Close vs Insightly: Which CRM for agencies wins?

Agencies don’t struggle with “finding tools.” They struggle with maintaining consistent pipeline execution while ensuring their delivery processes stay on track. When vital prospect context is scattered across various platforms—like inboxes, calendars, and spreadsheets—important follow-ups can slip through the cracks, handoffs can break down, and forecasting can turn into guesswork. A CRM for agencies needs to facilitate rapid movement of new business while also preserving enough account history to support crucial renewals, upsells, and referrals.

In this article, we will delve into two powerful CRM solutions, Close and Insightly, that address these challenges from distinct perspectives. Close is designed specifically for high-volume outbound activities, integrating calling, email, and SMS into a cohesive platform that tracks every step of the sales journey. Insightly, on the other hand, focuses on project-oriented features, linking sales processes with post-sale activities for a seamless transition from deal to delivery.

The ideal choice between these two CRMs hinges on your agency's operational complexity, specific requirements for customization, and the resources available for ongoing management and administration.

Why Agencies Need a CRM in 2026?

Agencies don’t lose revenue because of a lack of demand. Revenue leaks when lead context gets scattered across inboxes, calendars, Slack threads, and spreadsheets, and when follow-ups depend on memory instead of a system. A CRM creates a single source of truth for prospects, clients, partners, and renewals, so next steps stay visible and ownership is clear.

✔️ Pipeline visibility and forecasting without spreadsheets

✔️ Centralized prospect and client context across email, calls, and meetings

✔️ Standardized follow-ups, handoffs, and next steps across the team

✔️ Clear ownership on every lead, deal, and account to avoid drops

✔️ Performance tracking by source, service line, and stage conversion

In 2026, agencies run more channels, shorter decision cycles, and more stakeholders per deal, with clients expecting faster response times and tighter coordination. Without a CRM, proposals stall, warm leads go cold, renewals happen late, and referrals are handled inconsistently because the team can’t see the full history and the current plan in one place.

What is Close?

Close is a sales CRM tailored for outbound execution, seamlessly integrating calling, email, SMS, and tasks into daily operations. It suits agencies engaged in high-volume prospecting, appointment setting, or sales development as key services. With pipelines and opportunity statuses, it effectively tracks progress, while communication history remains accessible on each lead record. Sequences and automations facilitate consistent outreach and follow-up processes, making it ideal for agencies that rely on regular outbound activity and rapid iteration.

What is Insightly?

Insightly is a CRM that incorporates project-oriented features, linking sales records with delivery and post-sale activities. It's particularly beneficial for agencies where deal management and client delivery must be aligned, especially in project-based settings. The pipelines monitor opportunities, while tasks and activity sets standardize processes across various stages. Configured reporting and dashboards provide visibility into sales and execution metrics. This option is often favored by agencies seeking a CRM that offers a closer connection to delivery workflows.

Feature comparison of Close and Insightly

Multi-pipeline and custom stages

In Close, you can create multiple pipelines, allowing different teams or processes to utilize their own pipeline configurations. Each pipeline can have a unique name and its own set of opportunity statuses, which serve as the stage structure. This enables the separation of actions like new business, renewals, or service delivery tracking into distinct pipelines without sharing the same statuses across all processes. You can easily adjust the pipeline structure by modifying the opportunity statuses for the relevant pipeline.

Insightly's pipeline setup allows for defining pipelines and stage lists tailored to various sales motions. Separate pipelines can effectively differentiate agency flows like new business, renewals, and partner referrals, all while maintaining unique stages for each pipeline. As processes evolve, stages can be modified to ensure opportunity tracking accurately represents current qualifications and delivery handoffs. Insightly implements pipeline logic at the record level, ensuring that each opportunity adheres to a defined stage flow.

Client and Deal Activity Tracking

With Close, calls, emails, SMS, and tasks are seamlessly integrated into the CRM, allowing them to be linked to the appropriate lead and opportunity context. All communication occurs within the platform, and teams can easily access activity history on records to review interactions and plan next steps. This functionality enhances sales tracking by logging outreach and follow-ups alongside lead and deal records. Additionally, meetings and other touchpoints can be managed within the same workspace, depending on the configuration.

