HubSpot vs Insightly: 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.

HubSpot and Insightly address these challenges from distinct perspectives. HubSpot is a comprehensive CRM platform that offers a suite of integrated sales, marketing, and service tools, making it particularly suitable for agencies that require streamlined pipeline tracking and lifecycle reporting in one location. On the other hand, Insightly presents a project-oriented CRM that connects sales processes with delivery and post-sale activities, ensuring that deal management aligns seamlessly with client execution, especially in project-based engagements.

The right choice hinges on your agency's specific needs, whether that’s HubSpot’s all-in-one solution designed for quick lead management or Insightly’s project-focused capabilities that enhance operational workflows.

What is HubSpot?

HubSpot is a comprehensive CRM platform that integrates sales, marketing, and service tools into a unified ecosystem. It is particularly beneficial for agencies requiring pipeline tracking, lead capture, email campaigns, and lifecycle reporting all in one location. Teams can establish pipelines, log activities, and automate follow-up processes through workflows, depending on their subscription plan. Additionally, the app marketplace accommodates popular agency tools and client-facing systems, making it a top choice for agencies seeking a combined CRM and go-to-market solution from a single vendor.

What is Insightly?

Insightly is a CRM that offers project-oriented features, connecting sales records with delivery and post-sale activities. It is especially beneficial for agencies where deal management and client delivery must be aligned, particularly in project-based engagements. Pipelines effectively track opportunities while tasks and activity sets standardize internal processes across different stages. When properly configured, reporting and dashboards provide visibility into both sales and execution metrics, making it an optimal choice for agencies looking for a CRM that closely integrates with delivery workflows.

Feature comparison of HubSpot and Insightly

Multi-pipeline and custom stages

HubSpot enables the creation and management of deal pipelines centered around stages in its pipeline settings. Deals progress through these defined stages, which can be customized to align with an agency's approach to qualifying and closing projects. You can utilize separate pipelines to monitor various processes, such as distinguishing between new business and renewals or different service lines, all while maintaining unique stages for each pipeline.

Insightly's pipeline setup allows for the definition of pipelines and stage lists that cater to various sales strategies. Separate pipelines can delineate agency workflows like new business, renewals, and partner referrals, ensuring that stages remain distinct for each pipeline. As processes evolve, stages can be modified, allowing opportunity tracking to reflect current qualification and delivery handoffs. Insightly implements pipeline logic at the record level, ensuring that each opportunity adheres to a specific stage flow.

Client and Deal Activity Tracking

HubSpot efficiently records activities on timelines, enabling users to log and associate calls, emails, meetings, notes, and tasks with contacts, companies, and deals. This activity data is instrumental in updating properties such as the last activity date based on logged interactions. Users can filter activity timelines, ensuring that related records—like a deal and its associated contact—share the same logged context.

Insightly's activity tracking focuses on tasks, events, and logged interactions linked to contacts, organizations, and opportunities. With Activity Sets, Insightly allows for the creation of repeatable sequences of tasks and events from templates, helping to standardize follow-ups after discovery calls, proposals, or onboarding processes. Timelines and related lists provide visibility into completed actions and upcoming steps, facilitating a comprehensive review of account history and current commitments during internal transitions.

Automation and Workflows

HubSpot offers comprehensive sales reporting through dashboards, an analytics suite, and customizable reporting tools. Reports can be easily saved to dashboards and shared with authorized users. With the report builder, you can create tailored reports to analyze CRM objects and activities, utilizing filters and dataset selections that align with your reporting objectives.

Insightly's Workflow Automation efficiently executes actions when specific record criteria are met, including field updates, assignments, and task creation. This automation can be integrated with pipeline-driven processes; for instance, you can apply Activity Sets when an opportunity reaches a designated stage in Insightly. The execution of workflows depends on the configuration of triggers and actions in your account, facilitating smooth transitions such as moving a deal to onboarding and generating the corresponding task checklist.

Reporting and Analytics

HubSpot offers sales reporting via dashboards, an analytics suite, and customizable reporting tools. Users can save reports to dashboards and share them with those who have access. The report builder allows for the creation of custom reports to analyze CRM objects and activities, with options for filtering and dataset selection tailored to specific reporting needs.

Insightly's reporting features include dashboards and custom reports derived from CRM objects such as opportunities, activities, and projects. Users can filter reports by owner, pipeline, stage, and time frame, and save them for regular review. Additionally, Insightly enables report scheduling, ensuring stakeholders receive updates automatically without the need for manual exports. The accuracy of pipeline reporting relies on consistent use of stages and thorough activity logging by the team.

Integrations and Data Hygiene

HubSpot seamlessly connects with various external tools via its app marketplace, showcasing integrations tailored for sales, marketing, and operations. To ensure data hygiene, HubSpot offers essential data quality tools, including deduplication workflows for identifying and managing duplicates, formatting issue detection, and enrichment coverage tools, contingent on your plan. These features reside under Data Management and Data Quality, allowing teams to review issues and rectify records and properties as needed.

Insightly provides integration options through its integration layer and connected apps, which vary based on your plan and configuration. Its data hygiene features include duplicate management flows that assist in identifying and merging duplicate contacts, organizations, or leads, ensuring records remain consolidated. Additionally, import behavior can affect duplicates based on the matching rules applied during uploads. Maintaining clean records enhances downstream reporting and minimizes conflicts during automation.

folk: The Best CRM for Agencies in 2026!

folk is an AI-driven CRM that centralizes contacts, conversations, and deal context without complicating the setup process. It's tailored for agency teams where multiple members engage with the same account throughout prospecting, onboarding, delivery, and renewals. This system ensures that relationship history remains transparent, eliminating reliance on memory or scattered notes during handoffs.

• Multi-pipeline and custom stages tailored to various agency workflows
• Contact and deal timelines that consolidate interaction history
• Email and calendar synchronization to link conversations with the appropriate records
• Tasks, reminders, and follow-up tracking to ensure standardized next steps
• Contact enrichment to supplement missing company and contact details
• Deduplication tools to merge duplicates and maintain a clean database
• User-friendly pipeline reporting to oversee stage health and deal progression
• Integrations and automation connectors to minimize manual updates

For agencies, the primary benefit lies in operational clarity across simultaneous relationships. Pipelines can capture diverse revenue streams such as retainers, projects, partnerships, and referrals, while tasks and reminders ensure consistent follow-ups within the team. Furthermore, data hygiene features like enrichment and deduplication help prevent duplicate records and missing information, keeping pipeline reporting effective over time.

Conclusion

In summary, HubSpot excels as a comprehensive solution for agencies needing integrated sales, marketing, and service tools, making it ideal for pipeline tracking and lifecycle reporting. Insightly shines in project-focused CRM capabilities, seamlessly aligning deal management with delivery workflows. However, for teams reliant on email integration, automation, and streamlined sequencing, folk stands out as the most effective alternative. It offers a user-friendly, context-rich environment that supports operational clarity and fosters consistent follow-ups, making it the best choice for agencies.

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