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Our research shows that Zoho CRM is better than Pipedrive with more features, customizability, and ease of use in our testing. In fact, our data showed that Zoho is the best CRM for small business, with comprehensive functionality across sales, marketing, and customer service industries.
While Zoho CRM is more robust overall, Pipedrive does have a niche with small businesses that are exclusively focused on sales. It’s a bit expensive but provides competitive functionality and some top-tier usability, making the user experience quick and easy when it comes to web forms and chatbots.
In this guide, we’ll compare Pipedrive vs Zoho CRM on everything from features and pricing to customer service and customizability, so you can make the right choice for your business. Oh, and don’t forget to check out our CRM comparison page for a clearer look at software providers available today.
Pipedrive vs Zoho CRM: Key Differences
Zoho CRM and Pipedrive are both respectable options when it comes to your specific business needs, but one is clearly better than the other. Here are some key differences between Zoho CRM and Pipedrive:
- Zoho CRM is better for small businesses than Pipedrive
- Pipedrive is exclusively focused on sales unlike Zoho CRM
- Zoho CRM has more features than Pipedrive
- Pipedrive has better help and support than Zoho CRM
- Zoho CRM is more customizable than Pipedrive
Check out this table to see how Pipedrive and Zoho CRM compare on basics like price and free trials.
Starting price | Most expensive plan | Free plan | Free trial | Verdict | Get started Click to get started and compare prices for your business | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | ||||||
14 days | 30 days | ||||||
Core CRM features in flexible pricing plans make this one of the best value CRM options for any small business | An attractive option, with lots of features for a low price | ||||||
Try Pipedrive | Try Zoho CRM |
Pipedrive
Pipedrive definitely isn’t as all-encompassing as Zoho CRM when it comes to features and functionality, but it certainly has its place for the right business. Pipedrive is a sales-focused CRM that is primary concerned with tracking business deals. It’s competitively priced, but the more advanced features are relegated to the expensive plans, which can really get up there.
Overall, Pipedrive’s most attractive aspects are its usability and help and support options. The platform is notably easy to use, and you can perform tasks quickly, even as a beginner. Additionally, it offers 24/7 support across all pricing plans, even the cheap ones, so you can get help when you need it.
Pros
- 14-day free trial
- Unlimited contact database for larger businesses with lots of clients
- Great security tools include user permissions & multi-factor authentication
- 24/7 live support via chat and phone
Cons
- 24/7 support only available in more expensive plans
- Can't create custom task types within the platform
- Web form creation is a paid add-on
Zoho CRM
We aren’t going to mince words; Zoho offers a really great CRM compared to other options on the market. It provides a whole lot of features at a generally lower price than premium options, undercutting competitors to provide some serious functionality. Zoho CRM offers sales, marketing, and customer service features in one platform, so you can really improve your business across all facets.
On top of all those features, Zoho CRM is just an excellent tool for small businesses and enterprise organizations alike. It’s easy to use, very customizable, and simple to set up, so you don’t have to waste time getting ready. Generally speaking, we consider Zoho CRM to be one of the most recommendable CRM options available today.
Pros
- 15-day free trial
- Includes sales and marketing functionality available in free plan
- Highly customizable dashboards and fields across platform
- Integrate with other Zoho services or the vast app library
Cons
- No spam prevention on web forms
- Onboarding assistance for your team costs extra
- Team management functionality lacks with limited storage space
About Our Research
At Tech.co, we don’t just guess about which CRM providers are the best for your business. We’ve spent hours painstakingly investigating the feature catalogs, free trials, and pricing pages of the top options to give you the most valuable information to make the right decisions. Here are the metrics we used to rate and rank CRM software:
- Pricing – The cost of any software factors into the decision about whether or not to buy it.
- Features – CRM providers offer a wide range of functionality, and these features can make a big difference for your business.
- Ease of use – Beginners need to use a CRM platform too, which is why ease of use is so important to understand.
- Customizability – You need to be able to make a software perform specific tasks for your business, making customizability a vital metric to consider.
