Pipedrive vs Clay

Choosing the right CRM platform is crucial for any business aiming to enhance customer relationships and boost sales. Pipedrive and Clay are two prominent options, each offering unique features tailored to different business needs. Pipedrive is renowned for its sales-focused tools, while Clay emphasizes contact management and automation. In this blog post we'll explore a detailed comparison of their key features, pricing, and benefits to help you determine which CRM aligns best with your organization's goals. We'll also introduce folk which is a popular alternative worth considering.

What is Pipedrive?

Pipedrive is a web-based CRM for small businesses, offering lead management, automation, email integration, and customizable pipelines to optimize sales.

Key features of Pipedrive

• Lead and deal management: Centralized tools to manage customer data, interactions, and sales pipelines, helping teams act quickly on opportunities.
• Sales automation: Workflow automation to handle repetitive tasks, such as lead routing, follow-ups, and email sequences, allowing sales teams to focus on closing deals.
• Email integration: Full email sync, templates, and tracking features, enabling users to manage all communications directly from the CRM.
• Advanced reporting and analytics: Real-time data analytics and custom reporting tools to track sales performance, forecast revenue, and gain actionable insights.
• Customization and security: Options to customize pipelines, fields, and user permissions, with robust security measures to protect data.
  

What is Clay?

Clay is a customer relationship management tool designed to help users organize and manage contact information and interactions, with a focus on automation and contact enrichment.

Key features of Clay

• Contact management: The platform allows users to organize and manage contacts by consolidating information in one place. Users can add custom fields, notes, and tags to categorize and track interactions with each contact, making it easier to manage customer relationships.
• Automation: Clay CRM includes automation tools that handle repetitive tasks like contact updates and reminders, helping users streamline their communication and workflow processes.
• Search and filtering: The platform provides advanced search and filtering functionality, allowing users to segment their contact database based on various criteria such as engagement history, tags, or custom fields.
• Real-time updates: The platform provides real-time updates for contact records and tasks, ensuring that users have the latest information on their contacts and projects at all times.

Pipedrive vs. Clay: Feature Comparison

Let's break down the key features of two CRM software solutions and take a closer look at their sales automation, email marketing tools, and contact management.

1. Sales pipeline management

Pipedrive shines with its user-friendly Kanban-board, which closely aligns with the traditional sales pipeline management process. This intuitive interface allows users to visualize and track deals as they progress through various stages, providing a clear and organized view of the sales funnel.
Clay CRM does not offer a dedicated pipeline management feature as part of its core functionality. While users can organize contacts and tasks, the platform lacks specific tools for tracking deals or leads through stages in a sales pipeline.

2. Easy of use

Pipedrive is known for its intuitive interface, making it easy for users to navigate and manage their sales pipeline efficiently. Clay is also user-friendly with an interface that is reminiscent of an address book.

3. Contact enrichment

Pipedrive's contact enrichment feature integrates with third party tools automatically pulling additional data from external sources, such as job titles, company information, and social media profiles, to populate fields with relevant information. Clay CRM also offers a contact enrichment feature that automatically gathers additional information about contacts from various sources, such as social media profiles, public databases, and professional networks. This feature helps users build more comprehensive profiles by pulling in data like job titles, company information, and social links.

4. Outreach

Pipedrive excels with its email builder, ideal for crafting newsletters and responsive email marketing campaigns. In contrast, Clay lacks a dedicated outreach feature but allows users to track interactions and set reminders for follow-ups.

5. Automation

Pipedrive's automation simplifies sales processes by handling repetitive tasks like data entry and lead assignment. Clay also offers automation, enabling users to streamline tasks such as updating contact information and sending follow-up reminders based on specific conditions.

6. Integration

Pipedrive offers over 300 integrations, allowing seamless connection with various third-party tools, enhancing functionality in areas like marketing automation and email platforms. Clay also supports integrations with various third-party tools, allowing users to connect external applications for enhanced functionality.

7. Artificial Intelligence

Pipedrive integrates AI through its Sales Assistant, providing actionable insights and recommendations to optimize sales activities. Clay CRM currently lacks dedicated AI integration.

Price and plans comparison

Let's take a closer look at the price and plans of both Pipedrive and Clay.

Pipedrive prices

Pipedrive offers two types of plans, both for their CRM product. It comes as either a monthly or an annual subscription basis. Their annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Essential plan: Starts from $24 per user, per month.
• Advanced plan: Starts from $44 per user, per month.
• Professional plan: $64 per user, per month
• Power plan: Starts from $79 per user, per month.
• Enterprise plan: Starts from $129 per user, per month.

Clay  prices

Clay has a free plan for personal use, for up to 1,000 contacts. After that premium plans are as follows on an annual subscription.

• Pro: $10 per user, per month.
• Team: $40 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: Undisclosed.

Introducing folk CRM: the best alternative to Pipedrive and Clay

Looking for an affordable alternative? We recommend folk. There is a reason why folk is a multiple award-winning CRM platform loved for its easy-to-use, plug-and-play CRM system.

Key features

• Ease of use and customization: Easily customize the pipelines, dashboards, automation, email sequences, so that you can use it across your sales cycle and pipeline management – and other business functions such as recruitment, marketing, and more.
• Social media integration: Import people and companies from LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, Instagram, and X within a click thanks to folk’s Google Chrome extension.
• Contact sync from Gmail and Outlook: Full email sync enabling users to manage all communications directly from the CRM.
• Find email addresses in a click: Contact enrichment powered by Apollo, and Dropcontact so you can fill in missing data points with 1-click.
• Email sequences: Send email sequences with reminders if your leads don’t reply to your first emails. It includes an AI integration allowing you to personalize email at scale.
• Notes and reminders: Attach notes directly to a contact's profile in folk, and access them on the go. And assign reminders so you know exactly when to follow-up.

Price and plans

folk has a 14-day free trial. After that, there are affordable monthly or annual subscription plans. The annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month.
• Premium: $40 per user, per month.
• Custom: Starts from $80 per user, per month.

Pipedrive vs. Clay: What's the verdict?

Between Pipedrive and Clay, it's clear that each has its strengths. Pipedrive excels in lead management and sales automation, while Clay offers robust contact management and automation tools. However, for companies seeking a more personalized approach to relationship management, folk provides a flexible alternative to these traditional CRM options, blending ease of use with customization. Try folk today, free.