On one hand I admire them for pricing it high but on the other I think it's going to make it much more difficult to acquire customers. Salesforce is better than its detractors claim but that doesn't matter as much as the fact that sales people now just expect to use it...it's the easy choice. And it's immensely customizable.
I think like the recent Amazon post noted, Salesforce.com's competition is going to come from someone who undercuts them. There's no reason for SaaS software to be priced at $100/head/month (other than the need to fund a sales force).
Great point. The idea here is that (at least for now) we want to make sure we're adding a lot of value to the sales process, rather than just being another CRM that's a little nicer to use than Salesforce. There are plenty of decent CRMs (Pipedrive, Capsule, Highrise, etc.) that are already cheaper than Salesforce.
The difference with us is we're not trying to be another CRM but rather focusing on sales communication that's automatically logged. We care more about the salesperson workflow than just being a database for deals.
Also the $99/month plan includes a phone number with unlimited minutes, which has a real cost associated with it. If you don't need built in calling, we've got a less expensive plan.
At $99/mo with unlimited minutes, this is pretty competitive in a market where it is typical to find:
a. per minute pricing
b. per hour pricing($2-$5/hr)
c. crappy VOIP implementations
I haven't tried close.io yet but I am extremely glad someone filled this obvious hole in the market. If you've spent any time looking for simple auto-dialing solutions that aren't a dump of useless features, you'll know these guys seem very promising.
Absolutely. We can also setup your account with an international number (most countries available) so that you can sell in the region best suited for your business.
I think like the recent Amazon post noted, Salesforce.com's competition is going to come from someone who undercuts them. There's no reason for SaaS software to be priced at $100/head/month (other than the need to fund a sales force).