whats-best.ai
Search Sign in

CRM

Keap

Rest of world Report an error

Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: 1 of 4 dimensions proven

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Keap (Thryv Holdings) · keap.com

Report an error on this page Is this your product? →

Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The Skeptic

Weighted verdict

Assumes the pricing page is the nicest thing the vendor will ever say. Hunts per-seat maths that explode at renewal, "unlimited" with footnotes, AI features priced by credits, dead changelogs and acquisition rumours. Exists to keep the rest of the bench honest.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The Skeptic

Contact & data model

How this is scored

Depth and hygiene of the core records — contacts, companies, deals, custom fields, deduplication.

0 — A flat address book; no relations between people, companies and deals.

3 — The standard three objects exist but customization is cosmetic: few field types, no required fields, duplicates accumulate unchecked.

5 — Custom fields across objects, basic dedupe on create, activity history on the record; complex models still need workarounds.

8 — Rich field types with validation, merge and dedupe tooling, relationships beyond the standard model, permissioned field access.

10 — A genuinely modelable system: custom objects or equivalent, bulk hygiene tooling, field-level history — the data model bends to the business, not the reverse.

Report an error

The Skeptic

The registry documents not one field type, object relationship, or dedupe feature — a '200,000+ small businesses' claim with an empty data-model story behind it. Silence is information: nothing here lifts Keap above 'standard objects, cosmetic customization' territory, and I score the silence. 1 2

Report an error

Pipeline & forecasting

How this is scored

Whether the pipeline enforces a process and produces reporting a finance department accepts.

0 — A kanban of deals with amounts; nothing is enforced, nothing rolls up.

3 — Multiple pipelines and stage probabilities exist, but no required fields per stage and only canned reports.

5 — Stage requirements, win/loss capture and standard forecast views; custom reporting is limited or an add-on.

8 — Enforceable process (required fields, stage gates, routing), custom report builder, forecast by team and period with quota tracking.

10 — Forecasting a CFO signs: weighted and commit-based views, historical snapshots, attainment tracking, and reporting composable enough to answer questions the vendor never anticipated.

Report an error

The Skeptic

No pipeline, stage gate, forecast view, or report is evidenced anywhere in or — for a product sold as a CRM, that absence is the finding. A vendor that publishes an integration count and zero forecasting evidence gets scored on the zero. 1 2

Report an error

Automation & workflows

How this is scored

Triggers, sequences and routing that remove manual work without a consultant.

0 — No automation beyond email templates.

3 — Simple if-this-then-that on records; no multi-step sequences, no branching.

5 — Multi-step workflows with delays and branching, email sequences, basic lead routing — capped by tier or count.

8 — Full workflow builder across objects with webhooks as steps, round-robin routing, sequence analytics.

10 — Automation as infrastructure: versioned workflows, error handling, per-step logs, and limits generous enough that the feature is not its own upsell.

Report an error

The Skeptic

The evidence is entirely silent on triggers, sequences and workflows, and the only workflow-adjacent fact is that implementation services are 'required' — automation you pay the vendor's consultants to configure. No self-serve automation evidence at all keeps this at the bottom of the scale. 1 2

Report an error

Integrations & API

How this is scored

Two-way email/calendar sync, native connections, and an API that treats external systems as first-class.

0 — No API, no sync; data enters by CSV and leaves never.

3 — One-way email logging (BCC), a handful of Zapier triggers, a read-mostly API.

5 — Two-way email and calendar sync for the major providers, a documented REST API with sane limits, a modest native directory.

8 — Deep native integrations for the revenue stack, webhooks, OAuth apps, API parity with the UI for core objects.

10 — An ecosystem: public API covering everything the UI does, event streams, a marketplace, and sync so reliable the CRM can be the system of record without being the only system.

Report an error

The Skeptic

One number — 'over 5,000 integrations' — with no API documentation, webhook, OAuth app, or sync evidence in the registry to say how many are native versus Zapier-adjacent. A homepage count is the nicest thing a vendor will ever say about itself; without sync-reliability or API-parity evidence it buys a middling score and not a point more. 1

Report an error

European sovereignty

How this is scored

Where other people's personal data actually lives and under whose law — entity, hosting, subprocessors, DPA.

