Pipedrive vs. Pipeline CRM: key differences, features and pricing

Pipedrive and Pipeline CRM are both cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) systems built for sales teams.

While they offer similar core tools, each takes a different approach to customization and scalability, making them a better fit for various businesses.

This Pipedrive vs. Pipeline CRM guide breaks down their features, usability and pricing to help you find the best CRM for your team.

Pipedrive vs. Pipeline CRM: at a glance

Pipedrive is a powerful CRM with automation and customization at its core. Your teams can build custom sales pipelines, automate repetitive tasks, forecast revenue using real-time deal progress and much more.

In contrast, Pipeline CRM is a lightweight CRM. It focuses on basic deal tracking and contact management without as many advanced features or deep customization.

Here’s how the two platforms compare:

While platforms support salespeople, Pipedrive offers more advanced features, flexibility and scalability for teams that require more than the basics.

Pipedrive vs. Pipeline CRM: key features

Both Pipedrive and Pipeline CRM offer tools for managing contacts and tracking deals. They differ in how those features work – and how much control you have over them.

Here’s how Pipedrive and Pipeline CRM’s core features stack up.

Contact management

Managing contacts is at the heart of any CRM. Pipedrive and Pipeline CRM let you store basic contact details, with Pipedrive giving you more control, better visibility and less manual work.

In Pipedrive, you manage contacts from one central view. Each person or company record shows everything in one place – contact info, deal history, emails, tasks and notes.

You can scroll through a full activity feed that includes every email, call, meeting and deal update. It’s always up to date and easy to scan. Create custom fields and use filters to segment contacts by location, status or deal stage.

Pipedrive also syncs with your email to automatically log conversations and keep a history of changes so your team always has the latest context.

In comparison, Pipeline CRM covers the basics. You can store contact details, log notes and attach tasks or files.

Pipeline CRM supports custom fields for contacts, deals and companies with basic functionality. While the website highlights customization as a feature, it’s unclear what types are available.

Pipedrive gives you an efficient way to get a clear view of every customer relationship.

Pipeline visibility and deal tracking

When managing multiple sales deals, you need a real-time view of your pipeline. You should spot what’s moving and what needs a follow-up without digging through spreadsheets or guessing what to do next.

Pipedrive gives you a visual pipeline you can match with your sales process. You can create multiple pipelines for different workflows, such as new business, renewals or upsells.

Drag and drop deals between stages, and Pipedrive updates will progress instantly. You’ll see visual indicators for deal status so reps know what to do next.

For example, colored icons show whether a deal is overdue, scheduled for follow-up or needs immediate attention.

Click on any deal card to open the detail view.

You’ll see the deal’s value, timeline, contact info, recent emails, tasks and notes.

Pipeline CRM also uses a drag-and-drop board to organize deals by stage. It gives you a basic overview of your pipeline and lets you move deals along as they progress.

The interface doesn’t provide ‌as much visual feedback – like activity alerts – to guide your next steps.

If your team needs easy-to-follow pipelines, Pipedrive is the stronger option.

Workflow automation

Workflow automation saves time and helps your team stay focused. It automates repetitive sales tasks so deals keep moving without constant manual updates.

In Pipedrive, you can build automated workflows that trigger when deals or contacts change. For example, you can set one to send an email, create a task, update a field or assign a lead to the right team member.

You can set specific actions that trigger the automation for each of these. For example, when you mark a deal as “Won”, Pipedrive can automatically send a thank-you email and notify your customer success team.

The workflow builder is visual and easy to use. Start from a template or build something from scratch and test everything before activating it.

Each automation runs in the background, so your team stays consistent without managing every step.

Pipeline CRM includes built-in automation that lets you create rule-based workflows. You can set up triggers based on actions like field updates, pipeline changes or new records.

These automations create tasks, update fields or move deals between stages.

While it works well for basic automation, you’ll need to build each automation from scratch as there are no pre-built templates.

If your team needs scalable automation, Pipedrive offers a more powerful set of tools with ready-made templates.

For instance, you can automatically send a welcome email and create a follow-up activity or, when a deal moves to a new stage, you can assign a task.

