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Looking for a customer management tool that integrates with your gmail inbox? We embarked on a quest to find the best gmail crm tool to help you stay on top of your endless inbox. after days of comparing features and prices, our pick as the best tool for most people is freshworks crm, due to its comprehensive approach to gaining insight into every part of the google suite, not just from gmail.
the best gmail crm for most
gmail does not live on an island. Google’s full range of tools, from Docs and Sheets to Calendar, Contacts, and even Google Meet, should be easy to integrate if you’re going to use a CRM that sits inside your Gmail inbox. freshworks crm achieves this one level better than other platforms.
Also, if you or team members use freshworks crm outside of gmail, auto sync prevents any changes or updates from getting lost in shuffle. no matter how you implement it, this is a solution that keeps paying dividends with its convenient integrations and time-saving information capture.
the best gmail crm options to consider
- freshworks crm – best for most
- hubspot – best free gmail crm
- agile crm – best for simple contact management
- nethunt crm – best for automating sequences in gmail
- copper – best for tracking sales pipelines
when does it make sense to invest in a crm for gmail
It’s not a secret email, it’s a critical part of your sales pipeline and your business, no matter how you slice it. this becomes increasingly true if your team has to manage a ticketing system, if you need additional support features, or if your sales channel requires multiple touchpoints to get sales.
You should already be thinking about integrating a gmail crm at the first sign of email fatigue. If your internal team is constantly complaining about being inundated with emails without any real tools to help them catch up and stay up to date, that’s pretty much the telltale sign that you’re ready for a dynamic crm tool that will help your team browse your share of emails.
Other telltale signs you’re behind on a gmail crm are:
- Your team is not communicating as clearly as it could
- You are blatantly losing sales due to missed emails or unaccounted email responses
- Your team may not i remember the last time they zeroed in inbox
- need a better way to track customer responses
- need to customize standard gmail features based on needs of your team
- you want shared access to email labels and notes that can be accessible by any member of your team, but you don’t have a way to do this effectively
The good news is that a gmail crm can be relatively inexpensive, especially considering the advantage you get once it’s integrated into your workflow. Now, saying goodbye to a messy gmail inbox can start once you find a gmail crm that’s right for you, which is what we’ll look at next.
#1: freshworks crm: best for most
With freshworks crm for gmail solution, not only do you get better management of your gmail inbox, but you can also integrate the rest of the google suite. this means that google calendar, google sheets, google drive and a dedicated chrome extension all sync to help you manage your inbox properly.
if you’re already using google to handle all the moving parts of your inbox, the freshworks crm system improves your workflow as you centralize your email conversations and increase conversions.
Anything you do on Gmail automatically shows up on your Freshworks account. You can track opens, track clicks, and set up Google Calendar reminders so you never miss an upcoming event.
Your crm tool allows you to automate email tasks so you have more free time to focus on other parts of your business. With it, you can also create if-then statements to trigger workflows with your emails.
- Growth – $29 per user per month billed annually
- Pro – $69 per user per month billed annually
- Enterprise – $125 per user per month billed annually
Although the freshworks gmail solution does not come with a free plan, you can start with their growth plan at $29 per user per month. its most popular pro tier costs $69 per month for 3,000 active contacts. if you manage more contacts, you’ll need to upgrade to their enterprise level, at $125 per month.
To get started, sign up for freshworks crm here. you can try it for free for 21 days.
#2 – hubspot crm: the best free gmail crm
if you’re in the marketing world, you know for a fact that hubspot would offer a gmail crm integration. they are the foremost champions in delivering a forever free crm that doesn’t skimp on features.
then of course the same applies to your integration with gmail. It’s free to use and great for small sales or service businesses trying to get their gmail inbox under control early on.
Once you sign up for hubspot and connect your gmail account, you’ll be able to track email opens by receiving notifications, record and track all the emails you send, and see which links of your email is clicked.
With its sidebar feature, you can easily look up a customer on your contact list and have instant access to all their contact information, as well as a log of support tickets answered and received, and any deals you’ve closed.
Templates, sequences and any scheduled meetings can be easily accessed right in your gmail dashboard to increase productivity, without having to jump between tabs or deal with lost information.
hubspot’s gmail crm is free to use with their free plan. Although free may mean saving some money in the long run, keep in mind that it will limit your access to certain paid features.
The beauty of opting for a hubspot solution to manage your emails is that your ecosystem of tools can grow along with your business as your needs change and you experience growth.
- Free
- Basic – $6 a month
- Business – $12 a month
For access to their feature-rich plans, monthly rates start at $6 per user. if you want developer-level features along with unlimited cloud storage, you’re looking at a price of $12 per month.
It’s worth noting that hubspot offers a 14-day free trial if you want to try it out first, or you can just play around with the free version for as long as you like. however, the free trial is useful if you want to see if the paid feature set is necessary for your operations.
Otherwise, start organizing your contact list and customer emails with hubspot’s crm here.
#3: Agile CRM: Best for Easy Contact Management
agile crm is great for simple gmail contact management that gets the job done.
You can easily track email opens, clicks, and a chronological view of every email you’ve sent to a given contact. agile crm is designed to sync with your gmail inbox at time intervals that you can customize.
It also makes it easy to track campaigns, by adding or deleting contacts from any active email campaigns. You can add tags to any emails, as well as notes right in Gmail that automatically sync with your Agile dashboard.
While agile crm can be useful for simple contact management with minimal integration into your gmail inbox, an additional selling point is how affordable it can be for small businesses.
While you can opt for a free subscription, a paid agile crm plan doesn’t put you out of business either: starting at just $8.99 a month for a two-year subscription.
- Free
- Starter – $8.99 for a two-year subscription
- Regular – $29.99 for a two-year subscription
- Enterprise – $47.99 for a two-year subscription
With the free tier, you get access to the following contact management benefits:
- 50,000 contacts and companies
- custom data fields
- lead scoring
- unlimited deals, tasks and documents
- appointment scheduling
- custom agreement milestones
- two-way telephony
You get generous access to useful tools on your free plan, but it gets even better the further you go through your paid options. in other words, it’s a winner in our book.
you can get started with agile crm here.
#4 – nethunt crm — best for automating gmail sequences
No matter if you are a single user, a small team or a large company trying to control your emails, nethunt is fully equipped with key tools that turn your nightmare inbox into a perfect crm you can work with.
Features like push notifications, billing, a centralized ticketing system, and event notifications ensure your entire team is on the same page as they work toward a common goal: more sales and tons of growth.
You can easily automate repetitive manual tasks so you can focus on high ROI activities instead.
so now you know nethunt’s gmail crm system is great. but, how are their prices?
You’re in luck as nethunt offers some of the most affordable gmail crm plans on the market if you choose a paid tool.
- Professional – $24 per user per month billed annually
- Professional Plus – $28 per user per month billed annually
- Enterprise – $48 per user per month billed annually
with nethunt you can opt for a monthly or annual plan. the monthly plan is more affordable per person, saving you 20 percent, so that’s what we’re highlighting here.
The Starter Professional plan for $24 per user gives you access to their more standard tools, like the ability to organize contacts, manage leads, create sales pipelines, and send email campaigns.
however, the higher your price, the more access you get to key features. the sweet spot for a tool like nethunt is their mid-tier plan, at $28 per user. for $4 more, you’ll also be able to share emails, templates, and offers, track team performance, collaborate, create sales reports, and integrate your favorite apps into your workflow.
if you’re not sure about taking the plunge and updating your gmail once and for all, nethunt offers a 14-day free trial.
get started with nethunt today.
#5: Copper – Best for Tracking Sales Funnels
copper is a gmail crm that is great for tracking leads and conversations right from your inbox. In other words, it’s a solid inbox tool that’s perfect for tracking your sales pipeline from start to finish.
Once integrated into your workflow, you can automate follow-ups with custom email templates for each client. If it’s time to resend an email or contact a prospect, you can get automatic reminders once you set up a custom trigger.
A customizable drag-and-drop sales pipeline gives you a clear visual of where your sales are at in the pipeline, if a deal is likely to close, and if you’re falling behind with certain prospects on your client list.
copper doesn’t stop there. To make sure you stay on top of your sales pipeline, Copper alerts you with automatic recommendations based on appointments you’ve scheduled, upcoming tasks, and your email history.
If you need to control your sales pipeline and rely heavily on email reach to do so, copper is your gmail companion just waiting to make it happen.
with copper’s open api and zapier integration, you can integrate any application you’re already working with to streamline your workflow. however, getting all the benefits of an integrated email sales channel comes at a cost, so you’ll want to familiarize yourself with copper per-user plans first.
- Basic – $25 per user per month billed annually (limit three seats)
- Professional – $59 per user per month billed annually
- Business – $119 per user per month billed annually
At $25 per user for their starter plans, copper can hold promise for small startups that need basic gmail crm tools. from there, you’ll see more enterprise-level pricing tiers at $59 and $119 per seat per month.
you can visit the copper pricing page to see in detail what tools you get with each plan. and you can definitely try it free for 14 days first without fully committing.
start with copper here.
methodology to choose the best crm for gmail
At this point, you’re already using gmail to keep track of your incoming emails. The next step is to figure out which gmail crm will blend in perfectly with your workflow so you can take your email game to the next level. ease of use and built-in integrations are pretty standard features to look for when you’re thinking about finding the right software tool.
However, beyond the basics, these are key criteria we look at when choosing the best gmail crm options on our list that you may want to consider.
mass email management
Email templates, mail merge, and bulk segmentation are just some of the powerful features that a useful gmail crm can offer. bulk email management speeds up the process of responding to emails, managing leads, and staying in touch with your customers.
Look for gmail crm software that allows you to bulk update your contacts and manage your leads with a lot of flexibility. Features like this go beyond a sidebar crm addon that only allows you basic mail sorting functions.
collaboration
Probably one of the biggest reasons to invest in a powerful crm that enhances your team’s gmail inbox is the need for collaboration where everyone is on the same page. The three main functions of an effective Gmail CRM are to organize, automate, and collaborate on your entire email process, whether you’re a team of five or a team of two digits.
A crm worth integrating into your workflow will have plenty of collaboration features at your disposal. this can be seen as @mentions to inform any member of your team about changes to key data, share appointment dates, share common files, and even notes on email exchanges.
Some gmail crm software will come with rich collaboration features built in, others will offer integrations you can choose from so you only get what you need. it’s up to you to decide what will work best within your team.
lead management
You can’t get away with a half-decent lead management process if your sales depend on capturing and nurturing leads. A dynamic gmail crm can offer many tools to ensure you stay on top of key leads by knowing where your customers are in the sales cycle, when you last emailed them, and what their click-through rates are like. and opening.
Ok, not every gmail crm will include all the tools your team may need as some gmail crm tools are easier to use and manage than others. But if you want additional lead management tools that integrate right into your gmail inbox, a simple sidebar crm plugin just won’t cut it.
automations
Closely related to mass email management and collaboration, the automation tools offered by any gmail crm should help you save time in the long run. This results in consistent sales data across your entire team, increased productivity, and a more efficient sales operation as your customers move through your sales pipeline.
When choosing the right gmail crm for your business, consider how much automation you’ll need to drive your email interactions at a faster rate. Bottlenecks that have ever slowed down your sales pipeline can be quickly eliminated with the right gmail automation tools.
summary
what is the best crm solution for gmail? well, that depends on the features you are looking for. although you can be sure that there is a solution for you in this list.
we believe that freshworks provides the best crm for gmail. Not only does it deliver powerful relationship management tools right to your inbox, it also seamlessly incorporates the rest of the Google Suite tools you use, like Calendar, your Contacts, and even Docs and Sheets.
Hopefully, this guide will help you weigh the pros and cons of each of the best gmail crm tools out there. choosing the right crm solution can make the difference between an overwhelmed gmail inbox and an efficient one.