5 best alternatives to Pipedrive

When it comes to managing customer relationships, the right CRM can make all the difference. But what happens when your current platform no longer fits your needs? Whether it’s due to limited features, high costs, or compatibility issues, it might be time to explore other options. In this blog post, we'll explore the best CRM alternatives for businesses seeking a better alternative to Pipedrive. Pipedrive is a popular CRM, but it’s not always the perfect solution. Let’s explore why you might consider switching and what alternatives you should consider.

Why look for alternatives to Pipedrive?

While Pipedrive has its strengths, it may fall short in certain areas. Here are some reasons businesses search for alternatives to Pipedrive:

• Cost concerns: Pricing can escalate as teams grow or as advanced features are needed.
• Limited customization: Some businesses require more flexibility to tailor the CRM to their workflows.
• Scalability issues: Growing businesses might outpace the platform’s capabilities.
• Integration gaps: The need for seamless connectivity with tools like email, analytics, or project management.

Key features to look for in a Pipedrive alternative

Before diving into the options, it’s essential to know what makes a great CRM. Here are the key features to prioritize when searching for the best CRM alternatives:

1. Customizability: Ensure the CRM can adapt to your unique processes.
2. Pricing flexibility: Look for solutions that cater to small teams and enterprises alike.
3. Ease of use: A simple, intuitive interface can save time and training costs.
4. Integration capabilities: Check compatibility with your existing tools.
5. Customer support: Reliable assistance can be a game-changer when onboarding or troubleshooting.
6. Flexibility: Does the CRM system only support sales? What about marketing, recruitment, and other areas of the business?

Top alternatives to Pipedrive

1. HubSpot CRM

Best for: Teams focused on marketing automation and lead generation.

HubSpot CRM offers a robust free plan with advanced marketing and sales tools, making it ideal for small to medium businesses.

HubSpot is a powerful alternative for managing customer relationships, offering tools that combine marketing, sales, and contact management in one place.

Its contact management system lets you centralize customer data, making it easier to keep track of conversations and build stronger relationships. Marketing automation tools, like email campaigns and landing pages, help you engage your audience effectively, while sales pipeline tracking gives you a clear view of your deals at every stage.

With seamless integrations and a free plan that supports unlimited users, HubSpot is a versatile choice for teams looking to simplify their workflows and grow without added complexity.

HubSpot CRM is widely praised for its intuitive interface, making it easy for beginners to get started. While its advanced features require some learning, the platform offers extensive tutorials and resources to help users master the system without a steep learning curve. ‍

The Deal Pipeline Waterfall in HubSpot provides a visual overview of pipeline changes within a set time frame. It breaks down deal movements, including new deals, those shifted between stages, and deals marked as won or lost.

While it offers useful insights, interpreting the data effectively may require some familiarity with the system. For teams looking to manage their pipeline, it can help track deal progress and identify trends, though its value depends on how well the team utilizes the available data for decision-making.

The pipeline view in HubSpot provides a visual representation of deals at various stages, allowing teams to track progress and monitor their pipeline. Each column represents a stage in the process, giving users a clear overview of where deals currently stand.

While this format can help teams stay organized, it heavily relies on users consistently updating deal information to maintain accuracy. The absence of scheduled activities or outdated entries, as shown in some fields, can make it challenging to draw actionable insights. For teams managing a large volume of deals, ensuring the pipeline remains up-to-date could require additional effort and coordination.

Pricing

A free forever plan is available. The following is a reflection of HubSpot Sales Hub's annual subscription plan.

• Sales Hub Starter: Starts from $15/seat/month.
• Starter Customer Platform: Starts from $12/seat/month.
• Sales Hub Professional: Starts from $90/seat/month.‍
• Sales Hub Enterprise: Starts from $150/seat/month.

2. Salesforce

Best for: Large organizations and those needing deep analytics.

Salesforce is known for its powerful customization and scalability, Salesforce suits enterprises with complex needs. But users sacrifice implementation time and face a steep learning curve.

Salesforce is a capable CRM platform if you're looking for a solution that combines workflow customization, analytics, and AI-driven insights to manage your sales processes.

