Gist vs. Keap

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Gist
Score 9.5 out of 10
N/A
Gist is a unified marketing, sales, and support platform. It includes live chat, a help desk, knowledge base, email marketing, marketing automation, opt-in forms, and more.
$29
per month
Keap
Score 6.1 out of 10
N/A
Keap is a small business-focused, comprehensive sales and marketing platform which combines basic contact management, CRM, marketing automation, and e-commerce capabilities into a single, subscription-based SaaS product.
$199
per month
Pricing
GistKeap
Editions & Modules
Professional
$29.00
per month
Premium
$99.00
per month
Pro
$199.00
per month
Max
$289.00
per month
Max Classic
Contact Us
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
GistKeap
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsAll plans with 1 user and 500 contacts. The price is $30.00 for each additional user.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
GistKeap
Considered Both Products
Gist
Chose Gist
Gist is a much more robust software with a variety of marketing tools in its arsenal. Things like website tracking is also extremely robust and it has many more features.

The ease of setup is also more enjoyable and intuitive in Gist so the overall result is that you can learn …
Chose Gist
Gist is much more affordable, but intercom is a better product. I recommend going for Gist to begin, and then migrating if you need more.
Chose Gist
Gist is more refined and its tools are very well integrated overall. However, its pricing is on the expensive side and this doesn't really help it stand-out. HubSpot has significantly more generous Free plan, while Dashly offers many of the Premium Gist tools at a fairer price, …
Chose Gist
My main use for Gist is live chat. I personally find their live chat to be one of the best, and their mobile app to be invaluable for small businesses on the go. I can receive and response to messages wherever I am, which is imperative for my use case.
Chose Gist
Intercom increases its price on a monthly basis. Besides they don't offer some features as Gist, specially about on forms.
We think Gist is targeted to SMB companies, differentially from Intercom that seems to be appropriate for larger companies.
One main difference between then …
Chose Gist
Gist is only a few years old, so it lacks some of the features of Drip and ActiveCampaign, but I believe they will get there.
Chose Gist
Hubspot and Salesforce are great and powerful, they are just so much more expensive than what I need.
Chose Gist
We went with Gist because it had the features we needed at a price we liked. The feature list has grown over time, which is really appreciated. We joined Gist a long time ago (it was still called ConvertFox back then) and have been happy customers for a long time. Happy with …
Chose Gist
Gist is much more than a basic mailing list system with chatbot integration and automation that connects you to your prospects in real-time live from your website.
Administering your contacts on Gist is much easier with less hassle.
And Gist can integrate with most of the major …
Chose Gist
Gist is slightly slower than ActiveCampaign but MUCH easier to use than Mailchimp. Overall, you can't beat the bang for the buck you get with Gist. And its messenger bot is the best I've used, it works on not only our main site but also our subdomains, kicking the competition …
Chose Gist
We've used Dashly and Tawk.to. Gist looks better than Tawk and that's the reason we switched from Tawk to Gist. But the feature that puts Gist above Dashly is the ability to collect user names and emails before they start the chat automatically. It is important for our business …
Chose Gist
They both seem to have parity with each other with each having their own small advantages. I went with Gist because it was more affordable.

