Freshsales vs Copper: Which CRM for startups wins?

Startups in der Frühphase verlieren selten Geschäfte aufgrund ihres Produkts. Geschäfte scheitern, weil die Nachverfolgung über E-Mail-Postfächer, Tabellenkalkulationen und Slack-Threads verstreut ist. Ein CRM für Startups löst ein Problem: Jede Interaktion, jeder nächste Schritt und jeder Verantwortliche bleibt schnell und übersichtlich sichtbar.

Freshsales and Copper tackle this challenge with distinct strengths. Freshsales emphasizes robust sales pipeline management and productivity enhancements, ideal for teams focused on speed and consistency in follow-ups. In contrast, Copper delivers seamless integration with Google Workspace, making it a perfect fit for service-oriented startups that value relationship management over complex automation.

This article compares how these two CRMs address critical aspects of daily operations: email and calendar sync, data cleanliness, flexible pipelines, team collaboration, and the level of automation, enabling you to make an informed decision for your startup’s needs.

Was ist Freshsales?

Freshsales is a sales CRM designed to enhance pipeline execution, activity management, and productivity for sales representatives. It is ideal for startups seeking a structured sales process, complete with built-in communication tools and robust automation features available in higher tiers. The user interface is intuitive, enabling quick setup so teams can implement it without extensive RevOps involvement. This CRM is particularly beneficial for inside sales teams that prioritize speed and consistency in follow-ups. However, advanced customization and automation typically necessitate a paid tier as the team expands.

What is Copper?

Copper is a user-friendly CRM that integrates seamlessly with Google Workspace, making it particularly well-suited for service businesses and startups. It offers lightweight pipeline tracking and contact management with minimal friction, prioritizing ease of use and rapid adoption over extensive customization. This makes it an excellent choice when relationship management is more critical than complex automation. However, as teams grow larger and require advanced workflows, forecasting, or multi-object reporting, they may find that Copper no longer meets their needs.

Feature comparison of Freshsales and Copper

E-Mail- und Kalendersynchronisierung

Freshsales offers seamless two-way email sync via mailbox connections, including Gmail and Outlook, enabling both incoming and outgoing threads to be recorded on the relevant contact or account timeline. Calendar sync is also available for Google Calendar and Office 365, operating as a two-way sync that allows appointments created in the CRM to appear in the calendar and vice versa. This feature centralizes core activity history, eliminating the need for constant manual logging and catering to sales teams that prefer an execution-first workflow with reliable context for every record.

Copper is specifically designed to integrate smoothly with Google Workspace, ensuring that email and calendar activities stay linked to the appropriate people and companies with minimal setup. By supporting Gmail and Google Calendar integration, it proves ideal for startups that manage their operations primarily through their inbox. Activity history remains visible on records, minimizing the need for manual logging and maintaining consistent context for seamless handoffs. This makes it particularly suitable for teams seeking a CRM that feels both lightweight and familiar.

Kontaktdaten bereinigen mit Anreicherung und Deduplizierung

Freshsales offers profile enrichment features that enhance contact attributes essential for effective segmentation and prioritization. It also supports duplicate handling through merge actions, allowing multiple contact records to be combined into a single primary record when overlaps occur. This consolidation minimizes fragmented timelines and streamlines reporting as lists expand. For startups importing leads from various sources and executing high-velocity outreach, maintaining data hygiene becomes much more manageable.

Copper provides tools to ensure data remains clean as your lists grow, including duplicate detection and merging capabilities for both contacts and companies. This functionality helps to prevent fragmented timelines when teams import leads from forms, events, or spreadsheets. Clean records simplify the processes of segmentation, routing, and follow-ups, reducing confusion. This feature is particularly beneficial for small teams, where disorganized data can hinder adoption quickly.

Flexible Pipelines und Ansichten

Freshsales enhances collaboration within records by providing shared visibility of timelines, notes, tasks, and ownership. Activities linked to contacts and deals ensure smoother handoffs, as context and next steps remain consolidated. Assignment patterns foster a consistent follow-up discipline across the team, making it ideal for startups where multiple team members engage with the same opportunity, and tracking activities drives results.

Copper offers customizable pipelines and stages for deal tracking, allowing teams to design a straightforward sales funnel and maintain progress through clearly defined next steps. Records are connected to the individuals and companies involved, preserving the relationship context of pipeline activities. This approach is well-suited for startups that sell consultatively or manage partnerships without the need for complex forecasting.

Teamzusammenarbeit

Freshsales fosters collaboration within records by providing shared visibility of timelines, notes, tasks, and ownership. Tying activities to contacts and deals streamlines handoffs, ensuring that context and next steps remain in one place. The assignment patterns promote consistent follow-up practices across the team, making it especially effective for startups where multiple team members engage with the same opportunities, driving better outcomes through effective activity tracking.

Copper enhances team collaboration by offering shared visibility on records, tasks, and activity timelines. Clear ownership and assignments ensure accountability, while shared notes and history minimize the need for separate communication threads. Additionally, permission settings allow control over who can view or edit information as the team grows, enabling smooth handoffs without imposing extra procedural burdens.

Leichte Automatisierung und Integrationen

Freshsales offers workflow automation for routine CRM tasks like routing, status updates, and task creation triggered by record changes. Users can enhance integrations via Zapier, facilitating event-driven updates between applications without the need for custom builds. For more complex integration requirements, developer-level connectivity is accessible through platform APIs in the Freshworks ecosystem, allowing you to begin with lightweight automation and scale as processes mature.

Copper also enables automation through workflow rules that trigger actions based on record changes, thus minimizing manual updates. Additionally, it integrates with Zapier, allowing startups to connect Copper to forms, marketing tools, and internal workflows effortlessly—no custom development needed. For more extensive integration tasks, Copper offers an API to create custom sync logic and data pipelines, making it simple to start with basic automations and grow as your stack evolves.

folk CRM: Das beste CRM für Startups im Jahr 2026

folk is a modern CRM designed specifically for startups, seamlessly integrating with Gmail, Google Calendar, LinkedIn, and spreadsheets. It consolidates contacts, companies, deals, notes, files, and every interaction into a single, lightweight workspace, ensuring that pipeline context is directly tied to real conversations rather than scattered across multiple tabs.

Key Features Most Valued by Startups in folk

• Seamless sync with Gmail and Google Calendar for an automatic activity timeline
• LinkedIn integration for effortless contact capture via a Chrome extension
• Contact enrichment to quickly fill in missing data
• Deduplication features to maintain a clean database as your volume increases
• Customizable pipelines and fields tailored to any go-to-market strategy

For startups, folk excels in delivering speed-to-value and encouraging daily adoption. The setup is quick, workflows remain adaptable, and multichannel context is easily accessible without burdening the CRM with excessive features. This leads to more consistent follow-ups, cleaner data, and clearer revenue visibility with minimal friction.

👉 Probieren Sie folk CRM kostenlos aus

Schlussfolgerung

In summary, Freshsales excels in pipeline management and productivity, making it ideal for teams focused on consistent follow-ups. Copper offers seamless integration with Google Workspace, perfect for service-oriented startups prioritizing relationship management. However, for teams that rely on email integration, automation, and sequencing, folk emerges as the superior choice. With its seamless Gmail and Google Calendar sync, LinkedIn integration, and lightweight design, folk maximizes daily adoption while ensuring clean data and efficient workflows, empowering startups to thrive.

Starten Sie noch heute Ihre 14-tägige kostenlose Testversion oder vereinbaren Sie eine Demo.