Pipedrive or Zoho? We Help You Pick the CRM That Gets Sales Done

Pipedrive and Zoho are cloud CRM apps with strong sales automation features.

They help you manage your leads and deals and provide you with tools to optimize your sales workflows.

If you’re exploring both options, I have compared their core features and prices to highlight their common and unique selling points. 

Explore the comparison to find the platform that better meets your business needs.

Let’s begin with Pipedrive.

Pipedrive Overview

Pipedrive is an AI-powered sales CRM platform for small businesses. It delivers sales, communication, and automation tools to create visual pipelines and manage leads with ease.

Core capabilities of Pipedrive are lead tracking, communication, contact management, and performance measurement. 

It has a user-friendly Kanban board for pipeline tracking and an AI assistant for workflow automation.

Over 100,000 companies worldwide use Pipedrive for sales automation. The app is perfect for businesses that want a simple yet powerful tool to improve work efficiency.

Core Features of Pipedrive

• Visual pipeline.
• Calendar and activity management. 
• Lead tracking.
• Email automation.
• Analytics and reporting.
• AI Sales Assistant.
• Integrations.
• Mobile apps.

Try PipeDrive for free

Zoho Overview

Zoho is well-suited for both small and established companies. It combines sales with communication and administration, giving you 360° control of your deal pipeline.

You can use Zoho to track leads, automate workflows, measure sales performance, and run omnichannel communication. It delivers tracking, automation, and AI-powered tools to help you optimize the entire sales cycle. 

The best thing about Zoho is its personalization and forecasting. You can customize your workflows and run forecasts to predict your sales performance.

If you need a flexible solution for sales automation, Zoho is ideal for you. More than a hundred million people are using this software and have good things to say about it.

Core Features of Zoho

• Lead & contact management.
• Sales automation.
• AI and automation.
• Email, phone, and social media integration.
• Customizable dashboards.
• Analytics and reporting.
• Integrations.
• Mobile apps.

Try Zoho for free

Pipedrive Vs. Zoho—Feature Comparison

Pipedrive and Zoho are powerful cloud-based CRM platforms with good automation and integration capabilities. Both share several common features, making them close competitors.

To help you choose the right CRM, I’ve compared their sales, automation, communication, and analytics features. 

I have also reviewed their tech support and subscription packages.

1. Sales Pipeline

Sales pipeline displays each stage of prospecting. It gives you a visual view of your leads and deals, allowing you to oversee your sales funnel and teams more efficiently.

Pipedrive and Zoho both have advanced sales tools. They give you consolidated data on sales activities and help you manage the routine work.

Let’s explore Pipedrive and Zoho’s sales pipeline.

Pipedrive

Pipedrive has a robust framework for creating and automating leads and deals. You’ll get a drag-and-drop visual board to organize leads, move deals forward, and assign follow-up tasks.

You can customize your pipeline and create color codes for easy monitoring. For contact management, you’ll receive a central hub to store data in one place.

You can open as many deals as you want and add several team members to your account. With customizable pipelines and good team management features, you can easily scale your operations.

Zoho

Zoho’s sales tools cover deal pipeline, customer journey builder, lead scoring, and data storage. It has an intuitive board with collaboration features to assign tasks and keep track of everything.

You can create custom flows for different products and tailor them to personalize the sales funnel. With different views and filters, you can set up your sales process exactly how you want it to be.

The CRM supports both general and account-based marketing. You’ll receive multiple portals for B2B customers, as well as a digital library to store data.

Multipage layouts, conditional fields, and approvals are some of its other pipeline management features.

Verdict

Pipedrive provides a straightforward deal management tool for better visibility, while Zoho is best for complex workflows.

But you can build scalable pipelines and oversee your sales rep activities on both platforms.

Based on usability, Pipedrive is great for non-tech entrepreneurs, and Zoho is ideal for companies with in-house dev support.

2. Communication

Good communication is key to closing deals. It’s all about staying in touch with leads through emails, calls, and messages.

Both Pipedrive and Zoho deliver versatile and hassle-free communication features. You can connect your email for follow-ups and build an omnichannel network for lead capturing.

