Brevo x Zoho CRM: Which CRM excels at WhatsApp integration?

When WhatsApp fuels your sales strategy, selecting the right CRM can be the key factor that transforms a potential deal into a success story. In the battle of Brevo vs Zoho CRM, you'll find features like instant chat access, seamless message logging, AI-driven follow-ups, and intuitive drag-and-drop workflows; however, each platform offers its own unique approach to customization, pricing transparency, and pipeline management. Meanwhile, a next-gen contender is quietly reshaping the landscape of seamless WhatsApp integration.

Why WhatsApp CRM Integration Matters

Integrating WhatsApp with your CRM creates a direct link between conversations and revenue. With automated contact syncing and message logging, there's no need for tedious manual data entry or the risk of losing leads — every interaction is transformed into an actionable record.

• Accelerate response times by automatically triggering follow-ups and reminders as soon as a customer engages.
• Enhance engagement with personalized outreach that utilizes templates while still feeling custom-made.
• Streamline workflows through a single dashboard that consolidates chats, contacts, and campaign analytics.

When your team can access every WhatsApp message alongside emails, calls, and deals, they spend less time searching for context and more time closing deals — turning casual conversations into reliable conversions.

What is Brevo?

Previously known as Sendinblue, Brevo is a comprehensive growth platform that seamlessly integrates email, SMS, WhatsApp, and live chat, along with a free built-in CRM. Its Aura AI assistant generates impactful campaign copy in seconds and initiates multichannel automations to automatically nurture leads.

Brevo allows you to segment contacts based on behavior or demographics, enabling you to send hyper-targeted messages that truly convert. It’s affordable and highly scalable, making it an ideal solution for teams looking to consolidate marketing and sales efforts. Leveraging the WhatsApp Business API, Brevo facilitates both campaign and transactional messaging, boasting impressive average open rates of 98% while allowing for personalized bulk or one-to-one messaging at scale.

What is Zoho CRM?

Zoho CRM combines AI-driven insights with extensive customization, empowering sales teams to close deals more efficiently. Its built-in assistant, Zia, predicts deal outcomes, identifies anomalies, and suggests optimized next steps in real-time. The platform consolidates email, social media, live chat, and telephony into one cohesive hub, ensuring no lead goes unnoticed.

With user-friendly drag-and-drop dashboards and advanced analytics, you gain clear visibility into every phase of your sales pipeline. Its WhatsApp integration automates both sending and responding to WhatsApp Business messages directly within the CRM, featuring templated notifications and a shared team inbox to monitor all interactions.

Feature comparison of Brevo and Zoho CRM

Two-Way Messaging

Brevo facilitates two-way WhatsApp communication through its Conversations app, allowing sales and support teams to send messages or campaigns and receive responses in a dedicated inbox. Although it's not fully integrated into the CRM, it enables real-time management of conversations.

In contrast, Zoho CRM provides a seamless native WhatsApp Business integration via the Business Messaging API, ensuring comprehensive two-way messaging functionality. Each WhatsApp interaction is automatically recorded under the relevant contact profile, offering your team clear visibility into client communications. Additionally, conversations can be assigned to specific agents, and replies are synchronized instantly within the CRM platform.

Template Management

Brevo enables the creation and management of WhatsApp Business API templates directly through its dashboard or API. Once approved by Meta, these templates can be utilized in both campaigns and transactional messages, making them perfect for marketing purposes.

Within Zoho CRM, users can effortlessly create, store, and manage approved WhatsApp templates via the messaging API. These templates are suitable for bulk messaging or can be triggered automatically within workflow automations. The system adheres to WhatsApp Business guidelines, facilitating large-scale outreach while ensuring message quality and tracking of approvals.

Automated Responses & Chatbots

Brevo’s WhatsApp integration fully supports multimedia messages, including images, videos, and documents, all of which are visible in the Conversations UI, allowing agents to access all content in a single view.

Zoho CRM enhances customer interaction with automated replies and bot-like experiences by utilizing its workflow builder alongside the WhatsApp Business API. You can easily set up auto-replies for common inquiries, delivery updates, or lead qualification. When paired with lead scoring and CRM logic, Zoho provides a versatile solution for streamlining conversations and minimizing manual effort.

Multimedia Support (Images, Videos, Files)

Brevo’s WhatsApp integration fully supports multimedia messages, including images, videos, and documents, which are all displayed within the Conversations UI for agents to access in a single view.

Through WhatsApp, users can easily share various media types, such as images, PDFs, videos, and GIFs. All shared media files are automatically saved in contact records or help desk tickets, providing sales and support teams with complete context for every interaction without the hassle of switching tabs.

Contact & Lead Synchronization

Brevo facilitates the synchronization of WhatsApp contacts using API or automation tools. However, contact creation is not automatic by default and may necessitate setup through Make or custom API connections.

WhatsApp messages can automatically generate new contacts or leads in Zoho CRM, as well as update existing ones. This guarantees that your team retains every conversation thread and remembers to follow up. The synchronization is seamless and supports ticket creation, making it ideal for both support and sales workflows.

Workflow Triggers & Notifications

Workflows activated by WhatsApp activity can be accessed via API or third-party tools. For instance, receiving a message can either update contact fields or initiate a CRM campaign, with the logic operating outside of Brevo's main platform.

In Zoho CRM, workflows can be initiated by WhatsApp events such as received messages or user interactions. This functionality allows for automatic follow-up messages, updates to CRM fields, or notifications to team members. The adaptability of Zoho’s automation engine seamlessly integrates WhatsApp into your complete sales process.

folk CRM: The Ultimate CRM Integrated with WhatsApp

If your sales team leverages WhatsApp to connect with leads and finalize deals, the WhatsApp integration by folk CRM is a true game-changer.

With folk’s WhatsApp CRM, every conversation is automatically synced and logged, eliminating the hassle of manual copy-pasting or missing messages. You’ll gain complete visibility into your team’s WhatsApp interactions with leads and customers, ensuring you always have context for every deal. Whether it’s a follow-up or a crucial decision point, the full scope of information is right at your fingertips.

However, folk offers more than just WhatsApp integration.
It seamlessly connects with Gmail, Outlook, LinkedIn, Google Meet, Instagram, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and beyond—allowing you to manage emails, meetings, and social interactions all in a single platform. You can import contacts from any channel and handle them efficiently within folk.

What truly distinguishes folk is its AI agents, which enhance your sales process by automating workflows, revealing deal insights, and increasing productivity—liberating your team from administrative tasks so they can concentrate on closing deals.
Are you ready to revolutionize your sales operations and achieve remarkable results?

Conclusion

In comparing Brevo and Zoho CRM, Brevo excels with its multichannel automation and user-friendly interface, making it ideal for targeted messaging. Zoho CRM stands out with its powerful AI insights and advanced customization options, ensuring comprehensive sales management. Yet, for those seeking an all-in-one solution that effortlessly integrates WhatsApp and other platforms, folk is a remarkable alternative. With features like automated workflows, seamless contact synchronization, and AI-driven insights, folk elevates your sales strategy and enhances team productivity.

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