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Pipedrive vs. HubSpot: Which CRM Software Is Best?
Pipedrive and HubSpot are top CRM platforms, but they offer different solutions. We’ve compared their features to help you decide which one is right for your business.
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Customer relationship management (CRM) software centralizes customer information and gives your team tools to provide personalized experiences so you can close the deal efficiently. The best CRM software helps you understand your customers, capture leads and save time, but some platforms offer a comprehensive solution while others have a specific focus.
We’ve highlighted the key features from our Pipedrive review and our HubSpot review, so you can see how they stack up and decide which CRM solution suits your business.
Pipedrive vs. HubSpot Compared
Criteria | Pipedrive | HubSpot |
|---|---|---|
Price and Plans |
You can save up to 32% when billed annually. There is a 14-day free trial. |
Prices are for annual payments; higher-priced monthly payments are available for Starter and Professional plans. Marketing contacts and users are limited but you can pay for more. One-time onboarding fee applies to the two highest plans. |
Sales Pipeline | All plans have unlimited pipelines. The pipeline is color-coded, highly visual and easy to set up. Deal rotting and filters help you stay on top of leads. | Pipelines are limited across all plans. The pipeline is easy to customize. The best features only come with high-tier plans. |
Contact Management | Simple web forms and Smart Contact Data bring new lead information into the database. Many features aren’t available with all plans. | The platform stores data from all departments and from a database of more than 20 million businesses. Most features come with limits, including marketing contacts. |
Automations | You can use templates or build custom automations for every step of the sales process but this feature isn’t standard. | Limited email automations come with the free plan but additional automations, such as workflows and sequences, require a paid plan. |
Integrations | There are more than 480 external integrations. You can build custom integrations with an application programming interface (API). | There are more than 1,500 integrations, including with CRM competitors. You get automatic data syncing with HubSpot built integrations and there’s a developer platform. |
Additional Features | You get excellent features for sales and email marketing, including visual reports, plus paid add-ons. | You get extensive features for all aspects of how you do business, including thorough reporting and analytics but most features are restricted to premium plans. |
Customer Support | Customer support is available 24/7 via chat but only the top two plans offer phone support. There are online articles, a forum and a learning academy. | The free plan offers no live support and the Starter plan is limited to email and chat help. All users get access to learning resources and a forum. The top two plans offer phone support but require paid onboarding. |
Who Do We Recommend Pipedrive For?
Pipedrive is our pick for small businesses in need of a sales-focused CRM for lead generation and effective pipeline management. The drag-and-drop interface, simple, color-coded visualizations and useful automations will help your team stay on top of every deal.
We love that Pipedrive offers 5 affordable plans, so you can find a solution that fits your budget. You’ll get all the tools your sales team needs to succeed, including email functions. Businesses requiring expanded service can purchase marketing and project management add-ons.
Pipedrive’s visual sales pipeline lets you see where deals are at a glance. Source: Pipedrive
Pipedrive excels as a process-first CRM thanks to these features:
- Easy-to-use, color-coded visual sales pipeline.
- Variety of cost-effective plans and add-ons.
- Customization, automation and report options for better customer management.
Who Do We Recommend HubSpot For?
HubSpot’s CRM Suite is perfect for businesses with multiple departments looking for a unified solution that allows for collaboration and building strong customer relationships. It includes extensive features from HubSpot’s marketing, sales, operations and content management system (CMS) hubs and all your teams’ customer interactions are stored in the same place. Plus, with over 1,500 integrations, everyone can work with the tools they need to boost sales.
We like that HubSpot offers a free plan, which is useful for tiny companies looking for basic CRM tools. However, the high price of paid plans and user and marketing contact limits means HubSpot won’t be the best choice to scale your business.
HubSpot prioritizes connecting your team with contacts to build relationships and close deals. Source: HubSpot
We think these features make HubSpot a top all-in-one CRM solution:
- Centralized platform to communicate with contacts across all departments.
- A free plan with limited tools from all hubs and paid plans with heaps of tools and features.
- More than 1,500 external integrations.
Pipedrive vs. HubSpot Comparison
Price and Plans
Pipedrive
- There are five plans ranging from $14.90 to $119.
- You can scale up affordably as business grows.
- All plans allow a 14-day free trial.