Implementing Salesforce involves setting up workflows to match your business needs. While the platform offers flexibility, getting everything configured can take time and might require some expertise. Its analytics tools, including dashboards and reports, provide detailed insights into performance, although fully understanding the data can require additional effort.

Salesforce’s Einstein AI offers predictive analytics and automated recommendations to help guide decisions, but the value you get will depend on the quality of your data. The AppExchange marketplace adds the option to integrate third-party tools, though finding and implementing the right solutions can feel overwhelming. With scalability designed to support growing businesses, Salesforce is best suited for teams ready to invest time in tailoring it to their needs.

Salesforce comes with a steep learning curve, largely due to its wide range of features. For teams with access to IT support or training resources, it can offer significant flexibility and customization options. Its extensive ecosystem is better suited for organizations with more complex needs, where the effort to configure and maintain the platform aligns with their goals.

Salesforce’s sales pipeline dashboard provides a centralized view of key metrics, helping sales teams track their progress and manage their pipeline effectively.

The dashboard displays an overview of the total pipeline value, the number of accounts and leads being managed, and tasks or events scheduled for the day. Tools like Einstein AI offer additional insights, such as opportunity scores, to prioritize deals that are more likely to close. The interface also highlights workflow automations, enabling teams to streamline repetitive tasks like sending follow-up emails or progressing leads to the next stage.

While the dashboard is visually informative and feature-rich, making the most of its potential often requires teams to invest in implementation time in setup and training. Its focus on detailed data means it’s better suited for teams prepared to commit to ongoing management and customization to align with their specific workflows.

While the insights can be useful, they rely heavily on accurate and up-to-date data being entered into the system. Teams may need to dedicate time to ensure data consistency and make full use of these features. For businesses that are ready to invest in maintaining data quality, this dashboard provides a detailed view of pipeline health and guidance for next steps.

Pricing

Depending on the size of your team, and the features you're after. You have a few Sales Cloud plans to choose from.

• Starter Suite: Starts from $25/seat/month.
• Pro Suite: Starts from $100/seat/month.
• Enterprise: Starts from $165/seat/month.
• Unlimited: Starts from $330/seat/month.
• ‍Einstein 1 Sales: Starts from $500/seat/month.

3. folk CRM

Best for: Teams that need a multi-functional CRM that requires a short implementation time

folk CRM combines simplicity with powerful contact management tools. It’s designed for teams that value user-friendly workflows and is a firm favourite in the market, thanks to its flexibility in supporting sales, marketing, recruitment and more.

folk is designed to simplify contact management and team collaboration by offering tools that make managing relationships more intuitive.

As a CRM, it is highly customizable allowing you to create tailored views for organizing and filtering contacts, ensuring your team has quick access to the information they need. Real-time updates and shared notes help keep everyone aligned, reducing the risk of miscommunication. What makes folk stand out from the other options on this list, is its ability to support multiple business functions such as sales, marketing, recruitment, and more. As well as its ability to scale with you as your business grows. You can use folk as a solopreneur, small to mid-size team, and large enterprise.

You can also save on admin time with its automated workflows, that streamlines repetitive tasks, such as follow-ups and reminders. Allowing your team to focus on what matters most. Communication becomes more consistent and benefits from its customizable templates that can be reused for consistency across your messaging. Additionally, integrations with popular tools like Slack and Gmail ensure seamless connectivity, so your team’s workflows remain uninterrupted.

folk focuses on simplifying teamwork and collaboration by providing a streamlined way to manage contacts and close deals as a team. Its intuitive interface allows users to tag teammates in notes, ensuring clear communication and task delegation during key moments in the sales process.

The platform also supports customizable pipelines, allowing teams to tailor their workflows to fit specific objectives, whether it’s managing opportunities, tracking products, or organizing events. With real-time updates and easy-to-use tools like follow-up reminders and contact enrichment, folk ensures teams stay on top of their tasks without added complexity.

folk's upcoming sales dashboards are designed to help teams measure their performance and track progress effectively. With features like team dashboards, you’ll be able to compare contributions across team members, offering clear visibility into individual and collective performance. Metrics such as revenue breakdowns make it easy to see how your sales efforts are translating into results over time.