Insightly's activity tracking is based on tasks, events, and logged interactions that connect to contacts, organizations, and opportunities. Through Activity Sets, Insightly enables the creation of repeatable sequences of tasks and events from a template, helping to standardize follow-ups after discovery calls, proposals, or onboarding processes. Timelines and related lists ensure that completed actions and upcoming next steps are clearly visible on the record, facilitating the review of account history and current commitments during internal handoffs.

Automation and Workflows

Close provides comprehensive sales reporting through dashboards and reports that focus on pipeline health, activity tracking, lead conversion, and sales performance. You can filter reports by date ranges and other criteria, while dashboards can be customized to visualize the metrics you choose. The reporting system relies on CRM data, meaning that both activity and pipeline insights are contingent on logged information and how opportunities are structured. Additionally, forecasting and pipeline monitoring are facilitated by the reporting features outlined in Close’s materials.

Insightly's Workflow Automation triggers actions when specific record criteria are met, such as updates to fields, assignments, and task creation. This automation can also be integrated with pipeline-driven processes, such as applying Activity Sets when an opportunity advances to a defined stage. The execution of workflows hinges on the configuration of triggers and actions within the account, facilitating routine transitions, like moving a deal to onboarding and generating the associated task checklist.

Reporting and Analytics

Close offers comprehensive sales reporting with dashboards and reports that focus on pipeline health, activity tracking, lead conversion, and overall sales performance. You can filter reports by date ranges and other criteria, while dashboards can be customized to visualize your chosen metrics. The reporting relies on CRM data, meaning that the effectiveness of activity and pipeline reporting hinges on accurate logging and the structure of opportunities. Additionally, forecasting and pipeline monitoring are facilitated through the reporting features outlined in Close’s materials.

Insightly's reporting capabilities include dashboards and custom reports generated from CRM objects such as opportunities, activities, and projects. You can filter these reports by owner, pipeline, stage, and time range, and save them for regular review. Insightly also allows for report scheduling, ensuring stakeholders receive updates automatically without the need for manual exports. The accuracy of pipeline reporting depends on the consistent use of stages and thorough activity logging by the entire team.

Integrations and Data Hygiene

In Close, you can implement integrations via the API and event-based webhooks, with help documentation also suggesting connecting external apps through tools like Zapier or Make using OAuth or API keys. Data hygiene features include duplicate detection during new lead creation, options to prevent duplicates during imports, and the capability to merge leads when duplicates are found. Import workflows incorporate duplicate checks against both the file and existing leads, while merge actions consolidate records into a single destination lead. These controls are thoroughly documented in Close's help resources and product update notes.

Insightly offers integration options through its integration layer and connected apps, depending on your plan and configuration. Data hygiene features in Insightly include duplicate management flows designed to identify and merge duplicate contacts, organizations, or leads, ensuring records remain consolidated. Import behavior can also affect duplicates based on the matching rules applied during uploads. Maintaining clean records enhances downstream reporting and minimizes conflicts during automation.

folk: The Best CRM for Agencies in 2026!

folk is an AI-driven CRM that centralizes contacts, conversations, and deal context without complicating the setup process. It is tailored for agency teams where several members engage with the same account throughout prospecting, onboarding, delivery, and renewals. This ensures that relationship history is always accessible, so transitions don’t rely on memory or scattered notes.

• Multi-pipeline and custom stages tailored for various agency operations
• Contact and deal timelines that consolidate interaction history in one location
• Email and calendar synchronization to link conversations to the appropriate records
• Tasks, reminders, and follow-up tracking to standardize next steps
• Contact enrichment to supplement missing company and contact information
• Deduplication tools to merge duplicates and maintain a clean database
• Simple pipeline reporting to assess stage health and deal progression
• Integrations and automation connectors to minimize manual updates

For agencies, the primary benefit is operational clarity across multiple relationships. Pipelines can represent various revenue streams, such as retainers, projects, partnerships, and referrals, while tasks and reminders ensure consistent follow-ups among team members. Features like data enrichment and deduplication help eliminate duplicate records and fill in missing fields, keeping pipeline reporting effective over time.

Conclusion

In summary, Close excels in high-volume outbound activities with its seamless integration of communication tools and automation, making it ideal for aggressive prospecting. Insightly shines with its project-oriented features, linking sales processes to delivery workflows for a cohesive client experience. However, for agencies that prioritize email integration, automation, and smooth handoffs, folk stands out as the superior choice. Its AI-driven platform keeps all relationship history accessible, ensuring operational clarity and efficiency across multiple touchpoints.

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