Pipedrive vs. Zoho CRM

Pipedrive vs. Zoho CRM

Every company needs a solid CRM—there’s no doubt about that. Are you currently on the lookout for the right software to meet your needs? This blog post is here to make that process easier for you by introducing two of the most powerful CRMs on the market: Pipedrive and Zoho. Both are highly rated and offer a wide range of features that users around the world love. But which CRM is the best fit for your business? We’ll help you answer that question—jump in and discover more about Pipedrive, Zoho, and what they bring to the table!

What is Pipedrive?

Let’s start with our first candidate: Pipedrive, a CRM software designed specifically for sales teams. It was founded in 2010 by a group of sales professionals—literally in a garage in Estonia—who were frustrated by the lack of CRM tools that truly delivered what they needed. So, Pipedrive was built by salespeople, for salespeople. And it’s been a success story ever since. Today, the company boasts over 850 employees across 8 countries, offering a simple yet powerful CRM solution tailored to small and medium-sized businesses.

What does Pipedrive do?

Pipedrive stands out for one key feature: efficiency. With its versatile functions, it enables sales teams to streamline their processes through sales and marketing automation, deliver exceptional customer service, and access comprehensive reporting to drive better decision-making.

Pipedrive provides a range of sales automation tools, including contact and account management, task and activity tracking with email monitoring, product and price list management, customer contract handling, opportunity and pipeline management, workflows, and more. With email integration, your sales team’s mailboxes can be seamlessly synced with Pipedrive. This way, both customer information and email communication can be centralized in one place.

Marketing automation can include traditional email marketing, lead management, and campaign management. Additionally, it offers customer service features like call center capabilities, including phone support, email support, and live chat options.

Pipedrive offers extensive reporting, featuring forecasts across multiple dashboards to give you a thorough analysis of your sales performance.

 

How good is Pipedrive?

If you take a glance at popular platforms, you’ll quickly see that Pipedrive holds an impressive average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars. Users particularly value the tool’s ease of use, excellent customer service, and the capability to implement effective sales automation. The numbers tell the story as well: over 100,000 customers across more than 179 countries are currently using Pipedrive.

 

How much does Pipedrive cost?

The CRM is available in five price packages: Essential, Advanced, Professional, Power and Enterprise.

The Essential package starts at €14 per user per month and includes fundamental features like lead, deal, and pipeline management, a calendar, and 24/7 support.

Pipedrive Advanced enhances the Essential package by adding extra email features and web analytics tools, along with a workflow builder and other handy automations, all for €34 per user per month.

In the Professional edition, you’ll get key features designed to optimize performance and enhance reporting, including sales forecasts, predictions, and customizable reports. This package is available for €49 per user per month.

The Power package provides even more features for lead allocation and team management, along with enhanced sales forecasting. You’ll also find additional options for deal and field customization, all for €64 per user per month.

With the Enterprise edition priced at €99 per user per month, you get the full Pipedrive experience. This package includes all functions and features, plus extra security options and an implementation program to help you seamlessly integrate Pipedrive into your operating environment.

What is Zoho?

Zoho CRM is an on-demand software designed for effective customer relationship management. Launched by Zoho Corporation in 2005, this cloud-based tool provides a comprehensive solution for managing customer relationships for small and medium-sized businesses as well as larger corporations. Founded in 1996, Zoho is an Indian company that offers over 45 applications, delivering digital solutions across various business sectors. The company operates in more than 55 countries, with its modules available in over 20 languages.

 

What features does Zoho CRM offer?

As we all know, the title “CRM giant” isn’t one that’s given lightly. Zoho CRM earns this reputation through its extensive range of features that provide users with top-notch support in the sales domain.

Similar to Pipedrive, Zoho offers sales automation applications that include contract management, activity and task management, territory and offer management, as well as product and price list management, among many other features.

Marketing automation in Zoho CRM encompasses everything from email marketing to campaign management and lead management. It enhances customer service with a dedicated customer service portal, a knowledge base, and case management across various channels like phone support, live chat, and email support. Additionally, Zoho CRM allows you to set up a complete service desk as a help center for your customers. You can also build a self-service knowledge platform to address common questions from your customers, where you can curate and share helpful content.

Zoho CRM includes another valuable feature for customer service with its ticket and case management system. When support is needed, this feature allows requests to be automatically generated, both internally by other teams and externally by customers for a ticket, which can then be handled by the appropriate staff member. Thanks to ticket collaboration, tickets can also be addressed across departments when necessary to reach a resolution. Customized workflows and automated responses further enhance efficiency, which customers truly appreciate.

Zoho CRM gathers data from customer profiles and sales activities, such as lead acquisition and sales, in the Reporting & Analytics section. Here, you can create personalized dashboards and generate custom reports tailored to your needs, helping you and your team assess performance effectively.

 

What does Zoho’s pricing look like?

Similar to Pipedrive, Zoho CRM offers its software in five pricing tiers, with monthly rates ranging from €14 to €52. One major advantage and unique selling point of Zoho CRM compared to its competitors is its free basic version, available for up to three users. This package includes all the essential features that small to medium-sized businesses need to get started.

The paid plans begin with the Standard edition, priced at €14 per user per month. This version provides significantly more features, including the ability to use multiple pipelines and access more detailed reporting.

The Professional edition, available for €23 per month, offers unlimited access to all standard features, along with customizable dashboards and unlimited email templates.

The Enterprise package, priced at €40 per month, offers significantly more features and is the most popular plan among users. It stands out for its enhanced customizability, allowing for user-defined modules, page layouts, and buttons.

The Ultimate package is ideal for anyone looking to access all the features Zoho CRM has to offer for their business. Priced at €52 per user per month, it’s especially well-suited for large companies due to its extensive configuration options across all areas and the ability to manage many more groups and teams.

 

Who uses Zoho?

Living up to the motto “Zoho CRM is for everyone,” the software is utilized not just by small and medium-sized businesses, but also by global giants like Netflix, Amazon, Suzuki, and Pacific Controls. In total, Zoho CRM is now in use by over 250,000 companies.

 

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Before diving into the ultimate Pipedrive vs. Zoho comparison, let’s take a moment to discuss CRM in a bit more detail. (After all, we’ve used this term quite a few times in this blog!) Understanding the need for CRM software starts with grasping its definitions and the potential it offers.

 

CRM definition

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management and refers to the processes involved in managing and nurturing customer relationships. CRM software is designed to facilitate lead acquisition, meaning attracting new customers, as well as maintaining relationships with existing ones. The goal is to systematically develop customer relationships and, most importantly, sustain them over the long term.

 

The CRM approaches

There isn’t a single definition of CRM. When discussing customer relationship management, we can differentiate among three approaches: CRM as software, CRM as a strategy, and CRM as a process.

CRM as software pertains to applications like Pipedrive and Zoho CRM. This approach emphasizes the technological tracking, analysis, and presentation of all business interactions with customers. On the other hand, CRM as a strategy involves intentionally aligning business processes with customer needs to create the best possible customer experience.

CRM as a process encompasses the overall procedures for customer orientation, including both the technological and strategic methods used by a company, along with systematic approaches to managing customer relationships.

 

When does it make sense to have a CRM system?

On impulse, we would say the answer is ALWAYS! However, if you’re working solo or have a small customer base, you can often manage CRM the traditional way—using an order book or an Excel spreadsheet. Even individual Post-it notes can serve as a simple to-do list or reminders for appointments and tasks.

However, as your company grows, this method can quickly become confusing and problematic. Once your team expands, managing everything on a single list becomes impractical, and to-dos can easily get overlooked. This is especially true if an employee is absent and their replacement lacks access to the mailbox, making it difficult to check the order status for a customer.

CRM software tackles these issues head-on: it ensures that everyone in the sales team has a clear view of every customer, including email communication and order status. This level of transparency is crucial, and with automation and workflows in place, the software helps remind you of tasks, ensuring that no sales opportunities slip through the cracks.

 

Why is CRM becoming increasingly important?

You’ve likely experienced it yourself: when you’re a satisfied customer, you tend to remain loyal to the company you buy from for a longer time. That’s exactly why it’s essential to prioritize maintaining customer relationships—this strengthens connections and unlocks additional potential. In short, the market is highly competitive, and you need to put in the effort to retain customers and keep them happy.

Using a CRM is also essential today for securely managing customer data. With GDPR compliance at the core of all reputable CRMs, you can be assured that this data is actively protected. Automated processes help ensure the safe storage and processing of personal information.

 

Why do CRM projects fail?

Like any software project, CRM implementations can encounter mistakes that may lead to the system’s introduction or usage failing. In fact, 60-70% of all CRM projects don’t succeed due to various reasons or errors made by the project team or management.