We love that Pipedrive offers five affordable plans, so businesses of all sizes can choose a cost-effective solution. You can test drive plans with a 14-day free trial and save up to 32% when billed annually.
Unlimited customizable sales pipelines and contacts come standard. Limits on open deals, custom fields, reports, dashboards and automations depend on the plan. Many advanced features are only found in the top-tier plans. We like that most of Pipedrive’s add-ons, such as LeadBooster and SmartDocs, are charged per company, keeping costs down.
Plan | Price (user/month) | Includes |
|---|---|---|
Essential | $21.90 (billed monthly) / $14.90 (billed annually) | Lead, deal, contact and pipeline management, deal rotting, 24/7 live chat support, 400-plus integrations, sales assistant and API access. 3,000 open deals and 30 custom fields per company, plus 15 reports and one dashboard per user. |
Advanced | $37.90 (billed monthly) / $27.90 (billed annually) | Everything in Essential, plus customizable email templates, group email, email/call scheduling and web-to-mobile calls. 10,000 open deals and 100 custom fields per company, 30 active automations per user, plus 30 reports and one dashboard per user. |
Professional | $59.90 (billed monthly) / $49.90 (billed annually) | Everything in Advanced, plus automatic lead assignment, visual contacts timeline, team management and goals, Smart Docs add-on and revenue forecasts. 100,000 open deals and 300 custom fields per company, 60 active automations per user, 50 reports and unlimited dashboards per user. |
Power | $74.90 (billed monthly) / $64.90 (billed annually) | Everything in Professional, plus phone support, Projects add-on and custom onboarding. 200,000 open deals and 500 custom fields per company, 90 active automations per user, 250 reports and unlimited dashboards per user. |
Enterprise | $119.00 (billed monthly) / $99.00 (billed annually) | Everything in Power plus security rules and alerts. Unlimited open deals and custom fields per company, 180 active automations per user, unlimited reports and dashboards per user. |
HubSpot
- There’s a free plan with basic tools from all hubs.
- Paid plans offer many features but are expensive and have user limits.
- You might have to pay for onboarding or adding users.
HubSpot charges a flat rate with limited users per plan. We appreciate that the Free Tools plan allows everyone at your company access to the platform’s basic features. You can add paid users for extra but it can become costly.
The CRM suite offers a comprehensive solution, but for smaller businesses, we think the high price tag, especially for plans with advanced features, might be prohibitive. We don’t like that paid plans require an annual commitment or the steep onboarding fees for premium plans. We would have liked a free trial option.
Plan | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
Free Tools | $0 | Limited sales, marketing, service, customer service management and operations tools including: One automated email action, email reply tracking, one shared inbox, three dashboards with 10 reports/dashboard, 2,000 bulk emails per month, one deal pipeline, contact management, limited conversational bot, five email templates and basic search engine optimization recommendations. |
Starter | $30 per month (monthly billing) / $20 per month (annual billing) Plus: $50 per month, per 1,000 additional marketing contacts $25 per month per additional user | 1,000 marketing contacts and two Sales and Service Hub paid users. Free Tools features, plus 10 automated email actions, 10 dashboards with 10 reports/dashboard, 5x email send limit, email and chat customer service, two deal pipelines, 5,000 email templates, simple automations and 10 e-signatures user/month. |
Professional | $1,781 per month (monthly billing) / $1,600 per month (annual billing) Plus: $250 per month, per 5,000 additional marketing contacts $100 per month, per additional user Onboarding fee: $4,500 | 2,000 marketing contacts and 5 Sales and Service Hub paid users. Starter features, plus unlimited email automations, 25 dashboards with 30 reports/dashboard, 100 shared inboxes, 10x email send limit, customer support by phone, 15 deal pipelines, 5,000 email templates, advanced SEO analytics and recommendations, advanced conversation bots and 300 sales workflow automations. |
Enterprise | $5,000 per month (annual billing) Plus: $100 per month, per 10,000 additional marketing contacts $120 per month, per additional user Onboarding fee: $12,000 | 10,000 marketing contacts and 10 Sales and Service Hub paid users. Professional features, plus 50 dashboards with 30 reports/dashboard, 200 shared inboxes, 20x email send limit, behavioral event triggers, single sign-on, predictive lead scoring, 100 deal pipelines, 1,000 sales workflow automations, 30 e-signatures user/month and artificial intelligence (AI) call analytics. |
Pipedrive is our choice for small businesses looking for affordable CRM software to meet your needs and budget. As your business grows, Pipedrive allows you to scale up without breaking the bank.
