What is Keap?

Keap is a business organization and optimization tool that gives you back control of your business by freeing you up time to focus on what really matters.

To do this, it offers sales, management, email marketing, email marketing, billing, and e-commerce tools in a single, interconnected system. Imagine having eight arms, each with its own brain. And each arm could focus on a different task at the same time, almost automatically.

That's how Infusionsoft is for me.

With Keap, you can organize all your prospects, segment and grade them based on their labels and behavior, send targeted email sequences that close the deal slowly, track quotes and deals, schedule calls, bill customers, and accept payments, schedule calls, schedule calls, bill customers, and accept payments—all in one tool.

From there, you can trigger automated follow-up sequences that thank your customer and regularly stoke the embers in order to generate loyal customers.

Features

Keap contains practically all features (very important - more on that later) that you need to manage and grow your business. I'll detail each feature later.

For now, we'll just present the elevator speech for each of them.

Your subscription includes the following:

Sales and marketing automation : Keap's marketing automation software automatically tracks customer marketing and sales data, sales operations, quotes, and meetings, as well as automates email marketing sequences that enable you to close sales.
CRM : Helps small businesses completely eliminate spreadsheets, inboxes, messengers, and sticky notes. Store all of your customer data, assess leads based on their likelihood of buying, and manage their journey through your sales pipeline. I use my CRM to store personal information, assess leads, take notes, and keep track of purchases and quotes.
E-Commerce : Create invoices, track customers, accept credit cards, and track revenue all in one place. I completely eliminated PayPal, bank accounts, TransferWise, BTC, and God knows how else I accepted payments.
Analytics : Visualize key data and look under the hood to see how your business is really doing. The most interesting thing is to be able to see the conversion rates for different aspects of your business. What is the conversion rate of sales pages? How many “hot tracks” are actually converted? How many “cold tracks” are actually converted? I finally realized that I had never converted a cold track, and I gave up.
Scheduling : Prospects can automatically book appointments, which triggers automatic follow-up, such as personalized videos. Everything fits directly into my Google calendar, so I don't have to miss appointments, forget to schedule anything, or double-book.

Keap vs. Infusionsoft: What's the difference?

Let's get rid of some of the confusions first before moving on.

Keap and Infusionsoft are used interchangeably on the web, even by Infusionsoft staff. Other Keap reviewers simply use the name Infusionsoft.

That's because Infusionsoft changed its name in 2019 to Keap, and the tool that was called Infusionsoft is now Keap Max Classic.

The problem is that most small businesses, sales representatives, web users, and even the website itself still use the Infusionsoft name from time to time.

Do you know that Lou Alcindor changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1971? Well, people kept using Alcindor for years. It wasn't until the 80s that Kareem became Kareem. It's the same with Infusionsoft.

Who should use Keap?

Keap is the marketing platform for marketers.

It's a marketing automation beast that covers email marketing, e-commerce, sales automation, lead management, and other marketing and advertising functions that help business owners make more money.

So when people ask me “Hey, Karl. What do you think of Keap? Should I buy it?” , I always answer the same thing:

“Do you have prospects to market and do you plan to use all marketing functions?”

If that's the case, then Keap is not an option - it's mandatory. If you just want to have a CRM or a messaging tool, choose something else. If you have an email list of 300 people and you don't make sales, you don't need Keap.

You should buy Infusionsoft if:

You have at least 1,000 contacts - if it's less, Keap isn't worth the price per month.
You already understand digital marketing (or your team understands it)
You are a small business that is struggling to keep up with its sales process.
You are considering using email marketing in an optimal way.
You already have a solid lead generation process in place (Infusionsoft does not).
You sell infoproducts
You sell courses, advice, and coaching. Keap's marketing automation features are like putting your business in the microwave and watching it explode (in a good sense of the word).

Infusionsoft works great for these types of businesses

Law firms
Real estate agents
Content membership sites
SEO consultants
Life coaches
Food service businesses like bakeries
SEO sites that use lead magnets like eBooks
Training courses for businesses
Teaching/tutors - guitar teachers, singing teachers, personal trainers

You should not buy Infusionsoft if:

You have a small contact list
You have no experience in digital marketing or e-commerce
You don't have a lead generation process in place
You only need email marketing or CRM separately
You are a large company with more than 100 employees (you have so need SalesForce or HubSpot).

