Email is the cornerstone of modern sales communication, serving as the platform where deals progress, follow-ups are initiated, and relationships are nurtured.

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

While HubSpot and Freshsales both provide built-in email workflows, their effectiveness, user experience, and influence on daily sales operations vary significantly. For teams prioritizing simplicity and swift, dependable email execution, folk presents one of the cleanest and most robust email integrations available in any CRM, facilitating effortless 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 separate 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 are integrated directly into the CRM, informing subsequent actions.
• Cleaner data. Emails instantly enrich contact profiles with context and conversation history.
• Email templates. Reusable personalized templates ensure consistency and save time for teams.
• Outreach automation. Send bulk emails, sequences, or triggered messages based on deal stages or contact activity.

When a CRM manages email seamlessly, representatives can shift their focus from juggling tools to engaging in conversations that drive revenue. This distinction defines a good CRM from one that genuinely accelerates sales!

What is HubSpot?

HubSpot is a comprehensive CRM platform that integrates marketing, sales, and customer service into a unified contact database. Its email integration allows representatives to seamlessly connect their personal Gmail and Outlook inboxes, enabling them to send personalized emails, log replies, and initiate sequences directly from either the CRM or their inboxes. Features like open and click tracking, customizable templates, and shared timelines ensure that email activity is transparent across the entire revenue team.

What is Freshsales?

Freshsales is the sales CRM from Freshworks tailored for small and mid-sized teams looking for a user-friendly interface paired with robust automation capabilities. Users can easily connect their Gmail or Microsoft 365 accounts and opt for either one-way or two-way sync, ensuring that conversations remain synchronized between the mailbox and CRM. With features such as templates, bulk emailing, and activity timelines, email becomes a pivotal element in how representatives manage their leads and opportunities.

Feature comparison of HubSpot and Freshsales

Integration Capabilities

HubSpot provides seamless two-way email integration with Gmail, Outlook, and any IMAP-compatible provider, enabling you to send one-to-one emails directly from contact records while automatically logging every reply in your CRM timeline. Its built-in scheduler syncs meeting events with Google Calendar or Office 365, ensuring automatic guest invites and timeline entries for complete visibility.

Freshsales features native plugins for Gmail and Outlook that display email threads, scheduling tools, and related contact details directly in your inbox. Once connected, Freshsales automatically scans incoming emails for recognized contact addresses and logs conversations, helping you maintain a clutter-free environment by allowing you to choose which folders to sync.

Sync Frequency and Reliability

HubSpot's email synchronization operates almost in real-time with Gmail and Outlook, typically updating changes within seconds to a minute. After connecting your account, HubSpot establishes a persistent OAuth connection, continuously pushing and pulling message data to keep your CRM timeline updated. This reliability is enhanced by HubSpot's robust global cloud infrastructure, which guarantees an impressive 99.99% uptime for its core services.

Freshsales, on the other hand, connects through native plugins that maintain a constant link to your Gmail or Outlook account, allowing for real-time synchronization of emails and calendar events. Incoming messages for known leads appear within seconds, while outgoing emails logged from the CRM instantly reflect in your email thread. Additionally, calendar events are updated immediately, ensuring that meetings scheduled in Freshsales are promptly reflected in your personal calendar.

Two-Way Email and Calendar Sync

HubSpot’s Sales Hub Professional and Enterprise offer powerful one-to-one sequences, allowing you to enroll up to 50 contacts at once and send hundreds of personalized emails daily per user. Its intuitive drag-and-drop sequence builder simplifies template creation, manages delays, and detects replies. Meanwhile, the Marketing Hub can scale to thousands of recipients, providing advanced features like segmentation, A/B testing, and comprehensive analytics on opens, clicks, and bounces. However, since the most advanced campaign features are exclusive to Marketing Hub, Sales Hub users without this add-on encounter limitations on total sends and access to more basic reporting.

Freshsales provides native plugins for Gmail and Outlook, featuring a setup option for either two-way or one-way email sync—with two-way being the default. This ensures that both incoming and outgoing emails seamlessly integrate with your CRM timeline. Additionally, Freshsales supports bi-directional calendar sync with Google Calendar and Office 365, allowing appointments scheduled in either your inbox or the CRM to mirror each other, so that your meeting history is conveniently displayed alongside email conversations in the same timeline.

