Capsule

Capsule is the CRM I recommend when someone says “I just need to keep track of my contacts and deals without a PhD in software.” It’s built for small businesses that want organized relationship management, a clean sales pipeline, and not much else. If you need marketing automation, deep analytics, or enterprise-grade customization, Capsule isn’t trying to be that — and that’s actually its strength.

What Capsule Does Well

The first thing you notice about Capsule is what’s missing. There’s no overwhelming dashboard with 47 widgets. No setup wizard that takes two hours. You sign up, import your contacts, and start working. I’ve deployed Capsule for three different consultancy firms, and the onboarding conversation is always the shortest one I have. Most teams are productive within their first afternoon.

Contact management is where Capsule earns its keep. The relationship model is smart — you link people to organizations, connect related contacts to each other, and tag everyone with custom categories. For a 15-person recruitment firm I worked with, we set up tags for industry, seniority level, and relationship warmth. Took about 20 minutes. The whole team understood the system immediately, which is something I genuinely can’t say about most CRMs.

The Gmail and Outlook sidebar plugins deserve special mention. They’re lightweight, they actually work consistently (unlike some competitors I could name), and they let you log conversations to contact records without switching tabs. You can also store emails, attach files, and create tasks right from your inbox. For teams where email is the primary communication channel, this alone justifies the subscription.

Capsule’s project boards are an underrated feature. Once a deal closes, you can move it into a project pipeline and track delivery milestones. For service businesses — accountants, designers, marketing agencies — this bridges the gap between “we won the deal” and “we delivered the work.” It’s not a replacement for full project management software, but it keeps the context connected. The client relationship, the deal details, and the delivery status all live in one place.

Where It Falls Short

Reporting is Capsule’s most consistent weak spot. The built-in reports cover the basics — pipeline value, conversion rates, activity summaries — but you can’t build custom reports without moving to higher-tier plans, and even then the options feel limited. I had a client who needed to track win rates by lead source and deal size simultaneously. We ended up exporting to Google Sheets monthly, which defeats the purpose of having a CRM handle your analytics. If your leadership team expects detailed dashboards, you’ll be disappointed.

There’s no built-in marketing functionality. No email campaigns, no landing pages, no lead scoring. Capsule integrates with Mailchimp and Transpond (their partner email tool), but the connection is basic. You’re essentially maintaining two separate systems. For teams that want their marketing and sales data in one platform, HubSpot is the obvious alternative — it’s more complex, but the free tier includes email marketing tools that Capsule simply doesn’t offer. See our HubSpot vs Capsule comparison for a detailed breakdown.

Automation capabilities lag behind the competition. Capsule added workflow automations on the Growth plan and above, but they’re limited to simple triggers like “when a deal moves to this stage, create a task” or “send a notification.” You won’t find multi-step sequences, conditional branching, or anything approaching what Pipedrive or Freshsales offer at similar price points. If your sales process involves more than a handful of follow-up steps, you’ll feel the friction.

Pricing Breakdown

Capsule’s pricing is straightforward, which matches the product’s overall personality. No hidden usage fees, no per-contact charges that sneak up on you (with the exception of contact limits at each tier).

The Free plan supports 2 users and 250 contacts. Realistically, 250 contacts is exhausted within the first month for any active business. I view the free plan as a trial, not a real working tier. It’s fine for a solo freelancer just getting started, but you’ll hit the ceiling fast.

Starter at $18/user/month is where most small teams should begin. You get 30,000 contacts (more than enough for most SMBs), the Gmail/Outlook integrations, and one sales pipeline. The 10 AI content assists per user feel stingy — that’s roughly two days’ worth if you use it for email drafting. But the core contact and deal management are solid here.

Growth at $36/user/month adds workflow automations, 5 sales pipelines, and advanced sales reporting. This is the tier where Capsule starts feeling like a “real” CRM rather than a glorified contact book. If you have multiple sales processes or distinct product lines, you need this tier. The jump from $18 to $36 is significant for a product positioned as simple and affordable, and I’d argue the automation features at this level should be more capable to justify the cost.

Advanced at $54/user/month gives you 50 pipelines, 120,000 contacts, and more custom fields. Honestly, most Capsule users won’t need this. If your business has grown to the point where 50 pipelines make sense, you’ve probably outgrown Capsule entirely and should evaluate Pipedrive or Salesforce for more sophisticated pipeline management.

Ultimate at $72/user/month includes a dedicated account manager and custom training. At this price point, you’re paying a premium for white-glove support rather than dramatically different features. For comparison, Pipedrive’s top plan is in a similar range but includes significantly more automation and reporting depth.

No setup fees. No contracts — everything is month-to-month with annual billing discounts (roughly 20% off). Data export is clean if you decide to leave. I appreciate that Capsule doesn’t hold your data hostage.

Key Features Deep Dive

Contact & Relationship Management

This is Capsule’s core, and it’s genuinely well-executed. Each contact record pulls together emails, notes, files, tasks, and deal history into a single timeline view. You can link contacts to organizations with specific roles, connect related people (business partners, referral sources), and tag everything with custom categories.

What makes it work is the simplicity of the data model. You aren’t buried in mandatory fields or complex record types. I set up a firm with 4,000 contacts, 12 custom fields, and about 30 tags. The whole structure took an hour to design and implement. Compare that to the two-day configuration sprint I typically need for Salesforce implementations.

