Close vs Insightly: Which CRM for agencies wins?

Agencies don’t struggle with “finding tools.” They struggle with maintaining consistent pipeline execution while ensuring their delivery processes stay on track. When vital prospect context is scattered across various platforms—like inboxes, calendars, and spreadsheets—important follow-ups can slip through the cracks, handoffs can break down, and forecasting can turn into guesswork. A CRM for agencies needs to facilitate rapid movement of new business while also preserving enough account history to support crucial renewals, upsells, and referrals.

In this article, we will delve into two powerful CRM solutions, Close and Insightly, that address these challenges from distinct perspectives. Close is designed specifically for high-volume outbound activities, integrating calling, email, and SMS into a cohesive platform that tracks every step of the sales journey. Insightly, on the other hand, focuses on project-oriented features, linking sales processes with post-sale activities for a seamless transition from deal to delivery.

The ideal choice between these two CRMs hinges on your agency's operational complexity, specific requirements for customization, and the resources available for ongoing management and administration.

为什么2026年的代理机构需要客户关系管理系统？

代理商的收入流失并非源于需求不足。当潜在客户信息分散在邮箱、日历、Slack对话和电子表格中，当跟进工作依赖记忆而非系统时，收入就会不断流失。CRM系统为潜在客户、现有客户、合作伙伴及续约业务建立统一数据源，确保后续步骤清晰可见，责任归属明确。

✔️ 无需电子表格即可实现销售管道可视化与预测

✔️ 集中管理潜在客户和现有客户的邮件、通话及会议信息

✔️ 全团队标准化跟进、交接与后续步骤

✔️ 明确每个潜在客户、交易和账户的所有权，避免流失

✔️ 按来源、服务线和阶段转化进行绩效追踪

到2026年，代理机构将运营更多渠道、决策周期更短、每笔交易涉及的利益相关方更多，客户则期待更快的响应速度和更紧密的协调配合。若缺乏客户关系管理系统（CRM），提案将陷入停滞，潜在客户将流失，续约将延迟，转介处理将出现不一致——因为团队无法在一个平台上全面掌握历史数据和当前计划。

什么是关闭？

Close is a sales CRM tailored for outbound execution, seamlessly integrating calling, email, SMS, and tasks into daily operations. It suits agencies engaged in high-volume prospecting, appointment setting, or sales development as key services. With pipelines and opportunity statuses, it effectively tracks progress, while communication history remains accessible on each lead record. Sequences and automations facilitate consistent outreach and follow-up processes, making it ideal for agencies that rely on regular outbound activity and rapid iteration.

什么是Insightly？

Insightly is a CRM that incorporates project-oriented features, linking sales records with delivery and post-sale activities. It's particularly beneficial for agencies where deal management and client delivery must be aligned, especially in project-based settings. The pipelines monitor opportunities, while tasks and activity sets standardize processes across various stages. Configured reporting and dashboards provide visibility into sales and execution metrics. This option is often favored by agencies seeking a CRM that offers a closer connection to delivery workflows.

Feature comparison of Close and Insightly

Multi-pipeline and custom stages

In Close, you can create multiple pipelines, allowing different teams or processes to utilize their own pipeline configurations. Each pipeline can have a unique name and its own set of opportunity statuses, which serve as the stage structure. This enables the separation of actions like new business, renewals, or service delivery tracking into distinct pipelines without sharing the same statuses across all processes. You can easily adjust the pipeline structure by modifying the opportunity statuses for the relevant pipeline.

Insightly's pipeline setup allows for defining pipelines and stage lists tailored to various sales motions. Separate pipelines can effectively differentiate agency flows like new business, renewals, and partner referrals, all while maintaining unique stages for each pipeline. As processes evolve, stages can be modified to ensure opportunity tracking accurately represents current qualifications and delivery handoffs. Insightly implements pipeline logic at the record level, ensuring that each opportunity adheres to a defined stage flow.

客户与交易活动追踪

With Close, calls, emails, SMS, and tasks are seamlessly integrated into the CRM, allowing them to be linked to the appropriate lead and opportunity context. All communication occurs within the platform, and teams can easily access activity history on records to review interactions and plan next steps. This functionality enhances sales tracking by logging outreach and follow-ups alongside lead and deal records. Additionally, meetings and other touchpoints can be managed within the same workspace, depending on the configuration.

