HubSpot vs Copper: Which CRM for agencies wins?

Agencies don’t struggle with “finding tools.” They struggle with keeping pipeline execution consistent while delivery stays on track. When prospect context lives across inboxes, calendars, and spreadsheets, follow-ups slip, handoffs break, and forecasting becomes guesswork. A CRM for agencies has to keep new business moving fast while preserving enough account history to support renewals, upsells, and referrals.

In this article, we’ll explore two popular CRM solutions—HubSpot and Copper—that approach the same problem from different angles. HubSpot is celebrated for its all-in-one capabilities, offering integrated sales, marketing, and service tools that streamline processes within a unified ecosystem. Meanwhile, Copper excels in its seamless integration with Google Workspace, allowing teams to maintain CRM tasks within familiar tools without disrupting their daily workflows.

The right choice for your agency will depend on your existing processes, the degree of integration you require with other tools, and how much administrative oversight you're prepared to commit to optimizing your CRM setup.

What is HubSpot?

HubSpot is a comprehensive all-in-one CRM platform that integrates sales tools with marketing and service functionalities within a unified ecosystem. It's ideal for agencies requiring pipeline tracking, lead capture, email campaigns, and lifecycle reporting all in one place. Teams can define pipelines, log activities, and automate follow-up tasks through workflows, based on their chosen plan. Additionally, the app marketplace accommodates popular agency tools and client-facing systems, making it a preferred option for agencies seeking CRM alongside complementary go-to-market solutions from a single vendor.

What is Copper?

Copper is a CRM solution that prioritizes integration with Google Workspace, enabling users to keep their CRM tasks closely aligned with Gmail and Google Calendar. It suits agencies that conduct most client communications and scheduling within Google tools, allowing for CRM organization without significantly altering their daily routines. Users can track opportunities through pipelines, while contact and account records maintain important relationship context. Workflow automation and integrations can streamline repetitive administrative tasks based on individual setup, making it an excellent choice for teams wanting a CRM structure that complements a Google-centric workflow.

Feature comparison of HubSpot and Copper

Multi-pipeline and Custom Stages

HubSpot enables the creation and management of deal pipelines centered around specific stages, which can be customized in the pipeline settings. As deals progress, they move through these defined stages, and the definitions can be adjusted to align with an agency's approach to qualifying and closing work. Different pipelines can be established to monitor various processes, such as new business versus renewals or distinct service lines, while maintaining unique stages for each pipeline.

Copper also facilitates the creation of multiple pipelines to accommodate different processes with varying stage flows. Pipeline stages can be tailored to ensure the opportunity board reflects how an agency qualifies, scopes, and closes work for each specific approach. Separate pipelines help distinguish between renewals, retainers, and project-based sales, all while utilizing the same CRM data model. Any modifications are managed in the pipeline settings and apply solely to the chosen pipeline.

Client and Deal Activity Tracking

HubSpot maintains activity records on timelines, enabling users to log and associate calls, emails, meetings, notes, and tasks with contacts, companies, and deals. This activity data can populate properties such as the last activity date based on logged interactions. Users can filter activity timelines and associate activities across related records, ensuring that both a deal and its related contact share the same contextual information.

Copper preserves deal context by linking common Google Workspace features and displaying relevant communications and activity details for contacts and opportunities. Calendar synchronization allows users to create and sync events between Copper and Google Calendar, with changes reflecting across both platforms based on the sync settings employed. Users can review activity and relationship histories within records, facilitating seamless handoffs and planning for next steps with accounts and opportunities.

Automation and Workflows

HubSpot offers robust sales reporting through dashboards, the sales analytics suite, and customizable reporting tools. Users can save reports to dashboards and share them with others who have access. With the report builder, custom reports can be crafted to analyze CRM objects and activities, allowing for specific filtering and dataset selection tailored to reporting needs.

Copper Workflow Automation employs a trigger-action model to automatically update or create records in response to defined events. For instance, automation recipes can create tasks from specific triggers, helping to standardize follow-ups and streamline internal handoffs. The behavior of workflows hinges on the established trigger conditions and configured actions, executing according to the account's automation setup.

Reporting and Analytics

HubSpot offers robust sales reporting through its dashboards, sales analytics suite, and customizable reporting tools. Users can save reports to dashboards and share them with others who have access. The report builder enables the creation of custom reports to analyze CRM objects and activities, allowing for filtering and dataset selection tailored to specific reporting needs.

Copper's reporting is centered around dashboards, metrics, and configurable insights that can be easily shared or exported, with options for emailing or exporting dashboards as part of reporting workflows. The setup process includes dashboard templates, filters, and editing controls, allowing users to customize KPIs and views according to the pipeline and tracked activity data. Additional features include scheduled delivery and alert notifications to enhance reporting capabilities.

Integrations and Data Hygiene

HubSpot seamlessly integrates with external tools through its app marketplace, which features a variety of integrations tailored for sales, marketing, and operations. To maintain data hygiene, HubSpot provides essential data quality tools, including deduplication workflows for identifying and handling duplicates, tools for detecting formatting issues, and enrichment coverage options based on your plan. These functionalities are housed under Data Management and Data Quality, allowing teams to review problems and implement corrections to records and properties.

Copper, too, offers integrations with popular tools, including a Zapier integration that connects Copper to a vast array of external applications for automation and data transfer. For data hygiene, Copper provides a duplicate management workflow that enables teams to select and merge duplicate entries for People, Companies, or Leads, thus consolidating records. This ensures that contact history and account context remain associated with a single record, even when duplicates arise from imports or manual entries.

folk: The Best CRM for Agencies in 2026!

folk is an AI-driven CRM that streamlines the organization of contacts, conversations, and deal information without making the setup a cumbersome task. It is tailored for agency teams where various members engage with the same account throughout prospecting, onboarding, delivery, and renewals. The system maintains a visible history of relationships, ensuring that transitions do not rely on memory or disorganized notes.

• Multi-pipeline and custom stages tailored for diverse agency processes
• Contact and deal timelines that consolidate interaction history
• Email and calendar synchronization to link conversations with the appropriate records
• Task management, reminders, and follow-up tracking to ensure consistency in next steps
• Contact enrichment features that complete missing company and contact data
• Deduplication tools to combine duplicates and maintain a clean database
• User-friendly pipeline reporting to track stage performance and deal advancement
• Integrations and automation connectors to minimize manual updates

For agencies, the primary advantage lies in achieving 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 across the team. Data hygiene features like enrichment and deduplication prevent duplicate records and address missing fields, keeping pipeline reporting reliable over time.

Conclusion

In summary, HubSpot shines with its all-in-one capabilities and comprehensive marketing automation, while Copper excels in its seamless Google Workspace integration. However, for teams that prioritize email integration, automation, and streamlined sequencing, folk stands out as the superior alternative. It offers multi-pipeline flexibility, robust task management, and crucial data hygiene features, ensuring agencies maintain operational clarity and consistent follow-ups. Choose folk for a CRM that empowers your agency to thrive in relationship-driven environments.

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