0 — US entity, US-default hosting, no public DPA or subprocessor list.

3 — A DPA exists and an EU region is available on request or on top tiers; subprocessor exposure to US CLOUD Act reach is broad and undocumented.

5 — EU hosting selectable at signup, published DPA and subprocessor list; core processing still touches US entities.

8 — EU entity or EU-default hosting with published subprocessors, consent-friendly fields, retention and deletion controls; residual US exposure named and narrow.

10 — European entity, EU-only processing including subprocessors, deletion that provably deletes — sovereignty a DPO can sign off without a caveat file.

Report an error

The Skeptic

A Grapevine, TX legal address, a +1 support line, and 'no sovereignty attributes on record' — no DPA, no subprocessor list, no EU hosting option anywhere on the evidence. That is anchor-0 almost verbatim, softened by one point only because total absence is not the same as a published bad answer. 1 2

Report an error

Import, export & exit

How this is scored

Getting in with history intact, and out with everything — the anti-lock-in criterion.

0 — Import is a support ticket; export is contacts-only CSV missing notes, activities and files.

3 — Self-serve CSV import with mapping; export covers main objects but drops activity history, attachments or relations.

5 — Guided migration from major competitors, full-object CSV export, API access sufficient to rebuild the database elsewhere with effort.

8 — Complete export (all objects, history, files) self-serve in open formats, import with dedupe and dry-run, no API metering that prices exit out of reach.

10 — Exit as a feature: documented full-fidelity export, migration tooling both directions, and contractual data-return terms — leaving is a weekend, which is exactly why you can stay.

Report an error

The Skeptic

Nothing in the registry evidences import, export, or API-based exit, and onboarding is explicitly 'required implementation services' — you pay the vendor to get in, and the evidence says nothing about getting out. Getting in is a service and getting out is unaddressed: that is the lock-in profile I exist to flag. 1 2

Report an error

Pricing transparency

How this is scored

Whether a buyer can compute the real invoice — per seat, per month, at renewal — from public pages alone.

0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.

3 — An entry price exists, but the tiers most buyers need are unpriced, or per-seat maths is obscured by bundles, minimums or mandatory onboarding fees.

5 — Most tiers carry real numbers with billing period and VAT treatment stated, but at least one commonly needed capability hides in an unpriced tier or usage-metered add-on.

8 — Every tier priced publicly including annual/monthly split; limits, seat minimums and overage rules stated; only genuine enterprise contracts are custom.

10 — Complete price computability: every tier, add-on, usage meter and renewal rule public, with a calculator or table that makes the invoice at 3 and 30 seats a two-minute exercise.

Report an error

The Skeptic

'Starting at $299/mo' is the only number published, and it arrives stapled to 'required implementation services' — a mandatory, unpriced onboarding fee that is the anchor-3 definition almost word for word. No tier ladder, no seat counts, no annual/monthly split, no VAT treatment, and an acquirer (Thryv, 2024) whose renewal behaviour no public page will let you compute. 2

Report an error

European sovereignty — proven facts

1 of 4 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Ownership Foreign-controlled ⚠ unverified 0/2 pts 2 Report an error
Data residency Not determined — uncited Report an error
Subprocessors Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

Sources (12)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Vendor homepage keap.com Checked 15 Sep 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Vendor pricing page keap.com Checked 15 Sep 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Contact & data model — found from sitemap keap.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Contact & data model — found from sitemap keap.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Pipeline & forecasting — found from sitemap keap.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Pipeline & forecasting — found from sitemap keap.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Automation & workflows — found from sitemap keap.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Automation & workflows — found from sitemap keap.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  9. 9 Integrations & API — found from sitemap keap.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  10. 10 Integrations & API — found from sitemap keap.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  11. 11 Import, export & exit — found from sitemap keap.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  12. 12 Import, export & exit — found from sitemap keap.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →