Whatever kind of business you’re in, strong customer relationships are vital if you want to enjoy long-term success.
Unfortunately, choosing the right customer relationship management (CRM) software isn’t always so straightforward. For small businesses in particular, the ideal CRM needs to balance value with ease of use, while still offering the features that help you grow and stay organized.
Capsule CRM and Folk CRM are two popular options, both offering ways to manage your contacts and sales pipelines, but they also have some significant differences that can impact your results.
In this guide, you’ll get to see how Capsule and Folk compare across key areas like pricing, features, integrations, ease of use, and customer support. By the end, you’ll have a clearer picture of which CRM will work best for your business.
Capsule and Folk plans compared
For most small businesses, getting the right balance between affordability and features is crucial. A CRM that’s too costly or complicated to scale can quickly become more of a burden than a benefit.
Capsule’s Free plan gives you access to all the essentials, making it easy for small teams to get started with a new CRM. The plan includes:
- 2 users
- 250 contacts
- 25 custom fields
- 1 sales pipeline
- Project management
- Gmail and Outlook integrations
- Android and iOS mobile app.
Folk, by contrast, doesn’t have a free plan. Instead, you can sign up for a 14-day trial of any paid plan. Once the trial ends, you’ll need to upgrade to continue using the platform.
Here’s how the entry-level paid plans compare:
| Capsule Starter plan | Folk Standard plan |
|---|---|
$18 user/month | $20 member/month |
30,000 contacts | 2,000 emails per month per member |
50 custom fields | 500 enrichments per month |
Sales pipeline dashboard | 1 synced account per member |
Project board | Basic campaign sequences |
As you compare the paid plans, it becomes clear that Capsule and Folk take different approaches to CRM software. We’ll dive into the specific features in more detail in the next section, but for now, let’s focus on how the plans are structured.
Capsule is designed to help you manage every aspect of your customer relationships, with different ways to manage your contacts and Sales Pipelines. The Starter plan provides generous contact and field limits, alongside reporting and a Project Board to help manage work after you close the deal. At a slightly lower price point, it’s designed to grow with your business.
Folk places more emphasis on customer engagement, with plans based around contact enrichment and email outreach. The Standard plan includes unlimited contacts, and each member can reach out to those contacts with up to 2,000 messages. However, certain features you might expect to see as standard (such as deal tracking or measuring performance with dashboards) require a more expensive plan.
At the higher tiers, both platforms expand in different ways. Capsule’s Growth plan and above add on Workflow Automation, multiple Pipelines and Project Boards, advanced Sales Analytics, and hands-on Customer Support. The top-tier Ultimate plan adds a dedicated account manager and custom training, all at a predictable cost per user.
Folk’s Premium and Custom plans increase campaign and enrichment limits, add dashboards, WhatsApp sync, and advanced user roles. The Custom tier is priced from $80 per user/month, targeting teams that need heavy-duty outreach capacity and dedicated support.
For budget-conscious small businesses, Capsule’s free plan and affordable entry point make it the safer, longer-term option. Folk’s trial is useful for testing advanced outreach features, but ongoing access requires a paid subscription from the outset.
What features and functionality do Capsule and Folk offer?
While both Capsule and Folk are CRMs, the way they approach customer management is quite different.
Capsule focuses on giving small and medium-sized businesses a simple but powerful toolkit for managing relationships across the entire customer journey. Folk is more specialized, leaning toward agencies and outbound teams that need to capture leads quickly and run coordinated campaigns.
Capsule’s key features include:
- Contact Management. Organize leads and customers with Custom Fields, Tags, DataTags, and Lists
- Contact and Business Enrichment. Complete your contact and company profiles with the latest information.
- Sales Pipelines and Projects. Visualize deals and delivery work side by side, with multiple pipelines and boards
- Tracks and Workflow Automations. Create “Tracks” of repeatable task lists and automate customer onboarding, handovers, and follow-ups
- Reporting Dashboards and Forecasting. Monitor sales performance with intuitive dashboards and predict future revenue
- AI Content Assistant. Quickly create relevant emails that match your tone of voice with built-in AI support.
- iOS and Android apps. Access and update customer data wherever you are, even if you’re offline.
Folk’s standout features include:
- FolkX Chrome extension. Capture leads directly from LinkedIn and other websites in one click
- Sequences and campaign tools. Create personalized outreach sequences using templates, variables, and AI-generated follow-ups
- Multi-channel syncs. Connect Gmail or Outlook and sync WhatsApp messages directly into the CRM
- Data enrichment and AI fields. Automatically enrich contacts with external data and generate “magic fields” for quick insights
- Dashboards. Available on Premium and above to help visualize team outreach performance.
For SMBs, Capsule covers a broader range of business needs, from sales pipelines through to project delivery and marketing, without requiring extra setup.
Folk shines when a team’s main priority is outbound prospecting, with tools like sequences and enrichment designed to boost outreach efficiency. However, the lack of project management features or a dedicated mobile app may put off some users.
Which CRM connects best with your existing software?
A CRM is one of the most valuable tools you can use in your business, but you can only really enjoy the benefits when it connects with your other software. Whether it’s email, accounting, marketing, or any other kind of software you use regularly, integrations save time and reduce the chance of errors.
Capsule integrates smoothly with the tools most small businesses already rely on. Its App Marketplace lets you connect with over 70 popular apps, including:
- Accounting software like Xero and QuickBooks
- Productivity suites like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace
- Marketing platforms like Mailchimp and Transpond
- Helpdesk tools like Zendesk, Callbell, and Wati.
