
HubSpot vs Pipedrive: Which CRM to Choose for a First Timer
HubSpot and Pipedrive are two powerful CRM tools with advanced features for a sales team to manage the relationship with existing and potential customers of the company. A CRM tool aims in improving business relationships to boost company growth. Though with a lot of differences, both CRM tools manage to provide high-end solutions with varied features for beginners to manage the business smoothly in sales.
If we are comparing the two platforms, we must understand them individually. So, let us know what they are separately and then move on to the comparison.
About HubSpot
HubSpot is a cloud-based all-rounder CRM platform that provides a wide range of features even in the free plan for the sales and marketing teams to manage the entire organization. This popular tool is designed to help sales and marketing teams to align related tasks, forward sales enablement, boost revenue generation, and optimize marketing strategies.
In simple terms, it is a platform where organizations can manage, automate and track every activity and interaction happening within the organization. It aids in much more effective marketing and selling instances.
About Pipedrive
Pipedrive is also a well-known CRM tool. It is a system to manage sales customer relationships with your business. Similar to HubSpot, the features involved in Pipedrive are designed to provide solutions typically required by a sales team. It aids in visualizing sales processes and being more productive in a short period of time.
Its strong functionalities offer to manage leads and deals, track, automate, use AI, and produce insights and reports. There is also a mobile app for Pipedrive.
Comparison between the HubSpot and Pipedrive
Pricing
Pipedrive has a better free plan with much more features than HubSpot. Pipedrive’s paid plans range from $14.90 to $99 per month, whereas HubSpot starts from $45 to $1,200 per month making it a very expensive CRM tool.
User-friendliness
For this point, both CRM tools can be credited for easy-to-use interfaces. Both offer simple, interactive dashboards where you can find critical data for the sales funnel. Since HubSpot offers much more features, you may need a little guidance through the portal, and for that, HubSpot offers several support systems including an active online HubSpot Academy.
Contact and management
The primary aim of CRM tools is to contact and lead management. A contact management system is the core functioning factor for most businesses. With both tools, you can import contacts from different channels and use them to expand your business.
In addition to basic features, Pipedrive offers Smart Contact Data that determines the worth of a contact and allows you to contact possible leads through automation. At the same time, HubSpot allows storing and managing over 1,000,000 contacts.
Lead management
Talking of lead management, both HubSpot and Pipedrive offer the best add-ons. Pipedrive’s LeadBooster, Prospector, Chatbot, Web forms and LiveChat add-ons, and other features like Pipeline Management and Leads Inbox provide everything required to find and store leads.
HubSpot also offers its own stylized live chat and bots, website forms, pipeline management, and conversations inbox along with lead segmentation of the leads and hyper-personalized messages sent to the leads.
Email marketing
Both tools cater to multiple email marketing features. HubSpot offers emailing options like team email, email templates, email scheduling, email reply tracking, email tracking, and sending notifications. HubSpot can also be connected to leading email solutions like Gmail and Office 365.
Pipedrive can also integrate with top email apps like Gmail and Outlook. It provides emailing features like customizable email templates, group emailing, merge fields, click tracking, and email scheduling.
Built-in automation
It is the most in-demand feature of a CRM tool. Through automation, businesses seek workflow automation which saves them from redundant jobs and thus saves employee time making them more productive. Through automation, the risk of human errors also decreases to a large extent.
Both HubSpot and Pipedrive come with built-in automation of workflow and have got basics like automated email campaigns covered.
Analytics and Reporting
To improve various aspects of a business, analytics, and reporting contribute a lot. Depending on the areas where you want to concentrate, both tools have options for reporting and analytics.
You can use any one of them to leverage analytics and generate reports, create business strategies that are data-driven, and enhance your business’s competitive edge.
Sales forecasting
The Professional and Enterprise plans for both HubSpot and Pipedrive CRM tools come with sales forecasting tools that generate forecast reports.
Instances to choose between HubSpot and Pipedrive
Instances when HubSpot is the best
1. For a basic CRM tool
HubSpot’s free plan is a superb CRM tool for a start-up or a small-scale business. If you are looking for managing all sales contacts in a single portal, gain transparency on sales factors, and/or up-leveling your sales strategy, then HubSpot is the perfect one for you.
2. Something for everyone
HubSpot is no more limited to providing CRM solutions. It has expanded to help marketers, salespersons, owners, and customer support in varied ways. The evolved version of it, available with paid plans, is capable of managing several areas and teams within the organization at a time.
3. Fewer tools, yet more achievements
Another benefit of HubSpot is it offers more functionalities with a limited tech stack. Even though you may need more options to manage other areas like HR, accounting, billing and etc., in your business, HubSpot is certainly a credible solution for multiple team collaborations in one single tool.
Instances when Pipedrive is the best
1. Stricter budget while scaling
If you want to scale up your business, Pipedrive could be a better option than HubSpot. For Pipedrive, all the features are available in the Professional plan which is available at a base rate of $49.90 per month. On the other hand, HubSpot can be as expensive as $1,200 per month for the Sales Hub Enterprise plan, and that too without any additional add-on.
Thus, if you are on a tight budget and are not looking for too many features, then Pipedrive is a better solution for scaling your business.
2. Selective requirement
While HubSpot tries to be the one-stop solution for every CRM requirement, Pipedrive believes in providing the exact targeted solution. If your business requirements match Pipedrive offerings, then it is opting for it could be a good decision over using a CRM solution with non-essential features.
3. Automating sales pipelines and workflows
When it comes to the smooth automation of sales pipelines and workflows, Pipedrive will provide you with exactly the features that you need within a feasible budget. HubSpot is good when you are looking for high-end automation features but comes with a high price as well.
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Conclusion
Both CRM tools have pros and cons when compared with each other. While HubSpot can be a bit expensive, it comes with a whole lot of features. Pipedrive is more appropriate when it comes to simpler requirements and a stringent budget.
For small to medium-sized businesses, Pipedrive can be the best fit while HubSpot caters to all. HubSpot is kind of a one-stop solution for every type and size of organization which also offers an all-in-one marketing suite absent in Pipedrive.
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