CRM software comparison: HubSpot vs Trello

On the market for a new CRM? Wondering if you should use a project-management first tool or a CRM designed to, well, be a CRM?

In this blog, we do a deep dive into everything you need to know when it comes to Trello vs HubSpot and introduce you to folk so you can make an informed decision.

Presentation of Trello

Trello was designed as a project management tool but it can be adapted to be a CRM but with limited usage. It's a visual platform that allows Trello users to organize their leads, customers, and deals in a single view. There is a drag-and-drop Kanban board-like interface that allows integrations with many other tools.

Presentation of HubSpot

HubSpot's CRM is designed to help businesses track all interactions with their customers across their sales and marketing teams, from initial contact to closed deals. HubSpot's CRM system offers a range of features, including lead management, contact management, deal management, and marketing automation.

Presentation of folk

folk is a user-friendly CRM system loved for their Notion-like design. It's perfect for those who want a powerful tool without the complexity. folk can help with marketing efforts and automate tasks for busy sales teams.  It can also help you with your fundraising, partnerships, recruiting and investing efforts. You get access to a lot of features including contact management, an AI-powered email marketing function and more.

It also comes with a powerful Chrome extension called folkX that lets users import profiles from across the web straight into folk without leaving the page.

A thorough comparison of our CRMs

Contact Management

When it comes to contact management, the best feature should help you automate repetitive tasks such as deduplication and help you fill in missing data gaps effortlessly.

Trello Contact Management

As Trello isn't designed specifically to be used as a CRM, all of its contact management capabilities are manual. You can create individual cards for each contact, but you'll have to manually update it without any automation.

HubSpot Contact Management

Through HubSpot you get contact management software that allows users to create contact records, log sales activities and look at previous interactions. It also has automation features which update contact records automatically.

folk Contact Management

With folk, you can stay organized by grouping individuals in your contact list into different categories effortlessly. If you prefer to automate these tasks, folk can automatically detect contacts that can be grouped together and then suggest a group for them, or help you de-duplicate them. Should you find that you're missing certain contact details, you can simply use the contact enrichment feature to fill in the blank in moments. If you're looking to import new contacts, you can easily do so through a search list or directly from people's profiles with folkX.

Integrations

Access to the right third-party applications can help you personalize your CRM platform to suit your needs fully.

Trello Integrations

Trello's integrations are designed to boost your project management experience because of the way the platform has been designed. Expect access to popular applications like Google Drive, Dropbox and Slack.

HubSpot Integrations

HubSpot's CRM library hosts thousands of popular third-party tools. Many of these integrations are native but some of them will require someone to develop an API integration that can only be accessed via HubSpot's CRM consultants. Making the process expensive, time-consuming, and gated if you're after something truly customized.

folk Integrations

folk offers seamless integrations with Outlook and Google, syncing to your account so that all your contacts, emails, and calendar events are visible in folk. You can also connect folk to thousands of apps with custom Zaps through Zapier.

User Experience

It doesn't matter if you're using the free CRM plan. Good user experience starts from the free version and builds as you get access to CRM features from premium plans.

Trello User Experience

Unsurprisingly, Trello's user experience doesn't offer much for those after a true CRM. There is a lack of specific customization options for this as it was built for you to manage your daily tasks. -

HubSpot User Experience

As a CRM, HubSpot offers a lot of fantastic features, but it has a reputation of being rather complicated to set up for new users. Expect a steep learning curve at the beginning.

folk User Experience

folk is loved by users for their Notion-like design. It's easy to use and helps you automate repetitive tasks so that you can focus on your sales pipelines. You can expect a clean design that is easy to navigate and access to features design to automate repetitive tasks so that you can focus on the things that really matter and steramline your workflow. folk also often adds new features and add ons. So you can expect regular updates.

Mail Merge

Email integration and access to analytics can help you keep everything under one platform.

Trello Mail Merge

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Trello doesn't have a full mail merge function that can let you send email campaigns.

HubSpot Mail Merge

HubSpot's mail merge tool allows you to create and design email campaigns through the HubSpot marketing hub. It also lets you create a landing page, and for an extra cost, custom reports. So it can get expensive rather quickly.

folk Mail Merge

folk's mail merge feature is fantastic. It's an-all-in-one tool that has been designed to help you streamline your email marketing campaigns. You also get access to 'Magic Field', their very own AI feature that helps you send super personalized emails in bulk. After the campaign is over, you can easily track detailed analytics (such as delivered, opened, clicked, bounce rates) and follow-up with a few clicks.

Customer Support

When it comes to customer support, you want to make sure your team will be well looked after and that help is easy to access without any complicated forms to fill in.

Trello Customer Support

Trello provides a range of customer support resources. You can expect help through email or chat interface from within the application. You also have access to technical articles, step-by-step tutorials and best practice guides. There is a fantastic community where you can also share your experience and get peer-to-peer advice.

HubSpot Customer Support

The CRM plan you sign up to determines what help you get access to at HubSpot. Free users get community support, although response time can vary. Access to their email support and live chat can only be through the starter plan. Access to their hotline is restricted to professional or enterprise customers only.

folk Customer Support

With folk, you're guaranteed to get easy access to the help you need, no matter what plan you're on. All their users get access to a help centre full of useful technical step-by-step guides. There is also a resource centre loaded with how-to video guides to suit different learning styles.

Paid users get something a little more personal, depending on what plan they're on. Premium plan users get access to a dedicated migration service, priority support and a dedicated customer support manager. Beyond Limit plan users get access to personalized support through a dedicated Slack channel and dedicated point of contact to help with onboarding, data migration, and any issues.

Pricing and Plans

Trello Pricing and Plans

With prices starting at $8.68 per user per month, Trello's prices are lowest of the three. But it has the most limitations as an effective CRM as a project-management first tool.

HubSpot Pricing and Plans

HubSpot isn't ideal for teams who are on a lean budget. For their CRM suite, HubSpot offers a choice of either a Professional plan or Enterprise plan which are $19201 or $60000 on an annual basis. This comes with marketing, sales, customer service, CMS, and operations software. A monthly payment plan starts from $1781 a month for the Professional plan, and goes up to $5000 a month for the Enterprise.

folk Pricing and Plans

You can try folk for free with a 14 day free trial. After that, a monthly or annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month
• Premium: $40 per user, per month
• Custom: Starts from $60 per user, per month

Conclusion

In conclusion, all three platforms offer remarkable features for businesses at every stage. Trello is naturally the most limiting as something designed as a project-management first tool. But HubSpot's price plans make it inaccessible to most businesses.

folk stands out as the best option overall. With its intuitive design, automation features and generous price plans designed to suit every business, its a solid choice for small to large-scale businesses. Try folk for free, today and see what the fuss is all about yourself.