Choosing the right CRM is crucial for the success of any small to medium-sized business (SMB). Two popular options are Airtable and HubSpot CRM, each offering unique features and benefits. One is more of a traditional CRM while the other is a spreadsheet database. 

Airtable is known for its flexibility and customizable database capabilities, making it ideal for businesses that need tailored solutions. On the other hand, HubSpot CRM provides a comprehensive suite of tools designed for seamless sales and marketing integration.

However, for teams of 20-50 people managing customer relationships, folk CRM has emerged as the superior choice, offering the perfect balance of functionality and ease of use.

👉🏼 Try folk now to manage contact-based reminders with your team

Figuring out which CRM is best for your SMB depends on your specific needs and priorities. In this blog post, we will compare Airtable and HubSpot CRM to help you decide which platform aligns best with your business goals and operations. We'll also introduce folk, just so you can make an informed decision.

What is Airtable?

Airtable is spreadsheet-database hybrid tool, which allows users to organize and track different types of data. One of the key benefits of Airtable is its flexibility and versatility, which makes it ideal for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with various needs such as content management, CRM, project management, and more. It comes with a great library of templates that you can use and adapt to your unique needs.

What is HubSpot?

HubSpot is a cloud-based software company that offers a suite of tools designed to help businesses grow their revenue. One of the key benefits of HubSpot is its famously free CRM that can be enhanced further with the addition of various Hubs for Marketing, Sales, Service, and CMS.

folk CRM: Another alternative to consider

folk is a CRM platform that offers a simple and intuitive interface designed specifically for growing teams of 20-50 people. It offers features like pipeline management, task management, team collaboration, and integrations that scale perfectly with mid-size sales and marketing teams.

Hubspot vs Airtable vs folk: Everyting You Need to Know!

Airtable is flexible but doesn't offer core CRM functionalities such as email & calendar integration, mail merge & campaigns, analytics on emails, deduplication and enrichment of contacts, and more. For any team really serious about its CRM usage, the recommendation is to go rather for a real CRM system.

Hubspot works great for teams that need advanced usage in term of marketing automation and newsletter management. Otherwise, the tool can feel a bit clunky for modern users.

folk is simple, easy-to-use and works perfectly for growing SMBs with 20-50 team members looking for a powerful yet manageable CRM system that scales with their business needs.

👉🏼 Try folk now to never miss a follow-up and track mail merge performance

Ease of Use

When it comes to ease of use, Airtable is known for its intuitive and user-friendly interface. It offers a drag-and-drop system that allows users to easily create and customize databases, as well as a variety of templates to choose from.

HubSpot, on the other hand, has been built on the promise of being an easy-to-use CRM compared to Salesforce. However, it is a tool that was built 15 years ago, and while it may have fulfilled that promise at the time, it can now feel a bit outdated.

For teams of 20-50 people, folk CRM offers the ideal combination of modern interface design and functionality that doesn't overwhelm mid-sized teams. Its clean, intuitive design allows team members to get up and running quickly without extensive training, making it particularly well-suited for growing businesses that need efficiency without complexity.

Integrations

Both Airtable and HubSpot have strong integrations with other apps. Airtable integrates with over 1,500 apps, including popular tools like Zapier, Slack, and Google Drive. That being said, Airtable being a spreadsheet tool, it doesn't offer native objects such as people, companies and interactions that make it easy to map the data into the system.

HubSpot, on the other hand, integrates natively with over 800 apps, and even has its own Operations Hub, which allows users to connect apps bi-directionally, so any data generated both on HubSpot and out is updated everywhere.

Folk integrates with the most popular apps including Gmail, Google Calendar, Outlook, Zapier, and more. One of the key benefits it offers is a really powerful chrome extension to bring contacts from any website and update it in one click.

This chrome extension works on LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, Twitter, Gmail, Instagram, Tiktok, among others.

Mail Merge

When it comes to mail merge, Airtable isn't really built to a CRM. It offers integrations with other tools such as Mailchimp but mail merge and email sending from Airtable remains limited today.

Hubspot offers email scheduling, email tracking and notifications, email reply tracking, and email templates. It's probably more suited initially to be a newsletter tool but it also offer "basic" emailing functionalities.

For mail merge, when customizing your email on folk, it's very easy to insert variable fields as shown in the image below

Furthermore, it's much easier to send personalized mail merge messages when you have full context on a contact: folk stores your history of interactions in the form of emails exchanged, calendar events, and any other interactions that you can manually add.

It's also easy to track the results of the campaigns by viewing opened, clicked and bounced rates.

Pipeline Management

Airtable offers a simple pipeline board. HubSpot, on the other hand, offers a more advanced pipeline management system that allows users to track deals, automate tasks, and get insights into sales performance. But it can feel very manual and a bit clunky to users accustomed to modern interfaces

folk offers a simple and intuitive pipeline management system that allows users to track people and companies, and collaborate with team members.

Pros & Cons

Airtable

Price: Starts from $20/seat/month billed annually

Key features

• Spreadsheet-database hybrid
• Not a traditional CRM
• Customizable views
• Integrations
• Collaboration

Pros

• Intuitive and user-friendly interface
• Flexible and versatile
• Strong integration with over 1,500 apps

Cons

• Limited pipeline management capabilities
• Less advanced email marketing features
• Not suited for contacts and companies, not built to be a CRM

HubSpot

Price: Starts from $15/seat/month for lightweight features only

Key features

• Contact management
• Email marketing and automation
• Sales pipeline management
• Integration marketplace

Pros

• Free CRM with a ton of value
• More advanced pipeline management system
• More advanced email marketing features
• Integrates natively with over 800 apps

Cons

• Can be expensive and plans grow very fast
• Outdated UX

folk

Price: Starts from $17.5/seat/month

Pros

• Simple and intuitive interface
• Affordable pricing
• Strong integration with popular apps: WhatsApp, Linkedin, Gmail, Outlook, etc.
• Task management and team collaboration features
• Strong mail merge functionalities

Cons

• Lack of analytics

Conclusion

Overall, Airtable, HubSpot, and Folk offer unique benefits for SMBs, depending on their needs. Airtable is ideal for those looking for a flexible and versatile tool with strong integrations, while HubSpot is ideal for those looking for a more advanced marketing features. Folk is a great option for those looking for a simple and affordable CRM with basic pipeline management and collaboration features. Ultimately, it comes down to what your business needs to succeed.

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FAQ

What is the difference between HubSpot and Airtable?

Airtable is a flexible spreadsheet-database, not a native CRM. HubSpot is a full CRM with sales and marketing tools, pipelines, and automation. Airtable lacks built-in CRM objects and emailing; HubSpot provides those capabilities.

Is Airtable a CRM?

Not exactly. Airtable can mimic CRM lists, but it lacks core CRM features like native email and calendar sync, mail merge, contact deduplication, and enrichment. It suits lightweight tracking more than end-to-end relationship management.

Which CRM is best for SMBs?

For SMB teams of 20–50, folk offers a simple UI, pipeline and task management, mail merge with tracking, team collaboration, and key integrations. HubSpot fits advanced marketing automation needs. Airtable suits flexible databases, not full CRM.

Which tool handles email and mail merge best?

Airtable's emailing is limited and relies on integrations. HubSpot provides robust email marketing and automation. folk enables personalized mail merge with variables, plus open, click, and bounce tracking tied to each contact's history.