Email is the cornerstone of modern sales communication: it facilitates deal progression, follow-ups, and relationship building.

As teams increasingly turn to automated outreach, multi-channel engagement, and precise tracking, CRMs are competing more than ever based on the quality of their native email integrations.

While Freshsales and HubSpot both provide built-in email workflows, their depth, usability, and influence on daily sales activities vary significantly. For teams prioritizing simplicity and fast, reliable email execution, folk offers one of the most streamlined and effective email integrations in any CRM, allowing users to send, track, and automate outreach seamlessly from their workspace.

Why Email Integration Matters?

Effective email integration elevates a CRM from a basic database to a cohesive communication hub. Instead of toggling between tabs or relying on disconnected tools, representatives can send messages, automate follow-ups, and monitor engagement all in one place.

• Centralized communication. Every email—whether sent or received—automatically syncs to the appropriate contact or deal.
• Smarter follow-ups. Automated reminders and sequences enable representatives to follow up at optimal times without manual intervention.
• Real-time tracking. Open rates, clicks, and replies feed directly into the CRM, informing the next steps.
• Cleaner data. Emails instantly enrich contact profiles with context and conversation history.
• Email templates. Reusable, personalized templates help teams maintain consistency and save time.
• Outreach automation. Execute bulk emails, sequences, or triggered messages based on deal stages or contact activities.

When a CRM manages email seamlessly, representatives can focus on meaningful conversations that drive revenue rather than juggling multiple tools. This distinction sets an outstanding CRM apart from one that merely meets the basic requirements!

What is Freshsales?

Freshsales is a sales CRM from Freshworks tailored for small to mid-sized teams seeking an intuitive interface and robust automation features. Users can easily connect their Gmail or Microsoft 365 accounts, selecting between one-way or two-way synchronization to keep email threads perfectly aligned with the CRM. Coupled with templates, bulk emailing capabilities, and activity timelines, email becomes an integral part of how sales representatives manage their leads and opportunities.

What is HubSpot?

HubSpot is a comprehensive CRM platform that consolidates marketing, sales, and customer service within a single contact database. Its email integration seamlessly connects personal Gmail and Outlook inboxes, enabling sales reps to send personalized emails, log replies, and initiate sequences directly from either the CRM or their inboxes. Features like open and click tracking, templates, and shared timelines ensure that email activity is visible across the entire revenue team.

Feature comparison of Freshsales and HubSpot

Integration Capabilities

Freshsales provides native plugins for Gmail and Outlook, allowing you to view email threads, scheduling tools, and relevant contact information directly within your inbox. Once connected, Freshsales automatically scans incoming emails for known contacts and logs conversations, reducing clutter by allowing you to select which folders to sync.

HubSpot features smooth two-way email integration with Gmail, Outlook, and any IMAP-compatible provider, enabling you to send one-on-one emails straight from contact records while automatically logging replies in your CRM timeline. Its built-in scheduler also updates meeting events in Google Calendar or Office 365, including automatic guest invites and timeline entries for comprehensive visibility.

Sync Frequency and Reliability

Freshsales offers native plugins that establish a continuous connection to your Gmail or Outlook account, allowing for real-time synchronization of email and calendar events. Incoming messages from known leads appear within seconds, while outgoing emails logged from the CRM are instantly reflected in your email thread. Additionally, calendar events synchronize immediately, ensuring that meetings scheduled in Freshsales are promptly displayed in your personal calendar.

HubSpot’s email synchronization operates almost in real-time with Gmail and Outlook, typically updating changes within seconds to a minute. After you connect your account, HubSpot maintains a constant connection through OAuth, continuously pushing and pulling message data so that your CRM timeline remains current. The reliability of this system is reinforced by HubSpot’s global cloud infrastructure, which boasts an impressive 99.99% uptime for its core services.

Two-Way Email and Calendar Sync

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

HubSpot’s CRM seamlessly connects via OAuth to Gmail, Outlook, or any IMAP-compatible provider, enabling true two-way email sync—send and receive one-on-one emails directly from contact records, with every reply logged within seconds to the appropriate timeline event. On the calendar front, HubSpot's native integrations with Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar facilitate bi-directional sync: meetings created in your external calendar appear on contact, company, or deal timelines, while events scheduled in HubSpot automatically sync back to your calendar along with guest invites.

Mail Merge and Campaigns

Freshsales offers a comprehensive Marketing Campaigns module—simply go to Campaigns > Email to design email blasts or automated Journeys based on user behaviors. With drag-and-drop templates, dynamic segmentation, and analytics dashboards, you can easily track delivery rates, opens, clicks, and unsubscribes. Additionally, built-in retry logic and ISP throttling enhance 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.

