Looking for a CRM alternative to Pipedrive? Explore the best Pipedrive alternatives with advanced customization and automation features.
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. ‘Why? What are Pipedrive issues?’ you’d ask. Well, some companies 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? 🤨 Don’t get stuck at the crossroads — check out our list of Pipedrive alternatives worth switching to. We're here to help you make the transition!
This is why businesses switch to Piperdrive competitors
Many sales teams rely on Pipedrive CRM. But, as the market offers various options, Pipedrive limitations are becoming clearer. Businesses feel constrained by Pipedrive's features. Some of the most common limitations we've heard of are:
- 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 elements that don’t fully reflect the ins and outs of your business process.
- Limited sales automation features. You can’t build complex workflows with limited trigger options and simple automation rules. 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. The system’s inability to create multi-step sequences with personalized content and dynamic delays limits the company’s nurturing efforts.
- Lack of native integrations. Its primary social media integration is Facebook. Sure, you can communicate with Facebook leads within the CRM, and that’s great… unless most of your prospects are on other platforms like Instagram or LinkedIn or you communicate with them via messengers.
- ‘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 Pipedrive alternatives that offer greater flexibility, more powerful automations, and might suit your business needs better.
Top 7 Pipedrive competitors 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 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 website forms, messengers, social media platforms, and LinkedIn
- Automatically create customer records 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. By the way, you can do the same with your LinkedIn inbox — no need to leave the system
- Automatically send connection requests, messages, and follow-ups with trigger-based sequences
- Combine emails with LinkedIn messages in one sequence for greater impact
As an alternative to Pipedrive, NetHunt CRM offers native integrations with:
- Gmail and Google Workspace
- Top social media platforms and messengers
- 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.
#2: Monday CRM
Contrary to popular stereotypes, Monday CRM is more than just a project management system. This CRM suite has been making waves in the industry these past few months, and a quick Pipedrive comparison shows why.
Monday CRM’s comprehensive suite of features is an efficient system for managing leads, detailed tracking of customer interactions, and the ability to monitor team activities closely. Additionally, it offers comprehensive analytics and reporting tools.
The platform is accessible on the go with a convenient mobile app. It also enhances marketing efforts with advanced email marketing tools and lead-scoring functionality which makes it one of the best alternatives to Pipedrive.
Pros of Monday CRM:
- Easy to use and easy to implement
- Intuitive user interface
- Offers decent customization options
- Performance tracking capabilities are a step above the usual
- Great workflow automation functionality
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: Salesmate
A CRM like Pipedrive, Salesmate helps automate business processes with features for every department in a company. The system also offers multiple integrations with other 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
- 15-day free trial
- Affordable pricing
- Several native integrations with third-party apps
- Quickbooks integration helps keep up with accounting
Cons of Salesmate
- Reports are sometimes difficult to interpret
- Limited native integrations, which means you’ll need Zapier and other third-party connectors
#4: Nutshell CRM
Nutshell CRM is acclaimed for its straightforward but potent interface. Being an important alternative on the Pipedrive vs competitors list, the platform perfectly balances sales and marketing needs, offering various features. This equilibrium is particularly advantageous for SMBs, where collaboration between sales and marketing is crucial for generating in, converting, and retaining customers.
Pros of Nutshell CRM
- Easy to navigate; intuitive interface
- Has a short learning curve
- Advanced email marketing functionality, including bulk emailing, sequences, segmentation, and tracking
- Free 14-day trial
Cons of Nutshell CRM
- Lacks native integrations
- Not as customizable as other Pipedrive competitors
#5: Streak CRM
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, deal flow, partnerships, and hiring. Although not the best option for lightweight CRM solutions, it’s still a decent competitor on our Pipedrive comparison list.
Pros of Streak CRM
- Offers free email power tools
- Native Gmail integration
- Great email marketing functionality
Cons of Streak CRM
- Doesn't allow you to import data directly (only with CSV files)
- Mail merge is limited to 400 emails per day, which is restrictive for large-scale outreach
- One sales pipeline per project limit
- Doesn't offer robust sales automation
- Doesn’t offer native integrations with LinkedIn and social media
- No lead nurturing features
#6: HubSpot CRM
A Pipedrive comparison list is only truly complete with HubSpot on it. This CRM system is a titan of the industry; an excellent solution for businesses that have outgrown Pipedrive scale-wise and need a CRM that can support hundreds of users in the same workspace.
Compared to most alternatives to Pipedrive CRM, Hubspot is the same CRM like Pipedrive when it comes to the cold outreach — it’s just not at the core of HubSpot’s philosophy ☹️ The system primarily focuses on your marketing efforts and inbound strategies, making it better suited for nurturing leads and building long-term customer relationships rather than extensive cold outreach.
Pros of Hubspot CRM
- A basic free plan is available
- Highly scalable
- Robust email marketing functionality like email tracking, templates, and bulk messaging
- Built-in content and social media management
- Advanced reports and analytics
Cons of Hubspot CRM
- The free version is very limited in functionality
- No outbound marketing focus
- Steep learning curve
- Creating contacts inside deals is fidgety according to some user reviews
#7: Zoho CRM
Since the beginning of their journey back in 1996, Zoho CRM has built a goliath of a CRM suite.
Zoho CRM is an extensive CRM system 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.
If you’re a business with 50+ users sharing an environment, Zoho might be a good fit. Otherwise — you might want to skip this entry.
Pros of Zoho
- Some features are AI-driven
- Scales well with the growth of your business, from a small team all the way to 500+ users
- Robust reporting functionality
- Surprisingly affordable for an enterprise-level CRM
Сons of Zoho
- Level of integration with some essential tools is more limited compared to other Pipedrive competitors on the list
- Some users report the interface being confusing
- A steep learning curve
- You will experience an unprecedented amount of lag if many users are making changes to data at the same time
- AI features are only available to advanced tiers
- The selection of features is so vast you might get overwhelmed by them
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
Native LinkedIn integration
✅ Capture leads, manage LinkedIn inbox, automate actions
✅ You can only post from an individual’s account
❌
❌
❌
✅Sync contacts, send inMails
✅Track LinkedIn activity, sync contacts
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 LinkedIn
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 LinkedIn messages directly from the CRM — no extra tools required.
- Multiple native integrations. NetHunt CRM natively connects with Gmail, LinkedIn, 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 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.
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, LinkedIn, and messengers.
Why should you look for Pipedrive alternatives?
You should look for Pipedrive alternatives 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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