Infusionsoft customer for almost 5 years and it seemed I was always working more on getting it to work instead of getting work done. Gist …
Chose Gist
Gist is better because easy of use and pricing. Hands down. It has an unbeatable cost-benefit ratio. Customer service has been with us since we started using it. That's great. For us, shortcomings such as no CRM are manageable. We like its front end appearance and customization …
Chose Gist
Gist is my first email and chat multi-purpose automated SAAS tool so can't really comment on others I've tried. They came recommended to me by an entrepreneurial group I am a member of. Anecdotally I evaluated it against ActiveCampaign and Mailchimp and it was far better in …
Chose Gist
Gist a more integrated and unified product for Sass companies. Some competitors don't have strong chat + email automation + help desk. Other competitors have the features, but they are not well integrated. Gist has integrated complete customer contact with a very finished …
Chose Gist
Gist is much more complete than other tools like Crisp, Customerly, etc, at a cheaper price. The perfect deal for your business.
Chose Gist
Having a support ticket system is good and will help you resolve issues but, having an all-in-one tool that can let you not only resolve an issue but also to go above and beyond with customer support that later on translates into sales is priceless. That is the kind of tool …
Chose Gist
You can do everything you can with AC or Mailchimp (minus dynamic cart recovery for ecom) at a fraction of the cost, and you can do MORE -- better integration with FB ads than MailChimp, more powerful workflows, unified inboxes, live chat and chatbot, etc. It's just a more …
Chose Gist
I have a lifetime deal with Gist so I may be a bit biased, but Gist is quite easy to use and has a free tier so it's worth a serious look compared to the other players on the market. Personal preference does play a big role in your final decision, as feature-wise, Gist has most …
Chose Gist
Intercom was pricy and less user-friendly in comparison to Gist. It did have a broader range of features that we could use in our plan. However, we didn't see any return of investment in having many features to choose from if the price was too high for what was being offered at …
Keap
Chose Keap
Much better ESP over Keap. Intuitive with simplicity in setting up flows, segmentation, etc. Also, we're paying much less than we did for Keap. Overall, way better product.
Chose Keap
When choosing which CRM was right for our business, we looked at ActiveCampaign and Keap, as they are both greeat with automation campaigns. We decided that Keap was a better fit for our business, because Keap has a business phone line and native texting. Being able to accept …
Chose Keap
We went with Pipedirve because it is far easier to use and much cheaper. It also has a lot of useful addons that are reasonably priced.
Chose Keap
Fees in Honeybook are a lot compared to the fees in Keap. You have a better campaign development in Keap. Better landing pages in Keap as well.
Chose Keap
Keap is fast. The learning curve is shorter and they have an academy for learning with videos quite extensive that explain a lot of different scenarios, specially when you need to customize scenarios of automations and segments. Is cheaper if you consider that this services CRM …
Chose Keap
Systeme IO is a great software with a much lower cost, but it isn't nearly as robust and it doesn't meet HIPAA standards which are essential to our business.

