Email is the cornerstone of contemporary sales communication, facilitating deal progression, follow-ups, and deeper relationship building.

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

While both HubSpot and Pipedrive provide built-in email workflows, their depth, usability, and influence on daily sales operations vary significantly. For teams prioritizing simplicity and seeking fast, reliable email execution, folk offers one of the cleanest and most effective email integrations available in any CRM, simplifying the process of sending, tracking, and automating outreach directly from your workspace.

Why Email Integration Matters

A robust email integration elevates a CRM from a mere database to a centralized communication hub. Instead of toggling between tabs or relying on disconnected tools, reps can send messages, automate follow-ups, and monitor engagement all from one place.

• Centralized communication: All emails—both sent and received—automatically sync to the appropriate contact or deal.
• Smarter follow-ups: Automated reminders and sequences enable reps to follow up at the ideal moment without manual intervention.
• Real-time tracking: Open rates, clicks, and replies are directly fed into the CRM to inform the next steps.
• Cleaner data: Emails instantly enhance contact profiles with relevant context and conversation history.
• Email templates: Reusable and personalized templates ensure consistency and save time for teams.
• Outreach automation: Send bulk emails, sequences, or triggered messages based on deal stage or contact activity.

When a CRM manages email seamlessly, reps can stop juggling multiple tools and concentrate on conversations that drive revenue. This distinction sets apart 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 within a single contact database. Its email integration allows representatives to connect personal Gmail and Outlook accounts, enabling them to send one-to-one emails, log replies, and initiate sequences directly from either the CRM or their inbox. Features like open and click tracking, templates, and shared timelines ensure that email activity is visible to the entire revenue team.

What is Pipedrive?

Pipedrive is a sales-centric CRM designed around a visual pipeline that assists representatives in tracking deals from initial contact through to closure. Its email synchronization connects seamlessly with Gmail, Outlook, and other IMAP providers, ensuring that every message is automatically logged to the appropriate contact and deal. With an integrated sales inbox and essential tracking and campaign features, teams can manage outreach and pipeline updates all in one place, eliminating the need for multiple tools.

Feature comparison of HubSpot and Pipedrive

Integration Capabilities

HubSpot provides effortless two-way email integration for 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 updates Google Calendar or Office 365 with meeting events, complete with automatic guest invites and timeline entries for comprehensive visibility.

Pipedrive's email sync connects seamlessly with Gmail and Outlook (with IMAP support for other providers), ensuring that every inbound and outbound message is linked to the appropriate contact or deal record. With the Smart Email BCC address feature, you can log messages without leaving your email client—simply add the dynamic BCC, and Pipedrive handles the rest. Additionally, native calendar integration for Google and Microsoft calendars ensures that all your meetings appear automatically on contact timelines, providing a unified view of every customer interaction.

Sync Frequency and Reliability

HubSpot’s email synchronization functions in near real-time with Gmail and Outlook, usually reflecting changes within seconds to a minute. After connecting your account, HubSpot establishes a continuous connection via OAuth, seamlessly pushing and pulling message data to keep your CRM timeline always current. This reliability is further enhanced by HubSpot’s global cloud infrastructure, which boasts an impressive 99.99% uptime for its core services.

Pipedrive’s email sync with Gmail and Outlook is engineered to operate every few minutes, striking a balance between immediacy and system performance. Inbound and outbound messages are captured and matched to contacts or deals in under five minutes, minimizing the chances of missing or delayed logs. Additionally, the IMAP fallback adheres to standard IMAP IDLE protocols for push notifications, providing near-instant updates for compatible providers.

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 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 are in Marketing Hub, Sales Hub users without this add-on encounter limitations on total sends and more basic reporting.

Freshsales comes equipped with native Gmail and Outlook plugins, offering a choice between two-way or one-way email sync during setup, with two-way being the default for seamless integration of both incoming and outgoing emails into your CRM timeline. Additionally, Freshsales supports bi-directional sync for calendars with Google Calendar and Office 365, ensuring that appointments scheduled in either your inbox or the CRM are mirrored back and forth, so your meeting history is easily accessible alongside email conversations in one cohesive timeline.

