# SA Contacts vs CircleBack

The clearest difference is price: CircleBack at Free against SA Contacts's $4.99. CircleBack also leads on ratings volume (2.5K vs 56). SA Contacts's advantage is review sentiment (80% vs 61%) and chart position (#157 vs unranked). On rating, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

CircleBack is free to download; SA Contacts costs $4.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.5 for SA Contacts against 4.5 for CircleBack. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: CircleBack has 2.5K ratings behind it against 56, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 80% of SA Contacts's written reviews are positive against 61% of CircleBack's.

SA Contacts ships an update every 3 months, CircleBack every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 25, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.

## The numbers

| Metric | SA Contacts | CircleBack |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Price | $4.99 | **Free** |
| Rating | **[4.5 (56 ratings)](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/sa-contacts/id379262343/reviews)** | [4.5 (2.5K ratings)](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/circleback-updated-contacts/id957826826/reviews) |
| Number of ratings | 56 | **2.5K** |
| Positive reviews | **80.4% of reviews** | 60.9% of reviews |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Ads | No | No |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | **Every 2 months** |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Best chart rank | **#157** | — |
| Size | 28 MB | 118 MB |
| Requires iOS | **13.0** | 17.6 |
| Devices | **iPhone, iPod** | iPhone |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | [ShenZhen SamApp Technology Development Co., Ltd](https://appshunter.io/developer/351047446) | [CircleBack, Inc.](https://appshunter.io/developer/303908341) |

## What reviewers say

### SA Contacts

[App page](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/sa-contacts/id379262343)

**Currently charting:** #157 Top Paid · Business (US App Store)

Streamline your address book with a comprehensive contact management solution. Easily sync, organize, import, export, and merge duplicates to keep your contacts clean and accessible. Supports multiple local address books and cloud backups for secure data management.

**Highlights:** Smart real-time contact sync, Multiple personalized address books, Excel and VCF import/export, Automatic duplicate merging, Batch cleanup of invalid contacts, Contact photo import/export

**Features:** macOS Compatibility

**In-app purchases:** none

**What reviewers like**

- 🚀 Works brilliantly
- 🚀 Easy to use
- 🚀 Excellent backup
- 🚀 Fantastic app
- 🚀 Extremely useful

**What reviewers complain about**

- 🐛 New app version issues
- 🐛 Compatibility problems
- 🐛 Crashes on start
- 🐛 Errors with file imports
- 🐛 Doesn't work as advertised

**Reported bugs**

- Contacts not exporting properly
- Incompatibility with newer iOS versions
- Inability to import CSV files
- Crashes when using certain features

**Requested features**

- Dark mode option
- Improved file format support
- Merge/deduplicate contacts
- Dropbox integration
- Faster import/export speeds


### CircleBack

[App page](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/circleback-updated-contacts/id957826826)

This app intelligently updates your contacts, finds new ones from email, and cleans duplicates. It also allows scanning business cards and offers unified contact management across devices.

**Highlights:** Automatic contact updates, Duplicate contact merging, New contact discovery from emails, Business card scanning, Unified address book, Contact sync across devices

**Features:** macOS Compatibility, Vision Pro support

**In-app purchases:** none

**What reviewers like**

- 🚀 Easy to use
- 📚 Helpful for managing contacts
- 💾 Keeps contacts synced
- 🔍 Useful for finding updated contact info
- 🧹 Helps clean up duplicate contacts

**What reviewers complain about**

- 🐛 Crashes or freezes
- 🔁 Duplicates keep reappearing
- 🔒 Google login issues
- 🤯 Messes up or deletes contacts
- 🕰️ Slow performance

**Reported bugs**

- Fails to update contacts on devices
- Incorrectly merges unrelated contacts
- Loses contact notes and other data
- Unreliable sync between app and phone contacts

**Requested features**

- Add ability to remove contacts from groups
- Improve search functionality
- Allow starting with a fresh contact list
- Provide better backup/restore options


## Frequently asked questions

### Is SA Contacts free?

SA Contacts costs $4.99, with no in-app purchases.

### Is CircleBack free?

CircleBack is free to download, with no in-app purchases.

### Which has better reviews, SA Contacts or CircleBack?

SA Contacts is rated higher. SA Contacts averages 4.5 out of 5 from 56 ratings, while CircleBack averages 4.5 from 2.5K ratings.

### Do SA Contacts or CircleBack have ads?

Neither SA Contacts nor CircleBack shows ads.

### Which is updated more often, SA Contacts or CircleBack?

SA Contacts ships an update every 3 months, and CircleBack every 2 months. Most recently, SA Contacts was updated on September 25, 2026 and CircleBack on September 24, 2026.

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*Compared by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/) from daily US App Store data. Review summaries are generated from verbatim App Store reviews.*