folk CRM x Hubspot: Which CRM excels at WhatsApp integration?

When WhatsApp fuels your sales strategy, selecting the right CRM can mean the difference between sealing a deal and losing a lead. With folk CRM vs Hubspot, you gain instant chat access, effortless message logging, AI-driven follow-ups, and user-friendly drag-and-drop workflows — yet each platform offers unique strengths in customization, pricing transparency, and pipeline complexity. Meanwhile, a next-generation contender is stealthily transforming the standards for true WhatsApp integration.

Why WhatsApp CRM Integration Matters

Integrating WhatsApp directly with your CRM connects conversations to revenue. Automated contact syncing and message logging eliminate manual data entry and prevent lost leads, ensuring that every interaction becomes a valuable record.

• Accelerate response times by automatically triggering follow-ups and reminders as soon as a customer engages.
• Enhance engagement with personalized, template-driven outreach that feels tailor-made.
• Simplify workflows using a single dashboard for managing chats, contacts, and campaign analytics.

With the ability to view every WhatsApp message alongside emails, calls, and deals, your team can reduce time spent searching for context and focus more on closing deals — transforming casual conversations into reliable conversions.

What is folk CRM?

folk CRM is designed to streamline your workflow—automatically importing every WhatsApp chat into your pipeline, which creates or updates contact records instantly upon message receipt. Say goodbye to manual data entry and lost leads.

With the folkX browser extension, enrich profiles with a single click: gather data from LinkedIn, Instagram, or X, pull in emails, and add custom fields to capture what truly matters. Visual pipelines, built-in reminders, and AI-driven follow-up suggestions ensure that every lead progresses smoothly. Moreover, hundreds of native connectors (plus Zapier for over 1,000 more) keep your entire sales stack synchronized, transforming WhatsApp into a genuine revenue driver.

What is Hubspot?

HubSpot offers a free CRM that consolidates all your contacts, deals, and tasks within a sleek interface—no credit card required. You gain access to live chat, email tracking, meeting scheduling, and ticketing tools right off the bat. Its robust integrations with Marketing Hub and Service Hub allow for seamless automation between teams. Plus, as it's part of HubSpot's ecosystem, scaling to paid plans for advanced automation or reporting is easy. HubSpot's native WhatsApp integration empowers you to send and receive messages directly in the shared inbox, automate template-based notifications through workflows, and maintain scalable, two-way customer conversations.

Feature comparison of folk CRM and Hubspot

Two-Way Messaging

folk CRM provides one-click WhatsApp messaging right from any contact card. All messages are automatically synced and shown in the contact's timeline, offering a real-time overview of all conversations and context without needing to leave the CRM.

HubSpot’s native WhatsApp integration, available in Professional and Enterprise Service Hub plans, seamlessly incorporates two-way messaging into your shared conversations inbox. This allows agents to respond to customer inquiries using text, images, or videos, all within HubSpot. Incoming messages automatically create a new thread linked to the appropriate contact, company, deal, or ticket record. Outbound messages, whether templated or free-form, initiate 24-hour sessions to keep the conversation going. You’ll have complete visibility into session limits and conversation counts, helping you manage your monthly quotas effectively. Additionally, workflows can trigger business-initiated template messages for re-engagement or reminders, while logging every interaction as a timeline event.

Template Management

Currently, folk CRM lacks native support for WhatsApp template management. Instead, messages are handled manually or through saved chat snippets, making it more appropriate for personalized one-on-one communication rather than mass campaigns.

In contrast, HubSpot’s WhatsApp integration (available on Professional and Enterprise Service Hub) offers a synchronized template manager directly within your CRM. Once you connect your WhatsApp Business account, every approved template in Meta seamlessly syncs to HubSpot’s CRM under the Templates > WhatsApp tab, allowing you to filter by status (Ready to use, Needs personalization, Rejected), language, and category (promotional, transactional, OTP).

Automated Responses & Chatbots

All media exchanged via Folk CRM on WhatsApp—such as images and documents—are logged in the contact's thread, ensuring that every interaction is recorded, even when multiple team members collaborate on the same contact.

With HubSpot’s WhatsApp integration available in Service Hub Professional and Enterprise, you can set up workflows to send automated messages—such as welcome sequences, abandoned cart reminders, and delivery updates—directly as WhatsApp template notifications.

Although HubSpot does not offer a native chatbot builder for WhatsApp, you can integrate external chatbot platforms through Zapier or respond.io, allowing conversation flows to feed into HubSpot’s shared inbox and customer records. This enables a chatbot to qualify leads or address common inquiries before escalating to a live agent, all within your existing workflow framework.

Multimedia Support (Images, Videos, Files)

All WhatsApp media—images, documents, and more—shared through folk CRM are recorded in the contact's thread, ensuring that every interaction is documented, even when multiple team members are collaborating on the same contact.

HubSpot’s native WhatsApp integration, available in Service Hub Professional and Enterprise, allows users to send and receive media attachments—such as images, videos, audio, stickers, and documents up to 15 MB—directly from the conversations inbox or contact record.

Incoming media messages generate timeline events that feature thumbnails and download links, enabling sales and support teams to view or forward assets seamlessly without the need to switch applications.

Contact & Lead Synchronization

folk CRM seamlessly creates or associates contacts and leads as soon as a WhatsApp conversation begins, ensuring that deal assignments, reminders, and tagging are included so that representatives can easily follow up on important interactions.

HubSpot’s native WhatsApp integration, available with the Professional and Enterprise Service Hub, automatically syncs every new WhatsApp conversation with the relevant contact record in your CRM, creating or updating the contact based on their phone number.

Once you connect your WhatsApp Business account, only new messages will trigger this synchronization (historical chats will remain in WhatsApp). Each incoming thread generates a new timeline event linked to that contact or associated deal. For channels that necessitate lead capture, such as click-to-WhatsApp ads, you can automate contact creation from form submissions and continue the conversation through WhatsApp, all tracked within HubSpot.

Workflow Triggers & Notifications

WhatsApp events can initiate Zapier workflows linked to folk CRM, enabling actions like tagging a contact, updating a deal stage, or notifying a team member. While native automations are currently under development, they have not yet been released.

HubSpot’s Service Hub integrates with WhatsApp through certified partners, allowing it to capture events such as new messages, template sends, or delivery failures directly within its workflow engine. This integration empowers you to trigger downstream automations—such as converting high-priority conversations into deals or support tickets and sending alerts to your team—transforming every WhatsApp interaction into an actionable signal within your CRM.

Conclusion

While HubSpot excels with its comprehensive automation and robust integration ecosystem, offering seamless two-way messaging and template management, folk CRM stands out as a fantastic alternative for WhatsApp integration. With instant message imports, AI-powered follow-ups, and a user-friendly interface, folk ensures smooth workflows and enriched contact profiles, enabling teams to focus on converting leads into sales without the hassle of manual data entry.

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