Clay CRM vs Nutshell

Clay CRM and Nutshell are two CRM options designed to support customer outreach and relationship management. Clay CRM is a super advanced address book, that can bring all your contacts into one place. Nutshell, combines CRM with built-in email marketing and sales automation, offering a more integrated approach to managing both customer relationships and outreach campaigns. In this blog post, we’ll explore their key features to help you decide which CRM best meets your needs—or if Folk might provide a more flexible alternative with user-friendly contact management and customization options.

What is Clay CRM?

Clay CRM is a customer relationship management tool designed to help users organize and manage contact information and interactions, with a focus on automation and contact enrichment.

Key features of Clay CRM

• Contact management: The platform allows users to organize and manage contacts by consolidating information in one place. Users can add custom fields, notes, and tags to categorize and track interactions with each contact, making it easier to manage customer relationships.
• Automation: Clay CRM includes automation tools that handle repetitive tasks like contact updates and reminders, helping users streamline their communication and workflow processes.
• Search and filtering: The platform provides advanced search and filtering functionality, allowing users to segment their contact database based on various criteria such as engagement history, tags, or custom fields.
• Real-time updates: The platform provides real-time updates for contact records and tasks, ensuring that users have the latest information on their contacts and projects at all times.
  

What is Nutshell?

Nutshell is an all-in-one CRM specifically designed to help B2B teams close more deals. It combines contact management, pipeline tracking, and email marketing tools to support every stage of the sales process, from lead generation to deal closure. With features like customizable pipelines, activity tracking, and seamless integration options, Nutshell also enables sales teams to stay organized, collaborate, and drive results—all within a user-friendly platform tailored for B2B needs.

Key features of Nutshell

• Contact management: Centralizes customer information and tracks communication history to keep teams organized and informed.
• Pipeline management: Customizable sales pipelines to track leads and deals through every stage of the sales process.
• Email marketing: Built-in email campaign tools that enable targeted outreach and engagement with prospects and customers.
• Activity tracking: Logs all interactions, including calls, emails, and meetings, allowing teams to stay on top of follow-ups and engagement.
• Reporting and analytics: Provides insights into sales performance, forecasting, and team activity, helping to make data-driven decisions.

Clay CRM vs. Nutshell: Feature Comparison

Let's break down the key features of two CRM software solutions and take a closer look at their sales automation, email marketing tools, and contact management.

1. Sales pipeline management

When it comes to sales pipeline management, Clay CRM does not offer a dedicated feature for tracking deals or leads through various stages. Users can organize contacts and tasks, but the platform lacks specific tools for a structured sales pipeline. However, Nutshell excels in this area with its comprehensive pipeline management feature. It provides tools for tracking leads and deals through different stages using various views such as board, list, map, and chart views.

2. Ease of use

Both Clay CRM and Nutshell are designed with user-friendliness in mind, offering intuitive interfaces that simplify navigation and task management. Nutshell provides a streamlined experience with its built-in features, reducing the need for extensive customization, which might appeal to users seeking immediate functionality. While Clay CRM's user experience is reminiscent of a super advanced address book.

3. Contact enrichment

Clay CRM's contact enrichment feature automatically gathers additional data from sources like social media and public databases to build more comprehensive contact profiles, enhancing the richness and accuracy of your contact information. Nutshell’s contact enrichment feature is focused on minimizing manual data entry by allowing users to import contacts, emails, and calendar events from various sources.

4. Outreach

Clay CRM does not have a dedicated outreach feature specifically for managing customer communication. In contrast, Nutshell offers built-in email marketing and automation capabilities, allowing users to create and send email campaigns directly within the platform, complete with basic tracking and engagement metrics.

5. Automation

Clay CRM includes automation features for streamlining tasks like updating contacts and sending reminders. Nutshell extends these capabilities with sales and marketing automation, including email campaigns and drip sequences, enabling more comprehensive workflow management.

6. Integration

Clay CRM supports basic integrations with various third-party tools, allowing users to connect external applications for enhanced functionality, providing flexibility in extending CRM capabilities including connecting with social media platforms like LinkedIn. Similarly, Nutshell offers integrations with a range of popular tools to enhance its functionality and streamline workflows. It connects with major productivity platforms like Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Slack, allowing users to manage emails, calendars, and team communication within their existing tools.

7. Artificial Intelligence

Clay CRM does not currently offer dedicated AI integration. Nutshell, however, enhances productivity with AI-driven features like timeline summarization, aiding users in efficiently navigating past interactions.

Price and plans comparison

Let's take a closer look at the price and plans of both Clay CRM and Nutshell.

Clay CRM prices

Clay has a free plan for personal use, for up to 1,000 contacts. After that premium plans are as follows on an annual subscription.

• Pro: $10 per user, per month.
• Team: $40 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: Undisclosed.

Nutshell  prices

Nutshell offers several feature-rich plans tailored to different goals and team sizes.

• Foundation: $16 per user, per month.
• Pro: $42 per user, per month.
• Power AI: $52 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: $67 per user, per month.

Introducing folk CRM: the best alternative to Clay CRM and Nutshell

Looking for an affordable alternative? We recommend folk. A multiple award-winning CRM platform loved for its easy-to-use, plug-and-play CRM system. folk can support multiple business functions including sales, marketing, recruitment, investor relations and more. You can also use folk as a solopreneur, growing team or at enterprise level thanks to its ability to scale with you.

Key features

• Contact management: Bring all your contacts into one place seamlessly, from social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram and X to multiple inboxes including Gmail and Outlook.
• Notes and reminders: Attach notes directly to a contact's profile in folk, and access them on the go. And assign reminders so you know exactly when to follow-up.
• Sales pipeline dashboard: Manage your entire sales cycle and leads with a highly customizable sales pipeline dashboard that can be used in Kanban-board view or listicle.
• Ease of use and customization: Easily customize the pipelines, dashboards, automation, email sequences, so that you can use it across your sales cycle and pipeline management – and other business functions such as recruitment, marketing, and more.
• Social media integration: Import people and companies from LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, Instagram, and X within a click thanks to folk’s Google Chrome extension.
• Contact sync from Gmail and Outlook: Full email sync enabling users to manage all communications directly from the CRM.
• Find email addresses in a click: Contact enrichment powered by Apollo, and Dropcontact so you can fill in missing data points with 1-click.
• Email sequences: Send email sequences with reminders if your leads don’t reply to your first emails. It includes an AI integration allowing you to personalize email at scale.

Price and plans

folk has a 14-day free trial. After that, there are affordable monthly or annual subscription plans. The annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month.
• Premium: $40 per user, per month.
• Custom: Starts from $80 per user, per month.

Clay CRM vs. Nutshell: What's the Verdict?

It's clear that both Clay CRM and Nutshell offer robust features tailored to different business needs. Clay CRM excels with its automation and real-time updates, making it ideal for those seeking streamlined contact management. On the other hand, Nutshell provides comprehensive tools for B2B sales teams, with strong pipeline and email marketing capabilities. For companies that need a more personalized approach to relationship management, folk provides a flexible alternative to these traditional CRM options, blending ease of use with customization. Try folk today, free.