Built for Insightly evaluators and migrators

Insightly without the AppConnect add-on tax and the twin product gates.

Insightly built a CRM-plus-Projects combination that made sense in the 2015 to 2019 era of brokered middleware and still has fans among project-driven service businesses. The 2026 problem is the pricing split: Insightly CRM, Insightly Marketing, Insightly Service, and Insightly AppConnect each list separately, so an all-in-one team pays four SKUs for what should be a single platform. Strkr ships CRM, project linking, service queues, and AI drafting on the same per-seat line.

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What this audience is actually dealing with

The pains that bring buyers here.

Insightly evaluators in 2026 usually fall into two camps. The first camp is a current Insightly customer whose renewal is up and whose team is paying for CRM, Marketing, Service, and AppConnect as four separate SKUs with a combined invoice that no longer feels like a bargain. The second camp is a project-oriented service business (consultancy, agency, construction, implementation shop) that liked the Insightly idea of CRM plus Projects on one record but found the product harder to live in than the demo promised. Four pains recur across both camps. Opportunity-to-project handoff is clunky. Reporting hides behind Business Intelligence tier. AppConnect is a brokered automation layer rather than native flows. And Insightly AI (announced through the Unmoor acquisition path) is thin compared to the AI maturity curve of 2026.

The four-SKU problem

CRM, Marketing, Service, and AppConnect each list separately.

Insightly bundles the all-in-one story on the website and splits it into four line items at the quote stage. A 20-rep service team wanting the full Insightly surface pays CRM Plus, Marketing Plus, Service Plus, and an AppConnect automation tier. The combined per-seat line often lands above a Strkr all-in equivalent while still gating workflow count by tier. Strkr ships pipeline, email, service queue, and automations on one line.

Opportunity to project handoff

The closed-won moment stalls on manual project creation.

Insightly promotes CRM plus Projects as a single tenant, but the handoff from a closed-won opportunity to an active project still requires manual field mapping and milestone creation on most templates. Strkr ships a configurable closed-won flow that cascades the project record, tasks, milestones, and client-facing status page in one trigger. The service PM gets a working project on close instead of a two-hour build-out.

AppConnect replaces native flows

The automation layer runs through a brokered engine.

Insightly AppConnect (built on the former Workato tech stack) handles automation through an external broker rather than native flows on the CRM record. The admin learns a second interface, writes recipes outside the CRM UI, and reconciles execution logs across two systems. Strkr runs automations as first-class flows on the CRM with inline execution history on the record. The admin never leaves Strkr. We do not route integration work through outside automation brokers; every connector ships native or through our open API.

Reporting behind Business Intelligence

Advanced reports require the BI tier.

Insightly reports beyond the standard set are gated behind Insightly BI, which is a separate add-on tier. The ops lead at a 40-person Insightly customer frequently pays twice to get a weekly bookings view with cohort analysis. Strkr ships a full report builder with 20 common templates on every paid tier. No BI add-on and no formula editor; drag columns, add filters, save.

Insightly AI is thin for 2026

The AI story has not caught up to the frontier model wave.

Insightly introduced AI capabilities on the back of a 2024 acquisition path, and the current feature set covers summarization and basic drafting but has not matched the depth of HubSpot Breeze or Agentforce, let alone a purpose-built AI CRM. Strkr ships pipeline review drafts, inbox reply drafts, call summaries, forecast narratives, lead enrichment, and natural-language ask across every paid tier with no credit meter.

Migration tooling is import-first

The move off Insightly starts with CSV exports.

An Insightly customer moving to a new CRM exports Contacts, Organizations, Opportunities, Projects, Tasks, and Notes as separate CSVs. Mapping the relationships between those files is where most migrations stall. Strkr runs an Insightly-specific importer that preserves the organization-to-contact-to-opportunity-to-project chain in one pass and keeps the original Insightly ID as a cross-reference field for the first 60 days.

How Strkr handles the Insightly use cases

Pipeline plus projects on one tenant without the add-on tax.

