Finding the right customer relationship management (CRM) solution can transform how your business handles sales, customer interactions, and team collaboration. Two popular options in the CRM space are Pipedrive and Salesmate. Both offer distinctive features and capabilities, but which one will better serve your specific business needs?
This in-depth comparison examines Pipedrive and Salesmate across key dimensions including interface, pricing, features, and overall value. By the end, you'll have a clear understanding of which CRM might be the better fit for your organization and how Zeeg can improve your scheduling experience with either platform.
Pipedrive vs Salesmate at a glance
Before diving into specifics, let's review what sets these two CRMs apart. In general, there’s two things you should expect from these two tools:
First, the fact that Pipedrive is known for its visually appealing, user-friendly interface and strong sales pipeline visualization. That’s their main thing. The tool works very well for teams that focus on sales, but that are also willing to invest in premium features.
Second, that Salesmate delivers more features at their lowest price points. It might be more attractive for smaller businesses, or just companies with lower budgets, while still offering a great CRM experience - which you might find less appealing visually speaking, though.
But let's look at this better:
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Pricing structures: Pipedrive starts on a lower tier
Pipedrive pricing (per user/month, billed annually)
- Essential: from $14 (limited features, 3,000 deal cap)
- Advanced: from $39 (adds workflow automation, email sequences)
- Professional: from $49 (adds team features, AI capabilities)
- Power: from $64 (adds advanced reporting, team management)
- Enterprise: from $99 (unlimited everything, phone support)
Salesmate pricing (per user/month, billed annually)
- Basic: fom $23 (includes unlimited deals, basic workflows)
- Pro: from $39 (adds product management, goal tracking)
- Business: from $63 (adds team management, custom modules)
- Enterprise: Custom pricing (priority support, dedicated instance)
While Pipedrive and Salesmate present similar pricing tiers, Pipedrive has more plans; and therefore, Salesmate delivers more value at each level. But you should look at each pricing plan carefully before making any decision. For example: Salesmate has unlimited deals and reports across all tiers, while Pipedrive caps deals at 3,000 on its Essential plan and restricts reports to just 15. However, Pipedrive’s Essential plan is quite cheaper than Salesmate’s Basic. So, for a small business, maybe Pipedrive could be a better option, as it allows you to get less - and pay less.
Pipedrive vs Salesmate: Features comparison
Now that we’ve had a quick look at the main differences, let’s dive deeper into how these platforms compare across key aspects that matter most to businesses.
User experience and interface: Pipedrive is more visual
The interface design and overall user experience significantly impact how quickly teams can adopt a CRM and how effectively they'll use it daily. In this area, Pipedrive is quite famous thanks to its polished, visually appealing interface that prioritizes intuitive navigation. The platform greets new users with helpful in-app walkthroughs and an ever-present Quick Help tab that suggests relevant articles and features a knowledge base search.
But it’s their visual organization that receives special attention in Pipedrive, with multiple pre-built views that use color coordination to make sales pipelines immediately comprehensible. The forecast view is also useful, as it highlights both won deals and in-progress opportunities, showing how they contribute to monthly earnings targets.
On the other hand, Salesmate’s design has a layout that resembles a spreadsheet, which could feel more familiar to teams coming from Excel-based customer tracking. However, while functional, this type of design sometimes leads to practical challenges. For instance, users have reported confusion when encountering error messages without clear explanations, such as being told to "provide valid name" without specifying what makes a name valid. The platform does offer a dedicated walkthrough hub for onboarding, yet its tutorial videos lack the polish found in Pipedrive's resources. And during the trial period, Salesmate provides only minimal sample data – just enough to demonstrate basic reporting capabilities but not enough to fully showcase the system's potential, while Pipedrive gives you a bit more detail.
Pipeline management: Both offer strong visualization, but different features
At the heart of any sales-focused CRM lies its pipeline management capabilities, where both Pipedrive and Salesmate do deliver, to be objective.
