Email remains the cornerstone of modern sales communication; it's the platform where deals progress, follow-ups occur, and relationships strengthen.

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

While both Freshsales and Monday CRM provide built-in email workflows, their effectiveness, usability, and influence on daily sales operations vary significantly. For teams prioritizing simplicity and seeking quick, reliable email execution, folk offers one of the most streamlined and robust email integrations available in any CRM—enabling seamless sending, tracking, and automation of outreach directly from your workspace.

Why Does Email Integration Matter?

Effective email integration elevates a CRM from a mere database to a cohesive communication hub. Rather than toggling between tabs or relying on disparate tools, reps can send messages, automate follow-ups, and monitor engagement all from a single interface.

• Centralized communication: All emails—both sent and received—sync automatically with the appropriate contact or deal.
• Smarter follow-ups: Automated reminders and sequences empower reps to follow up at just the right moment, eliminating manual effort.
• Real-time tracking: Open rates, clicks, and replies are captured directly in the CRM to inform subsequent actions.
• Cleaner data: Emails instantly enhance contact profiles with relevant context and conversation history.
• Email templates: Reusable, personalized templates enable teams to maintain consistency while saving time.
• Outreach automation: Send bulk emails, sequences, or triggered messages based on deal stages or contact activity.

When a CRM manages email seamlessly, reps can drop the juggling act of multiple tools and concentrate on conversations that generate revenue. That's the key distinction between a good CRM and one that truly accelerates sales!

What is Freshsales?

Freshsales is Freshworks’ sales CRM tailored for small to mid-sized teams seeking an intuitive interface with robust automation features. Users can easily connect their Gmail or Microsoft 365 accounts and opt for one-way or two-way synchronization, ensuring that conversations are seamlessly integrated between their mailbox and the CRM. When combined with features like templates, bulk emailing, and activity timelines, email becomes a fundamental tool for sales representatives as they manage leads and opportunities.

What is Monday CRM?

monday sales CRM is developed on the monday.com work management platform, providing teams with a visual interface to manage their pipelines alongside various projects. The Emails & Activities app integrates with Gmail and Outlook, allowing users to send, receive, and log emails directly from their boards while monitoring opens and replies at the point of action. With templates and automations, teams can standardize follow-ups and ensure that lead statuses, tasks, and email histories are consistently updated.

Feature comparison of Freshsales and Monday CRM

Integration Capabilities

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

Monday CRM’s Emails & Activities app allows you to connect up to six Gmail or Outlook accounts for a seamless two-way sync, ensuring that sent or received emails appear as items on your boards alongside calls and tasks. Although it lacks native calendar syncing within the CRM, you can create simple automations or use Monday’s Calendar view to visualize your scheduled events.

Sync Frequency and Reliability

Freshsales connects seamlessly through native plugins, establishing a continuous link to your Gmail or Outlook account while syncing emails and calendar events in real time. Incoming messages from known leads appear within seconds, and any outgoing emails logged in the CRM are instantly reflected in your email thread. Calendar events are also synced immediately, ensuring that meetings scheduled in Freshsales are promptly visible in your personal calendar.

In contrast, Monday CRM’s Emails & Activities app synchronizes your inbox every few minutes by default, regularly polling Gmail and Outlook for new messages to convert into board items. Although this introduces a slight delay compared to push-based systems, updates typically appear within two to three minutes. If you require faster updates, you can adjust polling intervals or implement custom webhooks for sub-minute responsiveness.

Two-Way Email and Calendar Sync

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

Monday’s Emails & Activities app offers native two-way email synchronization for Gmail and Outlook through straightforward integration recipes—new messages and replies automatically convert into pulses on your boards, ensuring all communications are tracked alongside your deals. Calendar items sync seamlessly using Monday’s Calendar Sync feature: date or timeline columns align with Google Calendar, Outlook, iCal, or any external calendar, with events reflecting on both your board and calendar within minutes.

Mail Merge and Campaigns

Freshsales features a comprehensive Marketing Campaigns module—simply head to Campaigns > Email to set up blast emails or automated Journeys linked to user behaviors. With intuitive drag-and-drop templates, dynamic segments, and analytics dashboards, you can easily track delivery rates, opens, clicks, and unsubscribes. The integrated retry logic and ISP throttling enhance deliverability. However, note that advanced features like heat-map click analysis and AI-driven send-time optimization require an upgrade to Freshmarketer.

