Email is the backbone of modern sales communication; it’s where deals progress, follow-ups occur, and relationships strengthen.

As teams increasingly depend on automated outreach, multi-channel engagement, and accurate tracking, CRMs are vying for attention based on the effectiveness of their native email integrations.

Both Freshsales and Attio feature built-in email workflows, but their depth, usability, and influence on daily sales operations vary significantly. For teams prioritizing simplicity and quick, reliable email execution, folk offers one of the cleanest and most powerful email integrations within a CRM, streamlining the process of sending, tracking, and automating outreach directly from your workspace.

Why Email Integration Matters

Effective email integration elevates a CRM from a simple database to a comprehensive communication hub. This allows representatives to send messages, automate follow-ups, and track engagement all from one platform, eliminating the need to switch between tabs or use disconnected tools.

• Centralized communication: All emails—sent or received—sync automatically with the appropriate contact or deal.
• Smarter follow-ups: Automated reminders and sequences enable representatives to follow up at the optimal moment without manual intervention.
• Real-time tracking: Open rates, clicks, and replies are directly fed into the CRM, informing subsequent actions.
• Cleaner data: Emails instantly enhance contact profiles with context and conversation history.
• Email templates: Customizable, reusable templates ensure teams remain consistent and save time.
• Outreach automation: Send bulk emails, sequences, or triggered messages based on deal stages or contact activities.

When a CRM manages email seamlessly, representatives can stop juggling multiple tools and concentrate on conversations that generate revenue. This distinction sets apart a good CRM from one that truly accelerates sales!

What is Freshsales?

Freshsales is a sales CRM from Freshworks designed specifically for small to mid-sized teams seeking an intuitive interface paired with robust automation features. Users can seamlessly integrate Gmail or Microsoft 365, opting for either one-way or two-way sync to ensure that email threads remain consistent between their inbox and the CRM. When combined with templates, bulk email capabilities, and activity timelines, email becomes an essential tool for representatives managing their leads and opportunities.

What is Attio?

Attio is a contemporary, customizable CRM designed as a collaborative workspace, enabling teams to centralize contacts, companies, and deals within a single live database. It integrates with Gmail and Microsoft 365, automatically syncing emails and calendar events to ensure every communication appears on the correct contact or opportunity timeline. Users can send emails directly from their connected inboxes within Attio, utilizing templates and tracking engagement all in one place.

Feature comparison of Freshsales and Attio

Integration Capabilities

Freshsales provides native plugins for both Gmail and Outlook, showcasing email threads, scheduling tools, and relevant contact details directly in your inbox. Once connected, Freshsales automatically scans incoming emails for recognized contact addresses and logs conversations, allowing you to minimize clutter by selecting which folders to sync.

In contrast, Attio lacks a built-in inbox or calendar plugin and instead utilizes Zapier’s Email by Zapier or Pipedream to capture both inbound and outbound emails, reflecting them in Attio’s contact timelines. You can easily set up triggers like “New Email Received” or “Send Email” and map fields such as subject, body, and attachments to corresponding Attio properties.

Sync Frequency and Reliability

Freshsales seamlessly integrates with your Gmail or Outlook account through native plugins, ensuring a constant connection that enables real-time syncing of emails and calendar events. Incoming messages from recognized leads are displayed within seconds, and any outgoing emails logged in the CRM are instantly reflected in your email thread. Additionally, calendar events update immediately, guaranteeing that meetings scheduled in Freshsales appear in your personal calendar without any delay.

In contrast, Attio depends on Zapier or Pipedream to capture email and calendar events, meaning the sync frequency is contingent on the plan you choose for your automation platform.

Two-Way Email and Calendar Sync

Freshsales offers a comprehensive Marketing Campaigns module—simply go to Campaigns > Email to create email blasts or automated Journeys based on user behaviors. With drag-and-drop templates, dynamic segments, and analytics dashboards, you can easily track delivery rates, opens, clicks, and unsubscribes. Additionally, built-in retry logic and ISP throttling enhance your email deliverability. However, keep in mind that more advanced features, such as heat-map click analysis and AI-driven send-time optimization, require an upgrade to Freshmarketer.

Attio stands out by seamlessly integrating your email and calendar data during the onboarding process: just connect your Google or Microsoft account, and Attio will automatically import email events and calendar appointments as CRM activities in real time.

