We believe there are better options available in this category, read below to learn what this software does well, and what they could do better. ⤵
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The CRM space is probably the largest software category in the world, just ahead of project management. That said, there's 2 types of CRM categories:
Okay, let me explain. Most software will eventually get to a point where they need to determine if they should tack on the "CRM" category to their product offering. And because a CRM at the end of the day is really just a database, most software will justify "adding it" to their toolset.
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The CRM for small + medium teams (200 or less) that are using Microsoft 365.
Pipedrive is more of a "sales-focused" CRM for small + medium teams (meaning 100 seats or less), and it's pretty good at just that.
It's a huge upgrade from trying to use a spreadsheet like Google Sheets as a CRM or a database like Airtable as a CRM, any yet flexible enough to even build out for some additional internal processes beyond just sales.
Their API is flexible and robust (we enjoy integrating it for teams), and they've been around for a while, so they aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Solid recommendation if your team's tech stack revolves around Microsoft.
While Pipedrive allows you to sync in emails retroactively into the system, it only does it for the past 6 months, whereas competitors like Copper will actually go an entire year back, across everyone on your team, when a new contact is added to the CRM.
If you're using Microsoft 365 though, Pipedrive would be your best bet, as Copper doesn't work with non-Google Workspace/Gmail accounts.
If you're deeply considering Pipedrive as your CRM and your team is using Google Workspace—go check out Copper instead.
If you're heavily a sales-focused company and are using Microsoft Outlook for email, Pipedrive will actually give you one of the best experiences when it comes to a CRM.
While we might in some cases recommend HubSpot if you're a Microsoft shop, we would do so hesitantly as HubSpot gets to 5–figures per year very quickly. And that's a lot of Pipedrive seats!
We might recommend reading the Best CRM Comparison post we made which goes deeper into the positives and negatives of Pipedrive as compared to others.
folk is a simple yet powerful spreadsheet-like CRM for individuals.
folk is great if you're an individual trying to use something like Google Sheets, Airtable, or Notion as your CRM.
They built it in a way to feel familiar to how you might use a spreadsheet to manage your contacts and important information:
An example of when I've recommended folk to a friend is when they brought up to me all the business concerns they had, which a CRM would traditionally solve, but they are currently a solopreneur or incredibly price sensitive.
Hearing things like "I'm wondering if I could just use Notion to manage all of this" is a great indicator that something like folk is right for you.
If you are planning on scaling or working with a larger team (or expect to integrate with a myriad of other tools), you'll want to use a more business-friendly CRM like Copper.
They do have some cool CRM features baked in like mail merge (for sending out personalized templated emails in bulk), as well as quick access via a Chrome extension when on Gmail and LinkedIn.
folk has built a new custom field type called "Magic Fields" which allows for an AI prompt to do a bit of legwork, whether it be generating a personalized email across groups of contacts, or even more complex data sanitizing functionality. Of all the CRM's we've seen on the market, folk has taken an incredibly unique approach to how their choosing to implement AI to improve their tool:
This is one of the main areas that we struggle heavily with folk. While they have a basic Zapier connector, it's incredibly limited in the functionality. For example, certain custom field types aren't yet supported (like number fields), which makes it nearly impossible to build more complex integrations. While this will be built out over time, they still have a long way to go before having any level of feature parity to that of a more business-focused CRM.
Usually this isn't as big of a deal because if you're more technical you can just fallback on their API, and even use Zapier's Webhook functionality to build out some custom endpoints. The problem though is that they don't actually have an Dev API accessible at the moment, making building any meaningful integration quite limited and difficult.
If you're an individual using Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 and you're looking to make the upgrade to the CRM world from that of a basic Spreadsheet, folk will be your best option. It's like a more opinionated version of Airtable and Notion, that is actually built with proper CRM features like Email and Calendar activity tracking.
On the other hand, if you're working on a team or looking to scale your company behind a handful of team members, we highly recommending a more powerful CRM like Copper, Pipedrive, or HubSpot, if nothing more than just to have a properly fully-featured API as you scale (you're going to need this). That said, if you're in any way considering Airtable or Notion as your CRM, we highly recommend you use folk instead.
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