Customer service is now a key differentiator for businesses. To develop a long-term relationship with customers, you have to provide quick, easy, and effective service. Since quality customer service is a significant revenue driver, your CRM software should be able to provide all the tools necessary to manage relationships with customers. Here, we compare Pipedrive vs. Salesforce CRM—two CRM platforms that you may consider using to accelerate your customer management initiatives.
This article will discuss the core features of these two products. Other equally important factors such as pricing, ease of use, integrations, deployment, and use cases are also included in this Pipedrive and Salesforce CRM comparison to help you choose the solution that fits your unique CRM requirements.
Pipedrive vs. Salesforce CRM Comparison Table of Contents
In 2021, ticket volume has increased across all channels. This means that customers are connecting more with businesses. What is more important, however, is to qualify the context of these connections. Typically, customers reach out to a brand after a bad experience, and research shows that 61% of customers would defect to a competitor after just one bad experience.
With these in mind, the importance of having a CRM platform is now a necessity for every business. It is no longer an option because to disregard CRM is to neglect an important pillar of business growth. As personalization continues to be at the core of customer experience, your business should have the right tools that will help retain customer loyalty.
Source: Zendesk CX Trends 2022
CRM platforms primarily manage contacts, automate, and track sales and marketing processes. These software solutions also have communication channels that enable companies to constantly communicate with customers. While there is a tendency for sales teams to focus only on the lead-to-conversion process, CRM platforms can do a lot more for nurturing customers and eventually transforming them into brand advocates.
Having a CRM platform can significantly grow your business because quality customer service can drive sales. So, to help you choose one, this article will compare Pipedrive to Salesforce, and how each platform fares against the key factors that you need to consider in a CRM software solution.
Overview of Pipedrive and Salesforce CRM
Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a simple, intuitive, and sales-focused CRM platform that features a fully visual pipeline. It features a deal-driven workflow, but also includes contact management, communication channels, and sales tracking tools. Pipedrive is best for small and mid-sized businesses that are looking for an accessible and affordable CRM platform.
With an AI-powered sales assistant tool, Pipedrive has customizable dashboards and a simple-to-navigate interface. The entry-level pricing plan of Pipedrive offers a complete suite of tools that can organize and automate your sales CRM in no time.
Pipedrive
Try out Pipedrive with their free trial
Salesforce CRM
Salesforce CRM is a sales, marketing, and customer support solution designed to track all customer information and interactions in one location. It provides unlimited customization options that enable businesses to keep their unique work processes within the platform.
The deep analytics functionality of Salesforce also provides sales, marketing, and customer support teams with crucial insights that drive continuous improvement of work processes. The feature-rich Salesforce CRM platform is ideal for larger sales teams that manage large amounts of customer data.
Try out Salesforce CRM with their free trialSalesforce CRM
Comparison of Pipedrive vs. Salesforce CRM
Core Features
Campaign Management
Campaign management is an essential tool in CRM because it helps companies track engagement. It also helps marketers evaluate the effectiveness of marketing initiatives. The campaign management tool of Salesforce is fully customizable where users can customize fields based on campaign type, and also create campaign hierarchies. This tool also lets you monitor your prospects by checking on their most recent activity online.
With Pipedrive, campaign management is currently released to a very limited number of closed users. Once launched, this feature will be an add-on and will require an additional fee on top of the standard pricing plans. Having said that, the campaign management tool of Pipedrive is only limited to email campaigns, which can monitor engagement, delivery, the performance of links and top locations, and recipients.
The Campaign Object of Salesforce is a platform where all campaign-related data are kept, which can be customized depending on the campaign monitoring objectives. Tools like Campaign Influence and Einstein Attribution assist in generating reports and insights on campaigns. This campaign management feature also provides web-generated leads.
Compared to Pipedrive, Salesforce provides more tools for monitoring how customers interact with campaigns.
Contact Management
The basic contact management features of Pipedrive allow sales teams to organize contacts based on their names or the organizations that they belong to. Every contact has a Detail View that displays all important information about each customer or organization. This includes a visual history of all calls, emails, and conversations.
The Smart Contact Data feature of Pipedrive instantly retrieves all information about your contact from the web, such as from LinkedIn or Google, which could help in providing insights for faster conversion. In addition, within the Contacts Timeline of Pipedrive, the user can enable the Follow Up Frequency feature, which will automatically make a notification once you need to make a follow-up with a particular customer.