Monday CRM’s Emails & Activities app allows synchronization with up to six Gmail or Outlook accounts, along with a Group Emailing action that facilitates bulk messaging to board items and contact lists. Utilize monday.com automations to automate follow-ups or connect with Mailchimp for comprehensive email marketing capabilities. Keep in mind, though, that without Mailchimp (or a similar integration), you will have limited campaign analytics, providing only basic send logs on your boards.

Open and Click Tracking

Freshsales allows you to enable the 'Track opens and clicks' feature in Settings > Email Settings, ensuring that every email sent through the native plugin captures open events and link clicks in the contact timeline. You'll find delivery, open, and click metrics reflected in both the Deal dashboard and Campaigns module. However, keep in mind that open rates depend on image-based pixels; if a recipient blocks images or views links in preview panes, your stats may be underreported.

The Emails & Activities app in Monday logs message opens when emailing directly through the board interface, but it does not natively track clicked links. To obtain click-through rates, you'll need to embed links with UTM parameters and either pull the data into your board through automations or integrate a marketing tool like Mailchimp.

In-Inbox CRM Experience

Freshsales offers native plugins for Gmail and Outlook that seamlessly integrate your CRM sidebar into your inbox, displaying lead profiles, deal values, and past email threads while you read or compose messages. With just a click, you can log emails, schedule meetings, and initiate sequences, all of which sync back to Freshsales effortlessly. Plus, the plugin brings calendar events into the view, providing a harmonious mix of messages and appointments. However, if you prefer another email client, you'll need to rely on IMAP sync instead of enjoying the full plugin experience.

On the other hand, monday.com’s Emails & Activities app resides on your boards rather than in your inbox. By connecting Gmail or Outlook, your emails transform into pulses related to specific items, allowing you to reply or add notes directly within monday.com. This setup is perfect for visual teams that organize everything on boards, but keep in mind that it's not a true in-inbox sidebar—you'll be working in monday.com instead of your email client.

folk CRM: The Best Email CRM

folk provides teams with the seamless, interconnected email workflow they've been searching for. It consolidates communication, automates follow-ups, and simplifies sequencing, all within a sleek, user-friendly CRM. With an impressive 4.5/5 rating on G2, folk is recognized as one of the top-rated lightweight CRMs tailored for contemporary sales and partnership teams.

Designed specifically for startups, agencies, and growing sales teams of 20-50 members, folk streamlines email operations, making them efficient without being overwhelming.

Extract Intel from Emails

One of folk's standout features is its capacity to centralize communication, transforming every email and call into actionable insights. With native email synchronization for Gmail and Outlook, coupled with AI-driven analysis, teams can:

• Instantly recap past conversations with a click by using folk's Recap assistant, which extracts information from emails and notes to generate a summary, providing you with context in seconds.
• Follow up at the optimal time, as the AI analyzes conversations to alert you when to reach out to a contact and even drafts responses.

Email Sequencing & Automation

folk’s native sequencing engine simplifies the creation of automated outreach flows directly within the CRM. You can build multi-step email sequences, personalize messages using CRM variables, and automatically log every interaction. Whether you're nurturing leads, executing outbound campaigns, or re-engaging inactive deals, folk offers a robust yet straightforward sequencing workflow that eliminates the need for additional tools.

Set conditions based on CRM parameters to automatically send emails when a deal closes or when you acquire a new lead.

AI-Powered Follow-Up Reminders

folk’s AI Follow-Up feature guarantees that no conversation slips through the cracks. By reviewing your email history, folk notifies you when a contact hasn't responded, highlights dormant conversations, and pinpoints the ideal moments to re-engage. It functions like a built-in assistant, keeping your inbox organized and your pipeline active—without any manual tracking.

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

Conclusion

In conclusion, Freshsales excels with its robust native email integration and intuitive interface, perfect for small teams seeking seamless communication. Monday CRM offers a visual project management approach, integrating email functionality for organized tracking. However, for teams that prioritize email integration, automation, and sequencing, folk stands out as the best alternative. With its streamlined workflows, AI-driven reminders, and comprehensive email sequencing, folk transforms email into a powerful revenue engine, ensuring your sales efforts are both efficient and effective.

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