Insightly's activity tracking is based on tasks, events, and logged interactions that connect to contacts, organizations, and opportunities. Through Activity Sets, Insightly enables the creation of repeatable sequences of tasks and events from a template, helping to standardize follow-ups after discovery calls, proposals, or onboarding processes. Timelines and related lists ensure that completed actions and upcoming next steps are clearly visible on the record, facilitating the review of account history and current commitments during internal handoffs.

自动化与工作流

Close provides comprehensive sales reporting through dashboards and reports that focus on pipeline health, activity tracking, lead conversion, and sales performance. You can filter reports by date ranges and other criteria, while dashboards can be customized to visualize the metrics you choose. The reporting system relies on CRM data, meaning that both activity and pipeline insights are contingent on logged information and how opportunities are structured. Additionally, forecasting and pipeline monitoring are facilitated by the reporting features outlined in Close’s materials.

Insightly's Workflow Automation triggers actions when specific record criteria are met, such as updates to fields, assignments, and task creation. This automation can also be integrated with pipeline-driven processes, such as applying Activity Sets when an opportunity advances to a defined stage. The execution of workflows hinges on the configuration of triggers and actions within the account, facilitating routine transitions, like moving a deal to onboarding and generating the associated task checklist.

报告与分析

Close offers comprehensive sales reporting with dashboards and reports that focus on pipeline health, activity tracking, lead conversion, and overall sales performance. You can filter reports by date ranges and other criteria, while dashboards can be customized to visualize your chosen metrics. The reporting relies on CRM data, meaning that the effectiveness of activity and pipeline reporting hinges on accurate logging and the structure of opportunities. Additionally, forecasting and pipeline monitoring are facilitated through the reporting features outlined in Close’s materials.

Insightly's reporting capabilities include dashboards and custom reports generated from CRM objects such as opportunities, activities, and projects. You can filter these reports by owner, pipeline, stage, and time range, and save them for regular review. Insightly also allows for report scheduling, ensuring stakeholders receive updates automatically without the need for manual exports. The accuracy of pipeline reporting depends on the consistent use of stages and thorough activity logging by the entire team.

集成与数据卫生

In Close, you can implement integrations via the API and event-based webhooks, with help documentation also suggesting connecting external apps through tools like Zapier or Make using OAuth or API keys. Data hygiene features include duplicate detection during new lead creation, options to prevent duplicates during imports, and the capability to merge leads when duplicates are found. Import workflows incorporate duplicate checks against both the file and existing leads, while merge actions consolidate records into a single destination lead. These controls are thoroughly documented in Close's help resources and product update notes.

Insightly offers integration options through its integration layer and connected apps, depending on your plan and configuration. Data hygiene features in Insightly include duplicate management flows designed to identify and merge duplicate contacts, organizations, or leads, ensuring records remain consolidated. Import behavior can also affect duplicates based on the matching rules applied during uploads. Maintaining clean records enhances downstream reporting and minimizes conflicts during automation.

folk：2026年最佳代理机构客户关系管理解决方案！

folk is an AI-driven CRM that centralizes contacts, conversations, and deal context without complicating the setup process. It is tailored for agency teams where several members engage with the same account throughout prospecting, onboarding, delivery, and renewals. This ensures that relationship history is always accessible, so transitions don’t rely on memory or scattered notes.

• Multi-pipeline and custom stages tailored for various agency operations
• 整合所有互动记录的联络与交易时间线
• Email and calendar synchronization to link conversations to the appropriate records
• Tasks, reminders, and follow-up tracking to standardize next steps
• Contact enrichment to supplement missing company and contact information
• Deduplication tools to merge duplicates and maintain a clean database
• Simple pipeline reporting to assess stage health and deal progression
• 集成与自动化连接器，以最大限度减少手动更新

For agencies, the primary benefit is operational clarity across multiple relationships. Pipelines can represent various revenue streams, such as retainers, projects, partnerships, and referrals, while tasks and reminders ensure consistent follow-ups among team members. Features like data enrichment and deduplication help eliminate duplicate records and fill in missing fields, keeping pipeline reporting effective over time.

结论

In summary, Close excels in high-volume outbound activities with its seamless integration of communication tools and automation, making it ideal for aggressive prospecting. Insightly shines with its project-oriented features, linking sales processes to delivery workflows for a cohesive client experience. However, for agencies that prioritize email integration, automation, and smooth handoffs, folk stands out as the superior choice. Its AI-driven platform keeps all relationship history accessible, ensuring operational clarity and efficiency across multiple touchpoints.

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