Sales reporting and insights

Clear lead reporting helps you track progress and make smarter decisions. It shows what’s working, what’s slowing down and where your team should focus next.

In Pipedrive, you can build detailed reports and dashboards that track every part of your sales process. Create charts for deal progress, conversion rates, rep performance, activities and more.

Filter data by user, time period, pipeline or custom fields, so you always see the sales metrics that matter most. The visual dashboards make it easy to spot trends, track goals and report revenue.

You can also use Pipedrive’s AI report-generation tool to create reports without data analysis experience

Tell the AI report generator the custom report you’d like it to create, then click enter and let it work.

Pipedrive will generate a custom report based on what you ask it to do. Here’s an example of what it looks like when asked to summarize sales team performance:

Pipeline CRM also offers a reporting dashboard. You can run reports on deals by stage, user activity volume and pipeline changes over time.

You can build custom dashboards for individual users or teams. Filters let you sort data by user, stage, source and tags. It helps track sales success, although it lacks AI insights and advanced analytics tools.

If you want more control over your sales data, Pipedrive offers deeper reporting capabilities and smarter guidance.

Mobile CRM

A strong mobile CRM app helps sales reps stay productive wherever they are. Whether in the field or between meetings, your CRM software should make it easy to stay on top of deals and follow-ups.

With Pipedrive’s mobile app, you can manage deals, update pipelines, make sales calls and send emails on the go.

The app syncs in real time with your desktop account. You can:

• Track calls and log them automatically

• Use the day organizer to see what’s coming up and schedule tasks

• Take notes using voice-to-text

• Work offline and sync updates after reconnecting

You also get reminders and push notifications, so you never miss a follow-up. Everything you do in the mobile app updates immediately, giving your whole team visibility no matter where you work from.

Pipeline CRM offers a mobile app for iOS and Android, too. The app allows users to view contacts, deals and tasks, log calls and send emails.

It also includes functionality for managing your pipeline and scheduling activities.

If your team works remotely or on the go, Pipedrive’s mobile features give you more control, visibility and a smoother way to keep deals moving.

Pipedrive vs. Pipeline CRM: user experience and interface

Here’s how Pipedrive and Pipeline CRM compare in ease of use, tool onboarding and customer support.

Ease of use

A CRM’s interface plays a big role in how quickly your team moves through tasks, finds information and stays on top of deals.

Pipedrive’s layout keeps things simple as your processes grow. Menus are straightforward and features like search, filters and recent activity are always close at hand.

You can move between contacts, deals and reports without getting lost. Visual elements like icons, status colors and activity markers help you understand what needs attention at a glance. For example, you’ll see green bars for deal age and red text for overdue activities.

You can also customize the layout to fit your needs, including the location of all menu items.

The platform is easy to navigate, even with its advanced features like automation or reporting. It doesn’t overload the screen or bury tools in sub-menus.

Pipeline CRM takes a slightly different approach. You use the top-level menu to switch between contacts, deals and tasks.

It’s easy to use for core tasks but offers fewer visual cues and less flexibility in how information is displayed. Pipedrive CRM’s thoughtful design allows teams to move between tasks quickly.

Onboarding

A smooth CRM onboarding process helps you use the platform faster and with fewer roadblocks.

When you sign in to Pipedrive, you’ll see a step-by-step checklist for setting up your pipeline, importing contacts and connecting your email.

As you explore the app, helpful tooltips highlight key features and options. These useful suggestions reduce the learning curve and help your team get value from Pipedrive faster.

If you need help, open the live chat or browse detailed how-to articles and video tutorials. You can use sample data or quick-start templates to test things before importing your records.

Pipeline CRM offers standard onboarding support, data import tools and an online help center. The import tools make it easy to pull data from spreadsheets or other CRMs, so your team can start working immediately rather than manually entering it.

Hands-on help becomes available if you pay for CRM onboarding assistance – $750 for standard onboarding or $1,500 for premium account setup. For most users, setup is manual and self-directed.

While Pipeline CRM’s overall setup process is straightforward, it lacks the proactive guidance you get with Pipedrive.

Customer support

Fast, reliable support makes a big difference, especially when your team encounters issues or needs help using advanced features.

