Streak alternative

A Streak alternative for teams that are not all on Gmail

Streak is a CRM built inside Gmail: a browser extension, Google Workspace only. That is its whole idea, and if your team lives in Gmail it is a good one. Lightng is a CRM beside your inbox that sends through any mailbox over SMTP: Gmail, Outlook, Fastmail, your own domain, with opens, clicks, replies and bounces reported by template and by sending address, at $39 per user per month.

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The difference that actually decides it

Almost every other comparison you could draw between these two products is a matter of taste. This one is not, and it is usually settled before anyone opens a pricing page: Streak requires Gmail, and Lightng does not.

Streak’s own site calls it “The Gmail CRM for high-performing teams” and says it is “built directly into Gmail”. It installs as a browser extension for Chrome, Safari and Edge. There is no Outlook or Exchange version documented. So the question is not which product is better; it is whether every person who needs the CRM is on Google Workspace, in a supported browser, today and after the next hire.

If the answer is yes, that inbox-native experience is a real advantage and no separate app matches it. If the answer is no (one co-founder on Microsoft 365, a contractor on a custom domain, anyone who works from a phone) then half your pipeline lives somewhere the CRM cannot see, and that is not a problem you configure your way out of.

Streak vs Lightng, side by side

Read from each vendor’s own pricing page and documentation on 26 August 2026. Prices move; the date is here so you can tell how stale this is.

	Streak	Lightng
Where it runs	Inside Gmail, as a browser extension (Chrome, Safari, Edge)	A web app in any browser, on any device
Mail providers	Gmail and Google Workspace only	Any mailbox over SMTP: Gmail, Microsoft 365, custom domain
Sends from your own address	Yes, through your Gmail account	Yes, through your own mailbox
Email tracking	Included on every tier, free included: “See when your email is read and when links are opened”	Opens, clicks, replies, bounces and unsubscribes, split by template and by sending address
Mail merge	50/day free; 1,500/day paid, subject to Google's own account limits (400/day on personal Gmail)	Subject to the same limits your mailbox provider sets, whoever that is
Free tier	Yes: free forever, with tracking and 50 merges/day	No. 7-day full-product trial
List price	Pro $49 · Pro+ $69 · Enterprise $129 per user/month	Starter $15 (≤3 seats) · Professional $39 (≤100 seats)
What is in the paid price	The CRM and email tools inside Gmail	Boards, pipeline, dashboards, email sending and reporting, CSV import, AI assistant, LinkedIn capture, one bill

Streak’s free tier is a real one and this table is not going to pretend otherwise: email and link tracking, snippets, thread splitter and 50 mail merges a day, at no cost. If that covers you, it covers you.

What you gain by leaving the inbox

The case for a CRM that is not an extension is not that extensions are bad. It is that a pipeline is a different shape from an inbox, and rendering one inside the other has a ceiling.

Typed boards. A column that knows it holds a date, a currency, a select or a person can be summed, filtered and charted. A column of free text can only be read. Lightng’s boards are typed, and the dashboards are built from that, which is why “what is in stage three, closing this month, owned by Sam” is a view rather than a search.

Reporting by template. Per-message tracking tells you that this email was read. Reporting grouped by template tells you which of your six follow-ups actually earns replies, which is the question that changes what you send tomorrow. Lightng breaks every send down by template and by sending address.

Everyone, on anything. No extension to install, no browser requirement, and nothing that stops working when someone joins on Outlook.

When to pick Streak instead

These are real, and this list is not padded. If one of them describes you, Streak is the better buy and we would rather you found that out here than after paying us.

Your whole team is on Google Workspace and wants to stay in the inbox.Streak is native to Gmail in a way a separate web app cannot be. If nobody wants a second tab, that preference is worth more than any feature on this page.
You need it to cost nothing.Streak's free tier includes email and link tracking and 50 mail merges a day, forever. Lightng has no free plan. For a solo pipeline on Gmail, Streak is simply the cheaper answer.
You want the pipeline visible on the thread itself.Seeing a deal's stage in the same view as the conversation, without switching context, is Streak's core idea and it works.
You rely on thread splitting or Gmail-specific power tools.These are built around Gmail's own data model. A provider-agnostic CRM has no equivalent, and we are not going to claim one.

Moving from Streak to Lightng

Export your pipelines from Streak to CSV, then import them. Lightng’s import maps columns to typed fields, so a date arrives as a date and a stage arrives as a select, not as text that looks like one.

Connect the mailbox you already send from and the email side works immediately: your address, your domain, replies to your inbox, sent mail in your Sent folder. The one thing that does not transfer is historical open and click data, because it lives in Streak’s tracking records rather than in your mail. Reporting starts fresh from your first send.

FAQ

Streak alternative: common questions

What is the best alternative to Streak?

It depends on one thing: whether you want the CRM inside Gmail or beside it. If your team is entirely on Google Workspace and never wants to leave the inbox, Streak is hard to beat and its free tier is genuinely useful. If anyone on your team is on Outlook or a custom domain, or you want a pipeline view that is not a browser extension, Lightng is the closer fit: it sends through any mailbox over SMTP and costs $39 per user per month with email reporting included.

Does Streak work with Outlook?

No. Streak is built into Gmail and ships as a browser extension for Chrome, Safari and Edge; its own site describes it as 'The Gmail CRM' and documents no Outlook or Exchange support. If part of your team is on Microsoft 365, they cannot use it. Lightng connects to any mailbox over SMTP, so a mixed Gmail and Outlook team works on one system.

Is Streak free?

Yes, there is a free forever tier, and it is not a token one: it includes email and link tracking, snippets, thread splitter and mail merge up to 50 a day. Paid plans start at $49 per user per month list. Lightng has no free plan: a 7-day full-product trial, then $15 or $39 per seat.

How does Lightng compare to Streak on price?

Lightng Professional is $39 per user per month against Streak Pro at $49 list, and both include email sending and tracking in that price. The honest caveat is at the bottom end: Streak's free tier costs nothing and Lightng has no equivalent, so for a one-person pipeline on Gmail, Streak is cheaper by exactly $39.

Can I keep sending from my own address if I switch?

Yes. That is the design in both products. Streak sends through your Gmail account; Lightng connects to your mailbox over SMTP and sends through it. In both cases mail leaves from your address on your domain, replies come back to your inbox, and sent mail is in your Sent folder. Neither relays through a shared sending service.

What are Streak's sending limits?

Streak documents mail merge at 1,500 a day on paid plans, with a footnote that this depends on Google Workspace: 'Personal Gmail accounts (name@gmail.com) are limited to 400 emails/day due to Google's sending limits.' Those are Google's ceilings, and they apply to Lightng too when the connected mailbox is a Google one; any tool sending through Gmail inherits them.

Try it with the mailbox you already use

Seven days, the whole product, no card. Connect any mailbox (Gmail or otherwise) and send one real campaign before you decide.

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