Let’s explore their communication module.

Pipedrive

Pipedrive specializes in email marketing. It seamlessly connects with your email (Gmail or Outlook) and offers a separate product for email optimization.

You’ll get templates to create sales emails with segmentation for personalization. You’ll have the flexibility to design your emails from scratch and set up automatic email sequences for campaigns.

Email analytics is built into the system, plus you’ll find integration options for calls. 

The standout communication tool for Pipedrive is its email inbox. It comes with smart features to help you track conversations and increase productivity.

Zoho

Zoho delivers an omnichannel workflow. You’ll get six different communication options and collaborative tools for teams.

The built-in phone system automatically logs calls, while smart email tracking shows customer conversion history. Everything stays organized and centralized, giving your team the data and visibility to optimize their prospecting workflows.

WhatsApp and social media integrations are also available to reach customers where they’re most active. You can use AI-powered tools to get recommendations on the best time to connect with leads.

Verdict

Pipedrive offers a simple, email-focused communication channel for leads and teams. 

Zoho, on the other hand, gives you more ways to connect. You can call, text, email, and chat with leads.

While you can integrate Slack, Zoom, and other third-party apps with Pipedrive, Zoho has a better communication system. 

3. AI and Automation 

AI and automation are game-changers for sales teams. They manage repetitive tasks for you and predict sales, so you can focus more on closing deals. 

With Pipedrive and Zoho, you can set up smart workflows and boost your sales rep productivity. Both have good AI capabilities and sales automation tools.

Here’s the summary of Pipedrive and Zoho’s automation features.

Pipedrive

Pipedrive automates routine tasks like follow-up reminders, email sequences, and deal stage updating. Not to mention, it also analyzes your pipeline and suggests priority deals and recommendations.

You can set up triggers and alerts to avoid missed opportunities and log daily activities. The system automatically tracks email opens and call logs and predicts monthly revenue based on your pipeline data. 

You can even write emails and generate reports with AI.

Overall, Pipedrive’s AI features are user-friendly and perfect for teams who want practical automation without a steep learning curve.

Zoho

Zoho takes sales automation to the next level with its powerful Zia AI platform and advanced workflows. Its AI assistant acts like a helpful sales coach, spotting good opportunities and notifying you of delayed responses. 

You can set different signals, like anomaly or competitor alerts, to cover each area without manually overseeing everything.

You can also use Zoho AI assistant to find quick information and improve your workflows. Additionally, you can ask it to analyze any data for you, such as email success.

Verdict

Pipedrive’s AI tools offer essential automation with predictive analysis.

Zoho, however, provides in-depth insights and better AI functions, making workflows smarter and more efficient.

4. Analytics and Reporting 

Analytics and reporting involve tracking performance metrics, identifying trends, and making data-driven decisions.

Pipedrive’s analytics module offers all the above, plus intuitive dashboards and clean reporting. Zoho also delivers consolidated dashboards and custom reports to monitor sales activities.

Here’s a brief summary of Pipedrive’s and Zoho’s analytics features.

Pipedrive

Pipedrive tracks leads, deals, sales performance, and conversions. It delivers actionable data and customization to generate targeted insights.

Here, you can see account-level performance reports and predict future revenues. You can give goals to your team and monitor their activities in real-time. 

The forecasting feature automatically predicts revenue based on current deals, while goal-tracking helps teams improve their focus. You can visualize KPIs with charts and automatically generate custom reports. 

Zoho

Zoho gives you daily pipeline insights and sales forecasts. Its reporting section has around ten different features and a prediction builder for identifying sales opportunities.

You’ll get drag-and-drop widgets to customize your reports and AI tools to get quick insights on specific activities. You can set up filters to divide your monitoring by zones and goals. and share your dashboard with others.

With Zoho, you can pretty much track everything from monthly targets and individual rep performance to company-wide sales trends and post-sales analytics.

Verdict

Zoho’s analytics and reporting section is comparatively more versatile. While Pipedrive covers essential areas, Zoho has advanced capabilities.

Both deliver valuable insights–they just have different depths.

5. Integration and Tech Support

Pipedrive and Zoho both have good tech support.