Visual Sales Pipeline

The kanban-style pipeline view is clean and functional. You drag deals between stages, see values at a glance, and filter by owner, tag, or milestone. Expected close dates help with forecasting, though the forecasting itself is basic — Capsule gives you weighted pipeline values, not the probability-based projections you’d get from more advanced tools.

One useful detail: the “tracks” feature lets you attach a predefined task sequence to a deal. When you create a new opportunity, Capsule auto-generates your follow-up tasks based on the track template. It’s not automation in the traditional sense — you still complete each task manually — but it enforces process consistency across your team.

Email Integration

The Gmail and Outlook plugins are Capsule’s most practically useful feature. They sit in your inbox sidebar, show you the CRM record for whoever you’re emailing, and let you log the conversation with one click. You can also create new contacts, opportunities, and tasks without leaving your email client.

The email “dropbox” feature (a unique BCC address that logs emails to the right contact) works reliably. It’s old-school compared to full email tracking with open rates and click tracking, which Capsule doesn’t offer in the same way HubSpot or Freshsales do. But for teams that just want a record of communication history, it gets the job done.

Project Boards

Post-sale project tracking is something most CRMs ignore entirely, forcing teams into separate tools like Asana or Trello. Capsule’s project boards use the same kanban interface as the sales pipeline but oriented around delivery stages. You can create project templates, assign tasks to team members, and keep the connection to the original deal and contact records.

It’s not a substitute for dedicated project management software. There are no Gantt charts, no resource allocation, no time tracking. But for a 10-person agency tracking 15-20 active projects, it’s sufficient. One of my clients — a small branding agency — eliminated their Trello subscription entirely after adopting Capsule’s project boards. Their work wasn’t complex enough to need anything more.

AI Content Assist

Capsule added AI-powered content generation in 2024, and it’s… fine. You can use it to draft emails, summarize notes, and generate follow-up templates. The output quality is comparable to what you’d get from any GPT-based tool. The limit of 10 uses per user on the Starter plan (1,000 on Growth) feels artificially restrictive and is clearly designed to push upgrades.

The most useful application I’ve found is having it draft initial outreach emails based on contact context. It pulls from the CRM record — past interactions, deal stage, notes — to create a somewhat personalized draft. You’ll still edit it before sending, but it saves a few minutes per email.

Integrations Ecosystem

Capsule connects natively to Mailchimp, Xero, QuickBooks, FreshBooks, Transpond, and Zapier. The accounting integrations are a genuine differentiator for small businesses — syncing invoice data back to contact records means your sales team can see payment history without logging into your accounting software.

Through Zapier, Capsule connects to hundreds of additional apps, but you’re building and maintaining those automations yourself. There’s no native integration with popular tools like Slack (beyond a basic notification setup), and no app marketplace comparable to what HubSpot or Zoho CRM offer. For teams that rely on a larger tech stack, this becomes a limitation quickly.

The API is available on all paid plans and is well-documented. I’ve built custom integrations for two clients — one connecting Capsule to a bespoke quoting tool, another syncing with a property management system. The API is RESTful, consistent, and doesn’t rate-limit aggressively. Not a flashy feature, but it matters when you need it.

Who Should Use Capsule

Small professional services firms (5-25 employees): Accountants, consultants, architects, recruiters. If your business runs on relationships and your sales process is relatively straightforward, Capsule fits like a glove. You don’t need enterprise features. You need clean contact records and a visible pipeline.

Teams upgrading from spreadsheets: If you’re currently tracking contacts in Excel or Google Sheets and it’s starting to break, Capsule is the gentlest on-ramp to a real CRM. The learning curve is minimal and the data import process is forgiving.

Budget-conscious teams that value simplicity: At $18-36/user/month, Capsule is competitive with the cheapest CRM options while offering better design and usability than most tools at that price. If your team would revolt against anything complex, this is your pick.

UK and EU-based businesses: Capsule is UK-headquartered with EU data hosting options, which matters for GDPR compliance. The accounting integrations with Xero and FreshBooks also align well with popular UK/EU accounting tools.

Who Should Look Elsewhere

Teams that need marketing and sales in one platform. Capsule has zero marketing capabilities built in. If you want email campaigns, lead capture forms, or marketing analytics tied to your CRM, HubSpot is the obvious choice — the free tier alone covers what Capsule can’t.

Sales teams with complex, multi-stage pipelines. If your deals involve multiple decision-makers, lengthy approval processes, or require sophisticated automation sequences, Pipedrive offers significantly more pipeline customization and automation at a comparable price.

Growing companies that will need advanced reporting. If your CEO or board expects detailed sales analytics — cohort analysis, rep performance comparisons, custom KPI dashboards — Capsule’s reporting won’t cut it. Freshsales or Zoho CRM provide much stronger analytics out of the box.

Teams larger than 50 people. Capsule doesn’t have territory management, advanced role hierarchies, or the administrative controls that larger teams require. At that scale, you’re looking at Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics 365, whether you like it or not.

The Bottom Line

Capsule does a small number of things well and doesn’t pretend otherwise. It’s a clean, honest CRM for small businesses that need relationship management and a sales pipeline without the complexity tax that comes with bigger platforms. If that description fits your team, you’ll genuinely enjoy using it — and that’s rare praise for CRM software.

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