of getting my business today. However, if the OS version was viable, and I could use it, I may someday grow (Hopefully) to the point where $1800 would be pocket change, and I'd buy the Enterprise version for the extra features, or just to slightly eliminate annoyances. I'm trying to plan for the future, but I can't afford it today.

This is why I asked about the Open Source version being viable. If it's not, I'll have no choice but to look elsewhere.

[Angel]

I think you are validating the common belief that "full featured" and "inexpensive" rarely occur together.

In the case of Sugar, the Community Edition is the only program I've come across that comes close to that elusive combination, but purposely does not include certain features which in turn allows them to make money and helps keep their doors open, which is beneficial for all of us.

Sugar is a good alternative, but some of the features that you want are simply not there (in the community edition). In some cases you might be able to find a reasonable alternative at SugarForge.org or SugarExchange.com. Assuming you don't, I doubt you'll be able to find something that meets all your needs with your limited budget.

[RChadwick7]

Thanks for the response. I know it might be difficult, but I believe the right price can be found with some effort. If I worked at a large corporation, and my boss told me to find something by the end of the week, Sugar would be on my short list. Right now, two of my top picks, R eady Desk and Cl ient exe c, are both under $200. Actually, the second seems to match my needs nearly perfectly, and would have already bought it except they don't let you demo. I may still get it though...

I'm all for making money, but I need to make some myself. A reasonable product at a reasonable price sounds reasonable, but I'm not going to kill myself so someone can gouge me. At a certain point, it becomes more practical to develop an in-house solution.

[SugarDev.net]

With a budget like that ($200), Sugar is a hard sell. You can host SugarCE for one year and that's about it.

[RChadwick7]

A quick question... Do I have to 'Rent' Sugar, or can I buy it outright? I understand Sugar has a hosted version (Which I obviously don't want), but even their non-hosted versions mention time limits. Is that for support and/or updates? Or will Sugar stop working in a year without another payment?

[QUOTE=dtokeefe;179443]Hi RChadwick7,

Sugar Pro for your 5 man company will cost $1800, which is less than it would cost to put MS Office on the same machines. It has Quotes (which can be sent as Invoices), email handling, very useful workflow administration, excellent reporting and a mobile interface. You can use our free portal (Sugar Portal for Zend Framework, see in SugarForge) for your customer portal.

[Angel]

The only Editions that require some form of payment are Express, Professional and Enterprise. You are free to use Community Edition for as long as you want and for as many years, etc.

[RChadwick7]

Thanks for the response. However, I was interested in knowing what I'd get for paying for Sugar. Assuming I wanted to buy sugar, could I use it forever? Or only for 1 year?

[dtokeefe]

It is a subscription license. Per user / per year. Not perpetual. You are buying the right to use the software for one year. Looked at another way, you are signing on to use the software and to support its continuing development, which will be made available as patches and upgrades while you are a subscriber.