The Insightly value proposition (CRM linked to projects on one shared tenant) is still the right instinct for a project-oriented service business. The 2026 execution has shifted: a modern alternative needs native flows, flat AI pricing, a cleaner handoff, and a single invoice. The cards below walk the Insightly-equivalent capabilities Strkr ships on every paid tier.

Opportunity plus linked project

A closed-won deal lands a working project in seconds.

Every opportunity in Strkr can carry a linked project record with tasks, milestones, assignees, and a client-facing status page. The closed-won trigger cascades the project from a template so the service PM opens a configured plan on win, not a blank slate. Hours, budget, and billing cadence all tie back to the originating deal.

Native flows replace AppConnect

Automations live on the record, not in a broker UI.

Strkr flows are built in the Strkr admin with triggers, conditions, and actions that read and write the same objects the user sees. Execution history is inline on the record so the admin can replay a run in one click. The flow builder covers the common Insightly AppConnect recipes natively plus the service-business patterns (closed-won cascade, retainer renewal, SLA warning) that AppConnect handles only through custom integration work.

Service queue and ticketing

Inbound requests land on the account, not a separate SKU.

Strkr ships inbound ticketing with queues, SLA timers, assignment rules, and a shared inbox view. Tickets attach to the account and the contact so the AE sees them inline on the deal review. Insightly splits this capability into Insightly Service, which lists as a separate SKU; Strkr ships it on every paid tier.

Email cadence and broadcast

Nurture, cadence, and newsletter on one line.

Strkr sends transactional, cadence, and broadcast email natively with throttling, suppression, and reply tracking. The service business can run a quarterly retainer-renewal cadence, a monthly case-study newsletter, and transactional invoice notifications on one line instead of a Marketing Plus add-on.

Strkr AI on every record

Reply drafts, call summaries, forecast narratives, project risk.

Strkr AI drafts email replies with retainer context attached, writes the Friday forecast narrative, and flags projects running behind on milestones. It ships as the optional AI Enhancement module at 49 USD per month with 5,000 Strkr AI calls included and 0.012 per call thereafter, so AI cost stays a predictable line item.

Report builder and 20 templates

Pipeline, utilization, retainer health, forecast attainment.

A full report builder with 20 ready-to-clone templates on every tier covers the common service-business reports (pipeline by stage, utilization by consultant, retainer health, forecast attainment, project margin). No Business Intelligence add-on required and no formula editor to learn before the first weekly roundup.

Insightly-specific importer

Contacts, Organizations, Opportunities, Projects, Tasks in one pass.

The importer handles the Insightly export format directly, preserves the relational chain (Organization owns Contacts owns Opportunities carries Projects owns Tasks), and keeps the original Insightly ID as a cross-reference field for 60 days. The admin can run reports against the original IDs during the pilot before cutting over.

Permissions and sharing

Project-level access without a separate module.

Strkr permissions ship with workspace roles plus per-entity membership on projects and opportunities. The service PM running a client-sensitive project can restrict visibility to the team on the record without configuring a separate sharing module. Insightly surfaces sharing through Permission Sets and the admin has to manage both; Strkr unifies the two.

Client-facing portal

A branded status page per project.

Each Strkr project exposes an optional client-facing status page with milestones, upcoming tasks, open approvals, and a document shelf. The service business can share progress without emailing a status PDF weekly. The portal respects project membership so the client sees their project only.

What Insightly evaluators compare on

The real decision for a service business in 2026.

Buyers evaluating Insightly in 2026 almost always have a secondary vendor on the shortlist. Common comparisons are HubSpot plus Asana, Zoho CRM plus Zoho Projects, Monday Sales plus Monday Work, or Salesforce plus Jira. The Strkr pitch against this shortlist stays simple: one platform, one invoice, flat AI pricing, no AppConnect broker.

Single-platform or stitched

One tenant or three systems linked by a broker.

