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For teams of all sizes looking for a flexible and user-friendly database (spreadsheet replacement) that can easily connect with other tools.
Airtable is a database (you can use it as a replacement to Google Sheets for example). Because of it's versatility, some folks get excited about the idea of what Airtable can do since it is almost endlessly customizable.
Because of Airtable's flexibility, you are technically able to use it for task management or project management but in terms of functionality, it doesn't compete with the likes of Motion, Sunsama, Akiflow, Asana, Monday, ClickUp, etc.
Airtable won't work well as a project management for complex projects, it will easily become confusing to navigate. While Airtable might work for very basic project management if you're a super small team (1-3), the time you spend setting it up and figuring out "how to best use it" is better spent on actually getting your work done. With that, using another alternative on this list that is more opinionated in terms of project management and has more features pre-built for managing projects, will be a much better choice long-term.
Airtable is not a traditional CRM software, it's first and foremost a database (you can use it as a replacement to Google Sheets for example). Just like some people use Google Sheets as a CRM, you can also "technically" use Airtable as a CRM—though it's not something we ever recommend.
The reason is because Airtable lacks the main features of a CRM, like ingesting all your teams emails in one place. Further, because there is unlimited flexibility with Airtable, you can get stuck spending dozens, if not hundreds of hours, configuring Airtable to function as a CRM. And more likely than not, the tool will lack proper adoption as there are little guardrails when using the tool for CRM purposes and everyone can kind of use it "how they want".
In general, while Airtable tries to position itself as a contender in the CRM space due to it's customization abilities, it's the main reason why we advise teams not to go down this path. It will likely lead to overwhelm and sunken time that could have gone into setting up a proper CRM that will scale with time.
If you're tempted to use Airtable as a CRM, we'd recommend folk instead as it will still give you a similar database like structure, all while providing CRM features at the core.
folk is a simple yet powerful spreadsheet-like CRM for individuals.
folk CRM is a great CRM alternative for professionals and teams who want to prioritize detailed contact organization and collaborative contact management.
folk is the only CRM on this list that would also be suited for individual professionals who want to manage their personal networks as well as smaller teams.
Through folk's Chrome extension, folk offers one of the easiest ways to add contacts to the CRM. Once installed, you can add contacts to folk from LinkedIn, X and Gmail with a click of a button. folk's enrich feature will also help you find the correct contact details for the person you just added to the CRM.
folk has a beautiful design and is quite intuitive to use. You can easily add contacts to different groups, write notes about personal interactions, and easily bulk email contacts if needed.
They also recently added Magic Fields, which allows you to write a prompt, and AI will help enrich that field for you. Like with all AI, it's still experimental, but something that can help get the ball rolling when it comes to writing cold yet personalized emails from scratch, for example.
Try folk for free. (Use code FOLKXEFFICIENT for 10% off your first year).
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A shared documentation and note taking tool that tip-toes the line of a flexible no-code platform (for teams of all sizes).
Notion is part of a category of apps often referred to as an "all-in-one", for which we aren't particularly fans of.
The main problem we have with this is it feels more like a cop-out when asked to define what you are—we do everything.
Notion is first and foremost a knowledge base app, or a more simply put, a more advanced note taking app.
Start your free trial of Notion here.
Because of Notion's flexibility, you are technically able to use it for task management or project management but in terms of functionality, it doesn't compete with the likes of Motion, Sunsama, Akiflow, Asana, Monday, ClickUp, etc.
Those who tend to lean towards using Notion for any sort of task management or project management tend to be more technical and like "building tools". This means that the majority of time spent is building the task management tool, rather than...you know, just getting your work done 😄 Therefore, it takes the productivity out of productivity app for most teams.
We'd say you're better off with any other alternative listed other than Notion in this category.
Because Notion can technically be customized to "be anything", some use it as a CRM—although we don't recommend it for this category either. While Notion can be used for basic contact management, it lacks proper CRM features like email integration (one of the main features of a proper CRM). A CRM should ingest all your teams emails, so that anyone at the company can view communication history, making it useful for sales and customer support teams especially.
Further, trying to use Notion as a CRM will likely lead to poor adoption for the team, especially since it has little guardrails and the setup and configuration of how it use it falls on one person at the company (typically someone with little product experience).
All this being said, if you're tempted to use Notion as a CRM, check out folk instead. It offers a minimal learning curve and you can likely be up and running, using it within the day.
The CRM for small + medium teams (200 or less) that use Google Workspace.
If your team is using Google Workspace and you haven't yet considered Copper—take a minute right now to do just that, as they are the best CRM alternative for teams using Google Workspace.
Copper spends an absurd amount per-month in server costs alone, just to give you the deepest Google Workspace integration of any CRM out there. It integrates directly with Google apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Drive, making it highly efficient for those who rely heavily on the Google ecosystem.
Unlike other CRMs, Copper operates inside Gmail with an email extension, allowing you to update leads, add contacts, and manage deals without leaving your inbox. This feature is useful for teams that use Gmail a lot, especially for employees that might not even need to log into the full CRM at all.
Copper has a great API, making it easy to integrate with other third party tools, making it a powerful foundation to any business' workflow.
We're huge fans of Copper and have been using them for over 8+ years.
The CRM for small + medium teams (200 or less) that use Google Workspace.
Pipedrive is known for its simplicity and visual sales pipeline management. We typically recommend Copper CRM for Google Workspace users, and Pipedrive for Microsoft 365 users.
When comparing Pipedrive to Copper, HubSpot, and Salesforce, Pipedrive has taken the approach of heavily focusing on the CRM for sales-focused teams. Because of this, a lot of Pipedrive's features are centered around helping sales teams close more deals.
Pipedrive has an activity-based selling approach. Like with all CRMs, you can track activities such as calls, texts, emails, DMs, and meetings. But Pipedrive takes it a step further and encourages sales teams to set these activities as future tasks to optimize the chances of closing a deal through follow-up.
While it makes sense in theory, when we've used their activity based selling approach, the CRM very much ended up being overloaded with activities (tasks) and the manual logging + creating of your next activity was manual and quite time consuming, not to mention a tad kludgy (slow).
Pipedrive offers customizable web forms that can be used for lead generation, which is something you can't currently get with Copper (although we hear it's coming soon 👀). These forms can be directly linked to the sales pipeline making following up with leads a pretty seamless process.
Pipedrive includes a built-in calling feature, allowing users to make and track calls directly within the CRM. That said, this is only available for the higher paid tiers, and we'd say using a VoIP that was built specifically for the job, like Dialpad or Aircall, is a much better experience.
Overall, Pipedrive is designed with simplicity in mind, making it more approachable for small to medium-sized businesses that require a straightforward CRM solution without the complexity that might come with Salesforce or even HubSpot.
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