Comparing different CRM software to see which software is best for your business and teams can be time-consuming and confusing as there are so many providers and plans to choose between. To help businesses make sense of this we have created a series of comparison pieces that compare two different CRM providers so that you can explore what they provide more easily. This comparison piece focuses on Salesforce and Pipedrive, and hopefully, it will help you choose if one of these providers’ plans is right for you.
Topics
Key features
To make it easier to compare providers we have highlighted a range of features that we believe are important to businesses and have compared them below in the table to make it clear what each of them offers. It is important to note though that these features may not be included in all their plans, and you should check the plan details thoroughly before you purchase it.
| Features | Salesforce | Pipedrive |
|---|---|---|
| Email marketing | Yes | Yes |
| Live chat | Yes | Yes |
| Contact management | Yes | Yes |
| Automations | Yes | Yes |
| Workflows | Yes | Not stated |
| Sales pipelines | Yes | Yes |
| Quote management | Yes | Not stated |
| Meeting scheduling | Yes | Not stated |
| Insights and analytics | Yes | Yes |
| Reporting dashboard | Yes | Yes |
| Third party integrations | Yes | Yes |
| Collaboration tools | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile app | Yes | Yes |
| Technical support | 2 day response unless purchase additional support plans | Support level not stated |
Comparing options
Salesforce and Pipedrive both provide complete CRM software plans as well as some functionality based plans that are tailored to the needs of those functions. Salesforce offers a wider range of functionality based plans that span a variety of functions, whereas Pipedrive only offers one functionality based product. Pipedrive also offers a range of add-ons that can be combined with the plans to extend their features. Both providers offer plans that are tiered with an increasing number of features as the price increases to tailor their plans for different size businesses and those with differing needs.
Below are the categories of plans that are available from the two providers.
CRM software
Salesforce offers a complete CRM package that combines sales, marketing, service, IT, commerce and analytics in an ultimate package called Customer 360. The combined plan offers all the benefits of the individual plans but also provides the benefit of a combined package as it caters for more of your business needs and can facilitate the better alignment of teams, enabling staff to easily collaborate from anywhere and share data.
Pipedrive offers a complete sales-based CRM solution that allows you to optimise your sales processes and enables collaboration between staff from anywhere. The software sales features include sales forecasting, customising sales cycles and pipeline stages, includes a mobile app to access the software on any device, enables you to track customers including subscriptions and repeat customers, and a lead generation chatbot. It provides contact management, customer insight, process automation, customisable dashboards, live notifications, email and communication tracking, and integration with over 300 business apps.
Marketing software
Salesforce offers marketing software that has been designed to help plan marketing activities, gain insights, track activities and inform decisions, and is called Marketing Cloud. You can use the software to manage a variety of marketing activities such as digital advertising, email marketing, digital marketing, B2B demand generation and marketing analytics.
Pipedrive offers marketing software that is designed to deliver email campaigns and is called Campaign. Their software allows you to manage all your data in one place with a unified contact list, create customisable email templates, filter contacts, and run campaign engagement reports. The software is designed to be easy to use, reduce the effort needed to run email campaigns and help you to nurture your contacts.
Sales software
Salesforce offers software that combines Salesforce and Slack into a single platform that supports apps, data, conversations and alerts to enable the sales team to work more closely together in closing sales and increasing purchases, this plan is called Sales Cloud. The software is designed to combine opportunity management, contract management, sales forecasting, process automation, mobile CRM and revenue intelligence.
Pipedrive offers a complete CRM function that is sales-based software and is covered under the CRM software heading above.
Service software
Salesforce offers customer service software that supports call centres in becoming smarter in their approach through the use of productivity tools, enabling process automation, creation of intelligent workflows and providing access to cross channel support. The software is called Service Cloud and some of its features include web services, telephony integration, knowledge base, case management, ability to track service contracts and entitlements, and access to 24/7 support.
Pipedrive doesn’t offer a comparable product but their complete CRM package may include some features that support call centres and help desks to manage better customer relationships.
Website support software
Salesforce offers a commerce plan that provides support to businesses that are selling online to bring together their different sales channels and customer journeys in a plan called Commerce Cloud. The software enables businesses to connect customer shopping experiences online and offline, create personalised campaigns, aid collaboration between teams and individuals, and boost sales conversions.
Pipedrive doesn’t offer a comparable product.