HubSpot’s free plan is a decent option for very small businesses with limited CRM needs, but we think their extensive suite of paid features better serve large companies.
Sales Pipeline
Pipedrive
- Easily visualize deal progress with the color-coded pipeline.
- Deal rotting alerts you to inactive deals.
- Deal filters let you search by deal type or employee.
Deal rotting alerts you to inactive deals, allowing you to take action or schedule activities. Source: Pipedrive
Pipedrive’s visual sales pipeline sets it apart from the competition. The Kanban card system and color coding let you know where the deals are and what actions to prioritize. We love the deal rotting feature, and it’s something HubSpot doesn’t offer. It turns inactive deals red and triggers automated actions, allowing your team to intervene.
Building sales pipelines is easy thanks to the intuitive drag-and-drop interface, templates, custom fields and automations. As deals progress, sales forecasts, triggered actions and alerts keep your team on track. We found the deal filters especially useful. You can segment deals, check deals by type or status and monitor employees.
HubSpot
- Pipelines are easy to set up and customize.
- Analytics and lead scoring show deals’ value.
- Pipelines are limited.
HubSpot’s deal pipeline is straightforward but it isn’t as clear or digestible as Pipedrive’s. We like that new deals are added automatically from existing contacts in the CRM Suite or created easily through the drag-and-drop feature. Pipelines can be automated to help your team focus on the most pressing tasks. Analytics, sales forecasting and lead scoring lets you know which deals are the most valuable.
Unlike Pipedrive, pipelines are limited with all plans. We were disappointed that many of the advanced features, like lead scoring, only come with top-tier plans.
Contact Management
Pipedrive
- Use simple forms to generate leads or try the LeadBooster add-on.
- The Smart Contact Data tool imports customer information from the web.
- Advanced features don’t come standard.
From Pipedrive’s centralized database, you can see contacts’ details, past interactions and other relevant information. We like that you can generate new leads with simple web forms or get advanced features with the LeadBooster add-on. The Smart Contact Data feature pulls customer information from the web, providing a complete picture instantly.
We appreciate that lead management is effortless through automations, templates and email targeting. We love that Pipedrive lets you send marketing emails to 100 contacts with staggered delivery to avoid scheduled emailed blockers.
We were disappointed that many features, such as the visual Contact Timeline and group emailing, don’t come standard.
HubSpot
- Contact data syncs from all departments and a huge database of companies.
- Most contact management tools come standard.
- All plans have a limited number of marketing contacts.
HubSpot excels at helping you convert contacts into customers. Data is stored centrally but pulled from CRM Suite’s hubs and from a database of over 20 million companies. We love that teams can collaborate from a shared space to provide unified personal communications.
We like that the most useful features, such as lead segmentation, chatbots, templates and email reply tracking come with all plans, although some have limits. Paid plans have many additional features like automatic conversation routing.
One downside is that all plans have a limited number of marketing contacts, so companies that need to reach a large audience will end up paying a lot to add contacts.
Automations
Pipedrive
- Use templates or build custom automations for the entire pipeline.
- The Sales Assistant gives automation tips.
- Automation isn’t standard and comes with limits.
We like that Pipedrive makes it easy to use templates or build custom automations for every step of the sales process. You can set up triggers so actions like sending out personalized emails or transferring deals to other representatives will take place automatically as contacts move along the pipeline. We found the AI-powered Sales Assistant that gives performance and automation tips especially useful.
We were disappointed that timesaving automation isn’t available with the Essentials plan and is otherwise limited.
HubSpot
- Limited email automations come with the free plan.
- Additional automations including customized workflows depend on the plan.
- You can trigger actions in external software integrations.
HubSpot offers limited email automation for free, but additional automations require a paid plan and the best features cost the most. The Starter plan includes triggered actions and notifications. High-tier plans allow you to create a limited number of customized CRM workflows and action sequences. We found creating workflows complex and may require using HubSpot’s learning resources. We appreciate that you can trigger actions in many of the business tools HubSpot integrates with.
