Zoho CRM vs Monday CRM: Which CRM is the best for automation?

When choosing between Zoho CRM and Monday CRM, the key question is: which CRM truly saves time through automation rather than adding to administrative tasks?

For teams that value simplicity, folk provides one of the most efficient and robust automation solutions available in any CRM, enabling users to automate emails based on predefined conditions and streamline actions using the API.

Why Automation Is Essential for CRM in 2026

Automation has become a cornerstone for modern revenue teams. Sales and marketing are tasked with managing more leads, channels, and intricate buying journeys without increasing headcount or compromising personalization. A CRM that still depends on manual data entry, sporadic follow-ups, and spreadsheet-style reporting inevitably saps time, energy, and focus away from genuine customer interactions.

Here are the main reasons why automation is now crucial:

• Buyers anticipate quick, relevant responses through email, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and calls.
• Pipelines operate swiftly, and any missed follow-up can result in lost revenue.
• The surge in data volume renders manual updates both unrealistic and unreliable.
• Leadership requires real-time insights into performance instead of end-of-month estimations.

The effectiveness of a CRM is gauged by how much it alleviates the team's workload, not by the number of fields it can accommodate. The superior platform is one that automatically captures activities, maintains clean records behind the scenes, and prompts the appropriate next steps at the right time, allowing representatives to concentrate on nurturing relationships and closing deals instead of managing the tool.

What is Zoho CRM?

Zoho CRM is a versatile, all-in-one CRM solution tailored for businesses that seek extensive customization and a comprehensive suite of business applications. Its email integration seamlessly supports Zoho Mail, Gmail, Outlook, and other IMAP providers, enabling teams to send, receive, and archive messages directly within the CRM. With features like shared inbox views, basic tracking, and automation, email interactions integrate into a broader omnichannel engagement strategy.

What is Monday CRM?

monday sales CRM is designed on the monday.com work management platform, providing teams with a visual approach to managing pipelines alongside their projects. The Emails & Activities app integrates with Gmail and Outlook, allowing users to send, receive, and log emails directly from their boards while tracking opens and replies seamlessly. With templates and automations, follow-ups become standardized, ensuring that lead statuses, tasks, and email histories remain synchronized.

Feature comparison of Zoho CRM and Monday CRM

Integration Capabilities

With Zoho’s Email Insights add-on, you can seamlessly sync Gmail, Outlook, or any IMAP provider with Zoho CRM, automatically logging messages and attachments to the appropriate records. You have the flexibility to select which folders to include, ensuring that irrelevant conversations are excluded while capturing every email that could drive opportunities. Additionally, Zoho Calendar offers a two-way sync with Google, Office 365, or iCal, allowing meeting invites and updates to flow effortlessly into both your personal calendar and CRM timeline.

On the other hand, Monday CRM’s Emails & Activities app enables you to connect up to six Gmail or Outlook accounts for a two-way sync, where sent and received emails appear as items on your boards alongside calls and tasks. Although it lacks native in-CRM calendar syncing, you can create simple automations or use Monday’s Calendar view to visualize your scheduled events.

Sync Frequency and Reliability

Zoho’s Email Insights add-on establishes a live connection to your mail provider through IMAP IDLE or OAuth, enabling messages to sync in near real time. You can anticipate that emails will show up in the CRM timeline just seconds after receipt, complete with attachments and metadata. Similarly, the two-way calendar sync for Google Calendar, Office 365, and iCal occurs instantly, with Zoho’s retry logic effectively managing any intermittent failures.

Monday CRM’s Emails & Activities app, on the other hand, syncs your inbox every few minutes by default, polling Gmail and Outlook for new messages to convert into board items. Although this introduces a slight delay compared to push-based systems, updates typically show up within two to three minutes. If you require faster updates, you can adjust the polling intervals or implement custom webhooks for sub-minute responsiveness.

Two-Way Email and Calendar Sync

Zoho CRM’s Mass Email tool allows users to send up to 1,000 emails daily, utilizing customizable templates and merge tags for a personal touch. For larger campaigns, Zoho Campaigns offers advanced features like seamless integration, sophisticated segmentation, drag-and-drop design, and detailed analytics on delivery, opens, clicks, and unsubscribes. However, since Zoho Campaigns operates as a separate product, it can create additional administrative overhead concerning billing and user permissions across both systems.