First and foremost, a CRM project can fail if individual business objectives aren’t considered, meaning the CRM doesn’t contribute to the company’s success. Additionally, if these goals and the requirements for a new system aren’t communicated with employees, it can lead to problems. To ensure your project succeeds, it’s crucial to understand which features the tool needs to facilitate effective collaboration.

Thorough planning for CRM implementation is essential and remains a fundamental requirement. Without it, the project is unlikely to succeed. It’s best to collaborate with employees to develop the project plan, identify the workflows of all departments, and outline the optimizations that the CRM should achieve. Additionally, be sure to plan for application testing and the creation of a user guide.

This training could be handled by a CRM project manager you appoint, who will ensure that all teams are trained on the CRM and receive ongoing training. If this doesn’t happen and you introduce a new CRM to your employees without proper training, dissatisfaction is likely to grow, potentially leading to a refusal to use the application altogether. So, it’s crucial to take all employees along on this journey!

 

Pipedrive and Zoho in direct comparison

This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for: the Pipedrive vs. Zoho CRM showdown! Let’s get straight to the point—what are the differences, the pros and cons, and who does what better? Overall, both systems have received a “very good” rating from Trusted, with average ratings between 4.3 and 4.5 out of 5 stars and recommendations across popular platforms. Here, it’s the small details like pricing and features that set them apart.

 

Which CRM is better?

When you closely examine the ratings, Pipedrive holds a slight edge in user-friendliness, meeting requirements, and customer support. On the other hand, Zoho is hard to beat in terms of pricing, especially with its free version that covers all the essentials, and it has been on the market for five years longer than Pipedrive. You can determine which CRM is better for you with our comparison!

 

Where does Zoho excel?

Zoho CRM shines not only in pricing but also in functionality, user-friendliness, and integrations. Its extensive features, ranging from lead management to various automations, have impressed users for years, thanks in part to its intuitive and user-friendly interface. Additionally, the dashboards are customizable, and you can seamlessly integrate other applications and tools, such as email, calendars, and social media.

 

What are the advantages of Pipedrive?

Pipedrive impresses users with its straightforward organization in sales, support for managing leads, and a high level of customization. Companies benefit from features like sales forecasts, opportunity evaluation, and a clear presentation of deals. Overall, Pipedrive allows you to concentrate on sales campaigns, optimize growth, and manage it effectively.

 

Other CRM systems

While this article focuses on Pipedrive and Zoho CRM, we don’t want to overlook other CRM systems. There are additional tools among the top 20 CRM providers that might be a good fit for your business. That’s why we’ve put together a quick comparison with competitors like HubSpot and Salesforce!

 

Pipedrive vs. HubSpot

HubSpot is a massive system that has been available since 2013. The software is divided into various hubs for marketing, sales, and customer service, allowing you to use individual hubs or the complete suite as needed. These include the Sales Hub, Marketing Hub, Service Hub for customer support, Content Hub for website creation, and Operations Hub for workflow automation. All hubs are designed to support HubSpot’s inbound marketing strategy, which focuses on attracting leads through valuable content, information, and personalized experiences.

Unlike Pipedrive, which provides a robust set of CRM features, HubSpot has established itself as an all-in-one solution that also offers free versions. Paid licenses for the Starter, Professional, and Enterprise packages begin at €20 per month.

 

Pipedrive vs. Salesforce

Salesforce is often referred to as “the godfather of CRM” and is a true giant in the software industry. Having been on the market since 1999, it is now recognized as the most experienced CRM, boasting the most powerful features. Salesforce provides a comprehensive solution suite known as Customer 360, which encompasses all processes and offers a variety of user-friendly interfaces.

What sets Salesforce apart is its use of Einstein AI, which helps create workflows, forecasts, and more. However, users pay a premium for this advanced functionality: the complete package is available in four editions, starting at €300 per user per month. Due to its extensive capabilities, Salesforce is also quite complex and requires a training process, which adds to the initial costs of implementation.

codafish – Your Zoho partner for all digital applications

We’ve reached the end of our comparison, and now you have plenty of information to consider. We hope we’ve provided you with valuable insights for your CRM selection. If you’re still uncertain, remember to focus on key indicators like goals, requirements, and budget as your guiding principles. If you need assistance in accurately assessing your current situation and requirements, and if Zoho has caught your interest, we’re here to help! As a certified Zoho partner, we can evaluate your current status, offer recommendations, create a project plan, and implement Zoho CRM tailored to your needs. We’ll also be there to train your employees on how to use the software and provide ongoing support even after the go-live to ensure your CRM continuously improves!