Strkr: CRM, projects, service, email, flows, AI on one tenant with one admin surface and one invoice. HubSpot plus Asana: two tenants linked through either HubSpot workflow actions or a third-party integration tool. Zoho CRM plus Zoho Projects: one vendor, two products, two admin consoles. Salesforce plus Jira: deepest in each surface but heaviest to administer. The buyer running a 40-person service firm usually wins with the single-tenant shape.

Automation posture

Native flows or external broker.

Strkr runs automations as first-class flows on the CRM record with inline execution history. Insightly AppConnect runs recipes in a brokered engine (built on the former Workato tech stack) with its own admin UI. The admin working across the two surfaces learns a different mental model for debugging a failed run. Strkr keeps the mental model consistent and never asks the admin to leave the CRM to debug a broken flow.

AI pricing structure

Flat tier or feature-gated AI add-ons.

Strkr AI runs on the plan cap with no per-conversation credit meter below cap. Insightly AI is still maturing and the capabilities ship at varying tier gates. HubSpot Breeze meters past a floor. A 25-rep service firm using AI daily for reply drafts, forecast narratives, and project risk flags will see the pricing difference in the quarterly budget review.

Reporting access

Full report builder on tier one or BI tier gate.

Strkr ships the full report builder on every paid tier with 20 common templates. Insightly gates advanced reports behind the Business Intelligence add-on. HubSpot Pro adds reporting at a tier change. Pipedrive splits reporting across tiers. The service business buyer who needs a weekly retainer-health view should ask every vendor which tier the view lives at.

Migration tooling

Insightly-specific importer or generic CSV.

Strkr runs an Insightly-specific importer that preserves the organization-to-contact-to-opportunity-to-project chain and keeps the original Insightly ID as a cross-reference for 60 days. The alternative on most other vendors is a generic CSV import with the admin building the relational map manually. The 60-day cross-reference is specifically for the service firm that wants to run reports in both systems during the pilot cutover.

Service-business depth

Retainer tracking, utilization, SLA, client portal.

Strkr ships retainer tracking, consultant utilization reporting, SLA timers on service tickets, and a client-facing status portal per project. The combined surface is what most Insightly customers were trying to get at by stacking CRM, Projects, Service, and AppConnect. Strkr delivers it on one tenant without the SKU stack.

Honest limits

Where Strkr is deliberately smaller.

Any vendor replacing Insightly in a shortlist should be honest about where the alternative is thinner. The list below is where Strkr trades depth for a cleaner single-tenant shape, and in each case why we chose the posture.

No workflow count that exceeds reasonable use

Flows are unlimited; the admin still has to design them.

Strkr does not cap flow count on paid tiers. That is a pricing posture, not a complexity license. A service business running 400 ad-hoc flows will discover a design problem long before a platform limit; the admin still has to design flows deliberately. We publish best-practice patterns in the admin UI to steer teams toward 15 to 40 well-named flows rather than hundreds of overlapping ones.

No Kickstart implementation partner network

Strkr is admin-light by design, not partner-heavy.

Insightly has a mature implementation partner ecosystem that caters to buyers who want outside hands on the setup. Strkr is designed to be set up by the ops generalist in roughly 90 minutes with the opinionated wizard; we do not run a formal partner certification program. Buyers who want a hands-on implementation partner should factor this into the decision; most SMB and mid-market service firms do not need the partner.

No native resource scheduling for 100 consultants

Utilization and capacity ship; full PSA scheduling is a different product.

Strkr covers utilization reporting, project assignment, OOO tracking, and workload warnings. A 100-consultant professional services organization needing dedicated PSA features (bench optimization, bill-rate modeling, deep resource optimization math) should still consider a specialty PSA. Strkr fits the service business up to the 40 to 80 consultant range cleanly and remains honest about the ceiling above that.

No AppExchange ecosystem

We ship native connectors for service-business essentials.

Strkr ships native connectors for the common service-business stack (Gmail, Microsoft 365, Slack, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, PandaDoc, DocuSign, Stripe, QuickBooks Online, Harvest, Toggl, Strkr Messaging) plus an open API for the long tail. Insightly leans on AppConnect to broker long-tail integrations. The buyer with a dozen unusual tools in the stack should map each one to a Strkr connector or an API path before committing.

