Our review of Nutshell, a CRM software for SMEs

“Nutshell” : this name fits in well with the identity of this CRM: a solution that gets straight to the point and doesn’t get bogged down in superfluous complexity. Nutshell has the advantage of offering both a fluid user experience and a wealth of functions.

It’s a far cry from the gasworks of Salesforce or HubSpot. With Nutshell, everything is designed to get straight to the point: tracking opportunities, nurturing prospects, collaborating effectively and maintaining visibility over the sales cycle. It’s a pragmatic, well-executed tool, with a strong emphasis on ease of adoption.

So, yes, Nutshell remains above all a field CRM: the automation, reporting and marketing functions are simpler than those of the market giants, but for an SME, that’s more than enough. The tool covers the essentials, and does so quite well.

In this article, we take a detailed look at Nutshell’s strengths and limitations, its main features and pricing, to help you see if this CRM software might be right for your organization.

Our opinion on Nutshell CRM…in a nutshell

Pros & Cons

• A modern, ultra-intuitive interface. That’s the first thing you notice: everything is clear, well-organized and fluid. Navigation is natural, you find what you’re looking for in just a few clicks, and getting to grips with it is almost immediate. It’s a CRM that makes you want to use it every day.
• A visual and logical pipeline. The pipeline view is a real winner: it lets you track opportunities, conversion stages and priorities at a glance. It’s a real sales management tool, simple and effective, perfect for structuring sales cycles.
• A UX designed with end-users in mind. Nutshell doesn’t try to do everything, but to do it well. The interface is designed for field salespeople, not system administrators. Daily tasks (adding a contact, scheduling a reminder, moving an opportunity) are really quick and pleasant to perform.
• Exemplary customer support. We haven’t tested it directly, but the majority of users praise the quality and responsiveness of customer service (see, for example, the reviews posted on the B2B review site Capterra). What’s more, support is accessible at all levels, which is quite rare.
• Good value for money. No hidden fees, no obscure options. Pricing is simple and transparent, as we’ll see later in the article, with a true SMB logic. You get what you pay for, especially compared to more complex CRMs where additional costs (integrations, support, automations) mount up quickly.
• A practical mobile application. It lets you consult contacts and opportunities, and add notes on the move. Overall, it’s well-suited to the needs of traveling sales reps, even if some features still need to be improved (activity creation, integrated calls).

• A lack of depth on some features. Reporting, in particular, remains fairly basic. Dashboards are sufficient for sales management, but not for detailed analysis. The same applies to marketing functions.
• Limited automation. Sales and marketing automation is well thought-out, but deliberately simple. It’s a far cry from the complex workflows and conditional sequences of HubSpot or Salesforce.
• Not suitable for large organizations. Nutshell is clearly aimed at SMEs and small sales teams. More complex structures, with multiple teams or highly customized workflows, will quickly reach the tool’s limits.
• Interface, support and documentation in English only. The tool is entirely English-speaking. For teams not at ease with the language of Shakespeare, this can be a real barrier to adoption. A real pity.

Our opinion of Nutshell’s main features

CRM and sales pipeline

The heart of Nutshell, as with any sales CRM, is its sales pipeline. The interface is clear, visual and easy to read. Each opportunity is represented in a map view, enabling you to track the progress of deals at a glance. You simply drag and drop opportunities from one stage to the next.

The stages are of course fully customizable: you can adapt the pipeline to your sales cycle, define closing probabilities, set revenue or conversion targets and track the performance of each salesperson.

Dashboards show sales won, opportunities in progress, conversion rates and pipeline value in real time.

Contact and activity management

Like any good B2B CRM, Nutshell manages business relationships on two levels: contacts (or interlocutors) and accounts (or companies).

Each contact sheet contains essential information (contact details, position, exchange history, documents, related opportunities).

Account cards, on the other hand, centralize data at company level: size, sector, associated pipeline and all related contacts. This dual reading enables the relationship to be monitored both individually and globally.

Interactions (emails, calls, meetings, WhatsApp) are automatically synchronized thanks to native integrations and via the Engagement module. You really do have access to omnichannel management of customer exchanges, which is a very good thing, because it enables you to keep a complete record of your entire customer relationship.

In terms of activities, Nutshell offers an integrated calendar to organize reminders, meetings and sales follow-up. Automatic reminders and visualization by day, week or salesperson keep priorities clear.

The overall effect is well thought-out: the salesperson knows what to do, when and for whom, without having to juggle several screens.

Automation & sequences

Nutshell integrates several automation options designed to simplify the day-to-day work of sales teams without weighing down the tool.

You can automate repetitive tasks, such as creating activities, sending follow up emails, notifications or pipeline step changes. These rules are easy to configure, and require no special technical skills.