- Help & Support – No software is perfect and getting help from customer support can change how you interact with a CRM.
For more information about our process, check out our research guide to get a clearer picture of how we investigate these platforms.
Pipedrive vs Zoho CRM: Pricing Plans
Zoho CRM and Pipedrive offer a lot of different features and functionality, but they also have different pricing plans. Take a look at how they compare when it comes to the cost of the software below.
Learn more about Zoho CRM pricing and Pipedrive pricing on Tech.co
Pipedrive Pricing
Pipedrive offers four different pricing plans: Essential, Advanced, Professional, and Enterprise.
The Essential plan costs $14 per user, per month, the Advanced plan costs $34 per user, per month, the Professional plan costs $49 per user, per month, the Power plan costs $64 per user, per month, and the Enterprise plan costs $99 per user, per month.
Our research found that the Advanced plan was the best option for small businesses, offering the most features for the small increase in price. It adds workflow automations, web-to-mobile calls, and single sign-on functionality for improved security.
Plan | Price Billed annually | Users | Lead scoring | API | Custom reports | Custom automation builder | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
BEST FOR SMB | |||||||
Essential | Advanced | Professional | Power | Enterprise | |||
Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | |||
| | | | | |||
| | | | | |||
| | | | | |||
| 30 | 60 | 90 | 180 |
Zoho CRM Pricing
Zoho CRM offers five different pricing plans: Standard, Professional, Enterprise, Ultimate, and Plus. Zoho CRM also offers a free plan that offers basic functionality and three users.
The Standard plan costs $14 per user, per month, the Professional plan costs $23 per user, per month, the Enterprise plan costs $40 per user, per month, the Ultimate plan costs $52 per user, per month, and the Plus plan costs $57 per user, per month.
Our research shows that the Professional plan is the best option for small businesses, as it unlocked unlimited custom reports, improved customer support, and added storage, all at a small price increase. This is the best plan for small businesses across all providers too, offering sales, customer service, and marketing functionality.
Plan | Price Billed annually | Users | Storage | Support | Lead scoring | API | Custom reports | Custom automation builder | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
TRY FOR FREE | BEST FOR SMB | ||||||||
Free | Standard | Professional | Enterprise | Ultimate | Plus | ||||
3 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | ||||
User: n/a | User: n/a | User: 20MB | User: 50MB | User: 100mb | User: 1GB | ||||
Basic | Standard | Live chat, phone, email | Standard | 24/7 live | 24/7 live | ||||
| | | | | | ||||
| | | | | | ||||
| Max 100 | | | | | ||||
| | | | | |
Best for Business Features: Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM definitely offers more business features than Pipedrive, particularly at similar price points. Zoho CRM scored a 4.1 out of 5 in our research for features, whereas Pipedrive scored a dismal 1.9 out of 5. Even worse, that low score from Pipedrive was from a pricing plan that actually costs more than the similar plan from Zoho CRM, which makes the decision even more clear.
The big advantage here is that Zoho CRM offers features for sales, marketing, and customer service, whereas Pipedrive only offers sales features. Subsequently, if you’re doing anything more than just tracking deals, Zoho CRM is the obvious choice across the board.
Best for Customization: Zoho CRM
Again, you can’t beat Zoho CRM when it comes to customizability, and Pipedrive just doesn’t compare. Zoho offers some of the most robust customizability in the industry, providing custom task types, custom objects, custom dashboards, and a customizable sales pipeline.
Conversely, Pipedrive only allows for custom dashboards and customizable sales pipeline, missing out on the custom task types and custom objects. It does offer unlimited custom fields, though, whereas Zoho CRM offers only 500 per object, and that’s only in one of its more expensive plans, Zoho Ultimate.
All in all, Zoho CRM scored an impressive 4.1 out of 5 for customizability, while Pipedrive only scored a 2.5 out of 5 for customizability, so the research is clear on this one.
