The Bottom Line: SmartSuite is useful business software that helps organize and streamline a company’s business processes and operations. However, it has minimal customization features that make it fall short of being a true no-code app builder.
Pros:
- An all-in-one operations management software that you can share with everyone on your team who can work on it in real-time. You can also limit the viewing of certain aspects of your workflows.
- It comes with nearly 150 premade templates that you can plug all your operational details into quickly.
- Allows for meticulous organization and integration of data stemming from diverse business processes, like marketing, sales pipeline, CRM, accounting, and finance, all into one place.
Cons:
- Does not provide customization and design freedom as a no-code app-building platform.
- It's limited to internal business operations only — you won’t be able to make external client-facing apps for takeout, e-commerce, social media, or other services.
- You’ll only have a 2-week free trial to test SmartSuite. If you’re strapped for time, you might be unable to learn all its features.
- Pricing is charged per user. If you have a large team, SmartSuite could get expensive.
- SmartSuite has a learning curve, so expect to spend quite a bit of time watching tutorials and reading help guides before you get started.
Pricing: SmartSuite doesn’t offer a free version, but it does give you a 14-day free trial. Starting at $12 per user/month (billed monthly), you can build an unlimited number of workflows with 50GB of storage space.
What is SmartSuite?
SmartSuite is business management software that is suitable for nearly every industry. It allows you to organize and manage every process in your company by creating your own workflows.
SmartSuite is not a no-code mobile app builder that gives you design freedom to cater the look, feel, and function of your software to your exact tastes. But it does provide the power to organize every byte of your business data the way you see fit and allow your entire team to work with it.
SmartSuite Review: Getting Started
After creating your SmartSuite account, you’ll land on your homepage. To your left, you’ll see a drop-down menu titled “Resources.” These are links to guides, video tutorials, or other help options that can help you learn more about using SmartSuite.
Getting started with SmartSuite isn’t something you can do right out of the box. Luckily, SmartSuite provides a robust ecosystem with a message board, help guides, and tutorial videos to keep you from getting stuck.
We recommend you click the “SmartSuite Guide” button and watch the introductory video to learn more about launching your business’s SmartSuite workflow. After viewing, you’re ready to get started!
Start building your SmartSuite workflow by choosing a template (called a Solution) from your Workspace, which you’ll find at the center of your screen. SmartSuite chooses these based on how you answer your introductory questions when signing up.
If you don’t like the templates that SmartSuite has preselected for you, simply click the “Add a New Solution” button. SmartSuite gives you the option to start building from scratch or selecting one of the 150+ premade solutions, which cover many business processes, like:
- Client engagements
- Event Planning
- Marketing Campaigns
- Personal Management
- Inventory Tracking
- Orders and Invoicing
- Purchase Requests
- Customer Feedback
- Accounting Management
- ...and about 140 more solutions.
If you’re wondering how a specific solution will look and what tasks it can execute, just click the “See Live Demo” button. After doing so, a sample template will appear. You’ll also be able to read an explainer that walks you through using the solution.
Once you’ve found your template, it’s time for the fun stuff — building out your workflow! SmartSuite’s templates are structured like an Excel spreadsheet and function like a database. You can manually add your data, import it as a CSV file, or fetch it from another program like Google Sheets or Hubspot.
Customizing your data is also easy. Just click the “+” button at the far right-hand side of your table. You’ll be given a long list of fields, including basic options like text, dates, and percentages, as well as more high-level field features like formulas, time tracking, and signature.
You can visualize your workflow’s data by selecting “View” in the top left-hand corner of the template. Views are catered from solution to solution. For instance, the Accounts Management solutions give you 4 viewing options, including the ability to view all your client’s payment data as a sheet, as tiles, and where your clients are located on a map.
Other solutions, such as the Project Management one, allow you to view all your contract data on a dashboard full of charts and graphs displaying all your current projects, and the total progress your team has made on each one.
Once you get started, you can give anyone access to different workflows. For instance, let your sales team access the logistics workflow so they’ll know the delivery statuses. This can save time, as your sales folks can get vital information by only pushing a few buttons.
Here are a few more SmartSuite features we enjoy:
- SmartSuite is packed with integrations to programs like Zapier, Slack, Make, and more. Its REST API also lets you harvest data from websites.