Transpond’s email marketing integration is particularly valuable, with all your information shared seamlessly between your CRM and your marketing campaigns. You can confidently run advanced email campaigns, manage sign-up forms, and build automations, knowing you’re using the very latest contact details.
If you need something more specific, Capsule connects to thousands of apps through Zapier and Make, or you can build custom integrations with its API.
Transpond’s email marketing integration is particularly valuable, with all your information shared seamlessly between your CRM and your marketing campaigns. You can confidently run advanced email campaigns, manage sign-up forms, and build automations, knowing you’re using the very latest contact details.
If you need something more specific, Capsule connects to thousands of apps through Zapier and Make, or you can build custom integrations with its API.
Folk also offers several integrations. It connects directly to Gmail and Outlook for email sync, and higher plans add WhatsApp sync so conversations can flow into your contact timelines.
Folk’s Chrome extension (FolkX) is a handy way to capture leads from LinkedIn and other sites, and it offers enrichment integrations to automatically add more context to your contacts. For broader connectivity, Folk also supports Zapier, Make, and its own API.
For SMBs, Capsule’s integration ecosystem is wider and more practical, covering finance, productivity, support, and marketing in one place. Folk’s integrations are strongest for sales outreach and enrichment, particularly if your team is already set up for multi-channel prospecting.
Which CRM is easiest to use?
When choosing a CRM, user-friendliness is critical. After all, even the most advanced features won’t do your business any good if they’re too complex to use. A CRM that feels intuitive and easy to set up will be adopted faster and deliver value sooner.
Capsule is designed with simplicity front and center. Its clean, uncluttered interface means even non-technical users can get up and running quickly. Whether you’re starting from a spreadsheet or migrating from another CRM, Capsule makes it simple with options including CSV imports and a one-click migration tool via Import2.
“What I like best about Capsule CRM is its simplicity and ease of use, which makes it accessible to users of all technical skill levels. The user interface is clean and intuitive, allowing you to get started quickly without a steep learning curve or the need for extensive training.”
Matt C.
Folk also has a modern, user-friendly interface, and signing up is quick. However, while the interface itself is easy to use, its features work best when processes are clearly defined upfront. For example, setting up structured outreach sequences and workflows requires teams to plan their approach. As a result, Folk could feel more complex to implement for small businesses without an established sales playbook.
Both CRMs are user-friendly in their own ways, but for SMBs looking for fast time-to-value, Capsule’s ease of setup, smooth import options, and accessible mobile app make it the quicker, lower-risk choice.
Which CRM offers more customization and flexibility?
Every business works a little differently, so your CRM should be flexible enough to adapt to your workflows rather than forcing you to change the way you sell.
Capsule strikes a strong balance between simplicity and adaptability. Custom Fields, Tags, and DataTags let you track the client and company information that matters most to your business. You can then create multiple customizable sales pipelines to reflect your different sales processes.
These features let you shape Capsule around your business without all the admin and headaches that come with more complex CRMs.
Folk offers a different model of customization. Its group-based structure allows you to create distinct groups (for example, clients, investors, or partners), each with its own custom fields and views. You can switch between table view and pipeline view depending on what makes sense for the group.
While Folk’s customization options are powerful for teams running structured outreach strategies, they can feel more complex to set up and maintain. Capsule, by contrast, makes customization accessible to any small business, giving you enough flexibility without it getting complicated.
Which platform is best for support and security?
No matter which CRM you choose, reliable support and strong security are essential. You need to know your data is safe and that help is available whenever you need it.
With Capsule, all users get access to 24/7 AI support alongside world-class human support and an extensive online help center. Capsule’s customers consistently praise the support team for being friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful. On the Ultimate plan, you’ll also receive priority support, a dedicated account manager, and personalized training to help your team get the most from the system.
On the security side, Capsule delivers enterprise-grade safeguards, including SOC 2 Type II certification, encrypted data (in transit and at rest), role-based permissions and secure data storage. The company also complies with GDPR, so you can be confident that your customers’ data is safe.
Folk is also known for good customer support, with priority access available on Premium and Custom plans. Security-wise, Folk is currently SOC 2 Type I certified and GDPR-compliant, with data protection measures that meet industry standards.
Both CRMs take support and security seriously, but Capsule goes that bit further with its SOC 2 Type II certification. For small businesses, that combination of reassurance and responsiveness makes it a particularly dependable choice.
Which marketing platform is better for your business?
Capsule and Folk both deliver useful features, but they’re designed with different audiences in mind.
Folk’s strengths lie in helping sales and agency teams enrich their customer data and run structured, outbound campaigns. If your team already has a clear playbook for outreach and the resources to set up your processes, Folk could be a strong fit.
Capsule, on the other hand, is built for small to medium-sized businesses that need a CRM to cover all the essentials, without unnecessary complexity or costs.
From customized Sales Pipelines and Project Boards to Workflow Automations and Dashboards, Capsule provides a complete CRM experience that works straight out of the box. Customers especially value its intuitive design, responsive support team, and powerful mobile app.
If you’re looking for a CRM that helps your business build stronger customer relationships while keeping things simple, Capsule is the clear choice.
Try any Capsule plan free for 14 days or sign up for our free plan to get started with a simple yet powerful CRM.