Meanwhile, the contact management feature of Salesforce provides a full view of each customer conversation history from all communication channels. In addition, the platform pulls information from social media to add insights about the customer. By providing agents with a 360-degree view of the customer, the platform gives users full visibility and the ability to design campaigns and communications accordingly.
Compared with Salesforce, the contact management system of Pipedrive appears more sales-focused. The contact management dashboard of Salesforce includes a tab for marketing and another tab for specific opportunities identified, while the Pipedrive customer management console only includes the basics such as notes, activities, emails, and files.
The contact management system of Pipedrive is more sales-focused and has fewer elements.
Workflow Automation
The workflow editor interfaces of both Pipedrive and Salesforce are easy to customize. With Pipedrive, workflow types include updating deals, sending emails, and deal assignments, while Salesforce encompasses deal management, task creation, and approval requests. Both solutions offer workflow templates, as well as the creation of workflows from scratch.
As for workflow rules, the pricing tiers of Pipedrive include 30 rules for the Advanced Plan, 60 rules for the Professional Plan, and 100 rules for the Enterprise Plan. For Salesforce, the Essentials and Professional Plans include five rules, while the Enterprise and Unlimited Plans have no limits to the number of workflow rules that can be created.
Compared with Salesforce, Pipedrive’s automation is limited. The pre-built, customizable workflow templates can automate creating and assigning activities, creating opportunities, sending emails, moving deals to new stages, and converting leads to deals. On the other hand, the Salesforce Process Builder offers more robust automation that can be used in client communication and administrative tasks, creating workflows from best practices, approval processes, and even email automation.
Salesforce CRM automation includes real-time monitoring of key metrics that show team performance.
Lead Management
Lead management is about tracking prospects. The initial aim is to convert your prospects into contacts and create an account for them on your CRM platform. Leads are also part of the pipeline, thus it is crucial that they are monitored in the same way as existing contacts and opportunities in your pipeline.
The lead management of Pipedrive called LeadBooster is an add-on that features integrated chatbots, lead pool filtering, and lead prioritization. The focus of LeadBooster is on lead management, acquisition, and conversion.
Offered across all pricing plans as a standard feature, Salesforce lead management offers more functionalities with automatic lead scoring and tracking. From generating leads from the web to lead organization, including managing conversions, Salesforce systematically organizes all stages of the lead management process to conversion. You can even update leads with third-party data for richer customer profiling.
Pipedrive add-on LeadBooster includes more features for contact management.
Reporting and Analytics
All pricing tiers of both Pipedrive and Salesforce offer basic report templates. Should a user wish to prepare customized reports, this feature is also standard across all Salesforce pricing tiers. For Pipedrive, however, custom reporting is only offered in the Professional Plan with a limit of 150 reports and is unlimited in the Enterprise Plan.
Reports can be generated from Pipedrive with one click. Compared to Salesforce, the reporting system of Pipedrive lacks sophistication as it only offers basic tools such as status monitoring, activity tracking, and goal reporting. Insights can also be very limited.
Salesforce, on the other hand, has all the fields, filters, groupings, and charts available so you can sort and customize your data. The Enterprise and Ultimate Plans offer advanced reporting tools like cross filters and bucketing that can deliver deep customer insights. The Einstein AI assistant of Salesforce also provides support to agents by scoring leads and suggesting the next best action to take.
Advanced reporting is available with the Pipedrive Professional and Enterprise Plans, and the Salesforce Enterprise and Unlimited Plans. Salesforce has a limit of 20 reports per dashboard while Pipedrive only allows 1 dashboard per user for the Essential and Professional Plans. For Salesforce Professional and Enterprise, users can have unlimited dashboards.
The top-notch lead and opportunity management tools of Salesforce outshine those of Pipedrive. The deep analytics of Salesforce, combined with its powerful reporting tools, is an industry-standard when it comes to sales and customer support service automation. Branded as “built by salespeople for salespeople,” Pipedrive is also intuitive and highly visual, but is more focused on sales and not as holistic as Salesforce.