Integrations
Pipedrive
- The Marketplace has more than 480 integrations.
- You can build custom integrations.
- Top email software two-way syncs with Pipedrive.
Pipedrive makes integrating with more than 480 business solutions from their Marketplace a breeze. We love that you can share data with the top marketing automation, customer support and accounting software. Plus, you can build custom integrations with Pipedrive’s API.
With two-way sync, any updates in your Google, Outlook or Microsoft 365 email or calendar show up in Pipedrive too.
HubSpot
- HubSpot integrates with over 1,500 business solutions.
- Data syncs automatically with HubSpot-build integrations.
- You can build custom apps and integrations.
Although HubSpot offers a comprehensive CRM solution, we love that they want your team to be as productive as possible, allowing you to integrate with the software you already use, even competitors’ CRM solutions. You can find over 1,500 integrations in their extensive App Marketplace.
Automatic data syncing with HubSpot-built integrations makes it even easier for departments to work across tools. There’s also a developer platform to build apps and custom integrations.
Additional Features
Pipedrive
- You can purchase add-ons to expand service.
- Visual reports are easy to digest.
- Additional features are restricted to high-tier plans.
Pipedrive’s features are focused on managing contacts along the sales pipeline. We appreciate that you can purchase add-ons for marketing campaigns, project management and document management. However, businesses with complex needs should seek a more comprehensive solution.
We love that Pipedrive’s highly visual interface extends to its reporting tools. Deal, activity and revenue forecast reports are easy to access and understand. You’ll also get performance management tools, but we were disappointed that most additional features are restricted to premium plans.
HubSpot
- Extensive tools for all customer-facing departments.
- Excellent reporting tools come standard.
- Many features only come with the most expensive plans.
HubSpot’s CRM suite is a complete business solution meant for all your business departments. Every team can better communicate with contacts thanks to the huge array of features, such as a website builder, blogs, multilanguage content, SEO analytics, social media tools, calling features and canned responses.
We like that HubSpot’s thorough CRM analytics tools come standard. You can use templates or build custom reports to analyze your team’s performance, see where leads are coming from and determine how to allocate resources.
HubSpot’s reports are customizable and easy to understand. Source: HubSpot
HubSpot is the best option for businesses that need extensive CRM features across all business departments. Teams can work from one central platform with an almost endless list of tools and features.
Small businesses need to keep in mind that many features are only offered in the expensive, highest-tier plans.
Customer Support
Pipedrive
- You get 24/7 live chat support but phone support isn’t universal.
- Online resources help you navigate the platform.
Pipedrive offers 24/7 customer support over live chat in 22 languages, but we were disappointed that only premium plans get phone assistance and onboarding services.
Users can learn how to navigate the platform and troubleshoot issues with online Knowledge Base articles, the Pipedrive Community forum and the Pipedrive Academy’s tutorial courses, webinars and videos.
HubSpot
- Support options depend on your plan.
- Free plans can use online learning resources and forums.
HubSpot offers reliable email and in-app chat service, but only the Professional and Enterprise plans provide phone support. Free plans don’t get live support, but all users have access to community forums and the HubSpot Academy’s courses, certifications and other learning resources. HubSpot provides paid onboarding and training services but prices are costly.
Pipedrive vs. HubSpot Recap
Choose Pipedrive if:
- You want excellent visual sales-focused features.
- You need unlimited sales pipelines and email contacts.
- You’re looking for an affordable plan that can scale with your business.
Choose HubSpot if:
- You want a unified platform for all departments to communicate with customers.
- You need to integrate your CRM with other business solutions.
- You’re looking for extensive features for all areas of your business.
FAQs
What does Pipedrive do?
Pipedrive logs every contact interaction in a central database and provides your teams with the tools to best serve customers and drive sales.
What does HubSpot do?
HubSpot centralizes customer information from all your business departments so your teams can collaborate effectively to build customer loyalty and grow revenue.
Is HubSpot only a CRM?
HubSpot is a unified CRM platform, but it offers stand-alone hubs for marketing, sales, customer service, CMS and operations.
Can Pipedrive be used as a CRM?
Yes, Pipedrive is a CRM built around the sales pipeline.
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