- Anubhav Sarker
- Published: 10/20/2026
- Last Updated: 10/20/2026
Tl;dr
For a team of two to 10 that lives in its pipeline, Pipedrive is the easier recommendation. You can buy one seat. The Growth plan at $39 per seat, billed yearly, includes email sync, templates, open and click tracking, automations, sequences, and the forecast view. Every plan now includes meeting notes and summaries at no extra cost. The trap is the Lite plan. At $14, it lacks email sync and automations, so the real starting price is $39.
monday CRM is the easier recommendation for a team that already plans its work on monday.com boards, or that wants a CRM it can bend to its own shape. Standard at $17 a seat billed yearly adds the Gmail and Outlook sync that Basic lacks, and Pro at $28 holds sequences, mass email, templates, open tracking, and forecasting. Every plan needs at least three seats, and seats come in buckets of five after that, so a team of six pays for 10.
If you hoped to run both and sync them, lower your hopes. The only vendor-built connector is Pipedrive's, it pushes new records one way into monday.com, and it never updates them afterward.
What each one is built to do
Pipedrive started in an Estonian garage in 2010 and is now based in New York, with more than 105,000 customers across more than 180 countries. It does one thing: it is a sales pipeline with contacts, email, and reporting attached, and it has never tried to be a project tool or a marketing suite. In July 2025, it renamed its plans to Lite, Growth, Premium, and Ultimate, and most monday vs Pipedrive comparisons online still quote the old Essential, Advanced, and Professional names and prices, so check the date on anything you read.
monday.com launched monday sales CRM on August 2, 2022, now called monday CRM, and surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue with it in 2025. It runs on the same boards the company sells for project work. Leads, contacts, accounts, and deals each live on a board, and you add a column for every field you want. The company has around 250,000 customers across all its products and reports its third quarter on November 9, 2026.
Each vendor has a line about the other. Pipedrive's comparison page says "monday.com is a project management and collaboration tool" and that its CRM "has good basic features for startups and small businesses." monday's comparison says Pipedrive is "more expensive than monday CRM and charges extra for add-on components." Both lines are true, which is rare on comparison pages.
Feature by feature: the plan you need for each one
Pipedrive offers Lite, Growth, Premium, and Ultimate plans. monday CRM has Basic, Standard, Pro, and Ultimate, the new name for its Enterprise tier.
Feature | Pipedrive | monday CRM |
|---|---|---|
Email sync and tracking | Two-way email sync, templates, open and click tracking, group email, and email scheduling all need the Growth plan, and Lite has only a Bcc address for logging. Growth syncs one mailbox per user, Premium three, and Ultimate five. | Two-way Gmail and Outlook sync starts on the Standard plan, and Basic has no email sync. Email templates and open tracking need the Pro plan. |
Email sequences | Sequences require the Growth plan, which allows 5 sequences across the whole company. Premium allows 25 and Ultimate 50. | Sequences need the Pro plan; each step uses one automation action, and the sequence manager shows open, click, and reply rates. |
Mass and marketing email | Group email to a list of contacts comes with the Growth plan. Marketing campaigns are a paid add-on on every plan, priced from $13.33 by subscriber count. | Mass email needs the Pro plan, with up to 500 emails per send and 2,000 a day. |
Automation | Automations need the Growth plan, which allows 50 for the whole company. Premium allows 150, Ultimate allows 250, and Lite has none. | Basic has no automations. Standard allows 250 automation actions a month for the whole account, Pro allows 25,000, and Ultimate allows more. |
Forecasting | The forecast view comes with the Growth plan, and team goals need the Premium plan. | Sales forecasting needs the Pro plan. The forecast is a formula column that multiplies deal value by a probability you type in yourself. |
Quotes and documents | Smart Docs, with quotes, proposals, and e-signatures, is included on the Premium plan and above. On Lite and Growth, it is an add-on from $32.50, with 30 or 100 signature requests a month. | Quotes and invoices are included on every plan: 20 per month on Basic, 50 on Standard, 250 on Pro, and no cap on Ultimate. A products widget pulls prices from a board of your own. |
Custom fields | Lite allows 30 custom fields for the whole company, Growth 100, Premium 300, and Ultimate 500. Required fields and formula fields need the Premium plan. | monday calls fields columns. Basic allows five columns per board, Standard 15, Pro 75, and Ultimate has no cap. Formula columns need the Pro plan. |
Record limits | Pipedrive sets no contact limit. Leads and open deals together are capped at 2,500 per seat on Lite, 5,000 on Growth, 15,000 on Premium, and 20,000 on Ultimate, up to 300,000 per company. | Basic allows 1,000 active contacts and deals, Standard 10,000, Pro 100,000, and Ultimate has no cap. |
Pipelines | Every plan allows as many pipelines and stages as you want. Fields that show only in one pipeline need the Premium plan. | Every plan includes unlimited pipelines and boards. |
Reports and dashboards | Lite allows 15 reports per user, Growth 50, Premium 250, and Ultimate 500. More than one dashboard requires the Premium plan. | Basic allows one custom dashboard, Standard five, Pro 50, and Ultimate has no cap. |
