Looking for a smarter CRM? Check out the best Pipedrive alternatives that don't hold you back.
It’s not a secret that Pipedrive was designed with simplicity in mind. It’s easy to set up and quick to adopt. But ... it might not suit everyone. Some sales teams find that Pipedrive can't customize enough for their unique sales processes. Others ditch the tool for the lack of outbound reach features.
Sounds familiar? 🤨
With NetHunt CRM and Pipedrive alternatives alike, you can make customization, robust sales automation, and outbound + inbound reach possible. Just check them out! 👇
This is why businesses switch to Pipedrive competitors
Many sales teams rely on Pipedrive CRM. But, as the market offers various options, Pipedrive limitations are becoming clearer:
- Lack of customizable elements. Pipedrive is designed with a standard (and pretty rigid) sales pipeline structure. Sure, you can make a few tweaks here and there, but only with costlier plans. Otherwise, you’re stuck with CRM software elements that don’t fully reflect the ins and outs of your business.
- Limited sales automation features. Complex workflows are tough to create, with few triggers and basic automation rules. Small businesses looking to test the waters might find it sufficient, but if you're a bigger business with complex sales and marketing processes, you might want to look for a Pipedrive alternative with higher levels of automation.
- Lack of dedicated email sequencing. No multi-step sequences with personalized content and dynamic delays mean less effective lead nurturing.
- Lack of native integrations. Pipedrive mostly supports Facebook, leaving other platforms like Instagram or LinkedIn out of the loop 😞
- ‘Unexpected’ price tags. Pipedrive's pricing is quite straightforward if you compare it with other tools on the market. We're looking at you, big enterprise CRMs. Still, this CRM has some essential 'modules' aka LeadBooster and Campaign add-ons which you’ll have to buy eventually.
Now, let’s take a quick look at the best alternatives to Pipedrive that offer greater flexibility, more powerful automations, and might suit your business needs better.
Top 7 Pipedrive vs. alternatives comparison that offer higher automation and customization
#1: NetHunt CRM — The ultimate Pipedrive alternative
It’s pretty bold of us to kick things off by saying we’re the best on the list. But let’s face it — NetHunt offers a few amazing things that other solutions don’t.
First, NetHunt CRM lives inside your Gmail inbox — it’s an already familiar environment for you, right? So, you don’t need to spend months on learning how to use the platform (psst… we’re talking about HubSpot here 👀).

Second, NetHunt CRM is a CRM like Pipedrive but with WAY more customizations and robust automation.
- You can use ultracustomizable web forms, folders, and records along fields and pipelines to ensure the system matches all your business needs. You can basically customize any CRM object you need.

- You can create complex automation sequences with multiple triggers and rules
- Capture leads from multiple sources, including web forms, messengers, social media platforms, etc

- Automatically create customer records (yes, we mean no manual data entry every time you get a new lead) filled with the publicly available data (and if you don’t find the necessary data, we’ve got native integrations with data enrichment tools like Apollo and Hunter)

- Capture leads, add them to the pipeline, distribute new leads among managers and automatically assign tasks based on the deal changes in the pipeline
Third, we don’t discriminate against outbound strategies 😉 One of the top Pipedrive user complaints is that companies have to buy separate tools to manage their cold outreach.
🎉 The good news is that with NetHunt CRM you don’t have to do that — enjoy your multi-channel outreach and lead nurturing instead.
- Nurture your leads with email campaigns (you can personalize emails with custom fields) and track the campaign performance (opens, clicks, unsubscribes, etc.). Yeap, Pipedrive doesn’t offer multi-step sequences, but we do
- Set follow-up campaigns to previous campaigns
- Send/receive messages to/from your social media leads right within the CRM.
As an alternative to Pipedrive, NetHunt CRM offers native integrations with:
- Gmail and Google Workspace
- Top social media platforms
- Messengers like WhatsApp
- Data enrichment tools, and more
Also, you get what you see — no expensive add-ons on the road to your success; all our plans are all-inclusive and come with transparent pricing.
#2: Pipedrive vs. Monday

