ACT!

ACT builds in obsolescence so you must contact their support to get things back on track, and you must continually upgrade, usually once a year to the tune of nearly $500! You continually get warning messages to upgrade and if you don't, your system simply stops working. They are by far the most expensive system on the market.

They used to sell a software product and worked but in the past few years they switched to an online version so they can control the customer better and force you to pay annually.

Most recently I saw a notice of automatic renewal for $2,405 which was quite shocking for me, a single user. I replied that I did NOT want to renew but they ignored it. They went ahead and hit my credit card for $481 to which I replied and protested. They indicated I had agreed to a 5 year contract and I couldn't cancel till that 5 years was up and they were going to bill me that same amount each year.
We ended up going through the legal process and I finally prevailed, but they fought me all the way.  

I have been with ACT since version 2.0, nearly 19 years, but it has ALWAYS had issues.
My database has been corrupted multiple times and it's usually as a result of a Windows update. I ended up being forced to pay a service fee for technical support just to get the product working again. This has happened multiple times over just the past five years and in my most recent issue in January 2019, as with the other issues the technicians do their best and it's a Very time consuming process.

This time they couldn't fix it on the first try even after I again paid their monthly technical support fee.
I have three main databases, as instructed by their tutorials, and each has apparently been corrupted by a Windows update. I was instructed to package and zip all three databases and send them all to a third party company to have them "rebuilt."

The bad part is there is no firm price. See for yourself. Here is the contract.
Each of the three databases would need a rebuild, and each is priced separately. Even though you send everything electronically, the original signed contract and .zip files, they require a signed copy to be faxed so they have a hard copy of a signature. I can only suspect this is because they need an original, signed hard copy to protect them from refund demands if they cannot fix the issue or if the price gets totally out of hand.

As you see above, the initial fees for just the three database "rebuilds" would be well over what I have paid for the entire (Expensive) software and the past two years of upgrades and maintenance, and that doesn't even guarantee it will work as their fee is open ended.

I ended up posting a negative review on their Facebook page, directly to the C.E.O. who finally had someone contact me and we worked it out. It took over an hour of the online session to fix things, but Now I'm seeing alerts that the current version I have will need to be upgraded. If you want to see what all this costs just visit their website.

So after over 19 years of problems with ACT! I have finally had enough.
I am currently migrating away from ACT! and have even dropped my Affiliate relationship as well. I can no longer recommend this faulty and expensive product to any client and have severed all relations.

Chaos is now my CRM because it's proven and it simply works.