Go High Level on the other hand is a powerful software that is limited by design and oversimplified. It really just cuts …
Chose Keap
First off the campaign builder has no equal, the price is competitive, and the Keap community is a phenomenal resource to learn new things.
Chose Keap
Keap is much more affordable than HubSpot, and while it perhaps does not provide quite as much detail, you can get all the detail you really need for a small to medium-sized business with Keap. It provides so many more options as a CRM than Constant Contact or MailChimp did …
Chose Keap
Keap, compared to MailChimp, Aweber, and Sendfox, is a complete solution. The latter 3 are primarily for email and don't have the same flexibility by themselves for a campaign or email automation. Keap, compared to Typeform, is similar, but Typeform does form building better. …
Chose Keap
HighLevel has a learning curve as well but it is way easier to get started than keap. It's definitely a Keap competitor and depending on business size, HighLevel can be a better alternative as compared to Keap on both a cost and application standpoint.
Chose Keap
Keap is an all-in-one platform for sending bulk emails, managing contacts, tasks management, creating workflows in email marketing, actions-based tasks, creating task reminders, managing tasks with team members, and better reporting with the analytics used in Keap. The landing …
Chose Keap
Outlook is great for those we contact every day for more decisive purposes, but not for marketing and specials we have. It is a more professional look to the market to our consumers and a great way to let our contacts know when we will be attending a trade show or offering new …
Chose Keap
Keap stacks up well against similar software I've used. They are definitely the most user-friendly platform I've encountered, but not at the loss of good functionality. All the processes we need to work on/automate are available to us in Keap, it has been a wonderful growth …
Chose Keap
Not as productive in tracking and creating large lists of emails to have sent out at a single time or for a certain group. I like that Keap continues to give insight into who is responding and who is not, without having to flag every email which was sent out.
Chose Keap
AWeber was too simple, and Salesforce was overkill and too expensive. To be fair, Salesforce is more oriented toward salespeople (which makes sense from the name). AWeber didn't have as robust of an API as Keap.
Chose Keap
I prefer Keap over Mailchimp for email marketing because I found it to be way more user-friendly. I'm not sure if I was just using an older and outdated version of Mailchimp at a prior company but I didn't like the software. All of my email campaigns were just in a list or …
Chose Keap
Keap is a cost-effective, powerful CRM and marketing automation tool for those who have the time and resources to learn all of its intricacies. For any other system, you will be paying for a better user interface, better reporting and visualizations, more intuitive everything, …
Chose Keap
Leadpages still has the best and easiest landing page integration. The landing page interface on Keap is clunky and outdated. Infusionsoft crushes against Active campaign and Mail chimp regarding campaign building, reporting, and emailing as well as making changes down the …
Chose Keap
Looking at a variety of other tools, Keap is the ultimate sales and marketing automation software. The other tools either pale by comparison in terms of their features (for a similar price point), or they come with a very hefty price tag that isn't economic for most …
Chose Keap
Keap is by far the most complete and user-friendly tool to use when it comes to setting up marketing automation and funnels. Compared to other autoresponders, like Aweber, GetResponse, and ActiveCampaign, Keap provides so much more functionality. Also for other funnel builders, …
Chose Keap
These others have very little customization in areas businesses need it compared to Keap. Keap is contact centric which means everything revolves around the contact and not the marketing funnel. Actions, context, relevance all depends on the contact to exist. This changes …
Features
GistKeap
Chat Analytics and Reports
Comparison of Chat Analytics and Reports features of Product A and Product B
Gist
8.9
Ratings
3% above category average
Keap
-
Ratings
Chat history and transcripts8.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Chat reporting8.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Chat and web analytics8.90 Ratings00 Ratings
CRM Project Management
Comparison of CRM Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Gist
-
Ratings
Keap
7.7
Ratings
14% below category average
Task management00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Billing and invoicing management00 Ratings7.40 Ratings
Reporting00 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Automated CRM activity logging00 Ratings6.40 Ratings
Sales pipeline management00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Gist
-
Ratings
Keap
7.0
Ratings
17% below category average
WYSIWYG email editor00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Dynamic content00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Landing pages00 Ratings5.90 Ratings
A/B testing00 Ratings6.40 Ratings
Mobile optimization00 Ratings6.30 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting00 Ratings7.50 Ratings
List management00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
Gist
-
Ratings
Keap
7.3
Ratings
12% below category average
Lead nurturing automation00 Ratings7.50 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading00 Ratings6.20 Ratings
Data quality management00 Ratings6.70 Ratings
Automated sales alerts and tasks00 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Automated follow-ups00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
Gist
-
Ratings
Keap
7.7
Ratings
10% above category average
Calendaring00 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Gist
-
Ratings
Keap
5.2
Ratings
28% below category average
Dashboards00 Ratings7.20 Ratings
Standard reports00 Ratings3.60 Ratings
Custom reports00 Ratings4.70 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Gist
-
Ratings
Keap
5.5
Ratings
39% below category average
API00 Ratings4.70 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals00 Ratings6.40 Ratings
Customizability00 Ratings5.40 Ratings
Third-party software integrations00 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Mobile app for sales & marketing automation00 Ratings5.50 Ratings
Best Alternatives
GistKeap
Small Businesses
Olark
Olark
Score 10.0 out of 10
Salesmate
Salesmate
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Genesys DX (discontinued)
Genesys DX (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
LocaliQ
LocaliQ
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Genesys DX (discontinued)
Genesys DX (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
LeadSquared
LeadSquared
Score 7.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
GistKeap
Likelihood to Recommend
9.5
(0 ratings)
7.2
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.2
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
6.7
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
2.0
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
GistKeap
Likelihood to Recommend
Gist is perfect for SaaS I'd say, and perfect for long sales cycles with lots of lead nurturing involved, and for scenarios where you re-market via FB ads, because there's FB custom audience integration built into the workflows. Perfect for customer service and support. Really outstanding there. It's a little less suited to ecom but they're hammering out the finishing touches to make ecom cart recovery easier.
Read full review
Keap is very good at contact management and automation creation but weaker at email campaign creation. I was particularly interested in a function where when manually entering a new contact, you are then able to email that contact using a premade HTML template. It will currently not do this. There is a workaround, but it is unnecessarily ponderous.