Pricing

Let's say it up front: Keap is not cheap. It's a great tool, but it's a great tool expensive.

It all comes down to this: How much are you ready to invest in your business?

I get it — if you're a small business, it's hard to shell out $600 just to get started. That's why I don't recommend it for new small businesses with fewer than 500 contacts.

Keap's pricing is a bit complicated, so let me explain the important points.

Keap pricing plans

Keap has 3 pricing plans: Lite, Pro, and Max.

Let's take stock:

Keap Lite

Price: Starting at $79 per month for 500 contacts

I really don't know why Saas companies insist on spelling “light” like “lite.” For me, it's rabies.

Lite pricing starts at $79 per month and includes all the basic features you need to run a business. It is ideal for small solopreneurs or small businesses that don't need advanced automations or lead scoring (a major disadvantage).

Here's what Keap's Lite plan includes:

CRM
Email marketing
Capturing clues
Easy automations
Appointments
Mobile application and business line
Automated text messaging
Payments and billing

Lite is missing two key features that will end up killing your growth: lead scoring and advanced automations. You'll be missing out on the best CRM functionality and the best way to convert more leads.

But as long as you're a small business, it won't be a big deal.

Keap Pro

Price: Starting at $169 per month for 500 contacts

The Pro version gives you access to landing pages, advanced automations, and payment forms, allowing you to sell products online and automatically add this information to your CRM.

You also have the sales pipeline, which helps you track a customer's journey through your sales process and optimize sales.

This is where you can start growing your business in earnest. The biggest difference between Lite and Pro is that Pro gives you an almost complete arsenal for managing and selling to customers.

You can capture leads, send them to a landing page, and then send them to a checkout page, all using advanced “if->then” automations to improve conversions. Plus, you have a visual pipeline and A/B testing to test what actually works.

Keap Max

Price: Starting at $199/month for 500 contacts

Pro is for taking the next step - Max is for making the leap to a successful business.

Max has two of the most powerful features in the entire tool:

Lead Assessment: Evaluate each lead, trigger automations, and invest time where it matters most, instead of wasting time with cold leads.
Sales funnels: Connect multiple landing pages together in a funnel that slowly feeds customers from awareness to buying and building the relationship automatically.

Lead scoring alone is worth the upgrade, in my opinion. Imagine this scenario: you are a fast-growing coaching business, with 4,000 contacts. It's all in your CRM, but the only way to know who's cold and who's hot is through a series of labels and notes, each of which is different for each lead.

Great, you're back to square one. You might as well be like me, with sticky notes face up against the keyboard at 3 am.

Lead scoring quantifies a prospect's willingness to buy and indicates who you should devote more time to and offer the highest offers.

Keap Max Additional Features

Sales funnels
Lead scoring
1-click upsells and cross-sells
Recurring upsells
Promotional codes
Native Shopify integration
Marketing performance analysis
Engagement analysis

NOTE: It's all for one user. An additional user costs $30 per month. If you have a sales team, I suggest adding at least one additional user and adding them to the price.

How do Keap's pricing plans work

The price of Keap is like drinking a few glasses of a perfect dry Chianti and then getting up: IT HITS YOU FAST.

Let's go see that:

For your first 500 contacts, it's not too bad. But here's what happens when you hit 1,000...

Once you get to 501, things jump dramatically. From 501 to 1500, the prices are constant.

Once you get to 1501, there's another bump...

But there is good news.

Keap is expensive for beginning entrepreneurs, but it's actually very cheap for established businesses.

See how much it costs for 5,000 contacts:

It's the same thing.

Now how about 10,000:

Prices are only rising marginally, but you get twice as many contacts. So, the difference between the price of 1,500 contacts and the price of 10,000 contacts is relatively small, but imagine the number of business you will make with 10,000 contacts compared to 1,500 contacts.

That's why I recommend Keap to more established businesses. If you only have around 500 contacts and little income, keep doing what you do until you get too big to handle everything. That's when you'll know you need Keap.

NOTE: Yes, there is a 14-day free trial, and yes, you get 50% off for the first two months. However, you must provide your credit card information.

Features of Keap

I'm going to detail each feature so you can see what Keap actually does.

I see a lot of companies that invest a small fortune in Keap when they don't really need it.

Read what it can actually do, compare it to your needs, and think about your decision.