Email sequences enable you to maintain relationships with prospects at every stage of the sales cycle. You can program personalized reminders according to specific triggers (new opportunity, inactivity, change of status). This helps to maintain a good follow-up rhythm without relying solely on the rigor of individual sales reps.

There are also lighter marketing automations: automatic addition of a contact to a campaign, sending a welcome email, updating a field in the prospect file, etc. It’s simple, intuitive and sufficient for most SMBs, who are looking above all to save time without turning their CRM into a workflow factory.

Marketing features

Like more and more B2B CRMs, Nutshell includes a marketing module that lets you launch simple campaigns directly from the CRM. The idea is to centralize data and actions in the same tool: no need to export your contacts to a third-party platform to send a newsletter or a lead nurturing sequence.

You can design emails from customizable templates, target your audiences using CRM segmentation, and track results (open rates, clicks, unsubscribes). Integrated forms make it easy to capture leads on your site, which are automatically added to the CRM with the right status or pipeline.

The marketing module is deliberately kept simple: it doesn’t replace a full marketing automation software, but it covers the basic needs of an SME very well.

Mobile application

Nutshell offers a mobile CRM application available on iOS and Android, designed to support salespeople in the field. The interface follows the logic of web CRM: simple, readable and focused on essential information. Contacts, opportunities, tasks and upcoming activities can be consulted in a matter of seconds.

You can update files, add notes after an appointment or change the status of an opportunity directly from your smartphone. Convenient for mobile teams or those who alternate between the office and the field. The application also offers partial offline access, so you can continue working even without a connection.

Nutshell Reviews: Customer Service

Nutshell’s customer support is one of its strong points. The publisher relies on human, accessible and responsive support, whatever the plan chosen. Even users of entry-level packages benefit from direct support via chat and email, which is far from the case with most competitors.

On higher levels, it is also possible to schedule telephone sessions or obtain personalized support for account set-up.

In addition, Nutshell offers a well-stocked knowledge base, with video tutorials, regular webinars and a blog dedicated to best business practices.

Nutshell Reviews: Integrations & Ecosystem

Nutshell provides an official marketplace listing over 200 native integrations covering most of the needs of a modern SME: prospecting, marketing, electronic signature, telephony, accounting, ecommerce, collaborative tools, etc.

Flagship integrations include Apollo, Calendly, CallRail, LinkedIn Ads, QuickBooks, Shopify, Zoom, Microsoft Teams and, of course, the Google Workspace suite.

Nutshell is also compatible with Zapier and viaSocket, opening the door to over 5,000 additional integrations. So you can connect your CRM to almost any business application.

Nutshell review: Prices and value for money

Nutshell offers a modular pricing structure designed to adapt to company size and needs. The core product, Nutshell Sales, operates on a per-user basis, while the Marketing and Engagement modules are billed on a per-company basis.

Nutshell Sales

This is the heart of CRM. All plans include the Marketing Foundation and Engagement Foundation modules free of charge.

Nutshell Marketing

Nutshell Marketing is billed on a per-company basis and requires an active subscription to Nutshell Sales. The Marketing Foundation package is included free of charge. Marketing Pro, on the other hand, is priced according to the number of marketing contacts.

• Marketing Foundation: included with all Sales plans. Includes email editor, forms, landing pages and attribution reports.
• Marketing Pro: rates vary according to the size of your base. The plan allows you to send larger campaigns, gives access to SMS marketing and enriched reports. Each account can send up to 8 times its contact limit per month. Without a Pro subscription, the limit remains 150 marketing emails per month.

Nutshell Engagement

Nutshell Engagement is also charged per company and included in all Sales plans via the Foundation version. It includes form tracking, webchat and unlimited AI chatbot. The Engagement Pro version adds SMS capability (mainly available in the US and Canada) and more comprehensive customer conversation features.

Add-ons

Several add-on modules can be activated à la carte :

• Quotes & Invoices, which lets you create, send and track quotes and invoices directly from Nutshell. Templates can be customized, and data is synchronized with your opportunities, eliminating the need for double entry.
• LeadBoost, an integrated enrichment tool that automatically identifies and adds new qualified leads to your pipeline according to your prospecting criteria.

Verdict Salesdorado

As you can see, our overall opinion of Nutshell is very positive. We were pleasantly surprised by the platform.

We recommend Nutshell if you’re looking for a clear, modern CRM that’s easy to learn. The tool is really well suited to B2B SMEs that want to centralize their sales, contacts and campaigns without deploying a gas factory. The pipeline is fluid, the interface intuitive and the customer support exemplary. All at a reasonable price, with no hidden costs or mandatory options.

Avoid Nutshell if you need a CRM with advanced automation, reporting or native integrations. The tool does the job perfectly well for a team of 5 to 50 salespeople, but will clearly show its limitations in a complex environment with several teams and customized workflows.