Mail Merge and Campaigns

HubSpot’s Sales Hub Professional and Enterprise offer powerful one-to-one sequences, enabling you to enroll up to 50 contacts at once 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 features like segmentation, A/B testing, and comprehensive analytics on opens, clicks, and bounces. However, since the most advanced campaign features reside in Marketing Hub, Sales Hub users without this add-on may encounter limitations on total sends and more basic reporting.

Freshsales features a complete Marketing Campaigns module—simply navigate to Campaigns > Email to create email blasts or automated Journeys that respond to user behaviors. With drag-and-drop templates, dynamic segments, and analytics dashboards, you can track delivery rates, opens, clicks, and unsubscribes. Built-in retry logic and ISP throttling enhance deliverability. Keep in mind, though, that advanced features like heat-map click analysis or AI-driven send-time optimization require an upgrade to Freshmarketer.

Open and Click Tracking

HubSpot Sales tracks opens and clicks for every one-to-one email sent from contact records or through 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 view open metrics. You can check the total clicks per link directly in the email activity feed. Advanced attribution features, such as multi-variant link analysis across campaigns, are available in Marketing Hub, meaning pure Sales Hub users will miss out on enterprise-level click analytics without the add-on.

Freshsales allows you to enable “Track opens and clicks” in Settings > Email Settings, ensuring that every email sent via the native plugin records open events and link clicks in the contact timeline. Delivery, open, and click metrics are accessible in both the Deal dashboard and Campaigns module. However, be aware that open metrics rely on image-based pixels; if a recipient blocks images or views links in preview panes, you may encounter underreported statistics.

In-Inbox CRM Experience

By installing the HubSpot Sales extension, you can effortlessly view and edit HubSpot records—contacts, companies, and deals—directly within Gmail or Outlook. With a single click, you can enroll contacts in sequences and log emails. A user-friendly CRM sidebar appears alongside your inbox, allowing you to create tasks, send template replies, and review recent interactions without needing to switch applications. Additionally, it displays lead scores and deal forecasts inline, ensuring that every action taken in your email contributes directly to your pipeline. The only downside is that without a paid Sales or Service Hub seat, some in-inbox features (such as sequences and call logging) remain inaccessible due to a paywall.

Freshsales' native plugins for Gmail and Outlook integrate your CRM sidebar seamlessly into your inbox, showcasing lead profiles, deal values, and past email threads while you compose or read messages. You can log emails, schedule meetings, and initiate sequences with a simple click, syncing back to Freshsales effortlessly. The plugin also incorporates calendar events into the same view, offering a smooth amalgamation of messages and appointments. However, if you prefer using a different email client, you'll need to utilize IMAP sync instead of experiencing the full capabilities of the plugin.

folk CRM: The Ultimate Email CRM

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

Designed specifically for startups, agencies, and sales teams of 20-50, folk streamlines email operations, making them efficient rather than overwhelming.

Extract Insights from Emails

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

• Easily review past conversations with a single click using folk's Recap assistant, which compiles insights from emails and notes to draft a summary, providing context within seconds.
• Time follow-ups perfectly as the AI scans conversations to alert you when to follow up and even drafts a reply 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 you're nurturing leads, executing outbound campaigns, or re-engaging dormant opportunities, folk provides a robust yet straightforward sequencing process without the need for additional tools.

Set conditions based on your CRM variables to automatically send emails when a deal closes or when a new lead is generated.

AI-Powered Follow-Up Reminders

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

folk starts at a competitive $20 per user per month, offering native email integration and sequences, along with a 14-day free trial—no credit card needed.

Conclusion

HubSpot excels in comprehensive features and real-time email integration, making it ideal for larger teams needing robust tracking. Freshsales offers an intuitive interface and effective automation, catering well to small and mid-sized teams. However, folk stands out as the best choice for teams focused on seamless email integration, automation, and efficient sequencing. With its user-friendly design and AI-driven follow-ups, folk transforms email into a powerful tool for driving sales, ensuring that no opportunity is missed.

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