Zoho CRM vs Clarify: Which CRM for agencies wins?

Agencies don’t struggle with “finding tools.” They grapple with maintaining consistent pipeline execution while ensuring delivery remains on track. When prospect context is scattered across inboxes, calendars, and spreadsheets, follow-ups slip, handoffs falter, and forecasting turns into a guessing game. A CRM for agencies must keep new business flowing swiftly while preserving sufficient account history to support renewals, upsells, and referrals.

Zoho CRM and Clarify offer solutions to this challenge, each tailored to distinct agency needs. Zoho CRM is a versatile platform that integrates seamlessly within the broader Zoho ecosystem, providing comprehensive pipeline management, activity tracking, and powerful reporting. In contrast, Clarify stands out with its AI-driven approach, designed for teams that prefer minimal manual data entry while still emphasizing robust communication and automation.

The right choice between Zoho CRM and Clarify hinges on your agency's specific processes, desired level of customization, and the resources available for ongoing management and optimization.

What is Zoho CRM?

Zoho CRM is a flexible customer relationship management tool that integrates seamlessly within the expansive Zoho business software ecosystem. It caters to agencies seeking robust pipeline management, activity tracking, automation rules, and comprehensive reporting, along with the ability to connect with other Zoho applications as needed. With support for multiple pipelines and layouts, it can accommodate various service lines or sales strategies. Additionally, marketplace extensions and integrations facilitate connections with external tools beyond the Zoho suite, making it an ideal choice for agencies looking for extensive functionality and versatility across sales, operations, and reporting.

What is Clarify?

Clarify is a modern, AI-driven CRM designed to keep records up-to-date through ongoing communications and meetings. It appeals to agencies that prefer minimal manual data entry while still requiring a functional pipeline, contact history, and actionable next steps. The product's messaging focuses on capturing the context of meetings, follow-ups, and deal updates in real-time. Depending on the configuration, integrations and automation can facilitate the routing of updates into the broader tech stack. This CRM is particularly suited for teams exploring innovative workflows built around conversation context and automated maintenance.

Feature comparison of Zoho CRM and Clarify

Multi-pipeline and custom stages

Zoho CRM enables the use of multiple sales pipelines, allowing teams to rename, add, remove, and reorder pipeline stages as their processes evolve. Each pipeline can be linked to specific layouts, ensuring different sales motions can be managed separately while still utilizing the same Deals module. Changes to stages are handled within pipeline settings, and any removed stages remain accessible in the stage builder. This setup is ideal for agencies requiring distinct stage logic for each service line or sales motion.

In Clarify, deal tracking revolves around the Deals module, focusing on identifying opportunities and maintaining updated deal stages as activities progress. The platform emphasizes a straightforward pipeline structure, aligning stages with tangible progress while incorporating probability assessments for more accurate forecasting. Pipeline hygiene is a key aspect of Clarify, ensuring that records remain functional without the need for constant manual updates.

Client and Deal Activity Tracking

Activity tracking in Zoho CRM revolves around tasks, events, and calls, all of which can be easily reviewed in various CRM views and record-related lists. The activity views in Zoho CRM are organized by creation time, allowing users to open activities to access related details such as notes, history, attachments, upcoming actions, and email conversations. The Closed Activities list also highlights completed tasks, calls, and meetings associated with a record, ensuring a consistent log of past activities and future schedules.

In Clarify, the record experience consolidates emails, meetings, notes, and record details into a single view, providing clear context for activities alongside contacts and deals. Additionally, product materials outline how meeting captures, including recordings and summaries, are integrated with records. Changelog notes regarding record pages and updates on Deals indicate ongoing enhancements to the way activities and deal contexts are presented together.

Automation and Workflows

Zoho CRM offers a variety of reporting options, including standard reports by module and customizable reports tailored to your business needs. With its dashboards and analytics capabilities, you can effectively monitor your pipeline and compare sales metrics, including the forecasting concepts outlined in Zoho’s analytics resources. For more in-depth reporting, Zoho Analytics can link to Zoho CRM data, allowing for the creation of additional reports and dashboards, complete with sharing and scheduling options based on your configuration. The visibility of your pipeline is influenced by how deals, stages, and activities are set up.