No ERP-grade billing module

Invoicing happens through Stripe or QuickBooks, not natively.

Strkr tracks retainer status, project margin, and billable hours, and pushes invoices through QuickBooks Online or Stripe. A service business needing a native ERP-grade billing engine with multi-entity consolidation should keep the ERP in the stack. Strkr integrates cleanly rather than trying to replace a proper billing system.

Compliance posture

SOC 2 Type II in progress; HIPAA with BAA available.

The platform carries SOC 2 Type II in progress alongside a Business Associate Agreement on request for HIPAA-scope service workflows (healthcare consulting, patient-facing project work) on request. GDPR controls ship on every tier. Service firms in regulated verticals should request the current compliance letter during pilot.

Head-to-head

Strkr versus Insightly all-in bundle.

Insightly markets the all-in-one story and quotes four SKUs (CRM Plus, Marketing Plus, Service Plus, AppConnect) to deliver it. Here is the head-to-head against the full Insightly bundle at an SMB service-business size.

Feature Strkr Insightly CRM Plus + Marketing + Service + AppConnect
Platform shape One tenant, one admin surface, one invoice Four SKUs in the common service-business bundle
Automation engine Native flows with inline execution history on the record AppConnect brokered engine with a separate admin UI
AI pricing Strkr AI included on every paid tier, no credit meter below plan cap Insightly AI capabilities split by tier, maturing in 2026
Reporting surface Full report builder plus 20 service-business templates on every tier Advanced reports gated to the Business Intelligence add-on
Service queue and SLA Included on every paid tier Insightly Service lists as a separate SKU
Project linking Opportunity to project cascade on closed-won trigger Projects available, closed-won handoff manual on most templates
Client-facing portal Branded status page per project included Client portal available at higher tier
Migration tooling Insightly-specific importer preserving relational chain plus 60-day ID cross-ref Standard CSV import and export
Email send volume Cadence and broadcast included on every paid tier Marketing Plus required for cadence depth
Compliance scope SOC 2 Type II in progress, HIPAA with BAA on request SOC 2 available, HIPAA scope limited
How teams use Strkr

How teams move from Insightly to Strkr.

The common pattern across teams migrating off Insightly: they liked the CRM-plus-Projects idea and were tired of the four-SKU invoice. The playbooks below are live Strkr customer motions that originated as Insightly replacements.

Implementation consultancy, 32 consultants

Three-week migration from the four-SKU Insightly bundle.

A 32-consultant implementation firm migrated off CRM Plus, Marketing Plus, Service Plus, and AppConnect over three weeks. The importer preserved 1,900 opportunities and 740 active projects. The firm consolidated 11 AppConnect recipes into 7 native Strkr flows and dropped the combined per-seat line by roughly 38 percent. The managing partner stopped reconciling execution logs across two admin UIs.

Boutique construction firm, 24 project managers

Closed-won cascade kills the two-hour project setup.

A 24-PM boutique construction firm used to spend two hours per closed-won deal setting up the project record in Insightly: tasks, milestones, assignees, client portal, document shelf. The Strkr closed-won flow cascades the project from a template on the win trigger. The PM opens a configured project with the correct 48 tasks and three milestones on close, not a blank record. Hours saved per project is roughly 100 minutes.

Marketing agency, 18 account managers

Retainer health report lands on every Monday without BI tier.

An 18-AM marketing agency built the retainer health report in Insightly BI as a quarterly chore. In Strkr the same report runs as a weekly template with retainer status, hours burn, scope creep flags, and renewal pacing. The managing partner reads it before Monday standup instead of pinging the ops lead to build the view. The BI add-on line disappeared from the invoice.

HR consulting, 14 consultants

Strkr AI drafts the quarterly client review paragraph.