Mail Merge and Campaigns

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 per user each day. Its intuitive drag-and-drop sequence builder simplifies template creation, manages delays, and detects replies. Meanwhile, Marketing Hub scales to thousands of recipients, featuring 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 encounter limitations on total sends and basic reporting.

Pipedrive’s Group Emailing, available on Advanced plans and above, lets you choose up to 100 contacts from any list to send bulk messages with merge tags and reply tracking. Additionally, the Pipedrive Campaigns add-on provides a specialized module for designing email journeys, segmenting audiences, and analyzing open and click rates, with all replies automatically linked to the appropriate deal or contact. The catch? The Campaigns add-on comes with an additional cost, and its reporting capabilities are more constrained compared to dedicated email-marketing platforms.

Open and Click Tracking

HubSpot Sales effectively tracks opens and clicks for every one-to-one email sent from contact records or through the Sales extension, delivering real-time desktop notifications and logging each event on the timeline. Note that click tracking requires a paid Sales Hub seat, while free users can only see opens. You can view total clicks per link directly in the email activity feed. For advanced attribution features, such as multi-variant link analysis across campaigns, you will need the Marketing Hub, as pure Sales Hub users won't have access to enterprise-level click analytics without the add-on.

Pipedrive offers toggles for “Track email opening” and “Track link opening,” allowing every sent message to capture both opens and clicks, complete with counts and timestamps available in the Mail tab. You have the flexibility to enable or disable tracking per email and can see precisely who clicked which link in the deal view. However, Pipedrive’s reporting is somewhat limited to basic open and click rates, lacking built-in funnel visualization or heat-map insights unless you export the data to a BI tool.

In-Inbox CRM Experience

With the HubSpot Sales extension installed, you can seamlessly view and edit HubSpot records—contacts, companies, and deals—right within Gmail or Outlook. You can easily enroll contacts in sequences and log emails with just one click. A user-friendly CRM sidebar appears next to your inbox, allowing you to create tasks, send template replies, and monitor recent interactions without the need to switch applications. Additionally, it displays lead scores and deal forecasts inline, ensuring that every action you take in your email contributes directly to your pipeline. The only limitation is that if you don't have a paid Sales or Service Hub seat, some of these inbox tools, such as sequences and call logging, remain locked behind a paywall.

Pipedrive’s Gmail Add-on introduces a side panel to your inbox, where you can easily view contact and deal information, update stages, and add new activities without leaving Gmail. You gain instant access to Smart Email BCC, templates, and tracking options all from your inbox, and you can create new leads or deals with a single click. It effectively transforms your mailbox into a Pipedrive cockpit. However, this in-inbox functionality is only available in Chrome or Edge, as there's no equivalent add-on for desktop Outlook.

folk CRM: The Best Email CRM

folk provides teams with the effortless and connected email workflow they’ve been missing. It centralizes communication, automates follow-ups, and simplifies sequencing—all within a clean, intuitive CRM. With a remarkable 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 scaling sales teams of 20-50 members, folk streamlines email operations without overwhelming users.

Extract Intel from Emails

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

• Get a quick recap of past conversations with just one click using folk's Recap assistant, which extracts intel from emails and notes to draft summaries, allowing you to gain context in seconds.
• Follow up at the optimal time as AI scans conversations to remind you when to reach out to a contact and drafts replies for you.

Email Sequencing & Automation

folk’s native 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 nurturing leads, executing outbound campaigns, or re-engaging dormant deals, folk provides a powerful yet straightforward sequencing workflow without needing separate tools.

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

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 replied, highlights conversations that have gone cold, and pinpoints the ideal time 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, with native email integration and sequences, and includes a 14-day free trial—no credit card required.

Conclusion

In conclusion, HubSpot excels with its comprehensive marketing and sales integrations, making it ideal for larger teams needing extensive features. Pipedrive offers a visual pipeline and essential email sync, appealing to those focused on deal tracking. However, for teams that prioritize email integration, automation, and sequencing, folk stands out as the best alternative. Its seamless email workflows, AI-driven follow-up reminders, and straightforward automation make it the perfect CRM for email-heavy sales teams, streamlining processes and enhancing revenue generation.

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