The dashboards also provide a snapshot of deal status, highlighting deals in progress, those won, and those lost. This overview helps teams identify trends and adjust strategies to improve outcomes. By simplifying sales tracking, folk’s dashboards aim to provide actionable insights without adding complexity, making it easier for teams to focus on achieving their goals.

Pricing

You can try folk for free with a 14 day free trial. After that, a monthly or annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $20/seat/month.
• Premium: $40/seat/month.‍
• Custom: Starts from $80/month.

4. Zoho CRM

Best for: Sales-focused features

Zoho CRM is an affordable option packed with automation features and AI-driven insights.

Zoho CRM is a versatile platform that combines communication, automation, and analytics into one solution, making it a strong contender for businesses looking to manage their customer relationships efficiently.

As a CRM, Zoho allows you to consolidate your communication channels, from emails and calls to social media interactions, into one platform. This omnichannel approach simplifies how you engage with leads and customers, though getting everything set up can take some time. The platform’s sales automation features handle tasks like lead scoring and workflow approvals, helping to reduce repetitive work and free up your team’s time.

Zoho also incorporates Zia, its AI assistant, offering predictive insights, task reminders, and sentiment analysis. While useful, the value of Zia’s features depends on the accuracy of your data. Custom dashboards provide real-time insights and KPIs tailored to your needs, though navigating the wealth of options can feel overwhelming initially. Despite its learning curve, Zoho CRM’s affordable pricing and extensive resources make it an accessible choice, especially for small businesses looking to balance cost with functionality.

Zoho CRM’s sales pipeline dashboard offers a detailed view of customer interactions, helping teams track engagement and prioritize leads more effectively. The dashboard provides real-time insights into customer activity, including pages visited, time spent, and interaction history. This level of detail allows sales teams to better understand customer behavior and tailor their outreach accordingly.

The left panel organizes customers by interaction details, such as the number of pages viewed and the duration of visits, while the right panel dives deeper into specific customer profiles. It highlights key metrics like the customer’s current activity, last visit, and days of engagement, enabling teams to act promptly on high-priority leads. Features like integrated chat further streamline communication, ensuring immediate follow-ups directly from the dashboard.

While Zoho’s interface is feature-rich, the abundance of information may feel overwhelming for new users. However, for teams ready to invest time in learning the system, this dashboard provides a centralized and actionable view of the sales pipeline.

If you're looking for something a little less complicated, Bigin by Zoho is more compatible with small businesses. Bigin's sales pipeline dashboard provides a clean and organized view of deal stages, making it straightforward for teams to track and manage their sales process. Each column represents a different stage, such as New Deals, Qualification, or Closed Won, giving users a clear snapshot of where their deals stand.

Deals are visually categorized with labels like "New customer," "High priority," or "Promising deal," helping teams quickly identify opportunities that require attention. The pipeline also displays key details such as deal value, assigned team member, and expected close dates, allowing users to prioritize their tasks efficiently. Customization options, like cloning pipelines from templates, further streamline the process for different team workflows, such as Customer Support or Order Fulfillment.

While the interface is user-friendly, managing multiple pipelines and keeping information up-to-date may require regular oversight. Still, for teams seeking a simple and visual way to track their sales, Bigin offers an intuitive and effective solution.

Pricing

Zoho has a free 15 day trial, as well as a free plan for three uses. After that, Zoho CRM pricing is as follows on an annual subscription.

• Standard: $14/user/month.
• Professional: $23/user/month.
• Enterprise: $40/user/month.‍
• Ultimate: $52/user/month.

5. Freshsales

Best for: Sales teams needing integrated communication features.

Freshsales offers built-in communication tools like email and phone, making it ideal for sales-driven teams.

Freshsales is a straightforward CRM platform that combines essential sales tools with AI-powered features, making it a practical choice for managing leads and pipelines effectively.

Freshsales gives you access to integrated communication tools, with email, phone, and chat built directly into the platform, ensuring all interactions are centralized. The lead scoring system automatically ranks leads based on engagement, helping teams focus their efforts on the most promising opportunities. Its drag-and-drop visual sales pipelines simplify deal management, making it easy to move leads through different stages.