Pipedrive emphasizes visual clarity through its highly intuitive drag-and-drop interface that makes moving deals between stages almost effortless. The platform's multi-view has color-coordinated forecast view, view of how in-progress deals align with won opportunities, and contribution to revenue goals. This type of consolidated view helps managers quickly assess overall sales health without needing to jump between different reports or dashboards.
Salesmate sees pipeline management with practical things that focus on deal progression tracking. While also offering a board-style drag-and-drop pipeline view, they have features like automatic flagging of idle deals that have stagnated, preventing opportunities from falling through the cracks. Also, the tool gives probability percentages to deals, helping teams better forecast likely outcomes and prioritize their efforts accordingly.
However, unlike Pipedrive, Salesmate lacks a dedicated forecast view that combines won and in-progress deals in a single visualization, requiring users to create separate reports for this perspective.
For customization of pipeline stages, both tools allow users to create and modify stages to match specific sales processes. Teams can tailor these views to reflect their unique sales journeys, though the visual appeal and ease of configuration generally tips in Pipedrive's favor.
Automation: Different workflow types at varied price points
Pipedrive integrates automation through a visually intuitive workflow builder available from its Advanced plan upward. This system allows users to create quite sophisticated automation sequences using a clear visual interface that makes the relationship between triggers and actions immediately apparent. The ability to share automation sequences with team members and transfer ownership provides valuable flexibility for collaborative sales environments. While powerful, this gates automation capabilities behind higher-priced tiers, requiring a minimum investment of $29-39 per user monthly to access even basic automation features.
Salesmate includes basic workflow capabilities across all plans, including its entry-level offering. Though these baseline automations utilize a somewhat clunky menu-based configuration rather than Pipedrive's visual builder, they still enable essential process automation on a lower price. For teams seeking more sophisticated automation, Salesmate offers its "Automation Journeys" as an add-on starting at $30, featuring a visual workflow builder with annotation capabilities that some users find even more flexible than Pipedrive's native solution.
Customization: Salesmate is more flexible
Salesmate is the clear leader in customization flexibility, as it offers more extensive field options and greater control over how data is structured and displayed. The platform allows users to create fully custom fields beyond pre-set options, reorder fields to match workflow priorities, designate required fields, and prevent duplicate values in critical data points. This comprehensive customization extends to multiple sales pipeline creation, empowering businesses to maintain separate visualization frameworks for different products, services, or business units while keeping everything within a single system.
In contrast, Pipedrive prioritizes simplicity over flexibility. The platform restricts users to working primarily with pre-set fields in the lead database, limiting the ability to create personalized fields for industry-specific data points. While Pipedrive does have custom fields as well as customizable web forms, the overall customization options feel somewhat rigid compared to Salesmate, potentially creating challenges for businesses with specialized measurement requirements or unique tracking needs. For instance, manufacturing businesses that need to record specific product measurements may find Pipedrive's limitations problematic, forcing them to maintain supplementary tracking systems outside the CRM.
The filtering capabilities of both systems allow users to segment pipeline and contact views by any field present in their records, helping to identify bottlenecks and focus on high-priority items. However, Salesmate's more extensive customization options mean these filters can be applied to a wider range of business-specific data points. Organizations with unique processes or specialized data tracking requirements will likely find Salesmate's flexibility more accommodating to their needs, while businesses with standardized sales processes might find Pipedrive's more structured, despite its limitations.
Team collaboration: Salesmate has more collaborative tools at lower price points
Effective teamwork often determines sales success in competitive markets, making collaborative CRM features increasingly valuable for modern sales organizations.
Salesmate puts team coordination at its core by making collaborative tools available at lower price points, starting with its Team Inbox feature that's included even in the Basic plan. This shared inbox provides visibility into customer communications across the team and automatically assigns conversations to appropriate team members, creating a unified customer interaction hub. When upgrading to the Pro plan at $39, users gain access to full Teams and Team Collaboration features with support for up to 10 distinct teams, enabling effective organization of large or departmentally diverse sales operations. And the built-in text messaging available across all plans further enhances team communication capabilities.
