Copper alternative

A Copper alternative where email reporting is not a tier up

Copper puts email open tracking, click tracking and bulk email on Professional , $69 per seat monthly, $59 billed annually. Lightng includes all three at $39 per user per month, sends through your own mailbox rather than a Google-first one, and reports opens, clicks, replies and bounces split by template and sending address. Figures read from Copper’s pricing page on 26 August 2026.

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Where the tiers actually sit

This is the whole comparison, and it is worth stating without spin. Copper’s Basic plan is a perfectly good CRM at $29 a seat monthly, $23 annually. It is cheaper than anything Lightng sells.

What it does not include is the reason most sales teams buy a CRM in the first place: open tracking, click tracking and bulk email are all Professional features. Moving up to get them takes a seat from $23 to $59 annually, and if you are a team of five, that is the difference between $1,380 and $3,540 a year.

Lightng Professional is $39 a seat with those three included, alongside the pipeline, dashboards, CSV import, the AI assistant and LinkedIn capture. One bill, one tier, no decision about which features to leave behind.

Copper vs Lightng, side by side

Read from each vendor’s own pricing page and documentation on 26 August 2026. Prices move; the date is here so you can tell how stale this is.

	Copper	Lightng
Entry price	Basic $29/seat monthly, $23 annually	Starter $15/seat, up to 3 seats
Cheapest tier with open + click tracking	Professional: $69 monthly, $59 annually	Professional: $39
Bulk email	Professional and above	Included at $39
Email series / sequences	Business tier ($134 monthly, $99 annually)	Templates and batch sends at $39
Reporting granularity	Open and click tracking from Professional	Opens, clicks, replies, bounces, unsubscribes, by template and by sending address
Mail providers	Google Workspace–first: 'Recommended for Google Workspace', Google Partner, Chrome extension for Gmail	Any mailbox over SMTP: Gmail, Microsoft 365, custom domain
Free plan	Free trial, no card. No permanent free tier	7-day full-product trial. No free tier
Top tier	Business $134 monthly, $99 annually	Enterprise, custom

One line to be straight about: if you do not need email reporting, Copper Basic at $23 annually is cheaper than anything on this site, and this page is not going to pretend the comparison runs the other way.

What you get for the $39 that is not on the price list

Mail that is genuinely yours. Lightng connects to your mailbox and sends through it, so the envelope sender is your address on your domain, replies land in your inbox and sent mail sits in your Sent folder. The deliverability you build belongs to you rather than being pooled with strangers on a shared IP.

Reporting that answers a real question. Tracking that tells you a message was opened is a fact about one email. Reporting grouped by template and by sending address tells you which of your follow-ups earns replies and which alias people answer, which is a fact you can act on.

And a caveat we put on every page that mentions opens. Open rates are directional, not exact, in every product that reports them. Mail apps fetch tracking images without a person reading anything. We put clicks and replies first for that reason, and the full explanation is here.

When to pick Copper instead

These are real, and this list is not padded. If one of them describes you, Copper is the better buy and we would rather you found that out here than after paying us.

You are deep in Google Workspace and want the CRM to feel like part of it.Copper is built around that integration and recognised by Google for it. If Gmail, Calendar and Drive are where your work already lives, that fit is worth paying for.
You need email series and multi-step campaign automation.That is Copper's Business tier. Lightng does templates, batch sends and per-template reporting; it does not run multi-step automated sequences, and calling what we have by that name would be a stretch.
You are on Basic and genuinely do not send tracked email.$23 a seat annually is less than $39. If the email half of this page does not describe you, Copper is the cheaper product and the rest is noise.
You want a longer track record and a wider integration marketplace.Copper has both. Lightng is the newer product and we are not going to claim otherwise.

FAQ

Copper alternative: common questions

What is the best alternative to Copper CRM?

If you chose Copper for its Google Workspace integration and you are happy on Professional, there is no reason to move. If you are on Basic and have discovered that email open tracking, click tracking and bulk email all sit one tier up, Lightng is the direct answer: those are included at $39 per user per month, and it sends through any mailbox rather than a Google-first one.

Does Copper include email tracking on its cheapest plan?

No. Copper's pricing page puts email open tracking and email click tracking on Professional and above, which is $69 per seat monthly or $59 billed annually. Basic is $29 monthly or $23 annually and does not include them. Bulk email is also a Professional feature. Checked 26 August 2026.

How much does Copper cost?

Three tiers, checked 26 August 2026: Basic $29 per seat per month ($23 annually), Professional $69 ($59 annually), and Business $134 ($99 annually). There is a free trial and no credit card is required to start it, but there is no permanently free plan.

Is Lightng cheaper than Copper?

For what most people are actually buying, yes, but not across the board, and the distinction matters. Copper Basic at $23 annually is cheaper than Lightng Professional at $39. But Basic has no open tracking, no click tracking and no bulk email. The tier that does is Copper Professional at $59 annually or $69 monthly, against $39 for Lightng with all three included. If you do not need email reporting, Copper Basic is the cheaper product and we would say so.

Does Copper work with Outlook?

Copper markets itself around Google Workspace: it is 'Recommended for Google Workspace', a Google Partner, and ships a Chrome extension for Gmail. Its site does not surface Outlook or Microsoft 365 support, but nor does it state that it is unavailable, so check with them rather than taking a competitor's word for it. Lightng connects to any mailbox over SMTP, which is a difference we can state about ourselves without guessing about anyone else.

Can I move my Copper data to Lightng?

Yes. Export to CSV from Copper and import it. Columns map to typed fields, so dates arrive as dates and stages as selects rather than as text. Historical email tracking data does not transfer: it lives in Copper's records, not in your mailbox, so reporting starts from your first send.

Email reporting at the tier you were already going to buy

Seven days, the whole product, no card. Connect your mailbox, send one real campaign, and read the report before you decide.

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