Monday CRM is more than just a project management system (though back in the day, it surely started as a project management tool with basic workflow automation for improved team performance and collaboration).
Monday CRM tools allow you to manage leads, track deals and customer interactions, and monitor team’s sales activities closely.
Additionally, the system offers comprehensive analytics and custom reports for you to gain sales insights and discover which strategies help you close deals faster.
Pros of Monday CRM:
- A truly simple CRM solution, which is easy to use and easy to implement
- Intuitive user friendly interface
- Team performance tracking capabilities are a step above the usual
- Offers a desktop version
Cons of Monday CRM
- The file management system can’t handle some file formats
- Dashboard customization options might not suit all businesses
- Lacks some basic contact management features like duplicate management
#3: Pipedrive vs. Salesmate

A CRM like Pipedrive, Salesmate helps automate sales data management and business processes with features for every department in a company. This simple CRM also offers seamless integration with multiple tools from your tech stack.
By the way, we've also written an article about the differences between Salesmate and Pipedrive — so take a look!
Pros of Salesmate
- According to user reviews, web forms are simple to set up
- Affordable pricing with no hidden costs
- Several native integrations with third party tools
- Quickbooks integration helps keep up with accounting sales data
Cons of Salesmate
- According to sales reps online, reports are sometimes difficult to interpret
- Limited native integrations, which means you’ll need Zapier and other third-party connectors for seamless integration with tools you already use
#4: Pipedrive vs. Nutshell

As an important alternative on the Pipedrive vs competitors list, the platform perfectly balances the needs of both sales and marketing teams, offering various features.
This equilibrium is particularly advantageous for SMBs, where collaboration between marketing and sales teams is crucial for generating in, converting, and retaining customers.
Pros of Nutshell CRM
- Easy to navigate; user friendly interface
- Has a short learning curve, so you can hit the ground running and close deals ASAP
- Advanced email marketing functionality, including bulk emailing, sequences, segmentation, and tracking
- Free 14-day trial (no free plan)
Cons of Nutshell CRM
- Lacks native integrations
- Limited number of custom fields
- Less custom workflows and custom reports compared to other Pipedrive competitors
#5: Pipedrive vs. Streak

Streak is the second CRM like Pipedrive on this list that boasts full-scale integration with Gmail. Streak can handle various business processes like sales, customer relationship management, deal flow, partnerships, and hiring.
Although not the best option if you’re looking for lightweight CRM solutions, it’s still a decent traditional CRM competitor on our Pipedrive comparison list.
Pros of Streak CRM
- Offers free email marketing tools (consider it a basic free plan)
- Native Gmail integration
- Great built-in tools for marketing teams — especially ones representing small businesses
Cons of Streak CRM
- Doesn't allow you to import sales data directly (only with CSV files)
- Mail merge is limited to 400 emails per day, which is restrictive for large-scale outreach (still, small businesses can benefit from this feature)
- One sales pipeline per project limit
- Is closer to basic workflow automation
- Doesn’t offer native integrations with LinkedIn and social media for multi-channel sales activities
- No lead nurturing features for the advanced management of customer relationships
#6: Pipedrive vs. HubSpot

A Pipedrive comparison list is only truly complete with HubSpot on it.
This CRM solution is a titan of the industry that so heavily focuses on customer relationship management; an excellent solution for businesses that have outgrown a traditional CRM like Pipedrive scale-wise.
Compared to most alternatives to Pipedrive CRM solution, HubSpot is the same CRM like Pipedrive when it comes to the cold outreach among sales activities — it’s just not at the core of HubSpot’s philosophy ☹️
The system primarily focuses on your marketing efforts and inbound strategies rather than extensive cold outreach that can potentially help your sales teams fill the pipeline faster. But yes, we all understand the risk of coming off as spammy and all that hard work that your sales and marketing teams have to put into making the strategy work.
Pros of Hubspot CRM
- A basic free plan is available
- Highly scalable (Yes, HubSpot is definitely more than a basic contact management tool or a CRM software for building average custom workflows)
- Robust email marketing functionality like email tracking, templates, and bulk messaging make HubSpot one of the best CRM marketing tools on the market
- Built-in content and social media management
- Advanced reports and analytics help teams leverage the existing customer data and gain insights in customer relationship management
Cons of Hubspot CRM
- The free version is very limited in functionality
- No outbound marketing focus
- HubSpot is not a simple CRM, so expect a steep learning curve (yes, it takes time to learn how to manage leads and customer interactions, let alone build custom workflows or gain sales insights)
- Creating contacts inside deals is fidgety according to some sales reps online
- HubSpot offers transparent pricing with no hidden costs; but similar to other complex CRM tools, its pricing structure comes with multiple nuances and, in the end, is very cumbersome and misleading
#7: Pipedrive vs. Zoho