By contrast, Pipedrive reserves most of its collaborative functionality for higher-tier plans, with comprehensive team features only becoming available at the Professional level ($49) and above. Even at this price point, Pipedrive's Professional plan subscribers are limited to just three teams, significantly less than Salesmate's 10-team allowance at a lower price point. While Pipedrive does offer sharing capabilities for deals and contacts, along with email template sharing and team performance reporting, the higher entry barrier to these features makes team collaboration more expensive to implement compared to Salesmate.
For organizations where sales depend on tight coordination between team members or where specialized teams handle different aspects of the sales process, Salesmate's more accessible collaborative features may offer more value. Smaller teams with simple collaboration needs might find Pipedrive's higher-tier plans worthwhile, though - but only if other premium features justify the cost. Strictly from a team collaboration perspective, Salesmate provides more comprehensive tools at more accessible price points.
AI capabilities: Pipedrive leads with current tools
Pipedrive has established a clear lead by implementing a functional AI sales assistant that leverages historical performance data to generate actionable insights. This assistant proactively notifies users about optimal times to reach out to leads and suggests actions to improve sales success and profitability. Additionally, Pipedrive's AI capabilities extend to practical everyday tasks with features like email summarization that automatically condenses lengthy communications and email text generation that helps craft responses. The platform also incorporates AI-powered app recommendations in its marketplace and implements smart search functionality to help users quickly find relevant information.
Currently, Salesmate offers limited AI functionality, though this appears to be changing rapidly with their "Sandy AI" copilot. This invite-only feature promises substantial capabilities including automated meeting scheduling, message response generation, and content creation. While not yet widely available, this development signals Salesmate's commitment to developing competitive AI features. For organizations making decisions today, however, Pipedrive clearly gives more immediate AI benefits, while those with longer implementation timelines might consider Salesmate's future potential if other aspects of the platform align better with their needs.
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Integrations: Pipedrive's marketplace has broader connectivity options
Modern businesses rely a lot on interconnected technology stacks, making integration capabilities a crucial consideration when selecting a CRM platform.
Pipedrive is quite good in that front, featuring over 400 native integrations through its dedicated app marketplace. This extensive library includes connections to popular business tools ranging from Mailchimp and Microsoft Teams to DocuSign, Calendly and various calendar applications. While not reaching the integration depth of enterprise platforms like Salesforce, Pipedrive's marketplace provides sufficient connectivity options for most small to mid-sized businesses, creating a centralized hub that reduces the need to constantly switch between applications. And there’s still the connections provided through third-party tools like Zapier. Therefore, for organizations with complex tech stacks requiring numerous specialized integrations, Pipedrive's significantly larger integration library represents a meaningful advantage.
Even though Salesforce offers a more limited integration profile, it’s still functional, with 40-45 native connections. Connections to tools like Zoom, Shopify, Slack, and various Google products ensure basic integration needs are met, though the absence of a dedicated app marketplace makes discovering and implementing these integrations somewhat less easy than with Pipedrive. But they also support Zapier connections, extending the integration capabilities to thousands of additional applications, though native integrations typically provide smoother experiences and better performance than Zapier-mediated connections.
Email marketing: Different implementation strategies
Email outreach remains fundamental to sales processes, and both platforms incorporate email marketing capabilities with notable differences in implementation and pricing strategy.
Pipedrive includes email marketing functionality within its standard plans, starting from the Advanced tier ($29-39), providing a unified solution without requiring additional purchases. This way, it offers drag-and-drop email workflow creation, recipient segmentation using CRM data, comprehensive tracking of email interactions, and filtering based on metrics like subscription status and bounce reasons. By incorporating these capabilities into standard pricing tiers, Pipedrive creates a more consolidated platform for businesses seeking to unify their sales and email marketing functions.