Note: Everything in Keap falls into 3 categories: Sales and Marketing, CRM, and E-Commerce. So I am going to divide the functionalities into these 3 sections

1. Sales and Marketing

Marketing automation is why you buy Infusionsoft. It is the most important set of features. Pay attention to it and ask yourself if you are really going to use it.

Sales and marketing automation

With Keaps sales and marketing automations, you no longer need to manually track every lead, keep track of everything in documents, copy and paste emails, or play guessing games. It's all done for you and makes your business grow 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, while you focus on other things.

You can virtually automate the entire sales process. Mine looks something like this:

Enter customer information and put it into the CRM
Wait for an hour, then send a text and email offering a free consultation.
Send a follow-up reminder
This triggers a maturation sequence during which I send various coaching/course offers.
If someone books, they get a thank you video.
We have our call
Keap sends a thank-you email and an invoice, as well as reminders when they don't pay on time (100% of the time).
Keap sends loyalty offers and upsells

The only thing Keap isn't doing here is coaching for me (they should really offer it...).

Everything works according to a simple “if/then” logic system:

“Sales and marketing” automation is a bit broad term, and contains various functionalities (which I will cover independently), but just know that with Keap you can automate the following elements:

Creating a user contact sheet (with information from the lead capture form)
Communication (emails and texts)
Email sequences
Making an appointment
Invoicing
Follow-ups
Customer loyalty emails

This information is vital for business owners, especially for solopreneurs.

Campaign creator

Campaign builder is a visual organization chart tool for creating automated marketing campaigns. It's the most powerful and useful tool in Keap. If you are considering buying it, it is for this reason.

I love working with simple, visual tools like this one. When you use the campaign builder, you start with an objective (for example, a purchased product) and you build each step of the process brick by brick. It's almost therapeutic. Infusionsoft was one of the first tools to bring these types of marketing and advertising capabilities to small businesses.

You can trigger different emails based on whether they click on a link in an email, open an email, fill out a web form, have a certain label, and a ton of other factors.

And Keap recently added a landing page tool directly into their workflow builder that shortens the campaign process.

Landing Pages

Now that there is a landing page creation tool directly in the workflow builder, all you need to do is drag the icon onto the canvas and click. This will bring up tons of landing page templates.

Most are goal-oriented.

Choose the one that best fits your objective ((ex: registration for a consultation), and you can easily edit it using the drag-and-drop editor.

That's what I love about creating campaigns in Keap.

Creating campaigns is so easy and convenient. Everything is there, in a single interconnected ecosystem. CRM tags, email marketing, landing pages for each step of the process: I only need one tool and I should never leave the page I'm on.

Email Marketing with Keap

Keap's email marketing campaigns make it easy to deliver messages that potential customers actually want to read.

There are tons of professional templates for all types of mailings, from classic messages to weekly newsletters. And when combined with customer relationship management, you can take your business to the next level by sending hypertargeted messages (including They are proven to increase conversions).

The software automatically triggers a campaign based on pre-established tags and segments. For example, if I get a new lead from Facebook, they get my social media email sequence. If they sign up for a free consultation, they receive the paid consultation email sequence.

When creating an email, all you need to do is add the labels you want to appear in the email (for example, prospects or new customers), and the message is sent.

The main advantage is that everything is connected to Keap's ecosystem. CRM tags, Campaign Builder automations, analytics, etc. are all connected. You can even A/B test emails to see which ones work and don't, all without leaving Keap.

Phone and SMS marketing

Adding text to my marketing strategy was a huge win. I hadn't even considered it before getting Infusionsoft.

Did you know that customers open texts 94% MORE than emails? It's nice to connect directly with customers and send them a personalized message right on their phone. It's a whole new source of income that I've never tapped into before.

When someone signs up for one of my paid calls or webinars, they always get a text message. “Hey, thanks for signing up. I just wanted to send you this text. Use the code KarlSEO for 20% off your next order.”

Text messages integrate perfectly with CRM. Just add it to the marketing sequences and you're good to go. Broadcast text messages are only available on Pro and Max.

2. Keap CRM

Keap's CRM is one of the simplest and easiest ways to organize your business. All the data you keep there feeds into your marketing automation.

Let's go directly to the main characteristics of CRM:

Contact Management

Imagine a giant rolodex containing up to 100 data points about every interaction you've had with a customer. I mean everything from his name and phone number to opened emails, sales, notes, and even how he drinks his coffee. Except that, unlike a rolodex, it is easily searchable and highly interactive.