Pipedrive offers 24/7 email customer service for all users. For Advanced and higher plans, Pipedrive provides live chat support Monday through Friday, 24 hours a day. Live chat and phone support are available 24/7 for Power and Enterprise users.

Its help center includes searchable articles, step-by-step guides and video tutorials.

A community forum is also available for peer advice.

Pipeline CRM provides chat and email support to customers, plus access to a help center and other resources.

If your team needs consistent weekday support and robust self-service tools, Pipedrive offers a better support experience overall.

Pipedrive vs. Pipeline CRM: AI features

AI helps you work smarter by finding patterns, saving time and suggesting better decisions. Pipedrive is an AI-powered CRM, while Pipeline’s CRM system only offers an AI writing assistant.

In Pipedrive, the AI Sales Assistant offers sales advice.

The AI business assistant gives you real-time suggestions, like which deals to follow up on, which activities you’ve missed and what’s slowing you down. It learns from your patterns and activities to help you stay focused.

You can also use Pipedrive’s AI email management tools to write and summarize messages. Open Pipedrive’s email composer, choose “Write my email” and tell it what you want to write.

Pipedrive will suggest a content outline, write your emails and reduce the time you spend following up with clients.

Pipedrive also integrates AI in its Marketplace search engine and SmartApps recommendations.

When you browse the Pipedrive Marketplace, an AI assistant suggests apps based on your use case, existing tools or industry.

On the other hand, Pipeline CRM offers an AI writing assistant to draft and refine sales emails.

While helpful for speeding up communication, it’s currently the only AI-driven feature available.

If you want AI sales tools that support your entire sales process, Pipedrive offers a broader set of features – with more on the way.

Pipedrive vs. Pipeline CRM: add-ons and integrations

Integrations and add-ons connect your sales tools and extend your CRM’s functionality without switching tabs.

Pipedrive connects with over 400 third-party apps for social media marketing, email (like Gmail and Microsoft Outlook), scheduling, document signing, customer support and communication.

Most integrations plug directly into the CRM. You can launch a video call, sync calendars or send email campaigns directly from your contact or deal views. Everything stays in one place.

Pipedrive also offers a suite of five optional add-ons:

• LeadBooster – adds a conversational Chatbot, Live Chat, Web Forms and a Prospector tool to improve your lead generation and qualification processes

• Campaigns – lets you build and send email campaigns with tracking, segmentation and contact syncing

• Projects – adds project management tools so that teams can manage post-sale tasks and handoffs in Pipedrive

• Web Visitors – shows which companies visit your website, even if they don’t fill out a form – useful for sales prospecting

• Smart Docs – creates sales proposals, gets eSignatures and tracks when recipients open your documents

With these add-ons, you only pay for what you need. They’re available to every Pipedrive user, regardless of the plan you’re on.

Pipeline CRM supports fewer integrations across email, marketing, phone calls and accounting. You can connect some tools directly. Many others require a Zapier connection or API configuration.

There are no built-in add-ons, so you’ll need external platforms for additional features like email marketing or lead capture.

Pipedrive vs. Pipeline CRM: pricing and scalability

Pipedrive and Pipeline CRM offer tiered pricing, with Pipedrive providing a lower entry point and optional add-ons to activate when ready.

Pipedrive pricing plans:

Pipedrive gives you more control over pricing by offering lower entry costs and optional feature upgrades through add-ons. You can start with the essentials and expand when needed without paying for unwanted features.

Pipeline CRM pricing:

Pipeline CRM requires a higher starting investment and offers fewer options to scale.

If you’re looking for a scalable CRM tool with lower starting costs and growth options, Pipedrive is more cost-effective.

Final thoughts

Pipedrive and Pipeline CRM offer tools for managing sales, taking different approaches. The right choice depends on your team, goals and how much flexibility you need.

If you’re looking for a simple CRM focused on basic contact and deal tracking, Pipeline CRM may be an option.

If you want a scalable CRM with automation and built-in AI tools, Pipedrive’s all-in-one solution is a strong choice.

Try Pipedrive free for 14 days to see how it helps you streamline your workflow and close more deals.