A 14-consultant HR consulting firm sends a quarterly client review to each retainer client summarizing engagement health, open work, and strategic outlook. Strkr AI drafts the paragraph from the project record, retainer activity, and sentiment signal on the account. The consultant edits for roughly five minutes instead of writing from scratch. The quarterly ritual stopped slipping to the following month.

Engineering services, 40 engineers

SLA timer plus Strkr AI call summary on support tickets.

A 40-engineer services firm runs an inbound support queue for retainer clients. The SLA timer on the ticket counts against the response-time commitment, and Strkr AI summarizes the ticket conversation on close so the account manager sees the pattern instead of reading five long threads. The firm hit SLA on 94 percent of tickets in the last quarter, up from 71 percent on Insightly Service.

Insightly without the AppConnect broker and the four-SKU invoice.

Start a 14-day trial with the Insightly-specific importer ready to pull Organizations, Contacts, Opportunities, Projects, Tasks, and Notes. Strkr AI is enabled on every record with no credit meter.

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Common questions

What buyers in this bucket ask most.

Can Strkr import directly from an Insightly export?

Yes. Strkr runs an Insightly-specific importer that reads the Insightly CSV export format for Organizations, Contacts, Opportunities, Projects, Tasks, Events, and Notes, preserves the relational chain across all seven objects in one pass, and stores the original Insightly ID as a cross-reference field on every migrated record. The cross-reference survives for 60 days so the admin can run reports in both systems during the pilot cutover. Custom fields map through a UI step before the first pass and the admin can rerun the import with changes without losing cross-reference history.

What is the Strkr equivalent of Insightly AppConnect?

Strkr runs automations as first-class flows on the CRM record rather than through a brokered external engine. The flow builder covers the common AppConnect recipes natively (lead-to-deal routing, closed-won cascade, retainer renewal, SLA warning, inbound-ticket assignment) plus the long tail through our open API and webhooks. Execution history lives inline on the record so the admin can replay a failed run in one click. The admin never leaves Strkr to debug a flow, and We do not route integration work through outside automation brokers.

Does Strkr cost less than the Insightly all-in bundle?

For most SMB and mid-market service firms, yes, usually by 25 to 40 percent on the per-seat combined line. Insightly bundles the all-in-one story on the website and splits it at the quote stage into CRM Plus, Marketing Plus, Service Plus, and AppConnect. Strkr ships pipeline, email, service queue, flows, projects, portal, and AI on one line. Buyers should still run the math against their current contract because volume discounts on multi-SKU bundles can narrow the gap at larger seat counts.

Does Strkr handle project tracking as deeply as Insightly Projects?

Yes for the typical service-business shape (consulting, agency, implementation, construction up to 80 consultants or project managers). Strkr covers tasks, milestones, assignees, timeline, hours tracking, budget tracking, retainer status, and a client-facing status portal. For organizations running professional-services-automation at the 100-plus consultant scale with bench optimization and bill-rate modeling as a daily discipline, a specialty PSA still goes deeper. Strkr is honest about the ceiling and integrates cleanly with external PSAs where the depth is needed.

How does Strkr AI compare to Insightly AI?

Strkr AI drafts pipeline reviews, email replies, forecast narratives, project risk flags, and natural-language ask with inline record citation. It ships as the optional AI Enhancement module at 49 USD per month with 5,000 Strkr AI calls included and 0.012 per call thereafter, so the AI cost is a predictable line item rather than a surprise invoice. Insightly AI covers summarization and basic drafting with maturing capabilities through 2026. The practical difference for a daily user is the breadth of surfaces where the AI shows up and the pricing transparency.

What integrations does Strkr ship natively for a service business?

Native connectors for Gmail, Microsoft 365, Slack, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, PandaDoc, DocuSign, Stripe, QuickBooks Online, Harvest, Toggl, Strkr Messaging, and the common calendar providers. The long tail is reachable through our open API and webhooks. We do not route integration work through outside automation brokers; every integration ships as a first-class native connector or a documented API path. The service firm with an unusual tool in the stack should map it to one of the two paths before committing.

Also built for

Related audiences.

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