Comparing Close and Folk

About Close

Close is a CRM built for relational selling; sales teams that need to make calls and send emails at scale. It combines deal tracking with built-in phone and email tools, so salespeople can call prospects, send automated email workflows, and manage their pipeline from one place. The system includes features like auto-dialers, SMS messaging, and workflow automation, with reporting dashboards to track performance. It's designed specifically for sales rather than marketing, focusing on helping teams reach out to prospects and close deals quickly.

About Folk

Folk is a CRM platform designed for relationship management across multiple channels including email, WhatsApp, and LinkedIn. It offers contact enrichment and AI-powered data fields, with email campaigns available on all tiers and more advanced sequences on higher plans. The platform integrates WhatsApp directly into the CRM workflow and provides a LinkedIn extension called folkX, rather than focusing on traditional phone-based sales activities. Folk connects with email providers like Gmail and Outlook and claims to offer thousands of integrations through various connectors.

What do users say?

We've used AI to analyze a number of reviews from third-party sites like G2, Reddit, and Capterra, and here's what the AI found:

Based on reviews, Close is praised for its clean and intuitive interface that makes it easy for sales teams to navigate and use for daily tasks. Users frequently highlight the strong built-in communication tools, particularly the auto dialer and calling features, as well as the platform's ability to consolidate multiple sales tools into one CRM system. However, some users note that the platform requires significant manual work and scripting, and may have limited functionality for departments outside of sales compared to more comprehensive enterprise solutions.

Based on reviews, Folk is praised for its clean, intuitive interface and user-friendly design that makes contact management straightforward, with users frequently highlighting its simplicity and ease of setup. The platform appears to work well for small businesses and individual users, offering good integrations with other tools, affordable pricing, and responsive customer support. However, some users note limitations in advanced features like email marketing functionality, workflow automation, and enterprise-level capabilities, with occasional concerns about data reliability mentioned by some reviewers.

Comparison

Close

Based on reviews, Close is praised for its intuitive interface and streamlined workflow that helps sales reps navigate daily tasks efficiently. Users consistently highlight the powerful integrated calling tools, including auto-dialers and call logging features, along with strong email automation capabilities that allow teams to onboard quickly within days.

Folk

Based on reviews, Folk is recognized for its clean, user-friendly interface and straightforward contact management system that appeals to small businesses and individual users. However, some users note limitations in advanced features like email marketing functionality and enterprise-level capabilities, with occasional concerns about data reliability mentioned by reviewers.

Built-in Calling

Close includes native calling and SMS capabilities across all plans, with Power Dialer available on Growth plans and Predictive Dialer on Scale plans. The platform is designed specifically for high-velocity outbound calling, allowing sales teams to make calls directly from the CRM without needing third-party integrations. Usage is metered separately from the base subscription cost.

Folk does not offer native telephony features, instead focusing on modern communication channels like WhatsApp and LinkedIn. Teams requiring phone functionality would need to integrate with third-party calling solutions like KrispCall, which adds complexity and additional costs to the setup.

Email Automation

Close provides robust email automation and sequence capabilities built into all plans, designed specifically for sales outreach workflows. The platform allows teams to create sophisticated email campaigns with advanced triggers and follow-up sequences that integrate seamlessly with calling and SMS activities.

Folk offers email campaigns on all tiers with more advanced sequences available on Premium plans. While functional for basic email outreach, the email marketing capabilities are more limited compared to dedicated sales-focused platforms, as noted in user reviews.

SMS Integration

Close includes built-in SMS messaging across all plans, allowing sales teams to communicate with prospects via text directly from the CRM. This creates a unified communication experience where calling, emailing, and texting can all be managed from a single interface.

Folk does not offer SMS functionality, focusing instead on WhatsApp messaging for text-based communication. This limits options for teams that need to reach prospects who prefer traditional SMS over WhatsApp messaging.

WhatsApp Integration

Close offers a WhatsApp connection via a TimelinesAI integration. This native-feeling connection automatically surfaces WhatsApp conversations in your Close CRM, syncing with leads and letting sales teams manage messages directly alongside their pipeline without switching apps.‍

Folk integrates WhatsApp directly into the CRM workflow, allowing users to manage WhatsApp conversations alongside other contact management activities. This makes it particularly appealing for businesses that rely heavily on WhatsApp for customer communication, especially in international markets.

LinkedIn Integration

Close does not offer built-in LinkedIn integration, concentrating on direct communication channels rather than social selling features. Sales teams find success using third parties to manage LinkedIn outreach with their Close CRM activities.

Folk provides LinkedIn integration through its folkX extension, enabling users to manage LinkedIn outreach and social selling activities within the CRM platform. This feature supports modern relationship-building approaches that blend social media engagement with traditional CRM functions.

Auto Dialers

Close offers both Power Dialer and Predictive Dialer functionality on higher-tier plans, enabling sales teams to dramatically increase their calling efficiency and connect with more prospects per hour. These features are essential for teams focused on high-volume outbound calling activities.

Folk does not include auto dialer functionality, reflecting its focus on relationship management rather than high-velocity sales calling. Teams requiring auto dialing would need to integrate separate tools or choose a different platform.

Contact Enrichment

Close's AI Enrich features uses built-in AI to automatically populate or update fields on Lead and Contact records with real-world data pulled from the web (including custom fields), saving time on manual research and helping keep CRM data more complete and useful without needing external tools

Folk provides contact enrichment and AI-powered data fields as part of its platform, helping users automatically populate contact records with additional information. This feature reduces manual data entry and helps teams maintain more complete prospect profiles without additional integrations.

Conclusion

Close is ideal for sales teams that prioritize high-velocity outbound calling and need powerful integrated telephony features like auto dialers and predictive dialers. It's particularly well-suited for startups, SaaS companies, and SMB sales organizations that focus on relational selling, phone-based prospecting and closing deals quickly through multi-channel outbound sequences combining calls, emails, and SMS.

Folk works better for smaller teams, service businesses, and organizations that emphasize relationship management across modern communication channels like WhatsApp and LinkedIn. It's a strong choice for teams that value contact enrichment, prefer social selling approaches, and need a more affordable CRM solution with flexible workflow management rather than intensive calling features.

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