The right customer relationship management (CRM) system is crucial for nurturing leads and closing deals. Pipedrive and Salesmate are two sales-focused CRMs that stand out among the competition.
Both platforms have features that streamline sales processes and boost productivity. Despite the tools’ similarities, choosing between them largely depends on your specific business needs.
In this article, we’ll provide a detailed comparison of Pipedrive and Salesmate and examine their features, advantages and limitations. Read on to find out which CRM is the best choice for your sales team.
Pipedrive vs. Salesmate: at a glance
Pipedrive and Salesmate are cloud-based CRM tools for streamlining sales activities. Both offer valuable solutions that automate sales processes, track customer interactions and generate detailed sales reports based on your customer data.
Salesmate is a simple CRM system that focuses on small businesses like startups. Its platform enables various automations and email campaign personalization.
Pipedrive has a strong reputation as a user-friendly sales CRM. While ideal for small and medium-sized businesses that want to manage their sales pipelines intuitively, the tool is also suitable for companies of different sizes and growing businesses.
Pipedrive stands out for its navigational ease, balancing comprehensive features and usability.
Pipedrive vs. Salesmate: features
Both Pipedrive and Salesmate come with useful functionality for sales teams. Let’s take a look at how the CRMs compare when it comes to key features.
Contact management
Powerful CRM systems need robust contact management features to help companies store contact information and better understand customers.
Pipedrive enables straightforward contact and lead management. Each customer profile provides a clear view of contact information with all linked notes, activities, calls, emails and files.
You can add custom fields to your contact profiles to collect different types of information.
Pipedrive also provides sales automation features that streamline follow-up emails and contact updates to reduce manual data entry. For example, you can set up automation rules that trigger actions following changes in contact status or specific interactions.
Salesmate takes a similar approach to contact management, with customizable fields and views that show customer information.
You can segment your contacts using different “Types” and “Tags” filtering options.
Like Pipedrive, Salesmate offers sales task automations to help you keep up with changes to contacts.
Summary: both Pipedrive and Salesmate have strong contact management capabilities. Each platform provides an intuitive contact interface with all key details. Each is also equipped with automations that help you keep your contacts updated and organized.
Workflow automation
Workflow automation increases team efficiency and ensures that key tasks don’t slip through the cracks. Pipedrive and Salesmate both offer workflow management features with a few differences.
Pipedrive’s Automations feature makes workflow automation accessible to all without a need for technical expertise. Setting up automation rules is simple thanks to a visual editor that guides you through the process.
Take a look at Pipedrive’s intuitive automation creator.
Pipedrive focuses on streamlining sales processes and eliminating manual work. Its automation features include follow-ups, moving deals across stages and auto-assigning tasks to team members.
The CRM can send personalized emails based on specific triggers, like when a customer reaches a certain deal stage. Pipedrive also integrates with numerous third-party tools through Zapier for more complex automations.
Crush your manual admin with this sales automation guide
Salesmate also provides built-in automation. The Starter plan includes basic features while the Automation Journeys paid add-on gives users a visual drag-and-drop builder.
Salesmate’s basic workflow feature, while less intuitive than Pipedrive’s, is useful for automating pipeline management and email campaigns.
Summary: both platforms provide workflow automation, though Salesmate requires a paid add-on to build your own automations.
Pipeline management
Pipeline management gives you a visual overview of where your prospects are in the sales pipeline. Both Pipedrive and Salesmate include tools with different designs for managing your pipeline.
Pipedrive’s interface gives a clear, customizable drag-and-drop pipeline view that lets you manage deals easily.
You can create multiple pipelines with customized stages to reflect different sales processes or offerings. This deep level of customization makes Pipedrive adaptable to different types of sales workflows, industries and use cases.
Pipedrive tools prioritize sales efficiency to help sales teams close deals faster. You can get a detailed overview of each deal, set up activities, track performance against sales targets and forecast sales.
Like Pipedrive, Salesmate lets you customize sales pipelines with a less intuitive drag-and-drop interface. The visual pipeline design is also similar, with cards for each deal and lists per stage.
Summary: Pipedrive and Salesmate have similar pipeline management processes, with Pipedrive being more intuitive.
Email marketing
Effective email campaign management tools can help you grow your customer base and scale your business efficiently. Pipedrive and Salesmate’s email functionalities help you manage your sales and marketing efforts directly from within the system.