That's what your contact form is in Keap.

You can even call, text, add tags, or participate in campaigns directly from the contact card. This makes it much easier to organize your contacts, focus on the right people, and no longer waste time trying to figure out who is who.

building effective sales processes with keap

Label management

Labels are the secret sauce that allows Keap to work his magic.

These are actually labels applied to contacts that segment these contacts into narrow lists of people. It could be a new customer, a paying customer, a VIP, or even a “total nightmare.” It's up to you to decide.

Tags are the easiest way to organize contacts and take other actions. In fact, my growth coach told me from the start that labels should probably be THE ONLY THING I use to start and stop other Keap actions.

Here are a few that I use:

Prospects : I mark them based on whether they requested a free consultation or downloaded a lead magnet.
Customers : I mark them based on what they bought (for example, they bought the product 1).
Triggers : They trigger email campaigns. For example, if I apply the New Customer trigger tag, it immediately triggers my welcome sequence.
Status : I have different levels of customers. Some are VIPs, who get most of my attention. Others are eccentric, so I don't take them seriously.

Opportunities

Opportunities improve relationships between customers and prospects during the sales process by allowing you to keep detailed notes on how they are progressing through your pipeline.

Let's say a “Greg Jenkins” prospect wants a call on SEO. He is interested in a paid call with me, but he hasn't decided yet.

I create an opportunity, mark it as a “decisive step” and leave notes as well as a next step to take. So when the time comes to contact him again, all I have to do is open his opportunity file and I instantly have all the relevant information I need to improve our interaction.

So I'm not the “Greg Jenkins” type? Who? What did we talk about?

NOTE: These tools are primarily for sales teams in larger businesses that don't have access to the entire tool. I rarely use them.

Lead Scoring (only with Max)

Lead scoring is a quantification of the value of a lead for your business. So you know where to spend most of your time and how to prioritize your daily calls, emails, and chats.

Before lead scoring, I spent the same amount of time on all leads. In a perfect world, that's fine. In the real world, it's killing your profit. You need to focus on the fruit that has the most juice.

First, you need to define criteria. This could be things like “download a book,” “book a free call,” “inquire about a paid call,” “get a quote,” or whatever you want. It is your life.

Then, Infusionsoft by Keap automatically adds up these points and awards a flame. In this case, 3 points for me equal 5 flames. If someone downloaded my lead magnet, participated in a free call, and received a quote, I know they're ready to buy. In the morning, I see my 5-flame contacts and I focus.

Appointments

Keap syncs with your online calendar to allow customers to schedule meetings with you without you having to do anything.

Simply choose the hours you're available and Keap takes care of the rest. When the customer asks to schedule an appointment, you don't need to be there. Or, when it reaches the funnel stage where it can choose an appointment time, Keap does it automatically.

I simply add the link to an email and gently say “hey, let's set up a quick and free consultation when you're free.”

It's pretty simple and dry.

Let's continue...

3. Keap Ecommerce

payments

Keap completely eliminated the mental clutter associated with billing and saved me countless hours of payment stress. “Did I call this guy? “Did I send this bill”? “Wait, where am I?

Sometimes I felt like I was more of a bill collector than a businessman.

That, and I get paid on time a lot more often. Automatic billing and thank you emails are also a big help.

With Keap, you can accept credit cards, set up recurring fees, store data, and send automatic reminders.

If you run a subscription business or Sass, you can store card information directly in your CRM and bill customers monthly or weekly.

If I had to summarize it, I would say that Keap makes it easier for customers to pay you. With Keap, you can accept:

Stripes
PayPal
WePay
Evo
Nexus
eWay

Invoicing

Keap manages all of your billing. This includes creating and tracking invoices, tracking payments, sending reminders if (Read: when) the customers don't pay on time, and more.

It has all the standard billing features, such as sales tax, notes, attachments, etc. Nothing specific to report here.

For me, it's the practical side that counts the most. I have all my invoices in one place, everything is done automatically and Keap makes it possible to know who paid and who did not. I even get a glimpse of what I've earned each month.

4. Keap Analytics

Keap is constantly reviewing millions of data points to provide you with the undeniable truth about your business, so you can adapt and maximize your return on investment.

It's your secret weapon for analyzing, tinkering with, and changing sales campaigns, sales tactics, and even pricing. Keap shows you what's working and what's not, and provides actionable reports so you can actually fix what's not working rather than sitting there and watching.

