folk vs HubSpot: 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 must keep new business moving swiftly while preserving enough account history to support renewals, upsells, and referrals.

In this article, we will explore two leading CRM solutions: folk and HubSpot, which address these challenges from uniquely different perspectives. Folk is an AI-driven CRM designed to streamline agency workflows by centralizing contacts, conversations, and deal contexts without the extensive setup often required by traditional systems. On the other hand, HubSpot offers a comprehensive platform that integrates sales, marketing, and service functionalities, catering to agencies looking for a robust ecosystem that simplifies operations.

The right choice between folk and HubSpot hinges on the specific needs of an agency, including the complexity of processes, desired features, and the level of customization required. Understanding the strengths of each platform can empower agencies to make informed decisions that enhance their operational efficiency and client relationships.

What is folk?

folk is an AI-driven CRM that centralizes contacts, conversations, and deal contexts without the need for extensive setup. It is particularly beneficial for agencies managing multiple relationships across clients, partners, and prospects, where context often gets fragmented across emails, calendars, and messaging platforms. Features like contact enrichment and deduplication ensure that records remain coherent, even when data is sourced from various channels. With structured pipelines and task management, agencies can effectively track new business, renewals, and referrals. This makes folk an ideal choice for those seeking a CRM that enhances coordination and follow-up discipline without the complexity of a sprawling operational stack.

What is HubSpot?

HubSpot is a comprehensive CRM platform that merges sales tools with marketing and service functionalities into one seamless ecosystem. It works exceptionally well for agencies requiring both pipeline tracking and lead capture, along with email campaigns and lifecycle reporting all in one place. Teams can customize pipelines, log activities, and automate follow-up processes through workflows, according to their selected plan. Additionally, the app marketplace offers integration with popular agency tools and client-facing systems, making it a preferred option for agencies looking for an all-in-one CRM solution that encompasses adjacent go-to-market tools from a single vendor.

Feature comparison of folk and HubSpot

Multi-pipeline and Custom Stages

Folk enables agencies to tailor their pipelines according to various revenue streams, including retainers, projects, partnerships, or hiring. Stages can be customized to align with actual handoffs and qualification criteria, ensuring that the pipeline accurately represents the progression of deals. Utilizing separate pipelines maintains clean reporting by service line, preventing one process from causing compromises across the team. Updates remain streamlined, allowing the CRM to evolve alongside the agency.

HubSpot facilitates the creation and management of deal pipelines centered on defined stages. Deals progress through these stages, and their definitions can be modified to reflect how an agency qualifies and secures work. Distinct pipelines can track various processes, such as new business and renewals or different service lines, all while maintaining unique stages for each pipeline.

Client and Deal Activity Tracking

Folk maintains relationship context by syncing communication history and activities into a unified timeline, ensuring that notes, tasks, reminders, and previous interactions are readily accessible where the team works. This minimizes “where is the context” moments during handoffs, facilitating agency workflows that involve multiple team members across sales, onboarding, delivery, and renewals. The aim is to provide quick access to past events, key information, and future actions.

HubSpot organizes activities on record timelines, enabling the logging and association of calls, emails, meetings, notes, and tasks with contacts, companies, and deals. This activity data can be utilized to update properties, such as the last activity date, based on recorded interactions. Additionally, activity timelines can be filtered, and activities can be linked across related records, ensuring that a deal and its associated contact share the same logged context.

Automation and Workflows

folk offers pipeline visibility to monitor deal progression, stage health, and overall momentum, enabling leaders to identify risks early. Agencies can assess high-level conversion patterns and cycle lengths before diving deeper into specific issues to understand why certain deals are stalled. Reporting facilitates discussions around forecasting, capacity planning, and performance by source or service line, with a clear focus on decision-making rather than overwhelming dashboards.

HubSpot provides workflows for automating actions across marketing, sales, and service processes, which vary based on the subscription tier. Users can create workflows using templates or the workflow editor, triggering them through record events or property changes. Workflow actions may encompass tasks, notifications, and record updates, with some types or actions linked to specific hubs and subscription levels.

Reporting and Analytics

Folk offers pipeline visibility to monitor deal progression, assess stage health, and gauge overall momentum, enabling leaders to identify risks early. Agencies can analyze conversion patterns and cycle lengths at a high level before delving into specific issues causing stagnation. Reporting facilitates discussions on forecasting, capacity planning, and performance analysis by source or service line, prioritizing clarity and informed decision-making over cluttered dashboards.

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

Integrations and Data Hygiene

folk prioritizes clean records by facilitating enrichment, deduplication, and structured fields that minimize manual data entry. Its integrations link popular agency tools, ensuring that contact and activity data remain consistent across all channels. This approach mitigates the common issue of CRM decay, where duplicates, outdated information, and missing context compromise reporting. A cleaner database enhances automation reliability and maintains a scalable pipeline.

HubSpot offers connections to external tools through its app marketplace, featuring integrations tailored for sales, marketing, and operations. To ensure data hygiene, HubSpot provides data quality tools, including deduplication workflows to identify and manage duplicates, formatting issue detection, and enrichment coverage tools based on your plan. These features are located under Data Management and Data Quality, enabling teams to review issues and implement fixes for records and properties.

Conclusion

In summary, folk excels at streamlining agency workflows with its AI-driven, user-friendly interface, prioritizing relationship context and data hygiene. HubSpot offers a robust all-in-one ecosystem for agencies needing comprehensive marketing and sales tools, but can be overwhelming with its complexity. For teams seeking a straightforward CRM that enhances coordination, minimizes admin burdens, and maintains clean records, folk is the superior choice, effectively addressing the core challenges agencies face in managing client relationships and ensuring consistent follow-ups.

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