Salesforce reporting is more sophisticated with all the fields, filters, groupings, and charts available so you can sort and customize your data
Pipedrive vs. Salesforce CRM Core Feature Key Takeaways:
- Pipedrive as a sales CRM is reasonably priced given its suite of features and functionalities.
- Salesforce CRM offers more features and customizations for businesses that require richer customer data.
Integrations
Pipedrive Marketplace integrates with approximately 300 apps and offers more than 60 free apps. This pales in comparison with the over 4,000 apps in Salesforce AppExchange, plus, more than 1,200 free apps. Salesforce readily integrates with Google Cloud, Mailchimp, and LinkedIn.
While Pipedrive may seem to have very limited integrations, users can integrate with Zapier, which can open up the platform they are currently using to more than 500 apps. Pipedrive also interconnects with other popular tools such as PandaDoc, QuickBooks, and Slack. Users can also build their own apps using the Pipedrive API.
Pipedrive interconnects with popular business tools.
Pipedrive vs. Salesforce CRM Integration Key Takeaways:
- Pipedrive may appear to have fewer integrations but its ability to interconnect with third-party integration tools takes care of this limitation.
- Salesforce offers vast integrations to ensure that customer data can flow smoothly between apps that are already in use in your business.
Pricing
Offering basic contact management features, sales automation, sales tracking, and communication channels, Pipedrive’s entry-level pricing tier at $12.50 per user per month will not disappoint the first-time CRM platform user. If your main goal is to streamline operations and have a platform that can efficiently manage the sales pipeline, Pipedrive might be the right solution for you. However, to make use of all the advanced features, including workflow automation, users may opt to avail of the Advanced Plan at $24.90 per user per month, billed annually.
For businesses that want to implement complete automation of processes and unlimited customization of workflow, Salesforce is the preferred solution. Though more pricey compared to Pipedrive, the lowest pricing tier of Salesforce at $25 per user per month is packed with marketing, sales, and service tools. Collaboration tools, productivity tools, contact management, sales automation tools, and various communication tools are just some of the features offered in the Essentials Plan.
If your team is on a budget, choose Pipedrive for its no-frills functionality. If you are planning to scale at speed, however, choose Salesforce to help you organize your marketing, sales, and support operations. Both Pipedrive and Salesforce pricing have four tiers. The free trial offer of Pipedrive lasts for 14 days, while for Salesforce free trial is for 30 days, except for the Essential Plan.
The entry-level pricing tier of Salesforce is packed with marketing, sales, and service tools.
Pipedrive vs. Salesforce CRM Pricing Key Takeaways:
- Salesforce entry-level pricing is more expensive but comes with more than the essential CRM features.
- Pipedrive pricing is significantly lower but the lowest pricing tier still offers the basic tools for contact and lead management.
Ease of Use
Pipedrive is quick and easy to set up with an almost flat learning curve. On the contrary, Salesforce requires a lot of customizations and the learning curve may become steep, depending on the background of the first-time user. First-time CRM platform users may need to be guided by a Salesforce expert on the ins and outs of the system.
Since the Salesforce CRM platform is highly-customized, it would entail additional training for the sales team to harness the full potential of this software. However, once the user gets used to the Salesforce console, it becomes one powerful and intuitive platform.
Pipedrive has a clean interface and a fully visual pipeline. As a platform developed by former sales professionals, the Kanban-style pipelines of Pipedrive facilitate easy sales management. The UI is simple, easy to navigate, and can be customized through drag-and-drop based on user preferences.
Although the Salesforce CRM interface can be overwhelming at first, this software comes with navigation menu variations that the user can easily set up. Depending on the user’s preferences, only the important data that needs to be displayed on the console will be included.
The Kanban-style pipelines of Pipedrive facilitate easy pipeline management.
Pipedrive vs. Salesforce CRM Ease of Use Key Takeaways:
- When it comes to navigation, the interface of Pipedrive is clean and straightforward.
- Salesforce CRM allows users to customize navigation by creating multiple navigation menus.
Getting Started
Comparing the speed of deployment between these two platforms, Salesforce takes more time to customize while sales teams can begin to use Pipedrive in a day. Onboarding new users will be a breeze for Pipedrive. However, new users of Salesforce CRM may require training from a Salesforce expert to become familiar with the highly-customized platform.
