Instantly vs ClickUp

Choosing the right Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform is crucial for success. Instantly and ClickUp are two prominent options that have captured the attention of businesses looking to optimize their operations. While both platforms offer powerful tools to enhance customer engagement and drive sales, they cater to distinct business needs. In this blog post, we will unpack a detailed comparison of their features, pricing, and benefits. We'll also introduce folk as a compelling alternative to consider.

What is Instantly?

Instantly is a newer player in the market that focuses on automation and email outreach, helping teams send high-volume personalized emails and track responses. Instantly CRM is geared more toward businesses looking to maximize lead generation and email outreach campaigns, often used by outbound sales teams and marketers.

Key features of Instantly

• Email outreach automation: One of Instantly’s standout features is the ability to automate and send thousands of personalized cold emails at scale.
• Advanced email warm-up: Instantly ensures that your emails land in inboxes rather than spam by providing email warming and reputation management tools.
• AI-based insights: Use AI-powered analytics to gain insights into the success of your outreach and optimize future campaigns.
• Multi-account management: Run multiple email accounts and campaigns seamlessly from one dashboard.
• Performance tracking: Track open rates, click rates, and other key metrics to measure campaign performance in real time.
• Integrations: Instantly CRM integrates with tools like Zapier, Google Sheets, and other productivity apps to help streamline workflows.
  

What is ClickUp?

ClickUp is a project management and productivity platform designed to help teams and individuals organize tasks, track progress, and collaborate in one workspace. Although it is primarily a project management tool, ClickUp includes some CRM elements.

Key features of ClickUp

• Task management: ClickUp allows users to create, assign, and track tasks with custom statuses, providing flexibility in managing work processes across different projects.
• Custom views: The platform offers multiple views like lists, boards, calendars, and Gantt charts, enabling users to visualize tasks and workflows in a format that suits their preferences.
• Goal tracking: Users can set, track, and manage goals within ClickUp, aligning tasks and projects with broader objectives.
• Time tracking: ClickUp includes a built-in time tracking feature to log time spent on tasks, allowing users to monitor productivity or billable hours.
• Workflow automation: Automation in ClickUp enables users to reduce manual tasks by setting up rules that trigger actions, such as status updates or notifications, based on predefined conditions.
• Custom fields: The platform allows users to add custom fields to tasks, enabling them to track specific data points or categorize tasks according to their needs.

Instantly vs. ClickUp: 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

Instantly lacks a clear Kanban view for managing deals, focusing instead on lead status within email campaigns. This limits visibility into your sales process, as there's no dedicated pipeline management view.
ClickUp doesn't offer a built-in sales pipeline feature specifically designed for CRM purposes. However, it allows users to create customizable pipelines using task lists, boards, and custom statuses. This flexibility can be advantageous for teams willing to invest time in setting up their pipeline according to their unique workflow needs. While ClickUp offers more adaptability, Instantly's simplicity may appeal to those looking for straightforward lead tracking within their email campaigns. Ultimately, the choice between Instantly and ClickUp will depend on your team's specific needs for pipeline visualization and customization.

2. Ease of use

Instantly CRM offers a user-friendly interface tailored for swift email outreach, making it accessible even for beginners. In contrast, ClickUp, while highly customizable, may require a steeper learning curve due to its extensive features designed for broader project management tasks.

3. Contact enrichment

Instantly CRM offers contact enrichment features by leveraging a large database of verified contact information. The platform can automatically enhance contact records by adding details such as company names, job titles, and more. ClickUp’s ease of use varies depending on how its being utilized. The platform offers a wide range of features, which can be overwhelming for new users, especially those unfamiliar with complex project management tools and those who are after more traditional CRM capabilities.

4. Outreach

Instantly provides a robust cold outreach solution, allowing unlimited email connections, rotation for deliverability, and campaign management at scale, complete with statistics. ClickUp lacks a dedicated outreach feature, requiring manual setup for managing outreach tasks via custom workflows.

5. Automation

Instantly CRM automates email outreach and follow-ups, sending personalized emails and scheduling follow-ups based on recipient behavior, optimizing engagement through performance tracking. ClickUp's general-purpose automation is not specifically tailored for CRM needs, requiring customization for advanced tasks.

6. Integration

Instantly CRM integrates with various third-party applications primarily through Zapier, enabling connections with tools for email marketing, lead management, and productivity, such as Google Workspace, Slack, and Salesforce. ClickUp provides similar integrations with various third-party tools, such as Google Workspace, Slack, Zoom, and Dropbox, to enhance workflow efficiency and collaboration within the platform.

7. Artificial Intelligence

Instantly CRM utilizes AI to optimize email outreach by automating tasks like personalization and follow-up sequencing based on engagement patterns. ClickUp's AI, in the form of 'Chat', connects tasks, docs, and people, acting as a knowledge manager to enhance task management and writing.

Price and plans comparison

Let's take a closer look at the price and plans of both Instantly and ClickUp.

Instantly prices

Instantly offers a few types of plans depending on whether or not you're after its CRM product, leads generator, or outreach campaign product. Their CRM price plan comes as either a monthly or annual subscription. Their yearly subscription plan is as follows.

• Growth CRM: Starts from $37.90 per user, per month.
• Hyper CRM: Starts from $77.60 per user, per month.

ClickUp prices

ClickUp offers a free forever plan for personal use. Premium options are available as either a monthly and annual subscription plan. The following is a high level overview of the annual subscription plans available.

• Unlimited: $7/user/month.
• Business: $12/user/month.
• Enterprise: Undisclosed.

Introducing folk CRM: the best alternative to Instantly and ClickUp

Looking for an affordable alternative? We recommend folk. There is a reason why folk is a multiple award-winning CRM platform loved for its easy-to-use, plug-and-play CRM system.

Key features

• 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.
• 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.

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.

Instantly vs. ClickUp: What's the verdict?

Between Instantly and ClickUp, it's clear that each has its strengths. Instantly excels in email outreach automation, making it ideal for businesses focused on lead generation. In contrast, ClickUp offers a comprehensive project management solution with CRM capabilities, suitable for teams needing robust task organization. However, for those seeking a personalized and flexible CRM solution, folk stands out as the best alternative. It combines ease of use with customization, catering to various business functions beyond traditional CRM roles. Try folk today, free