HubSpot’s Sales Hub Professional and Enterprise enable powerful one-to-one sequences, allowing you to enroll up to 50 contacts simultaneously and send hundreds of personalized emails per user each day. Its intuitive drag-and-drop sequence builder simplifies template creation, manages delays, and detects replies, while Marketing Hub can scale to thousands of recipients with advanced segmentation, A/B testing, and detailed analytics on opens, clicks, and bounces. However, because the most robust campaign features are found in Marketing Hub, Sales Hub users without this add-on may face limitations on total sends and access to more basic reporting.

Open and Click Tracking

Freshsales allows you to enable “Track opens and clicks” in Settings > Email Settings, ensuring that every email sent through the native plugin captures open events and link clicks in the contact timeline. Metrics for delivery, opens, and clicks are available in both the Deal dashboard and Campaigns module. Keep in mind that open rates rely on image-based pixels; if a recipient blocks images or views links in preview panes, the statistics may be underreported.

HubSpot Sales monitors opens and clicks for every one-to-one email sent from contact records or via the Sales extension, providing real-time desktop notifications and logging each event on the timeline. Please note that click tracking requires a paid Sales Hub seat—free users can only see opens—and you can track total clicks per link directly in the email activity feed. For advanced attribution, such as multi-variant link analysis across campaigns, you'll need the Marketing Hub, as pure Sales Hub users won't access enterprise-level click analytics without the add-on.

In-Inbox CRM Experience

With Freshsales’ native Gmail and Outlook plugins, your CRM sidebar is seamlessly integrated into your inbox, allowing you to access lead profiles, deal values, and previous email threads while composing or reading messages. You can log emails, schedule meetings, and initiate sequences with a simple click, all while enjoying one-click sync back to Freshsales. The plugin also displays calendar events alongside your messages, creating a harmonious blend of your communications and appointments. However, if you prefer another email client, you will need to utilize IMAP sync instead of experiencing the full plugin functionality.

By installing the HubSpot Sales extension, you can view and edit HubSpot records—such as contacts, companies, and deals—directly within Gmail or Outlook. Enrolling contacts in sequences and logging emails is a breeze with just one click. A user-friendly CRM sidebar appears next to your inbox, enabling you to create tasks, send template replies, and review recent interactions without the need to switch applications. Additionally, it displays lead scores and deal forecasts inline, ensuring that every action you take in email contributes directly to your pipeline. The downside is that if you do not have a paid Sales or Service Hub subscription, some of these in-inbox features (like sequences and call logging) will be inaccessible, remaining behind a paywall.

folk CRM: The Ultimate Email CRM

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

Designed specifically for startups, agencies, and growing sales teams of 20-50, folk streamlines email operations without overwhelming users.

Extract Intel from Emails

One of folk's standout features is its ability to consolidate communication and convert every email and call into actionable insights through native email sync with Gmail and Outlook, along with AI-driven analysis. Teams can:

• Quickly recap past conversations with a click using folk's Recap assistant, which extracts insights from emails and notes to create a summary, providing context in seconds.
• Follow up at optimal times, as AI scans conversations to alert you when it's time to reconnect with a contact and even drafts a response for you.

Email Sequencing & Automation

folk’s built-in sequencing engine enables you to craft automated outreach flows directly within the CRM. You can create multi-step email sequences, personalize messages using CRM fields, and automatically log every interaction. Whether nurturing leads, executing outbound campaigns, or re-engaging inactive deals, folk provides a powerful yet straightforward sequencing workflow without the need for additional tools.

Set conditions based on CRM variables to automatically send emails, like when a deal closes or when a new lead is acquired.

AI-Powered Follow-Up Reminders

folk’s AI Follow-Up feature ensures that no conversation slips through the cracks. By analyzing your email history, folk notifies you when a contact hasn't responded, highlights cold conversations, and pinpoints the ideal time to re-engage. It's like having a built-in assistant that keeps your inbox tidy and your pipeline active—eliminating the need for manual tracking.

folk starts at just $20 per user per month, includes native email integration and sequences, and offers a 14-day free trial—no credit card needed.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while Freshsales excels with its user-friendly interface and robust email automation features, and HubSpot integrates marketing, sales, and customer service effectively, folk stands out as the premier choice for teams that prioritize seamless email integration, automation, and sequencing. With its intuitive design, AI-driven follow-up reminders, and efficient workflow, folk transforms email into a powerful revenue-generating tool, making it the best alternative for email-centric teams seeking a streamlined CRM experience.

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