Read full review
Pros
  • Gist provides endless ways of interacting with customers. I can chat and email with them, track their usage on my site, qualify them, add tags and other profile information, and so much more.
  • There is even an awesome live view that lets me spy on visitors to see how they're using the site.
  • The tools are powerful, easy to use, and constantly getting improvements. It seems like every week there is another update being rolled out that substantially extends the functionality or usability of the features in Gist.
Read full review
  • Pricing: Keap Max Classic (formerly Infusionsoft) is affordable for nonprofits and small businesses and includes all the automation features we need!
  • Customer Support: Our onboarding and success coaches have been so helpful, taking into account some unique processes we have and finding solutions.
  • Updates: Keap is constantly providing more and better solutions!
Read full review
Cons
  • Free plan limits are too low.
  • Chatbots should work not only for Gist's native online chat, but also for the other chat-based channels such as Facebook. (instead of having to use another software for that purpose)
  • Pricing structure - Support bot should not be an add-on but a core feature.
Read full review
  • More articles and videos on how to use the various functions of Keap
  • Having representatives designated to certain regions or companies for a point of contact when help is needed
  • More options when building the emails. While the click and drop options can be a plus, they can also be negative because you are limited to image and text sizing and positions
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Gist is a quite reliable service with a lot of added values. We don't need to pay for different Saas for these important features. If I had an issue the team was super responsive and helpful, that is essential for every business. The email delivery is great, so virtually no email has landed into spam folder
Read full review
We have invested a lot into Infusionsoft and are using it to automate our processes and marketing. Changing CRMs would have a HUGE cost for us and based on our evaluations, the grass isn't greener elsewhere. Infusiosoft fits most of our needs and is slowly getting better each year. Their support is great and we will continue to use them until something much better comes around or our company outgrows a small business CRM.
Read full review
Usability
Gist does pretty much anything you want it to when it comes to managing your contacts. Sometimes I wish it updated faster, but wait a few beats and it gets there. I really love that I can show a colleague how to use the chat messenger and they understand it right away. Very user friendly!
Read full review
You do need to spend some time on-boarding and implementing the software in order to have full functionality. We were lucky - we had colleagues at the university with experience with Keap and then hired an intern familiar with the software to get us set up and ready to use it. We've had some functionality issues with it along the way and that has frustrated myself and the other uses in our department.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
There have been few outages since we became a customer, and when they have technical issues they are typically resolved rapidly.
Read full review
Performance
No answers on this topic
I haven't had any performance issues with Infusionsoft. Every time I use the software everything seems to run quickly and smoothly.
Read full review
Support Rating
I have communicated with their team multiple times and every time they have been very responsive, knowledgeable, and polite. They work to make sure you are happy and informed of what is going on. Better their team keeps up to date with their app, giving you new features, and keeping you notified and educated about what they are and how to use them. A+
Read full review
Generally, very responsive support for even our more complicated issues. We do have some open issues that we need resolutions on and that I understand are complicated and will take longer to resolve but the open issues are significantly impacting to our business.
Read full review
In-Person Training
No answers on this topic
This training is taught often to the lowest common denominator so as to help as many customers of theirs as possible. We do the training and coaching and implementations for our clients. But clients who I know who have been to their training get trained well. The gap that can exist lies in you doing your part and really investing in using and building out the application. The training and education is only as good as your willingness to apply it.
Read full review
Online Training
No answers on this topic
The results of training online are often based on how people learn. The training was great but with feature updates, you just have to get in there sometimes and do it! The training definitely lays a firm enough foundation for you to be successful even if its can't be updated with every feature update.
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Implementation Rating
No answers on this topic
If you do this by yourself it will likely take you 6-9 months to get it entirely set up, unless you have a full-time dedicated person handling it. I recommend hiring a prof service company to implement it for you. They should be able to do it all in 90 days or less.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
They both seem to have parity with each other with each having their own small advantages. I went with Gist because it was more affordable. Infusionsoft customer for almost 5 years and it seemed I was always working more on getting it to work instead of getting work done. Gist is so intuitive I had it setting up and running the basics in a few hours.
Read full review
Keap is fast. The learning curve is shorter and they have an academy for learning with videos quite extensive that explain a lot of different scenarios, specially when you need to customize scenarios of automations and segments. Is cheaper if you consider that this services CRM + Mailing don´t come often in one package and the realiability to send mails is quite good.
Read full review
Scalability
No answers on this topic
You get a lot of features included, but you don't need to use them all at once to start seeing an effect. When you are ready to use them, they are there. It also scales without costing too much money.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • Our ROI has increased significantly because of Gist's chat and app integration into our website. Contact forms are great but a real-time conversation means you can be more effective in meeting your customer's needs.
  • The additional features in the recent upgrade mean we can use Gist for more. They have always been effective for email campaigns, but the addition of the knowledge base and more effective workflows means we can automate more. This has saved us from buying more software.
Read full review
  • Automation has allowed us to be more engaged and invested in our customers by reminding us about birthdays and other important events in their lives so that we can celebrate with them.
  • We lacked the manpower to sell and distribute orders online before setting up the payments and automation features. We now collect $5k+ a week in lost sales through online ordering.
  • List cleaning functionality and engagment settings have allowed us to run a 40-50% email open rate that allows us to create an engaged community around local events and opportunities as well as sales and special offerings.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Gist Screenshots

Screenshot of Live ChatScreenshot of Email MarketingScreenshot of Marketing Automation WorkflowsScreenshot of Knowledge BaseScreenshot of Meetings

Keap Screenshots

Screenshot of a Keap invoiceScreenshot of Screenshot of the entire sales pipeline displayed in one view.