Small Business software
Salesforce offers a range of small business plans that are tailored versions of their sales, marketing and service plans that enable small businesses to adopt CRM software at a lower price to help them to automate their processes and reduce their administrative burden. The plans offered are the Essential plan level of Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud and Service Cloud predominantly.
Pipedrive doesn’t offer a comparable product although their pricing plans cater for small businesses as they start from £12.50 per month.
Pricing
Both Salesforce and Pipedrive offer tiered plans that are based on an escalating pricing model. The price of plans increases as the features included in the plans increases.
Salesforce
Salesforce offers some tiered plans, and some of these prices are comparable across the different plans such as Sales Cloud and Service Cloud. Salesforce also offers a unique pricing structure on their marketing plans that are feature-driven rather than tiered.
Salesforce also offers a distinct range of plans that are designed for smaller businesses which are tailored versions of their Cloud plans that cater for a smaller number of users and offer fewer features.
Small Business plans
- Sales Cloud is for up to 10 users from £20 per month per user.
- Service Cloud is for up to 10 users from £20 per month per user.
- Marketing Cloud details are not available and you would need to contact them for a quote.
Sales Cloud and Service Cloud plans
- Essential plan is for up to 10 users from £20 per month per user.
- Professional plan is £60 per user per month.
- Enterprise plan is £120 per user per month
- Unlimited plan is £240 per user per month.
Marketing Cloud plans
- Pardot B2B Marketing Automation is from £1,000 per month for up to 10,000 contacts
- Email, Mobile and Web Marketing is from £320 per month
- Social Studio is from £800 per month
- Datarama is from £2,400 per month
- Google Marketing Platform is from £10,000 per month
Commerce Cloud plans
- The pricing for these plans is only available by requesting a quote.
Pipeline
Pipeline has a single pricing structure for its CRM package that is tiered based on the features included in the plan.
- Essential from £12.50 per user per month
- Advanced from £24.90 per user per month
- Professional from £49.90 per user per month
- Enterprise from £99.00 per user per month
- LeadBooster add-on from £32.20 per company per month
- Web Vistors add-on from £41
- Smart Docs add-on from £32.50
Pricing for Campaign software is not available.
Customer reviews
When purchasing something unknown it is always good to see what other customers think about the company and products which is why looking at customer reviews are useful, especially to see how they have found the customer support service.
Salesforce featured on two of the leading customer review sites at the time of writing this comparison piece, which was Trustpilot and Reviews.co.uk. There are only two reviews on Reviews.co.uk which are both positive. Trustpilot reviews however are largely negative with an overall score of bad and 79% of the 251 reviews gave Salesforce a rating of bad. Comments from reviewers were predominantly about how they found the software hard to deploy and develop and that any issues were difficult to overcome without engaging the help of a consultant or paying Salesforce for additional support, both at a greater cost.
Pipedrive is also only on two of the leading reviews site which is also Trustpilot and Reviews.co.uk. There were only three reviews on Reviews.co.uk which were positive. There were a large number of reviews on Trustpilot that were positive with an overall rating of great, although 79% of reviewers rated them as excellent and 15% as great, this rating is impacted by a spate of negative reviews recently. Positive feedback from customers was focused on how good the customer service was and how easy the software was to use as well as providing great organisation and integrations. There was some conflicting feedback that said the customer service was poor and the software lacked some of the functionality that others provide.
Try before you buy
Salesforces provides a longer free trial of their software than most offer which lasts 30-days and it allows you more time to get to know their software before committing to purchase it. They provide the free trial without obligation and no payment is required or a credit card.
Pipedrive offers a 14-day trial of their software with no need to provide a credit card. Their trial is available on all of their plans so you can try out the plan you like and play with all the features available on the plan to see how it suits your business.
Pros
Salesforce’s key advantages are:
- Caters for specific functions with tailored software
- Offers a combined plan
- Provides a 30-day free trial
- Offers plans that cater for a range of needs and budgets
Pipedrive’s key advantages are:
- Offers a broad choice of plan levels to suit a variety of needs
- Provides a 14-day trial
- Offers a range of add-on products to enhance the software features
Cons
Salesforce’s key disadvantages are:
- Poorly rated in customer reviews
- Reviewers raised concerns over the software being difficult to deploy and overcoming technical issues without employing consultants or paying high support fees to Salesforce
Pipedrive’s key disadvantages are:
- Doesn’t offer the range of functional products that other providers do
- Recent reviews have been negative although overall reviews are positive
- Some review comments raise concerns about customer support and functionality