Pipedrive integrates email communication smoothly into the sales process. The tool allows salespeople to send and receive emails in the CRM, automatically linking communications to the appropriate contacts and deals.
A drag-and-drop email builder in the Campaigns by Pipedrive add-on makes it easy to create custom emails.
You can run Campaigns by Pipedrive to…
Sync your emails with your CRM and trigger emails based on changes in your sales pipeline
Use and customize email templates to ensure consistency
Segment your contact list and send personalized emails
Track emails and get insights into whether the recipient opens the email or clicks links
Salesmate includes email marketing campaign creation features as part of the Automation Journeys add-on. Here’s what the email builder looks like.
Salesmate lets you…
Create and send email campaigns using customizable email templates
A/B test your emails to determine winning variants
Track email engagement metrics
Personalize email content based on information in the CRM
Summary: both Pipedrive and Salesmate offer a stack of email marketing features. Salesmate’s email builder has built-in A/B testing while Pipedrive’s drag-and-drop functionality enhances ease of use and customizability.
Insights and reports
No CRM tool is complete without the ability to provide insights and reports on sales data. Both Pipedrive and Salesmate give you valuable information on your sales performance, customer engagement and other key sales metrics.
Pipedrive focuses on readability with easy-to-digest visual reporting tools. The Insights feature lets you drag and drop up to 25 reports and goals into custom dashboards.
For instance, the team dashboard below shows several report types including deal progress, deal conversion, revenue forecast and activities completed.
You can export your data into various formats for deeper analysis or presentation outside the CRM. This flexibility is useful for businesses that use additional tools for analytics or reporting.
In Salesmate, you can also set up personalized dashboards to generate custom reports. Available metrics include deal by source, campaign effectiveness and call outcomes. Like Pipedrive, Salesmate displays data in easy-to-understand graphs and charts.
Unlike Pipedrive’s drag-and-drop functionality, in Salesmate you scan through a list of reports and add them from a menu. You are limited to a maximum of 10 reports to display at once.
Summary: Each platform provides substantial reporting capabilities, with Pipedrive’s user-friendly design able to display more data.
Communication and collaboration
Sales-focused CRM software should make it easier for sales teams to communicate with customers and work together effectively. Collaboration features ensure team members receive timely updates and alerts so they’re always on the same page.
Pipedrive and Salesmate feature a number of communication and collaboration tools.
| Pipedrive | Salesmate |
Email and communication tracking: seamless integration with email lets you centralize all customer communications | Integrated communication tools: built-in calling and SMS features allow you to communicate with contacts from the CRM |
Chat functionality: the LeadBooster add-on has a Live Chat feature so you can speak directly to customers via the CRM | Internal chat feature: company salespeople can communicate with each other in real time |
Activity and calendar sync: schedule, track and sync activities so everyone is aware of deadlines, meetings and tasks – improving team organization | Shared team inbox: team members are able to access and manage customer emails together |
Custom pipelines and pipeline management: customize pipelines to match your company’s process. Team members can stay informed on deal progress plus comment on deals and contacts. | Deal management on the go: drag and drop deals across pipeline stages, with the possibility to track and update progress on mobile |
Both platforms are built with sales teams in mind and have tools to make sharing information and updates easier.
Summary: Pipedrive features help sales teams keep up with customers and coordinate their sales activities. Salesmate includes internal chat functionality useful for remote teams.
Pipedrive vs. Salesmate: onboarding and ease of use
A CRM with all the features in the world may still prove hard to set up and use. The best CRM systems make it easy to get started.
Ease of use and onboarding
We’ve established that a Pipedrive highlight is its ease of use. Behind its simple interface is the idea that sales software should assist sales teams without requiring significant time to learn.
When you first set up Pipedrive, sample data and views will show you how everything works. New and existing users can access extensive resources to get the most out of the platform. They include a deep knowledge base, video tutorials, written guides and personalized onboarding for qualifying customers.
Salesmate has a steeper learning curve. Understanding how to use it effectively might require more dedicated onboarding and training sessions. The platform has comprehensive online materials and walkthroughs available to help.
Summary: Pipedrive and Salesmate provide in-depth tutorials, how-to videos and knowledge bases to help you use each platform. Pipedrive has additional pre-built views and sample data that streamline onboarding.
User interface (UI)
Pipedrive built its pipeline view around a visual sales pipeline. The design follows the progression of deals through stages so you can easily track progress and identify bottlenecks. You can even customize the pipeline stages. The clean interface minimizes distractions and helps you focus on sales activities.
