CRM & SalesOur pick #2 of 4
Pipedrive
by Pipedrive
A pipeline-first CRM that opens on your deals and keeps asking one question: what is the next action, and when.
Why Pipedrive is on the shortlist
Pipedrive is the pick for people whose day is a pipeline. It opens on stages and deals rather than a dashboard, and its whole structure pushes one question at you: what is the next action on this deal, and when.
That focus is the reason it made the list over several broader tools. Reps update it because updating it is how they see their own work, which is the only reliability test a CRM really has.
Best for a small sales team — two people or twenty — where someone is responsible for a number and the process is mostly outbound or follow-up driven. It is a paid tool from the start; there is a trial, but no permanent free plan to hide in.
Skip it if you need marketing email, a help desk or a free tier. Pipedrive is deliberately a sales tool, so the rest of the customer lifecycle ends up in other subscriptions.
What readers say about Pipedrive
Ratings come from readers who use it, not from us, and they sit beside our pick rather than deciding it. Vendors cannot buy, edit or remove them.
Sample figures. Reader ratings open soon; the stars and counts shown are placeholders so you can see how the page will read, not measurements of anything.
Written reviews (none yet)
Nobody has written about Pipedrive here yet. The first written review on a page is the one the next hundred readers use, so if you have run it in a real business, the form above is the place.
How Pipedrive is priced
We describe the shape of the pricing rather than quoting a figure, because figures go stale within weeks. The number is on the vendor's own page, one click away.
- Free trial
- No lasting free plan; a time-limited trial of the paid product, with no card needed to start it.
- What you pay for
- Paid per seat on tiered plans, from a basic pipeline up to tiers that add automation, reporting and forecasting, with a handful of optional add-ons for things like lead capture and campaigns.
- In one line
- Free trial, then paid per seat
Who Pipedrive is for, and who should skip it
Best for
- Outbound and follow-up sales
- Reps who own a number
- Visual deal stages
Skip it if
- You need marketing email
- You want a free tier
- You need a help desk
Alternatives to Pipedrive
The other picks on our CRM & Sales shortlist, each with its own reason to be there.
HubSpot CRM
The broadest free CRM for a small business, and the one that grows into marketing and support without a migration.
4.4out of 5, from128 ratings
Close
A CRM with calling, SMS and email sequences built in, made for small teams that sell by picking up the phone.
4.5out of 5, from41 ratings
monday CRM
Sales boards for teams already running on monday.com, so the pipeline lives in the tool everyone already opens each morning.
4.1out of 5, from36 ratings
Torn between two of them? Read HubSpot vs Pipedrive.
Pipedrive questions people ask
Is Pipedrive good for a small team?
Yes, and arguably it is at its best there. A team of two to twenty where someone is responsible for a number gets a tool that reps actually update, because updating it is how they see their own work. Larger teams with formal reporting needs will lean on the higher tiers.
Does Pipedrive have a free plan?
No. There is a free trial long enough to build a pipeline and run real deals through it, but after that it is a paid product per seat. If a permanent free tier matters, HubSpot is the pick on our CRM shortlist that has one.
Pipedrive or HubSpot?
Pipedrive if the job is selling and you want the pipeline to be the whole interface. HubSpot if you need to start free, or you can already see email campaigns and support tickets sitting against the same contact. We compare them directly on the HubSpot vs Pipedrive page.
Can Pipedrive send marketing emails?
Not as a core feature. It handles one-to-one sales email well, with tracking and templates, but campaigns are an optional add-on rather than part of the CRM, and it has no help desk. Plan on the rest of the customer lifecycle living in other tools.
Is Pipedrive easy to set up?
Easier than most. You define stages, import contacts and start moving deals, and a new rep can be working in it the same afternoon. The effort is in agreeing what each stage means, which is a team conversation rather than a software one.
What this page is, and what it is not
This entry is desk research: Pipedrive's own pricing and documentation read on the day this page was written, and our editorial judgement of who it suits. The reader ratings are separate from that judgement and do not change our position. We have not run every tool here in a live business for a year, so treat the day-to-day claims as informed reading rather than a field test.