Base was released in November 2009 as Pipejump and rebranded two years later to its current name. It is a web-based sales platform from Base CRM, a company based in Mountain View, California with R&D offices located in Krakow, Poland. Base has received recognition from well-known publications since its release for its effectiveness on mobile platforms; in 2014, Fortune magazine positioned Base as a disrupter in the CRM industry. Base is available on iOS and Android, and was the first native Android CRM app. In 2015, Base CRM raised its latest round of capital to the tune of $30 million in Series C funding led by Tanaya Capital, with participation from Index Ventures. In 2016, Base CRM announced its new sales science platform, Apollo.
Intended Customers Small to Midsize Business, Enterprises
Free Trial Yes; 14-Day Free Trial.
Free Version No Free Version
Features
| Contact Management | Task Management | Lead Management | Lead Capture Forms |
| Lead Scoring | Lost Lead Analysis | Document Management | Deals Pipeline |
| Custom Pipeline Stages | iOS & Android Mobile App | Call Logging & Recording | Custom Fields, Filters & Tags |
| Email Automation | Sales Forecasting | Activity Reports | Sales Intelligence |
Additional Features
| Real-Time Forecasts | Mobile Lead Management | Sales Insights Dashboard | Teams & Regions |
| Geolocation | Plugins & Integrations | Built-In Dialer | Auto-Dialer |
| Product Catalog | Multi-Level Permissions | Single Sign On | Multiple Sales Pipelines |
Contact Management
| Custom Fields | Custom Tabs | Filtered Views | Smart Lists |
| Import via CSV, VCF, Email Clients, other CRMs | Email Integration | Call & SMS Integration | Lead Conversion to Contact Automation |
All Available Plans & Services Base offers three plans, which can be billed monthly, annually or bi-annually. The prices below reflect month-to-month payments. Users who pay upfront for a yearlong subscription get 10% off the monthly price; those who pay upfront for a two-year subscription get 20% off the monthly price.
Help & Support Options Users can access Base’s online support page, which provides FAQs, video tutorials, a knowledge base and access to customer support tickets. The Knowledge Base portal, which divides articles into several categories ranging from Getting Started to Zapier Integrations can be found here. The specific page for video guides is available here. The page for customers to open a support ticket and receive a personalized response can be found here. (Note: This requires granting permission to the customer support team to access your account.) The Base team can also be contacted on social media: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, though a support question would likely be redirected toward the usual channels.
There’s a lot to like in Base, and they do a fairly good job of walking you through its essential features before you get started. A CRM does more for a company with a higher user adoption rate; adoption begins with knowing how to navigate the CRM interface and understand its features - an onboarding process that Base accomplishes with sample data, so unfamiliar users will recognize what the dashboards are meant to look like even after they’re presented with a brand-new CRM devoid of data. That’s a mark in Base’s favor. There’s a reason for training wheels; it’s so you can learn to ride a bike with fewer frustrations that might make you quit. When it comes to an expensive CRM implementation, effective onboarding can have a direct impact on your ROI. Speaking of the UI, Base puts together a visually pleasing interface which is easy to navigate with a horizontal toolbar at top. From here you can access your main dashboard with snapshots of your current pipeline worth, forecasted sales and the status of recent deals, an activity feed, due tasks and upcoming appointments. Also accessible from the navigation panel are pages for your Leads, Contacts, Sales Pipeline, Calendar, Tasks, Communication Center and Reports. (Further right you can manage your notifications, calls, and settings.) Your data (Contacts, Leads and others) can be imported via CSV, VCF, Excel spreadsheet, Basecamp, Google, Outlook, Mac address book and numerous other CRMs. Contacts, Leads, Prospects, Customers and Deals have filtered views, and Base allows custom fields and tags to be applied in the filters (as specifically marked in your settings). The Sales Pipeline, which is drag and drop, is presented slightly differently than other CRMs - instead of a long horizontal panel divided into columns, each pipeline stage gets its own page with deals arranged in a list. Clicking on a deal opens up the Deal card with related details including deal value, estimated close date, associated contacts and more. Base allows emails to be sent directly from the Communication Center. Email integration is done well - the inbox is arranged to show only messages from leads and contacts. Untracked emails - from senders unmarked in the CRM - are in a separate category; those senders can be easily added to the CRM. Emails sent to your email account will be automatically logged in the CRM, and Base provides an email forwarding link to log emails from unaffiliated accounts. The Communication Center also logs Calls and Text Messages, accessible from separate tabs; calls are logged automatically, audio call records are available, and text messages can be sent and received from Base. As far as phone and SMS integration, Base was the first native Android CRM app and has been recognized for its effectiveness on mobile. The mobile app can scan your phone for calls and texts and users can manually add them as leads or contacts. Essential CRM functions are available from the app, and a few others, including geolocation - Google maps is accessible within the mobile CRM. The mobile app periodically syncs data with the CRM or can be manually synced. Base also provides a number of advanced, filterable reports out of the box for Pipeline Analysis, Sales Performance, Voice (phone) and more. In 2016, Base rolled out Apollo, its ‘Sales Science’ platform that uses artificial intelligence for real-time sales insights, goal tracking and data quality oversight. Note: Apollo access must be separately requested aside from your Base subscription. Finally, the CRM has official integrations with popular business applications, including HubSpot, MailChimp, Dropbox, Google Apps, Outlook, Zendesk, Xero and a few others. Details can be found here. Base integrates with Zapier and it provides a developer API. In conclusion: Base is an all-around effective CRM. It provides both breadth of features and depth of functionality - my user experience was overall very positive. As far as mobile CRM goes, I found the Base mobile app intuitive and feature-rich without feeling bloated - in other words, it wasn’t a mere port of browser-based CRM features, in contrast to a lot of other mobile solutions. Even if your workforce weren’t particularly mobile, Base would be a good choice - but at a time when workforces are increasingly mobile, and AI is making its way into CRM, Base is looking especially good for the future.