Customer relationship management (CRM) software provides a central platform to facilitate customer and contact communication, thereby helping businesses handle leads, close deals and manage customer relationships. The best CRM software includes essential tools and time-saving automations that free your sales and marketing teams to focus on critical tasks.
CRM functionality can vary widely among vendors. Pipedrive and monday Sales CRM are affordable solutions with top-notch features that will appeal to many businesses. We’ve gathered specific information from our in-depth Pipedrive review and our monday Sales CRM review to help businesses decide which platform offers the essential features they need without breaking the bank.
Criteria | Pipedrive | monday Sales CRM |
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Price and plans |
Note the following:
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Note the following:
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Sales features | Notable sales features:
Most features come standard. | Notable sales features:
You’ll have to pay extra for the best features. |
Automations |
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Project management |
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Ease of use |
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Customer service |
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We recommend Pipedrive for businesses seeking an affordable, sales-focused CRM. Its powerful, color-coded visual platform and robust sales tools provide effective lead generation and sales pipeline management. Email functions and add-ons improve your communication with contacts.
We think most small and midsize businesses will find value in one of Pipedrive’s five cost-effective plans. However, large businesses that are seeking a comprehensive CRM solution might find Pipedrive’s specialized platform lacking.
Pipedrive stands out for the following reasons:
Pipedrive’s color-coded Kanban card pipeline lets you quickly view deal progress. Source: Pipedrive
monday sales CRM is our top choice for businesses seeking essential CRM features and project management capabilities. monday’s highly customizable platform and extensive automations help businesses with complex sales processes save time as they close deals, manage contacts and oversee projects.
We think most small businesses will find that monday provides the features they need to work efficiently. However, very small businesses and freelancers that can’t meet the three-seat minimum might be priced out. Additionally, businesses with large budgets and complicated sales processes will find better functionality in the Enterprise plan.
monday excels because of the following features:
monday is considered a top Salesforce CRM competitor because of its premade templates, exceptional customer service and time-saving automations.
monday Sales CRM’s straightforward interface shows deal information at a glance. Source: monday
We love that Pipedrive offers flexibility with five affordable plans. There are no seat limits, and you can change plans when needed. We appreciate that you can try any plan for free for 14 days and that paying annually will save you up to 32 percent.
We were also pleased to see that all plans include Pipedrive’s most compelling features, albeit with usage limits. You get unlimited contacts and customizable sales pipelines standard, but we were disappointed that automations are limited to 30 in the Advanced plan and 180 in the Enterprise plan.
Still, we appreciate that reasonably priced add-ons are available to enhance your CRM with lead capture, marketing campaigns and project management tools.
Plan | Price (per user per month) | Included features |
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Essential | $21.90 (billed monthly) $14.90 (billed annually) |
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Advanced | $37.90 (billed monthly) $27.90 (billed annually) | Everything in Essential, plus the following:
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Professional | $59.90 (billed monthly) $49.90 (billed annually) | Everything in Advanced, plus the following:
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Power | $74.90 (billed monthly) $64.90 (billed annually) | Everything in Professional, plus the following:
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Enterprise | $119 (billed monthly) $99 (billed annually) | Everything in Power, plus the following:
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monday sales CRM offers three very affordably priced plans and an option for custom Enterprise plan pricing. However, its three-seat minimum requirement disappointed us. This pricing model will increase costs for startups and freelancers. Additionally, we’d prefer to see transparent pricing for the Enterprise plan, which includes most of monday’s most compelling features, like lead scoring, advanced CRM analytics, and post-sales management tools.
monday’s Basic plan has essential features for companies that need limited CRM capabilities, including web forms, templates, and unlimited contacts and pipelines. Businesses that need more robust features — including email, automations, productivity and reporting — must pay more. However, we appreciate that all plans get two seats to the free tier of monday’s work management platform.
Plan | Price (per user per month) | Included features |
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Basic | $12.50 (three-seat minimum) |
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Standard | $17 (three-seat minimum) | Everything in Basic, plus the following:
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Pro | $30 (three-seat minimum) | Everything in Standard, plus the following:
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Enterprise | Contact sales for pricing | Everything in Pro, plus the following:
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Pipedrive slightly edges out monday in this category. Although monday has lower per-user prices, the three-seat minimum makes things more expensive, especially for very small businesses. We think Pipedrive offers a more robust, better-value solution. Plus, we appreciate its transparent pricing.