You have a wealth of valuable data, such as email open rates, conversion rates, conversion rates, revenue, completed forms, actions per contact, sales, and growth. And A/B testing to find a solution to conversion problems is easy.

Having everything at a glance makes taking measurements a lot easier.

User Experience

For anyone who says Keap has a bad user interface, look at this dashboard.

What is so wrong with that?

It's one of the easiest and most intuitive tools I've ever used.

All the important elements are there, such as leads, quotes, quotes, payments, appointments, and tasks. And each app is on the left sidebar. No clutter, a great color palette, a simple design, what more could you ask for?

That's one of the main reasons why it's so well suited for small businesses: you don't have to know Saas to use it, and it's easy to train anyone in your business to use it in a few days or less.

Overall, Keap gets an 8.5/10 for the user interface.

Customer support

The Keap customer service team isn't going to come to your house and solve your problems by making breakfast for you... but they're pretty darn competent. They have an interest in being so for the prices they charge.

Chat support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, email is generally responsive, and phone support is available in the United States and Canada Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

And check all that out:

Free resources, useful tools, training webinars, events, a user community, and a help center... what more could you want?

That's the beauty of Keap. If you can't do it, you can quickly figure out how to do it. And in the worst case scenario, you have multiple support channels.

User community

Keap's user community is a useful — but sometimes unconvincing — support group that helps you solve common tool or marketing issues.

Do you need to know the best WordPress plugin? They will help you.

Want to know more about email marketing? There is an expert waiting to guide you.

It's just helpful to know that every problem you encounter has already been resolved by someone else waiting to help.

There's not a lot of activity, though. Give them a few days to respond.

Email deliverability

Let me be brief: Keap claims to have a 99.5% deliverability rate, and I've never run into any issues.

No service is perfect, so I'm sure some things can end up in spam for big campaigns, but I'm always up to date with each customer and make sure to follow up.

If you're concerned about deliverability, don't be. They take it seriously.

FAQs

Why is Keap so expensive?

Si Keap (Infusionsoft) is so expensive, that's because it's the best automation and e-commerce tool for business owners looking to increase conversions and simplify their business. When it comes to sales marketing, customer relationship management, automation, and e-commerce, it does more than any other marketing automation software. Infusionsoft is a great tool for automating the entire sales process. That's why it's expensive. NOTE: Most Keap reviews are incorrectly priced. Please read my updated pricing section. And there is no free version.

Is Keap a good CRM?

Yes, Keap (Infusionsoft) is a good CRM. When it comes to contact management, integration into email campaigns, other marketing and advertising functions, the gradual learning curve, lead scoring, and customer support, Infusionsoft Keap is the best CRM I've seen in a marketing platform.

What does Keap integrate with?

Keap (Infusionsoft) integrates with dozens of tools in categories ranging from customer support, email, email, graphic design, graphic design, selling products and services, business marketing, social media, sales automation, etc. The main integrations are Zapier, GMail, Graphly, LeadPages, and QuickBooks. Keap offers all the tools you may need to run a marketing campaign.

Final Verdict

Keap is one of the best investments I have ever made. My business grew by 50% in the first year and I saved at least 300 hours of work (~6 per week x 52 weeks). So yes, I would recommend it to most businesses.

Thanks to him, my workdays have been much easier, my services have improved, and I have gotten a lot more customers, simply by avoiding losing track of someone or sending the wrong emails.

If you are a new business with a small contact list and no revenue, Keap is NOT for you. And if you don't intend to use the 3 main features - lead scoring, automation, payments - optimally, look for something cheaper.

But I strongly believe that any solopreneur with enough contacts, small businesses, or medium-sized businesses (~50-100 employees) should invest in Keap if they are serious about growing.

Here's how your business will change with Keap

You will work a lot less
You will no longer have to worry about keeping track of everything.
You'll close more deals by targeting prospects with the right emails.
You will provide better services because you will understand each customer better and have more time.
You'll open up new revenue streams through loyalty emails, repeat customer discounts, automated follow-up sequences, and up-selling and cross-selling.

All in all, everything will be much quieter. That alone is worth the price. No more dark circles under the eyes and 1:00 p.m. breakfast appointments.

And with the 14-day free trial, there's nothing to lose.

Keap : Full Review, Testing, and Presentation (2024)