A good customer relationship management (CRM) system is one of the best sales productivity tools you can get for your business. However, a good CRM is about more than just sales. With the right software, you can support your customer relationships all the way from first contact through to closing the deal and beyond.
Capsule and Instantly both position themselves as ways to manage deals and customer communication, but they take very different approaches.
Capsule is a full-featured CRM built for small and medium-sized businesses to manage the entire customer lifecycle.
Instantly, on the other hand, is actually three different products. Primarily, Instantly is a sales engagement platform, designed for high-volume prospecting and cold email campaigns, with a lighter CRM layer.
In this guide, you’ll see how Capsule and Instantly compare across their plans, features, and other important considerations. By the end, you’ll have a clearer idea of which platform is best suited to your team
Capsule and Instantly plans compared
For most small businesses choosing new software, affordability and scalability are a priority. A plan that’s too costly or complex can quickly become more hassle than it’s worth.
Being able to try out software with a free plan is a risk-free way to try new tools and see how they fit into your workflow.
Capsule’s free plan includes the following features:
- Up to 2 users
- 250 contacts
- 1 sales pipeline
- 5 custom fields
- Contact history & activity log
- Outlook & Gmail add-ons
- iOS & Android mobile app.
Instantly doesn’t offer a free plan. Instead, you’ll need to commit to a paid plan (although you can try it out with a trial).
When you’re ready to grow, both Capsule and Instantly offer paid plans. Here’s how their entry-level plans compare:
At this point, it’s important to note that Instantly offers three distinct products, the CRM being just one of them. In other words, if you’re already using Instantly’s Outreach or SuperSearch products, you’ll need to pay extra for the CRM (and vice versa).
Capsule’s Starter plan is ideal for small teams that want more than just deal tracking. Alongside increased contact limits and customization options, it introduces project boards so you can organize your work post-sale in the same place you manage your sales pipeline. This makes Capsule a stronger fit if you need a CRM that supports the whole customer journey, not just outreach.
Instantly’s Growth CRM plan is built for teams focused on high-volume outreach. It bundles multi-inbox management with an all-in-one Master Inbox to track your communication. On the actual CRM side, you get a pipeline with lead views and reports.
The flat monthly fee is more than double the cost of Capsule’s Starter plan and is limited to just 1,000 uploaded contacts. On the plus side, the flat pricing means you’ll pay the same whether you’re a team of two or twenty, but you’ll need to upgrade or buy a separate add-on if you want more contacts.
As your business grows and you need more advanced features, you can upgrade to one of the higher-tier plans. Capsule has three more plans, each scaling with your business requirements:
- The Growth plan ($36/user/month) adds multiple Sales Pipelines, Workflow Automations, Sales Analytics, and Contact Enrichment to help sales teams scale efficiently
- The Advanced plan ($54/user/month) increases limits further, with support for up to 120,000 contacts and 50 project boards
- The Ultimate plan ($72/user/month) is designed for larger teams that want hands-on support. It includes premium onboarding, a dedicated account manager, custom training, and priority support.
Instantly has one higher-tier plan, the Hypergrowth package. This increases email sending volumes up to 100,000 per month and adds extras like calling and SMS from your browser, website visitor tracking, and AI-driven tools. These features are geared toward outbound specialists who need to scale prospecting campaigns, rather than broader relationship management.
Instantly also offers add-ons to increase your contact limit by 25,000 and 125,000 sending volume. Each add-on costs $87/mo.
With two different pricing models, the best CRM for you will depend on how your sales team is structured (and how you see it changing in the future). Capsule charges per user, making it predictable and scalable as you roll the CRM out across your teams. Instantly charges a flat fee per account, designed for teams running multiple inboxes and sending at scale.
For SDR-heavy teams, Instantly’s unlimited seat model may be cost-effective. For SMBs looking for a CRM to run the entire customer lifecycle, Capsule’s model is clearer and more sustainable.
What features and functionality do Capsule CRM and Instantly offer?
Both Capsule and Instantly have the essential CRM tools you’d expect, but beyond that, they are very different platforms.
Capsule is designed to be a simple yet powerful CRM for SMBs, covering the full customer lifecycle. It includes:
- Sales Pipelines to manage opportunities throughout the sales funnel
- Project Boards to organize your client work and provide better results
- Tracks to create templated task lists for more consistent processes
- Workflow Automation to tackle repetitive admin work
- Reporting Dashboards and Forecasting to give you greater insights into performance and future revenue
- Contact and Business Enrichment to reduce manual data entry
- AI Content Assistant to quickly create relevant emails in your chosen tone of voice
- iOS and Android apps to manage your client relationships on the go, even if you’re offline.
Instantly, by contrast, is primarily a sales engagement tool with CRM features bolted on. It focuses on:
- Master Inbox and Unibox to centralize replies across connected inboxes
- Opportunities board for a lightweight pipeline view with notes, tasks, and meeting tracking
- AI-personalized messaging based on company information
- Calling and SMS directly in the browser (credits required)
- Custom Salesflow based on your chosen conditions
- Reporting and goals for tracking metrics and sales goals.
While you can track deals in Instantly, the emphasis is on getting conversations started rather than managing relationships after the sale.
If your business needs a CRM that supports the entire journey, from initial contact through to long-term client management, Capsule is a more comprehensive solution. Instantly is designed around outreach, making it better suited to SDR teams that prioritize prospecting over account management.
Which CRM connects best with your existing software?
A CRM is most valuable when it connects smoothly with the other tools your team relies on. Here’s how Capsule and Instantly compare.
Capsule offers a broad range of integrations that support both sales and post-sale workflows. Through its App Marketplace, you’ll find direct integrations with:
- Accounting tools like Xero and QuickBooks for invoicing and managing your finances
- Email and productivity suites like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace
- Marketing platforms like Mailchimp and Transpond for campaigns
- Helpdesk tools like Zendesk for customer support.
Capsule also connects with thousands of other apps via Zapier and Make, or you can use Capsule’s API to build custom integrations. This flexibility makes Capsule easy to slot into your existing stack and keep customer data flowing freely between teams.
The integration with Transpond is particularly valuable, especially for teams running outreach marketing alongside their CRM. It keeps your customer records and campaigns connected, so you can send emails, schedule social campaigns, and automate sequences with confidence that you’re always working from the latest contact data in Capsule.
Instantly’s integration approach seems slightly more limited. You can connect with tools like Google Calendar and Slack, or you can use Zapier to connect with more popular apps. Developers also have the option to use its API and webhooks to extend its functionality.
If you’re looking for a CRM that can act as a central hub for your business and connect sales with finance, marketing, and support, Capsule is the stronger choice. Instantly can link into other tools where needed, but its integrations are lacking in comparison.
Which CRM is best for ease of use?
The easier a CRM is to pick up, the faster your team can start getting value from it. Both Capsule and Instantly are designed to be straightforward, but they focus on different users.
Capsule is designed with simplicity at its core. The interface is clean and intuitive, making it easy to navigate Contacts, Sales Pipelines, and Tasks without extensive setup.
New users can get started quickly thanks to Capsule’s simple data import using Import2. Then, as you start using the system more, Workflow Automations are easy to set up and can handle a lot of the menial, time-consuming tasks that fill your day.
For small businesses with limited time or resources, this ease of use means Capsule can become part of your daily routine almost immediately.
Instantly is also quick to get started with, especially for teams familiar with outbound sales. Setting up inboxes and launching campaigns is relatively fast, and the Master Inbox helps consolidate replies across multiple senders.
Both systems are user-friendly, but general business users may find Capsule more approachable, especially users who need a CRM that supports work beyond initial sales.