Pipedrive excels at helping you improve sales with insights throughout the sales cycle. Consider the following notable sales features:
Pipedrive can help you segment customers for more effective email marketing and customer-relationship-nurturing sequences.
We found that monday makes it a breeze to set up and customize your entire sales process, thanks to the following features:
Still, we were disappointed that some essential sales tools, like lead management, aren’t included in monday’s Basic plan and that many advanced features — including lead scoring, forecasting, analytics and post-sales management tools — are restricted to premium plans.
Pipedrive is the clear winner for sales features because the platform was designed to help sales teams thrive. We found its features more robust than monday’s basic offerings, and we were disappointed that many of the features you need to succeed are missing in monday’s lower-tier plans.
Increasing employee motivation and engagement with tactics such as gamifying your workforce will lead to more sales, increased employee loyalty and less turnover.
Pipedrive lets you use templates or build your own automations for tedious tasks so you have more time to close the deal.
However, we were disappointed that automations aren’t included in Pipedrive’s Essential plan and are very limited in other plans.
monday shines with the following automation functionalities:
However, we were disappointed that automations aren’t available with monday’s Basic plan. Automated actions are otherwise limited, but with up to 250,000 in the Enterprise plan, getting all of the automations you need shouldn’t be a problem.
monday is our choice for businesses seeking practical, time-saving automations. monday makes it easy to create automations, and you get thousands more per month than with Pipedrive. While we appreciate Pipedrive’s automation features, we found the limits too restrictive for businesses with complex CRM workflows.
Pipedrive is sales-focused but also includes excellent email communication features, including the following:
Besides mass email blocking, some email providers filter messages because of specific email spam trigger words.
Pipedrive’s contacts timeline visualizes every customer interaction. Source: Pipedrive
Monday’s Basic plan includes unlimited email contacts, but we were disappointed that the Basic plan doesn’t allow you to visualize contact interaction history.
Contact management via email through monday’s platform requires higher-tier plans that unlock the following features:
Pipedrive beats monday in the email functionality category; it offers more robust email features across the board, and most come standard. Plus, you can run marketing campaigns within the Pipedrive platform with an add-on, without integrating an external app.
To access Pipedrive’s project management features, you must purchase the Projects add-on for $8 per user per month. We like that this add-on extends Pipedrive’s easy-to-use Kanban visual interface to planning and managing complex projects.
You’ll get the following project management features:
monday Sales CRM’s automations provide project management capabilities that rival those in the best project management software. Additionally, all plans have two seats of free access to monday’s work management platform. You can seamlessly plan, organize and track projects from monday’s central platform. We love its features, including the following:
Businesses that need additional features, like advanced collaboration and reporting tools, can subscribe to one of the paid tiers of monday’s work management platform.
monday’s work management platform helps your team stay on top of tasks. Source: monday
While we found that both platforms offer competent project management, we prefer monday because it includes the tools you need to set goals, plan projects and manage tasks for free. We appreciate that you can scale your capabilities with different tiers of its paid work management platform. Pipedrive offers only a single solution.
Pipedrive makes capturing leads and winning sales a breeze with the following functionalities:
monday stands out for its highly customizable platform that makes it easy to manage contacts, organize projects and close deals. These features make the platform easy to use:
monday beats Pipedrive in usability thanks to its flexible platform, which allows more robust customization, automation and integration capabilities. We appreciate Pipedrive’s foolproof visual platform, but we think monday offers an easier-to-use solution that can be tailored to meet all of your business’s CRM needs.
We were disappointed that only premium subscribers can access phone support. We would have liked to see phone support included with all plans.
We found that monday offers better customer support. You can get help from a rep in more ways, including over the phone. We especially like that Enterprise users get personalized help and that daily webinars cover almost every aspect of using monday.
Choosing the right CRM comes down to finding a solution that matches your needs. Pipedrive has flexible plans, stellar sales features and solid email functions. monday offers an easy-to-use platform with essential features, powerful automations and project management tools.
Choose Pipedrive if …
Choose monday Sales CRM if …
Pipedrive is a CRM platform that’s built around a visual sales pipeline designed to help businesses manage the entire sales process.
Over 100,000 companies use Pipedrive, including Amazon, Skyscanner, Vimeo, BBMG consulting and the Advanced Stem Cell Institute.
Yes, monday.com is a centralized work management platform with multiple products, including monday Sales CRM.
Yes, you can use monday Sales CRM to automate emails, including in external email services, with certain plans.