Pipedrive vs Close CRM

Pipedrive and Close CRM are two sales-focused platforms designed to help businesses streamline their workflows and close deals more efficiently. Pipedrive emphasizes pipeline management and visual deal tracking, making it a great fit for teams seeking a structured and customizable sales process. Close CRM, by contrast, is built for fast-paced sales teams, offering tools like call tracking, email automation, and robust communication features. In this blog post, we’ll explore their key features to help you decide which CRM best aligns with your business needs. Or, if folk might offer a more balanced alternative with user-friendly contact management and customization options.

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 Close CRM?

Close CRM is a sales-focused platform designed to eliminate the complexity of traditional CRMs, offering a streamlined and user-friendly experience tailored for small businesses with ambitious growth goals. Known for its intuitive design, Close provides robust features like automation to reduce manual work, built-in communication tools for faster follow-ups, and powerful integrations to fit seamlessly into any tech stack. Whether you’re managing leads, collaborating with a team, or scaling sales efforts, Close is built to save time and help small businesses succeed.

Key features of Close CRM

• Fast setup: Simple and quick to implement, allowing teams to start using the platform without delay.
• Intuitive interface: Easy-to-navigate dashboard tailored for speed and productivity.
• Built-in communication: Integrated calling, email, and SMS tools for seamless interaction with leads and clients.
• Automation tools: Includes workflows, smart views, and task automation to streamline repetitive tasks.
• Powerful reporting: Customizable sales and activity reporting for actionable insights into team performance and revenue trends.
• Team collaboration: Features like shared inboxes and task assignments to keep teams aligned and efficient.
• Secure and scalable: Designed with robust security and scalability for growing businesses.
• Integrations: Offers over 100 native integrations and Zapier compatibility to sync seamlessly with existing tools.

Pipedrive vs. Close CRM: 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 offers a user-friendly Kanban-board that closely aligns with the traditional sales pipeline management process. It's designed to provide a clear visual representation of where each deal stands, making it easier for sales teams to manage their workflow efficiently.
Close CRM's pipeline offers a streamlined, visual approach to managing sales processes, making it easy to track deals from start to finish. The Powerful Pipeline View provides a clear snapshot of all active opportunities, enabling teams to focus on what matters most. With features like drag-and-drop deal management, users can effortlessly update the status of leads.

2. Ease of use

Pipedrive offers a user-friendly interface with intuitive navigation, making it easy for sales teams to manage their pipeline efficiently. Close CRM is designed with simplicity in mind, providing a clean and straightforward layout that facilitates quick access to essential features.

3. Contact enrichment

Pipedrive's contact enrichment feature works by integrating with third party applications to pull additional information from external sources, automatically populating fields with relevant data such as job titles, company information, and social media profiles. Close CRM does not provide its own contact enrichment feature. You can only access this using a third party application, which might incur an additional cost.

4. Outreach

Pipedrive's email builder is more geared towards campaigns such as newsletters, and more responsive email marketing campaigns. Close CRM's outreach features integrate built-in calling, email, and SMS tools, enabling seamless multi-channel outreach without the need for external apps. Users can send emails directly from the platform, make calls with one-click dialing, and track SMS conversations for streamlined follow-ups.

5. Automation

Pipedrive's automation feature streamlines sales processes by automating repetitive tasks, such as data entry, follow-ups, and lead assignment. Close CRM's automation features are designed to save time and streamline workflows for sales teams. Users can create custom workflows to automate repetitive tasks, such as updating deal statuses, assigning leads, or sending follow-ups. The platform's Smart Views allow teams to automatically organize and prioritize leads based on predefined criteria, ensuring no opportunity is missed.

6. Integration

Pipedrive offers over 300 integrations, allowing users to connect the CRM with various third-party tools across different categories, including marketing automation and email platforms. Close CRM offers integrations with various tools to enhance sales workflows and streamline data management.

7. Artificial Intelligence

Pipedrive integrates AI primarily through its Sales Assistant, which provides actionable insights and recommendations to optimize sales activities. Close CRM does not appear to have an AI integration.

Price and plans comparison

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

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: Starts from $64 per user, per month.
• Power plan: Starts from $79 per user, per month.
• Enterprise plan: Starts from $129 per user, per month.

Close CRM prices

Close CRM offers a monthly and annual payment option. The annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Startup: $49/user/month.
• Professional: $99/user/month.
• Enterprise: $139/user/month.

Introducing folk CRM: the best alternative to Pipedrive and Close CRM

Looking for an affordable alternative? We recommend folk. A multiple award-winning CRM platform loved for its easy-to-use, plug-and-play CRM system. folk can support multiple business functions including sales, marketing, recruitment, and more. You can also use folk as a solopreneur, small to mid-size team, or large enterprise.

Key features

• Contact management: Bring all your contacts into one place seamlessly, from social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram and X to multiple inboxes including Gmail and Outlook.
• 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.
• Sales pipeline dashboard: Manage your entire sales cycle and leads with a highly customizable sales pipeline dashboard that can be used in Kanban-board view or listicle.
• 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.

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. Close CRM: What's the verdict?

It's apparent that both Pipedrive and Close CRM offer robust features tailored for sales-driven teams, but their focus differs. Pipedrive excels in pipeline management with its customizable interface and advanced analytics, making it ideal for businesses looking for detailed sales tracking. Close CRM, on the other hand, simplifies communication with its built-in tools and intuitive design, perfect for teams seeking a streamlined workflow. However, for companies that need 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