Zoho CRM is an extensive CRM software when it comes to Piperdrive vs competitors comparison, and that size comes with a lot of hassle. It’s slower, more confusing, and more overpowering than any other CRM on this list. Zoho’s selection of features is so vast that you might not use all of them.
Pros of Zoho
- Some features are AI-driven
- Offers a free plan, which is for up to 3 users and comes with the core CRM features (your sales teams will be able to track deals, but you won’t be able to fully avoid manual data entry or enjoy automation features)
- Scales well with the growth of your business, from a small team all the way to 500+ users
- Robust reporting functionality to gain insights into customer relationships and team performance
- Surprisingly affordable for an enterprise-level CRM
- Offers a desktop version
Сons of Zoho
- Level of integration with some essential tools is more limited compared to other Pipedrive competitors on the list
- Some users admit the tool lacks user friendly interface
- A steep learning curve
- You will experience an unprecedented amount of lag if multiple users within your sales teams are making changes to customer data at the same time
- AI features are only available in advanced tiers
- It’s great that Zoho CRM isn’t a standard contact management system; however, the selection of features is so vast that you might get overwhelmed by them, especially if you’re using CRM for the first time ever
The best Pipedrive alternatives: A side-by-side comparison
We've covered seven Pipedrive CRM alternatives in detail; now let's see how these CRM systems compare with each other in their pros and cons.
Features
Monday CRM
Salesmate
Nutshell CRM
Streak CRM
HubSpot CRM
Zoho CRM
Full CRM functionality inside Gmail inbox
Native-like Gmail integration
Offers an add-on
Sidebar
Sidebar
Fully integrated into Gmail
Sidebar
Sidebar
Ultra-customizable pipelines
✅
Moderate
❌
❌
❌
Moderate
Moderate
Sales automation
Automated lead capture, deal progression; drip campaigns, multi-channel outreach; task assignment, notifications and more
Automatic lead assignment, task creation, and follow-ups
Lead scoring and assignment, task creation
Basic automation features
Basic lead assignment and follow-up automation
Multi-step workflows, lead scoring and grading
Automated task assignment; lead scoring, sales forecasting
Social media and messenger integration
✅ Whatsapp, Instagram, Telegram, Facebook, Viber. Create records, send/receive messages from CRM
✅ Track and manage social media interactions
❌
❌
❌
✅WhatsApp business, after integration messages won’t appear on the phone
✅ Track social media activity, sync contacts
Automated multi-channel outreach
Supports outreach via email and professional network
Email, SMS, and social media, but requires integrations
Email, SMS
Focuses on email-based outreach
Primarily focuses on email-based outreach
Email, SMS, social media
Email, SMS, and social media
Unlimited sales pipelines
✅
✅
✅
❌
❌
Depends on the plan
Depends on the plan
Built-in email functionality
Bulk messaging, dynamic lead segmentation, email templates, campaign performance tracking
Email scheduling and tracking; email templates
Email tracking, templates, automated email sequences
Audience segmentation, automated email sequences, email performance tracking
Offers mail merge, email templates, email tracking, and email scheduling
Comprehensive marketing suite
Automated email sequences and follow-ups
Pricing
Starts at $24/user/month; plans with advanced functionality start at $48
Starts at €12 per user per month
Starts at $23 per user per month
Starts at $16/user/month, affordable for small businesses
Starts at $49/user/month, higher in pricing but feature-rich.
Starts at €15/month
Starts at €14/user/month
Still on the fence? 🤨 A quick reminder why NetHunt CRM is the best Pipedrive alternative
If you’re looking for a CRM that is built around your unique sales processes and solves Pipedrive limitations from day one — we’ve got you.
NetHunt CRM offers everything that Pipedrive lacks — and more! 😉
- Ultra-customizable elements. Say goodbye to rigid pre-built pipelines. With NetHunt, you can tweak any CRM object to mirror your sales process perfectly.
- Powerful automation. Create advanced workflows with multiple triggers, automate lead assignment, and effortlessly capture & nurture your prospects across multiple channels.