They allow integration with third parties, let you customize your workflows, offer data security, and provide mobile apps for accessibility.

Below is the summary of Pipedrive and Zoho’s system capabilities.

Pipedrive

Pipedrive offers 500+ integration options and API access.

Its integration list is versatile, covering a diverse range of third-party applications, including lead generation tools, payment gateways, and communication channels.

You can download Pipedrive on iOS and Android apps and add the browser extension for the web. You can also sync web and mobile data in real time, and send calls to your mobile from the Pipedrive app.

If you need personalized onboarding, you can request that as well. The system supports multiple languages and provides flexible customer support.

Zoho

Zoho’s integrations are comparatively extensive. 

You can connect to 1000+ third-party applications, and sync Zoho’s other products with the CRM.

You’ll get built-in telephony for calls/SMS with no additional charge, and AI assistance for troubleshooting. The platform follows the necessary privacy and compliance, making your data safe and secure.

What I love about Zoho is its accessibility. You’ll receive three types of mobile apps–a CRM app, a card scanner, and an analytics tool. All three are available on Google and the App Store.

Verdict 

Pipedrive’s tech support is excellent. You get all the necessary integrations and multichannel customer support.

Zoho’s tech support, however, is better. The system is accessible, secure, and extremely flexible.

Price

Pipedrive and Zoho both follow a subscription pricing model with monthly and annual options. They sell multiple packages, enterprise-grade solutions, and add-ons. 

You can try both for free and invite others to test the features–no credit card required.

Here’s a brief comparison of their pricing model.

Pipedrive Prices

Pipedrive keeps pricing simple and sales-focused with five straightforward tiers. 

The basic plan starts at $19 per user/month. It covers pipeline, reporting, and integration. The Mid-tier plan costs $34/month and contains workflow automation and video calls. 

The Professional plan is one of its popular choices. It costs $64/month, offering forecasting and AI-powered tools with essential features. 

If you need scalability, Pipedrive offers an enterprise plan for $99 per month. You can extend the functions further with add-ons. They range between $7 and $35.

Zoho Prices

Zoho sells four subscription packages with a free basic plan.

The free plan gives you access to basic features and allows three users.

If you move to premium packages, you can get all the features for $65 per month. Its Standard plan costs $20 per month, while its professional and enterprise subscriptions cost $35 to $50 per month.

AI assistant is available on the Enterprise and Ultimate packages only. The high-tier packages also provide multi-user portals, advanced customization, and unified business insights.

Verdict

Pipedrive sells attractive starter packages, while Zoho provides budget-friendly enterprise solutions.

Both are ideal for small and growing businesses, but Zoho offers more features in the same price tier.

Pros and Cons of Pipedrive and Zoho

Pipedrive and Zoho both have a good reputation in the sales software market. They entertain a large number of users and offer global coverage, making them ideal for online businesses.

However, each platform has its own distinct strengths and limitations. Where Pipedrive specializes in sales automation, Zoho brings more to the table.

To pick the best option for your business, it’s imperative to consider the pros and cons. This might help you make a well-informed purchase decision.

Here’s a quick summary of Pipedrive’s and Zoho’s pros and cons:

Pipedrive

Pros

• Simple, efficient, and user-friendly.
• Sales-focused features and straightforward pricing.
• Intuitive and visual pipeline, perfect for deal tracking
• Strong email marketing features.

Cons

• CRM is comparatively basic with limited customization.
• Fewer integrations comparatively.

Zoho

Pros

• All-in-one platform with sales and marketing tools.
• Robust CRM with better AI capabilities.
• Customization and workflow automation.
• Free plan available for small teams.

Cons

• Extensive functionality can be overwhelming sometimes.
• Customization requires developer knowledge.

Conclusion

Pipedrive and Zoho provide a digital space for workflow automation. 

They deliver sales-focused functions and productivity tools to cut down the administrative load.

Based on my reviews, I believe Pipedrive is better suited for companies that need exclusive sales tools. But if you want an extensive range of features and customization, go for Zoho.

You can try PipeDrive for free here and Zoho for free here.