On the other hand, Monday’s Emails & Activities app offers native two-way email synchronization for Gmail and Outlook through straightforward integration recipes. This means that new messages and replies automatically transform into pulses on your boards, enabling you to track communications alongside your deals. Calendar items also sync effortlessly using Monday’s Calendar Sync feature: date or timeline columns correspond to Google Calendar, Outlook, iCal, or any external calendar, ensuring events are reflected on both your board and calendar within minutes.

Mail Merge and Campaigns

Zoho CRM’s Mass Email tool allows users to send up to 1,000 emails daily, utilizing customizable templates and merge tags for a personalized touch. For more extensive campaigns, Zoho Campaigns offers seamless integration, featuring advanced segmentation, a drag-and-drop design interface, and analytics on delivery rates, opens, clicks, and unsubscribes. However, since Zoho Campaigns operates as a separate product, managing billing and user permissions across both systems can lead to added administrative burdens.

Monday CRM’s Emails & Activities app supports synchronization with up to six Gmail or Outlook accounts, and includes a Group Emailing feature that enables bulk messaging to board items and contact lists. You can automate follow-ups using monday.com automations or enhance your email marketing efforts through integration with Mailchimp. Keep in mind that without Mailchimp or a similar add-on, you won't have access to native campaign analytics beyond the basic send logs available on your boards.

Open and Click Tracking

Zoho CRM’s basic Email Insights automatically track email opens when you send messages through Gmail or Outlook connectors. For comprehensive click-through data, you can enable link-click tracking via the ZeptoMail integration. Without ZeptoMail, CRM users can only view opens, as complete click analytics necessitate the use of a separate transactional email product, introducing additional costs and configuration steps.

Monday’s Emails & Activities app records message opens when you send emails directly from the board interface; however, it does not natively track which links were clicked. To obtain click-through rates, you’ll need to embed links with UTM parameters and either automate data retrieval to your board or integrate a marketing tool like Mailchimp.

In-Inbox CRM Experience

Zoho’s eWidget functions as a sidebar in Zoho Mail, Gmail, or Outlook, allowing you to add leads, view contact details, and log emails without leaving your inbox. You can easily see deal stages, tasks, and meeting notes inline, and with a single click, send predefined templates or create new records. However, this sidebar functionality is limited to those specific mail clients; if you use Thunderbird or another service, you'll miss out on the in-inbox convenience.

On the other hand, monday.com’s Emails & Activities app is integrated into your boards rather than your inbox. Once you connect Gmail or Outlook, your emails transform into pulses linked to relevant items, enabling you to reply or add notes directly within monday.com. This setup is ideal for visual teams who manage everything on boards, but it lacks the true in-inbox sidebar experience, as you’ll be working in monday.com instead of your email client.

folk CRM: The Best CRM for Automations

folk CRM is a modern, AI-native CRM designed for teams eager to simplify their deal automation. It consolidates all relationships—leads, clients, partners, candidates, and investors—into adaptable views that cater to any workflow.

folk is tailored for automation-first teams. With seamless email and calendar synchronization, teams can automate follow-ups and outreach on a large scale. The newly introduced conditional email automations allow you to send emails triggered by real-time data in folk—for instance, automatically dispatching onboarding or handoff emails when a contact transitions to a client or when a deal is marked as signed.

Fueled by AI, folk enriches data, crafts icebreakers, drafts personalized emails, and recommends next best actions. Its open API and webhooks integrate effortlessly with tools like Zapier and Make, facilitating advanced workflows across email, WhatsApp, Slack, billing, and internal systems.

With one-click contact capture through the folkX Chrome extension and collaborative pipelines, folk equips teams with a lightweight yet powerful CRM to scale automation while retaining complete control.

Conclusion

In summary, Zoho CRM excels with its extensive customization capabilities and real-time email integration, making it a solid choice for businesses needing a comprehensive suite. Monday CRM stands out for its visual management approach and streamlined email synchronization, ideal for teams that thrive on collaborative boards. However, for those prioritizing email integration, automation, and sequencing, folk emerges as the superior alternative. Its AI-driven features, conditional automations, and seamless communication tools place it at the forefront for teams aiming to optimize their workflows. Try folk CRM for free

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