COMPARE:
HubSpot or Pipedrive as a sales CRM
HubSpot against Pipedrive for running a sales pipeline in a CRM, with the same seven questions asked of each and neither one flattered. Mamba Labs builds Apify actors. We have nothing of our own in this category, so this page is two products and no pitch.
If you only read one part
Pipedrive is a sales CRM and stays one. HubSpot is a platform that a sales CRM is part of. Buy the platform when marketing and service are going to live in it too, and not before.
Side by side
| HubSpot | Pipedrive | |
|---|---|---|
| What it actually does | Holds the company, contact and deal records, and runs marketing and service on the same data. | Tracks deals through a pipeline, with activities against each one, and reports on the movement. |
| Coverage and hit rate | Sales, marketing, service, content and operations hubs, each with its own tiers. | Deals, contacts, activities and forecasting, with marketing and support as add ons rather than hubs. |
| What it costs | Per seat per month by hub and tier, with contact tiers pricing the marketing side separately. | Per seat per month in tiers, and the tiers are closer together than the larger platforms. |
| How it fits a workflow | A very large app marketplace, a documented API, and workflow automation across every object. | A clean API, a decent marketplace, and automation that a sales manager can configure alone. |
| Where the data comes from | Your own records, plus its enrichment product writing into them. | Your own records. It sells no database of its own. |
| What it takes to set up | A free tier starts today. A configured multi hub instance is a project with a budget. | A day to a working pipeline, because there is less to decide before you start. |
| Where it stops | The price steps between tiers are steep, and the feature you need is usually one step up. | It is a sales CRM. Marketing, service and content are somebody else's product here. |
The same seven questions are asked on every compare page here, in this order, so two of these pages can be read against each other.
What each is actually better at
- HubSpot wins on coverage and hit rate, how it fits a workflow. A CRM with marketing, service and content products sold around the same record.
- Pipedrive wins on what it actually does, what it costs. A sales CRM that stays a sales CRM, priced per seat.
- Nobody wins on where the data comes from, what it takes to set up, where it stops. HubSpot and Pipedrive give the same answer on those, and we are not going to invent a difference.
Both products
What we would actually do
If the only job is tracking deals, Pipedrive does it for less, configures in a day, and a sales manager can run it without help. HubSpot earns its price when marketing email, forms, a knowledge base and reporting all sit on the same records, because that is a real advantage that nothing bolted together matches. The risk with HubSpot is the tier steps: the feature you need next is usually one tier up and the step is steep. Price the tier you will be on in a year, not the one you are buying now.