In Clarify, follow-ups and updates are managed as automation executed by an agent, encompassing tasks like drafting follow-ups, capturing tasks, and updating records based on interactions from calls or emails. Clarify’s writing frames integrate workflow automation into modern CRM operations, and a dedicated product post outlines features like automatic meeting notes and follow-up reminders within CRM workflows. This approach effectively minimizes manual data entry and routine administrative tasks associated with 'next steps,' all depending on the workflows that are enabled.

Reporting and Analytics

Zoho CRM offers standard reports organized by module, along with the flexibility to customize them according to your business needs. You can leverage dashboards and analytics features to track your pipeline and compare sales metrics, including the forecasting concepts outlined in Zoho’s analytics resources. For more advanced reporting, Zoho Analytics can link to your Zoho CRM data, allowing you to generate additional reports and dashboards, with sharing and scheduling options based on your configuration. The visibility of your pipeline relies on how deals, stages, and activities are set up.

In Clarify, pipeline visibility focuses on the tracking of deals, which are updated and reflected in real-time. External reviews highlight that dashboards and forecasts are refreshed as records change. Clarify also offers resources on CRM analytics dashboards and reporting concepts, emphasizing the use of CRM data to evaluate pipeline health and trends over time. The available reports depend on the specific reporting layer and configuration detailed in product updates and documentation.

Integrations and Data Hygiene

Zoho CRM offers integrations through Zoho Marketplace and its integrations layer, showcasing connectors and extensions categorized by use case. It features robust duplication management tools, including duplicate checks, merge capabilities, and an auto-merge de-duplicate tool that identifies and merges exact matches, with manual conflict resolution available when necessary. Additionally, Zia data enrichment can incorporate company context fields based on configured mappings, depending on the enabled settings. These features are designed to minimize duplicates and enhance record completeness over time.

The Clarify integrations catalog presents various categories and integrations, with dedicated pages detailing Slack notifications for pipeline updates and a Zapier connector for extensive automation. Zapier’s listing highlights Clarify’s compatibility with thousands of apps for workflow triggers and data transfers. Moreover, Clarify’s product messaging underscores the importance of pipeline hygiene and record maintenance, ensuring the system remains up-to-date as new activities arise.

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 designed for agency teams where multiple individuals engage with the same account throughout prospecting, onboarding, delivery, and renewals. By maintaining a visible relationship history, folk ensures that handoffs are seamless and not reliant on memory or fragmented notes.

• Multi-pipeline and custom stages tailored for various agency workflows
• Contact and deal timelines that compile interaction history in one location
• Email and calendar synchronization to link conversations to the appropriate records
• Tasks, reminders, and follow-up tracking to ensure standardized next steps
• Contact enrichment to provide missing company and contact details
• Deduplication tools to merge duplicates and maintain a clean database
• Simple pipeline reporting to track stage health and deal advancement
• Integrations and automation connectors that minimize manual updates

For agencies, the primary value lies in achieving operational clarity across multiple relationships. Pipelines can represent different revenue strategies, such as retainers, projects, partnerships, and referrals, while tasks and reminders ensure that follow-ups remain consistent across the team. Data hygiene features like enrichment and deduplication help eliminate duplicate records and fill in missing fields, preserving the usability of pipeline reporting over time.

Conclusion

In summary, Zoho CRM excels in versatile pipeline management and extensive reporting capabilities, while Clarify shines with its AI-driven automation and minimal manual data entry. However, for teams that prioritize seamless email integration, automation, and a clear view of client interactions, folk stands out as the best alternative. Its focus on operational clarity, multi-pipeline support, and efficient data hygiene ensures that agency workflows remain smooth, making it the ideal choice for agencies navigating complex relationships and fast-paced environments.

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