Freddy AI, Freshsales’ AI-powered assistant, provides predictive analytics to support decision-making, though some teams may need time to fully utilize its capabilities. The platform also offers full mobile functionality, ensuring teams on the go can stay connected and productive. Known for its user-friendly interface and quick setup process, Freshsales allows users to adapt quickly, though more advanced tools might require additional learning for those new to AI-driven CRM features.

The Sales Essentials Dashboard provides a comprehensive overview of pipeline performance, offering detailed insights into key metrics that drive decision-making. This dashboard displays critical data points, such as revenue won versus revenue lost, deal win/loss percentages, and open deal values segmented by stage, allowing teams to assess their progress at a glance.

You can monitor individual and team performance with visualizations like tasks by owner and contacts by sales owner, helping identify areas where follow-up efforts may be needed. Forecasted revenue by deal stage provides a clearer understanding of future earnings, while the funnel view breaks down the pipeline, making it easier to spot bottlenecks or drop-off points.

The dashboard also highlights revenue sources and their contributions, enabling teams to refine strategies for targeting high-performing channels. While this dashboard is packed with useful data, effectively using it may require teams to stay consistent with data entry and updates to ensure accuracy and relevance. For sales teams seeking a data-driven approach, this dashboard provides an organized and insightful starting point.

Pricing

As a CRM product, you can choose between Freshsales Suite, or Freshsales. Freshsales focuses on sales force automation, providing tools to manage contacts, deals, and sales pipelines. Freshsales Suite, integrates sales and marketing functionalities into a unified platform. These prices are based on Freshsales.

• Growth: Starting from $9/seat/month.
• Pro: Starting from $39/seat/month.‍
• Enterprise: Starting from $59/seat/month.

Conclusion

Choosing the right CRM is crucial for managing customer relationships and achieving business success. Among the best CRM alternatives to Pipedrive, each platform offers unique strengths tailored to different needs. HubSpot excels with its marketing automation tools, Salesforce provides unmatched scalability, Zoho CRM offers affordability, and Freshsales integrates communication tools seamlessly. However, when it comes to balancing simplicity with robust contact management, folk CRM stands out as the best alternative to Pipedrive. While Pipedrive is known for its pipeline management, folk CRM enhances contact organization and collaboration, making it ideal for teams that want an intuitive yet powerful solution. With its real-time updates, customizable views, and seamless integrations with tools like Gmail and Slack, folk CRM simplifies workflows without compromising on features.

If you’re looking for a CRM that combines ease of use with impactful features, folk CRM offers the perfect balance to support your team’s growth and efficiency. Try folk for free, today.

Frequently Asked Questions

What type of CRM is Pipedrive?

Pipedrive is a sales-focused CRM designed primarily for small to medium-sized businesses. It emphasizes pipeline management, helping sales teams track deals, automate repetitive tasks, and stay organized throughout the sales process. Its intuitive visual pipelines make it a popular choice for teams that prioritize deal tracking and closing.

What should I consider when looking at Pipedrive alternatives?

When exploring alternatives to Pipedrive, you may want to consider the following:

• Features: Look for options that go beyond sales pipeline management, such as advanced contact management, marketing automation, or AI-driven insights.
• Ease of use: Ensure the alternative CRM is intuitive and aligns with your team’s technical expertise.
• Integration capabilities: Check if the CRM integrates seamlessly with your existing tools, like email platforms or project management software.
• Pricing: Compare the cost of alternatives, especially as your team grows or requires additional features.
• Scalability: Choose a CRM that can grow with your business needs over time

How does folk CRM compare to Pipedrive?

‍folk CRM focuses on simplifying contact management and collaboration, making it ideal for teams that value ease of use. Pipedrive, on the other hand, is pipeline-centric, catering to sales-driven teams. Both are excellent tools, but folk CRM offers a more user-friendly interface and broader applicability for managing relationships across various industries.

How can I test a CRM before committing?

‍Most CRMs offer free trials or demo versions. Use these to explore the interface, test features, and evaluate how well the platform aligns with your team’s needs.