Copper vs Notion

Notion is a knowledge base, not a CRM. Although, Notion market's itself as a no code tool where you can "build anything".

One of the use cases that comes up is using Notion as as CRM...which we will scream from the rooftops: it's a terrible idea.

Sure, you can start with a CRM template, add properties, create Kanban views, track deal stages, and technically build something that looks like a sales pipeline. But the big difference is that you're not really implementing a CRM. You are building a fancy contact book inside a blank-slate workspace 😅

So, you essentially end up becoming a product manager where your whole team is relying on you to make sure that the CRM is working right. And that's exactly the problem. A real CRM has already thought through all the logistics. But with Notion, you're the one deciding how all the fields should work, all while maintaining it when it breaks, plus trying to get the rest of the team to use it "correctly."

Not to mention, Notion doesn't automatically ingest your emails or activity (the sole thing that makes a CRM, a CRM). Here are 5 more reasons as to why not to use Notion as a CRM.

If you want something simple like Notion but with full functionality, we recommend folk instead.

Pros

• Highly customizable
• Can work as a temporary contact book for super low volume
• May be good enough for solopreneurs who only need a basic contact list

Cons

• Requires a ton of manual upkeep
• Reporting and analytics are limited
• It gets disorganized as the company grows
• Doesn't properly track engagement and activity
• Doesn't ingest emails or any contact activity
• Templates can break and require outside help to fix
• Team becomes dependent on whoever built the system
• Just don't do it :)

The main appeal of using Notion as a CRM is that you can customize almost everything. You can go in and create contact databases, company pages, deal stages, tags, notes, task fields, and different views depending on how your team wants to work. Oooo customizability, that's great, right?

No. It's a trap that just means you'll have to figure out how you should build a CRM. How does a CRM function? What are important fields? What are the complexities involved? A proper CRM has already made those decisions for you because that is literally what you are paying for. With Notion, you are making those decisions yourself, without realizing how many issues you're causing for your future self.

If you want to build a CRM, change careers. Don't build one for your current company.

Notion can give you visual pipeline views. So yes, you can create something that looks like a sales pipeline. You can drag opportunities from "Lead" to "Qualified" to "Closed Won" and make it feel like a CRM.

But the issue is that the view isn't what makes a CRM. The CRM functionality, like communication history (emails) and engagement scoring, is what matters the most.

Notion can show you a deal stage, but it's not going to automatically tell you that a customer clicked an email three times and should probably be prioritized.

Notion's biggest strength is that it can hold a lot of your company's information in one place. Notes, internal wikis, project plans, and lightweight databases can all live together. So, people are tempted to add their CRM into Notion, too. It feels convenient when everything lives in one place.

Yeah, unfortunately, customer relationships are not just another internal document.

A CRM should be the central hub for your customer communication, and it really can't be dumbed down to a nicely organized page where people manually paste updates. We've seen it before where teams will copy and paste client emails into Notion just to keep records updated, and that kind of workflow lasts about two weeks before everyone gives up. It is a horrible time-sink.

Notion does have automations, and its newer AI features may help with simple summarization and updating but no amount of heavy lifting from AI can fix the core CRM problem.

It still doesn't turn Notion into a proper relationship management system. You can make Notion smarter, but you're still building on top of something that was not designed to be your company's unique CRM.

• Free: $0/mo per user.
• Plus: $10/mo per user. Best for small teams and professionals that want unlimited blocks, file uploads, forms, and collaborative workspaces.
• Business: $20/mo per user. Best for growing companies that need AI features, advanced permissions, SSO, private teamspaces, and enterprise search.
• Enterprise: Custom pricing. Best for large organizations that need advanced security, compliance, user provisioning, audit logs, and centralized administration.