Pipedrive CRM is quick and easy to deploy. You can get it up and running in less than a day. Onboarding new users is fairly easy due to its simple and clutter-free interface. The fully visual pipeline also makes it simple to understand for every salesperson. And since this software is cloud-based, there are no technical requirements from the end-user.
Getting started with Salesforce CRM may take some time compared to Pipedrive as the former requires customization. Salesforce CRM takes more time but it would be worth the wait for the user because once it is up and running, the seamless collaboration between sales, marketing, and support will be able to centralize all aspects of your business and deliver results.
Salesforce CRM may require training from a Salesforce expert to become familiar with the highly-customized platform.
Pipedrive vs. Salesforce CRM Getting Started Key Takeaways:
- Salesforce CRM takes more time to deploy, and onboarding of new users requires training from a Salesforce expert.
- Sales teams can get Pipedrive up and running in a day.
Use Cases
Salesforce CRM is ideal for large businesses that require extensive customization. The capability of Salesforce CRM to organize large amounts of data will serve the need of large enterprises such as airline companies as the platform can effectively track and monitor the changing needs of customers.
Mid-sized businesses like ecommerce platforms and transportation network companies aiming to fast-track growth will benefit from the in-depth analytics and reporting feature of Salesforce CRM. The marketing, sales, and support teams will benefit from the fully-automated and AI-powered platform that is able to adjust to the changing needs of the organization. Just like other leading cloud CRM software in the market, Salesforce caters to businesses of all types and sizes, including small businesses.
Startups and small businesses like event management companies and technology startups will benefit from the architecture of Pipedrive that is focused on sales management while at the same time managing the leads and opportunities in the pipeline.
Businesses that want a basic, sales-focused CRM will find the simple and straightforward architecture of Pipedrive as a very useful tool in managing the customer journey. Medium-sized businesses that belong to the travel and hospitality industry will benefit from the efficient lead tracking of Pipedrive.
While some sales teams find Salesforce overwhelming, Pipedrive is simpler with fewer features. Its visually-rich pipeline will organize the work of sales teams. For small and mid-sized companies that want to implement a sales CRM system in a day, Pipedrive is the ideal platform.
Let’s Do It World uses Pipedrive for automation, contact management, and integrations.
Pipedrive vs. Salesforce CRM Use Case Key Takeaways:
- Large businesses whose operations are primarily data-driven will benefit from the deep analytics and complete customer view that Salesforce CRM provides.
- Small and mid-sized sales teams can automate sales operations and achieve effective contact and lead management through Pipedrive.
Pipedrive vs. Salesforce CRM Comparison Table
| Pipedrive | Salesforce CRM | |
| Ideal for |
|
|
| Use cases |
|
|
| Core Features | ||
| Campaign Management | ✓ | ✓ |
| Contact Management | ✓ | ✓ |
| Workflow Automation | ✓ | ✓ |
| Lead Management | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reporting and Analytics | ✓ | ✓ |
| Key Integrations | ||
| Slack | ✓ | ✓ |
| Asana | ✓ | ✓ |
| Mailchimp | ✓ | ✓ |
| HubSpot CRM | ✓ | ✓ |
| Pricing | ||
| Starts from | $12.50 per user/month | $25 per user/month |
| No. of plans | 4 | 4 |
Pipedrive vs. Salesforce CRM — Which Is Better?
In this guide, we compared Pipedrive vs. Salesforce CRM. Visually appealing and easy-to-understand reports are the main selling points of Pipedrive. It makes sales management very straightforward. Salesforce, on the other hand, may seem harder to navigate at first but once sales teams get past the console familiarization stage, they will be provided with in-depth views of the customer and full visibility of how both marketing and sales activities are driving revenue. The insights provided by Salesforce provide added value, and in a way justify its pricing structure.
When it comes to choosing a CRM platform, identify what are the specific tools that your sales and support teams need to effectively perform their tasks. After all, they are the ones taking care of the customer so they need to be provided with all the support they need. Also, consider your CRM requirements as a free CRM platform might suffice.
Pipedrive and Salesforce CRM each have specific strengths in specific areas of sales and customer support. Your teams also have specific skill sets that can be enhanced by the tools provided by each platform. Pipedrive CRM is reasonably priced and comes with complete tools to automate your sales management. However, if you want deep database capabilities and a platform that centralizes all your business processes in one place, then Salesforce CRM is the solution for you.
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