Pipedrive also lets you see data in a list view. Here, deals occupy rows while each column displays relevant information.
Salesmate’s board view (similar to Pipedrive’s pipeline view) and list view are similar in design and visual appeal.
Summary: Pipedrive and Salesmate both prioritize pipeline management and intuitive navigation. Finding your way around each highly customizable CRM is simple. With either system, it’s easy to modify pipelines.
Support and community
Pipedrive has live chat and email customer support. Users on Enterprise and Power plans have access to quick help phone support. Pipedrive also offers educational resources and webinars alongside a growing user community with an active forum to help users make the most of the CRM.
Salesmate offers chat and email support, adding priority support for those subscribed to the custom plan. The scale and engagement level of its user community aren’t as extensive as Pipedrive’s.
Summary: Support accessibility per platform varies by plan, as premium plans offer more direct or faster support options. Pipedrive provides comprehensive support services alongside a highly engaged community.
Pipedrive vs. Salesmate: add-ons and integrations
Pipedrive and Salesmate offer many integration options as well as paid add-ons that provide extra functionality to your CRM. Here’s how the two platforms compare.
Add-ons
Pipedrive and Salesmate each comprise a range of add-ons that extend the features of their core CRM platform. Below are a few primary ones for both platforms.
| Pipedrive | Salesmate |
LeadBooster: a lead generation and qualification add-on that helps you capture and nurture leads more effectively. It includes an automated Chatbot, Live Chat, Web Forms and Prospector, which grants access to a huge database of potential leads. | Automated journeys: provide high-level workflow automation for sales and marketing |
Web Visitors: provides insights into visitor behavior and interests. It can identify companies that visit your websites, track which pages specific visitors look at and alert you when key visitors perform certain actions (like visiting a pricing page). | Conversation inbox: lets you chat with web visitors and customers via different social media messaging platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp |
Campaigns: gives access to email tracking in Pipedrive, bridging the gap between your sales and marketing efforts. You can create, send and track email campaigns without needing a separate email marketing tool. | Sandy AI: an AI-powered copilot currently available only via invite (Pipedrive’s AI Sales Assistant is available to all its users) |
Scheduler: streamlines meetings by letting prospects book times into your calendar. It reduces back-and-forth emails and missed connection opportunities. | Extra sequences, workflows and calling credits: Salesmate provides limited sequences, workflows and calls, so you’ll need to buy more credits for each |
Integrations
Pipedrive hosts an expansive marketplace featuring over 400 third-party applications and integrations for marketing automation, customer support, finance management, document signing, project management and more.
Even more integrations are possible through Zapier. There’s also API support for building your own app to integrate with Pipedrive.
Salesmate offers hundreds of integrations and an API platform to develop your own apps.
Pipedrive vs. Salesmate: pricing
Both platforms offer tiered pricing plans to cater to different business needs and sizes. The specific features and cost per user differ between the two CRMs.
| Pipedrive | Salesmate |
Essential: $14 per user per month, billed annually. Includes fundamental CRM features as well as contact management, deal management, pipeline management and customer service. | Basic: $23 per user per month. Includes basic features like contacts, deals, email sync, multiple pipeline management, workflow automation, web forms and standard reports. |
Advanced: $29 per user per month, billed annually. Has additional automations, call scheduling and email marketing features. | |
Professional: $49 per user per month, billed annually. Adds document management, forecasting, lead routing and advanced customization choices. | Pro: $39 per user per month. Includes all basic features, product management, a team inbox, field-based permissions plus custom dashboards and reports. |
Power: $64 per user per month, billed annually. Includes project tracking, personalized CRM onboarding, scalable account permissions and more. | Business: $63 per user per month. Includes all Pro features, team management, custom module, more layouts and increased workflow and sequence limits. |
Enterprise: $99 per user per month, billed annually. Adds enterprise features like enhanced security, customizations, automation and unlimited reports. | Enterprise: Contact Salesmate for a customized quote. Includes all business features along with a dedicated account manager, personalized onboarding, priority support, unlimited dashboards and advanced permissions. |
Final thoughts
Pipedrive and Salesmate offer compelling CRM features focused on streamlining and enhancing sales processes. The choice between the two platforms depends on your business’s unique needs and preferences.
While Salesmate stands out for its integrated communication tools, Pipedrive shines bright with its user-friendly approach, minimalist design and simplified processes.
