folk

What it is

folk is a CRM for businesses where the pipeline is a network rather than a funnel: agencies, consultancies, investors, anyone whose next project comes from a relationship rather than a form fill. It syncs email, calendar and WhatsApp, pulls contacts in from LinkedIn through a browser extension, and enriches records automatically.

Its distinguishing feature is magic fields, AI columns that answer a question about a contact or company across your list, so information you would otherwise look up per person becomes a field. Alongside that sit pipeline management, email campaigns and sequences on Premium.

Who it's for (and who it isn't)

It fits small teams doing relationship-led business development who found traditional CRMs too heavy and spreadsheets too dumb. The LinkedIn extension is the tell: this is designed for people whose prospecting happens in conversations and connections rather than in inbound forms.

It is a weaker fit for a structured sales operation with defined stages, forecasting and reporting, which is what HubSpot Sales Hub does better and cheaper at the entry level. It is also not the choice if you want a free tier to start on, since folk has none.

Pricing

folk is paid with no free plan, offering a 2-week free trial with premium features and no credit card. Standard is $24 per member per month billed annually, at $288 per year, or $30 monthly, and includes pipeline management, email campaigns, AI assistants, the LinkedIn extension, email, calendar and WhatsApp sync, 500 email enrichments and 2,000 magic fields per month, and access to more than 5,000 integrations. Premium is $48 per member per month annually, at $576 per year, or $60 monthly, and adds custom objects and deals, email sequences, workspace roles, dashboards, API access and full interaction history, with 1,000 enrichments and 5,000 magic fields. Enterprise starts at $80 per member per month annually.

Enrichment and magic field allowances are the second meter. A team doing heavy list building will hit those before they hit anything else.

Set it up

Official guide: Bring all your contacts to folk

1. Start the free trial. folk has no free plan: the 2-week trial includes premium features and needs no credit card, and afterwards Standard costs $24/member/mo billed annually ($288/yr) or $30 monthly. Go to folk.app, click "Try for free", sign up with your email address or Google account and click "Start free trial" on the last page. The trial page shows what you can use.
2. Create a group, which is a list of contacts that belong together, such as clients or prospects. Click the "+" button in the sidebar, enter a group name, choose an emoji and select that the group holds people. You now see your empty group with a pipeline view and a table view.
3. In the empty group, click "Import people from a file" and pick a CSV file, a plain spreadsheet file you can export from your email app. Use at most 25 people while you try this, so you can read every AI answer in step 4. folk matches your columns to its fields, so check the matches. You now see your contacts in the table.
4. In the table view, click the "+" in the column header and add an AI field. Turn on "Fill with AI" and, under "AI prompt", write the question you would look up by hand, such as: In one sentence, what does {Company} do? Save the field and read each answer yourself, because the AI can be wrong. Each row now shows the AI's answer.
5. Connect your Gmail so folk can send email from your address. Click "Settings", go to "Senders", click "New Sender" and select "Gmail sender". Google's sign-in page then opens.
6. Log in with Google and accept the "Send on your behalf" permission, which lets folk send email from your address. Your sender is now listed.
7. Send one email. It goes to real people the moment you click "Send", so pick one or two people who expect to hear from you. Filter the group down to them, click "Email all", choose your sender under "From", add a subject and a short message, click "Review" to check the recipients and click "Send". Your email is now on its way from your own Gmail address.

When this works, you have your contacts in one group, a column the AI filled in and a first email sent from your own Gmail address.

On Premium ($48/member/mo annually ($576/yr) or $60 monthly): custom objects (your own types of record besides people and companies) and dashboards (screens that summarise your data in charts).

Strengths and limitations

The strength is fit for relationship businesses. Automatic capture from email, calendar and LinkedIn means the CRM stays current without data entry, which is the reason most lightweight CRMs fail.

The limitations are price and structure. At $24 per member per month billed annually with no free plan, it is more expensive to start than several competitors, deals and custom objects sit on Premium at $48, and the AI and enrichment allowances are metered. It is also deliberately not a heavy sales system, so if you need forecasting and formal stages, this is the wrong shape rather than a lighter version of the right one.