Mail Merge and Campaigns

Freshsales features a comprehensive Marketing Campaigns module—simply navigate to Campaigns > Email to create mass emails or automated Journeys based on user behavior. With drag-and-drop templates, dynamic segments, and analytics dashboards, you can easily track delivery rates, opens, clicks, and unsubscribes. Additionally, built-in retry logic and ISP throttling enhance deliverability. However, note that advanced features such as heat-map click analysis and AI-driven send-time optimization require an upgrade to Freshmarketer.

In contrast, Attio lacks a native mail-merge or campaign module, so you will need to subscribe to an automation tool like Zapier.

Open and Click Tracking

With Freshsales, you can easily enable the “Track opens and clicks” feature in Settings > Email Settings. This allows every email sent through the native plugin to automatically log open events and link clicks in the contact timeline. You will find delivery, open, and click metrics displayed in both the Deal dashboard and the Campaigns module. However, keep in mind that open tracking relies on image-based pixels—if a recipient blocks images or views links in preview panes, the statistics might be underreported.

On the other hand, Attio does not offer built-in open or click tracking. Instead, email events flow in through Zapier or Pipedream triggers, which means you'll need to create your own pixel and webhook workflows to capture opens and clicks and associate them with contacts. While this setup provides maximum flexibility, it also lacks a user-friendly analytics dashboard; you will have to generate custom reports using your automation platform or BI tool.

In-Inbox CRM Experience

Freshsales offers native plugins for Gmail and Outlook that integrate your CRM sidebar directly into your inbox, allowing you to view lead profiles, deal values, and past email threads while composing or reading messages. With just one click, you can log emails, schedule meetings, and initiate sequences, all seamlessly syncing back to Freshsales. The integration also displays calendar events in the same view, providing a smooth combination of messages and appointments. However, if you prefer a different email client, you'll need to opt for IMAP sync instead of enjoying the full plugin experience.

On the other hand, Attio does not directly embed into your inbox; instead, it relies on tools like Zapier or Pipedream to log emails and events back to Attio’s timeline. While Attio provides a clean, contact-focused view, it lacks a sidebar within Gmail or Outlook for on-the-fly record editing. This approach offers flexibility, but it doesn't quite deliver the seamless in-inbox experience that some may desire.

folk CRM: The Ultimate Email CRM

folk provides teams with the seamless, connected email workflow they've been lacking. It centralizes communication, automates follow-ups, and simplifies sequencing—all within a clean and user-friendly CRM interface. With an impressive 4.5/5 rating on G2, folk is recognized as one of the top lightweight CRMs tailored for modern sales and partnership teams.

Designed specifically for startups, agencies, and scaling sales teams of 20-50 members, folk ensures that email operations are straightforward and not overwhelming.

Extract Intel from Emails

One of folk's standout features is its ability to centralize communication and convert every email and call into actionable insights. With native email sync for Gmail and Outlook, along with AI-enhanced analysis, teams can:

• Quickly recap past conversations in a single click with folk's Recap assistant, which gathers information from emails and notes to create a summary, providing context in seconds.
• Time follow-ups effectively by using AI to scan conversations, notifying you when it's time to reach out to a contact and even drafting a response for you.

Email Sequencing & Automation

folk's built-in sequencing engine simplifies the creation of automated outreach flows directly within the CRM. You can design multi-step email sequences, personalize messages using CRM fields, and automatically log every interaction. Whether nurturing leads, conducting outbound campaigns, or re-engaging dormant deals, folk provides a robust yet straightforward sequencing process that eliminates the need for separate tools.

Set conditions based on your CRM data to trigger automatic emails, such as when a deal is closed or upon acquiring a new lead.

AI-Powered Follow-Up Reminders

folk’s AI Follow-Up feature guarantees that no conversation falls through the cracks. By analyzing your email history, it notifies you when a contact hasn’t replied, highlights conversations that have gone cold, and pinpoints the ideal time for re-engagement. Acting as a built-in assistant, it keeps your inbox organized and your pipeline active—without any manual tracking.

folk starts at a competitive $20 per user per month, featuring native email integration and sequences, and offers a convenient 14-day free trial—no credit card required.

Conclusion

In summary, Freshsales excels with its intuitive interface, robust automation, and seamless email integration, making it ideal for small to mid-sized teams. Attio offers a collaborative workspace with live data but lacks built-in email analytics and requires external tools for optimal functionality. However, for teams that rely heavily on email integration, automation, and sequencing, folk stands out as the best alternative, providing an effortless email workflow, AI-powered follow-up reminders, and native sequencing—all designed to supercharge sales efficiency.

Start your 14-day free trial or book a demo today.