- The security features are top-notch. You’ll get 2-factor authentication, GDPR compliance, SOC type II compliance, and more. Plus, if you’re a medical professional, you’ll love the fact that SmartSuite is HIPAA-compliant.
- Support is second to none. You’ll get monthly training classes, bi-weekly interactive workshops with the SmartSuite team, live chat support, and more.
Is SmartSuite Right For You?
SmartSuite is great for organizing work, but it has a limited audience. Select SmartSuite if:
- You have several workflows with tons of data and need to organize them.
- You have a large team that tackles many different parts of complex projects, like logistics, project management, contracts, and more.
- You want workflow organization software that your entire team can access, allowing everyone to share and view a project's overall progress.
However, you should take a look at other programs or app builders if:
- You want to truly customize your workflow, starting either from scratch or from a template that you can completely reconfigure to your precise wants and needs.
- You have a big team and a limited budget — SmartSuite charges per user, which means that your monthly usage costs can add up fast.
- You need to build an app or software that’s client-facing. SmartSuite is limited to internal usage only.
What Can I Build With SmartSuite?
When you use SmartSuite, you can’t build apps, but you can build a workflow for your business that your team can use. You’ll be able to enter all your data in one of SmartSuite’s 150 solution templates and configure that solution to meet your data’s requirements and team’s preferences.
You can use SmartSuite to manage almost any business process or operation, but you won’t be able to use it to market your products or services to clients. For instance, you can use SmartSuite’s residential real estate solution to track and manage properties.
However, you won’t be able to build a property listing app that you can share with customers unless you grant them access as internal users. You’ll be charged a rate for every internal user you onboard.
SmartSuite Pricing: Is it Worth it?
SmartSuite has a free 14-day trial that lets you test out solutions and build your own workflows. Refreshingly, you won’t need to enter any credit card information to sign up.
While SmartSuite’s pricing tiers all charge per user per month, each version allows for an unlimited number of users and solutions.
You can get SmartSuite's team version for $12/user per month (billed monthly). Add up to 5,000 records (rows in your database) per solution, and you’ll get a total of 50GB of storage.
The Professional Version, at $28/user per month (billed monthly), allows 50,000 records per solution and 100GB of storage. You’ll also get a Gmail integration and password-restricted settings (so your procurement team can’t access your budget information!).
At $41/user per month (billed monthly), try out SmartSuite’s Enterprise Version. This version gives you a staggering 500GB of data storage and 250,000 records per solution. It provides enhanced security features like SSO sign-in, audit logs, and data-loss prevention. SmartSuite will also give you a customer success manager to help you through any issues.
Do you need more space and power than the Enterprise Version offers? SmartSuite can craft a customized plan just for your needs. Contact them for more details.
SmartSuite Alternatives: What Other Tools Should You Try?
SmartSuite is great for managing your workflows and business processes, but if you need to do more, take a look at our alternatives:
- Adalo, if you want a powerful no-code mobile app builder that’s super easy to learn and lets you customize any workflow or client-facing app to your exact tastes and needs.
- NoLoco, if you want to create your own workflows and business process management apps catered to your organization’s exact needs at a cheaper price than SmartSuite.
- Trello, if you want simple and super-easy-to-use project management software that’s competitively priced.
Verdict
You’ve made it to the end! Now, I’ll release my opinion about SmartSuite. Should you get it now, shortlist it, or avoid it?
Get it now if you want software to organize all your business data, you don’t mind customizing how it looks to your own tastes and preferences, and you also don’t mind that you won’t be providing public access.
Shortlist it if you need an operations management tool but aren’t sure if you also need a public-facing app. Or, you aren’t sure how much you want to customize your workflows to your exact taste.
If you want to build a workflow-management app exactly how you want it to feel and look, try Adalo. You’ll also have the power to create a client-facing app that you can connect to your workflow app. When you finish building, give your users access by publishing your app to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store and letting them access it on the internet using their web browsers.
When you build with Adalo, you won’t need to spend time sifting through hundreds of templates to find the one you like — you can just use Adalo’s simple drag-and-drop interface to create an app that suits your needs. You’ll love the speed and simplicity that Adalo provides.