Salesmate takes a different route on this by offering its email marketing functionality as a dedicated add-on priced at $23 per user monthly regardless of the underlying subscription plan. While this increases the total cost of ownership, Salesmate's email add-on delivers great capabilities that may justify the investment for email-focused organizations. One example is its A/B testing functionality, allowing users to create up to three email variants with customizable designs, preview texts, and subjects. Users can control test parameters including recipient percentage distribution and test duration, then select specific metrics to identify the most effective variant. You might find this testing framework better than what Pipedrive can give you - but it comes at an additional cost.
The decision between these two tools here depends largely on how central email marketing is to your sales strategy. Organizations that view email as a primary sales channel might benefit from Salesmate's testing capabilities, but businesses looking for a more integrated solution without separate add-ons might prefer Pipedrive.
Improve your CRM scheduling capabilities: Meet Zeeg
Whether you choose Pipedrive or Salesmate, integrating a dedicated scheduling tool like Zeeg can significantly enhance your customer interaction workflow. Zeeg provides seamless integration with both platforms through Zapier, enabling automated appointment scheduling directly from your calendar with direct synchronization to your CRM. With this integration, you’ll get rid of scheduling conflicts and double bookings, while reducing manual data entry between systems. But let’s check some of its benefits in more detail:
Zeeg's smart routing with lead qualification automatically directs meetings to the right team members based on customer attributes collected through customizable intake routing forms. These conditional routing rules ensure prospects reach representatives best matched to their needs, creating a seamless booking experience that connects customers with the right expertise from the start.
Team management and group scheduling features. Zeeg offers round-robin distribution and stack mode options for handling meeting requests, while the collective appointment feature automatically finds mutually agreeable times across multiple participants' calendars, eliminating the coordination headaches typically associated with scheduling group meetings.
Enterprise-grade security measures. You get data protection through complete GDPR compliance, end-to-end encryption of all scheduling information, SAML SSO integration and SCIM provisioning.
Workflow automation. Users can create custom triggers and actions for scheduling events by setting up automated workflows. The system allows you to send automated custom reminders and follow up messages, streamlining the entire experience from appointment selection to confirmation while reducing administrative overhead.
By connecting Zeeg with your chosen CRM, you create a complete customer engagement system that eliminates scheduling friction while maintaining perfect data synchronization between your calendar, meeting platform, and CRM database.
Making the right choice: Pipedrive or Salesmate?
Both Pipedrive and Salesmate represent capable CRM solutions with distinct strengths aligned to different business priorities. Pipedrive excels in user experience, visual appeal, and current AI capabilities, making it ideal for teams that prioritize intuitive interfaces and are willing to pay premium prices for superior design and visualization. Salesmate delivers exceptional value by offering more features at lower price points, with advantages in customization flexibility and collaboration tools, making it perfect for budget-conscious small businesses that need robust functionality without unnecessary costs.
The most effective approach is to take advantage of both platforms' free trials (14 days for Pipedrive, 15 days for Salesmate) to determine which better aligns with your team's specific workflows and preferences. Remember that whichever CRM you choose, integrating Zeeg for scheduling can enhance your customer interaction process and streamline your sales operations, creating a more cohesive technology experience for both your team and your customers.
Choose Pipedrive if:
- User experience and interface aesthetics are high priorities for your team, as Pipedrive offers superior visual design and intuitive navigation
- Visual pipeline management with color-coded dashboards and forecasting views will benefit your sales process
- You need immediate AI capabilities rather than potential future developments
- Your technology stack requires extensive integration with numerous third-party applications
- Your budget allows for higher per-user costs to access premium features and visual polish
- Your sales processes align well with Pipedrive's better visuals, especially on its pipeline management and reporting
Choose Salesmate if:
- Budget optimization is a primary concern while still requiring comprehensive CRM features
- You need unlimited deals and reports without upgrading to enterprise-level pricing
- Your business requires extensive customization of fields, records, and data structures
- Team collaboration features are needed at lower price points than Pipedrive offers
- Your organization is transitioning from spreadsheet-based customer tracking and would benefit from Salesmate's familiar interface elements
- You prioritize functionality and value over interface aesthetics and visual refinement