- Effective outbound reach functionality. We treat inbound and outbound strategies equally. That’s why NetHunt users can manage email campaigns, multi-step sequences, and even Professional Network messages directly from the CRM — no extra tools required.
- Multiple native integrations. NetHunt CRM natively connects with Gmail, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other platforms that are vital for capturing leads.
- Transparent pricing from the very beginning. NetHunt CRM offers plans with no hidden fees or unexpected add-ons.
As a leading Pipedrive CRM alternative, NetHunt CRM is quick to set up, easy to use, and packed with advanced features that adapt to your business’s needs.
🔥 Ready to switch to NetHunt CRM? Here are a few quick and easy steps to get started
📁 Step #1. Go to the ‘Deals’ tab in your Pipedrive CRM. Proceed to Settings and select Deals, Contacts, and Companies — in short, all the customer data you’d like to export.
📥 Step #2. Choose the XLSX or CSV format for exporting your data. Review your selection one more time and click the ‘Export’ button.
✅ Step #3. Ensure that your file contains all Deals, Contacts, and Company details. Further, import the CSV or upload the XLSX file into your preferred spreadsheet application.
📑 Step #4. Organize your data into three tabs: Deals, Contacts, and Companies. NetHunt CRM handles each type separately, so this structure is key for a successful import. In the Deals tab, include the Organization and Contact person's name. In the Contacts tab, list the Organization name to ensure proper record linking.
🛠️ Step #5. This is the step where you can use this guide for a few final tweaks to import your data to NetHunt CRM correctly.
Got more questions? Our support team is here to help you and make the data transitioning process as smooth as possible.
Final Thoughts
There you have it! The list of the best Pipedrive alternatives. We’ve done our best to include solutions suited to big and small enterprises that help you close deals with minimum manual data entry and other tedious time-consuming processes.
However, keep in mind that to choose a CRM system, you'll need careful planning and consideration. Be sure to give the systems that interest you a shot. Start the free trial, give it a go for a week or two, and decide whether or not it’s something you’d want to move forward with.
FAQs
What CRM is better than Pipedrive?
NetHunt CRM is a powerful Piperdive alternative with direct Gmail integration, advanced workflow automation, and way more customizable pipelines. It’s a great solution for teams that need flexibility, multi-channel outreach, and native integrations with social media channels, and messengers.
Why should you look for Pipedrive alternatives?
You should look for alternatives to Pipedrive if you need a CRM with greater customization options, deep Gmail integration, or advanced automation features that can optimize your unique sales processes.
What are the limitations of Pipedrive?
Pipedrive’s top limitations include the lack of multi-step email sequences, fewer customization options, and basic automation that may not meet the needs of teams with more complex workflows.
What is the biggest difference between NetHunt CRM and Pipedrive?
The biggest difference between NetHunt CRM and Pipedrive CRM is that the former offers deep Gmail integration, ultra-customizable CRM elements, powerful sales automation, multi-step email sequences, and comes with no hidden fees.
What are some benefits of switching to a Pipedrive alternative?
Switching to a Pipedrive alternative brings huge benefits, particularly in terms of higher automation and customization. If you decide to switch to NetHunt CRM, you'll get a CRM that better adapts to your business processes, has a clear pricing structure, and helps you automate your business to the fullest.
Is it difficult to migrate data from Pipedrive to a Pipedrive alternative?
Not at all, especially if you decide to move to alternatives to Pipedrive CRM that have a Pipedrive data migration feature. For example, NetHunt CRM has a special guide that'll walk you through the process.
How do I know which Pipedrive alternative is the best fit for my business?
Draft a list of requirements that you want your new Pipedrive alternative to have. Compare the list with the Pipedrive competitors in the article. Pick the one that looks most appealing and start a free trial to see if it's your thing. Use the trial period to the fullest and test the CRM you choose as an alternative to Pipedrive.
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