Best for Help & Support: Pipedrive
This is one category in which Pipedrive actually outscored Zoho CRM, although not by much. Zoho CRM scored a 3.1 out of 5 in help and support, while Pipedrive scored a slightly better 3.2 out of 5. This is largely because Zoho CRM has different tiers of support based on which pricing plan you go for, while Pipedrive has the same service across all plans.
Subsequently, while Zoho CRM offers 24/7 coverage for expensive plans, the help and support is less helpful in the Professional plan, with agents being available only eight hours a day for five days a week. Pipedrive, on the other hand, offers live chat 24/7 for all of its pricing plans, even the Essential one, so we have to give the edge to Pipedrive.
Best Pipedrive and Zoho CRM Alternatives
Zoho CRM is arguably the best CRM on the market, and Pipedrive is respectable in its own right, but they certainly aren’t the only CRM options available. In fact, our research found that there are plenty of solid platforms out there that should be able to fit your particular needs. Take a look at the table below for a look at some alternatives and keep scrolling for some of our other top picks.
Plan | Price Billed annually | Free Trial | Users | Storage | Rating Based on usability, customization, functionality, pricing, and help and support | Try it | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SPONSORED | BEST OVERALL | BEST VALUE | |||||||
Salesforce Sales Cloud | HubSpot | ||||||||
Starter Suite | Professional | Free | Growth | Pro | Express | Sell Team | Advanced | Less Annoying CRM | Cloud |
30 days | 15 days | | 21 days | 14 days | 15 days | | 14 days | 30 days | 14 days |
325 max. | Unlimited | 2 | Unlimited | Unlimited | 5 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
File storage: 1GB | User: 20MB | Unlimited | 2 GB | 100 GB | 1 GB | 2GB per user | Unlimited | 10 GB per user | 6GB |
3.8 | 4.6 | 4.2 | 4.5 | 4.3 | 4.3 | 4.0 | 3.9 | 3.7 | 3.2 |
Try Salesforce | Try Zoho CRM | Get started free | Try Freshsales | Try monday CRM | Try Zoho Bigin | Try Zendesk | Try Pipedrive | Try LACRM | Try Act! CRM |
monday CRM Pro – $16 per user, per month
Zoho CRM boasts some solid customizability, but there is no CRM more customizable than monday CRM. Scoring a 4.7 out of 5 in our research, it was the highest rated CRM for customizability, thanks to its many custom dashboards and reports. It doesn’t have a lot of features, but monday CRM can truly adapt to your particular business needs.
We’ve found that the best plan for small businesses from monday CRM is the Pro plan, which actually costs $16 per user, per month as is reflected in the table above.
Check out our in-depth monday CRM review for more information
Pros
- 14-day free trial
- Simple and modern layout with basic color-coded system
- Custom fields across platform, including customizable dashboards
- Many reports: deals, activity, recurring revenue, and more.
Cons
- Workflow automations are capped monthly
- No centralized inbox to improve team management
- No phone support on any plan, but live chat is available
Freshsales – starting at $9 per user, per month
Another sales-focused CRM, Freshsales is essentially a better version of Pipedrive for a slightly lower price. It had the most features on our list for the price, scoring a 4.7 out of 5, making it one of the best value CRMs in our research. While Pipedrive only offers sales features, Freshsales Suite, the platform geared towards small businesses, offers marketing and sales features, so you can find customers while you’re trying to close.
Pros
- Accessible pricing options for all users
- More digital selling options than most
- Good customer support options including 24/7 coverage
Cons
- Lacks some team organization capabilities found in competitors
- Doesn’t provide an IP restriction security feature
Verdict: Which CRM is better?
Our research shows that Zoho CRM is better than Pipedrive in most categories, scoring higher in features, customizability, and usability. The data even shows that Zoho CRM is the best CRM for small businesses, as its sales, marketing, and customer service features are available at a lower price than most competitors.
While we would generally recommend Zoho CRM over Pipedrive in most situations, those looking for a sales-focused CRM for tracking deals should definitely consider Pipedrive, as it offers some great usability for these kinds of tasks.
If you’re looking for CRM for your business, our CRM comparison page can give you some helpful information for moving forward with your software decisions.
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