Phone | Pipedrive has no built-in phone. Calls run through marketplace apps such as CloudTalk, Aircall, and JustCall, or from the mobile app on your own phone bill, and every plan logs them. | Smart Call is included on every plan, with up to 5 numbers in the US, Canada, Puerto Rico, or Israel. It records, transcribes, and summarizes every call; each connected minute costs five AI credits, and calls are placed from the mobile app. |
Lead generation | LeadBooster, with a chatbot, live chat, web forms, and a prospecting database, is included on the Premium plan and above and is an add-on for $32.50 or less. | An AI Lead Agent sources prospects on a schedule from the Standard plan (in beta) at 10 credits per lead. Web forms are on every plan. |
Permissions | Visibility settings are on every plan. Custom permission sets and visibility groups need the Premium plan, with 15 of each on Premium and 25 on Ultimate. | Private boards and board and column permissions need the Pro plan. Ultimate adds account-level permissions, audit logs, and SAML single sign-on. |
API | Every plan has API access and webhooks. The daily token budget is 30,000 per seat on Lite, 60,000 on Growth, 150,000 on Premium, and 210,000 on Ultimate. | Every plan can use the API, with 1,000 calls a day on Basic and Standard, 10,000 on Pro, and 25,000 on Ultimate. |
AI | Every plan gets Nova meeting notes, the sales assistant, and AI-built reports, with no credits to count. AI email writing, email summaries, and suggested replies need the Premium plan. | Email drafting, timeline summaries, and deal insights come from the Standard plan at no credit cost. AI blocks cost eight credits per action, and AI lead scoring needs the Ultimate plan. |
Support | Live chat starts on the Growth plan according to the plan table, though Pipedrive's contact page offers it to every user. Phone support needs the Premium plan. | Every plan gets 24/7 support. Ultimate adds a priority queue, tailored onboarding, and account management. |
The two ladders put the money in different places. Pipedrive's $39 Growth seat buys email sync, sequences, automations, and the forecast view, and you can buy one of them. monday's $28 Pro seat buys sequences, mass email, forecasting, and private boards, and you buy three of them at minimum.
The automation row compares two different units. Pipedrive counts automations: the workflows you have built, however often they run, and Growth gives the whole company 50. monday counts actions: every time an automation fires, and every sequence step it sends, and Standard gives the whole account 250 a month. I prefer Pipedrive's unit. You can plan around 50 workflows. You cannot plan around 250 firings a month, which is about eight a day, once a sequence is running.
The phone row flipped since the last time I looked. Pipedrive retired its built-in Caller and now sends you to the marketplace. monday CRM includes calling with recording and AI summaries on every plan, paid in credits, with numbers from four countries, and you have to make the call from your phone.
The meeting notes are the quiet win for Pipedrive. Nova joins Google Meet, Zoom, and Teams calls, writes the summary, and proposes the CRM updates, and it costs nothing extra on any plan, including Lite. monday sells its AI Notetaker as an add-on for Pro and Ultimate and does not publish a monthly credit allowance for CRM plans, so the price of a month of calls and notes is hard to work out before you sign.
monday CRM vs Pipedrive for small teams
For a team of three to 10 that mostly sells, Pipedrive Growth at $39 a seat billed yearly is the floor, because Lite has no email sync and no automations. Premium at $59 adds Smart Docs, LeadBooster, team goals, multiple dashboards, custom permission sets, and the AI email tools. There is no seat minimum; implementation help is free on any plan over $400 a year, and monthly billing costs more than yearly.
monday CRM Standard at $17 is the floor for the same team, because Basic has no email sync and no automations. Pro at $28 holds the sales tools. The seat buckets change the arithmetic. A team of six pays for 10 seats, so Pro costs $280 a month for six people, and Pipedrive Growth costs $234 for the same six. At six or seven people, monday Pro costs more than Pipedrive Growth, and at every other headcount up to 10 it costs less.
Both trials run 14 days, and neither asks for a card. monday's runs on Pro and cannot be extended. I would run both trials in the same two weeks with the same live deals, and watch which one your reps still open on day 10 without being told to.
Is Pipedrive cheaper than monday CRM?
No, seat for seat. Pipedrive costs $14 per seat per month for Lite, $39 for Growth, $59 for Premium, and $79 for Ultimate, billed yearly; monthly billing costs more. monday CRM costs $12 for Basic, $17 for Standard, and $28 for Pro billed yearly, or $18, $25, and $41 billed monthly, with Ultimate priced by quote.
Team for team, it depends on the headcount. Five seats of Pipedrive Growth cost $2,340 per year, and five seats of monday CRM Pro cost $1,680 per year. Six seats of Growth cost $2,808, and six people on monday Pro cost $3,360, because monday bills for 10.
Does Pipedrive integrate with monday.com?
Yes, in one direction, and only for new records. Pipedrive built a monday.com app for its marketplace that creates a monday item when a new deal, person, organization, or activity appears in Pipedrive. It does not update the item when the Pipedrive record changes, and nothing flows from monday back to Pipedrive. The app scores 3.5 out of 5 based on 17 reviews, and a quarter of those reviewers gave it one star. monday.com's own CRM integrations list does not include Pipedrive, and its help article on the Pipedrive integration points back to Pipedrive's instructions.
Zapier lists eight ready-made templates for the pair, and Make lists modules for both without a template. Every one of these routes uses the Pipedrive API, which is included with every Pipedrive plan, and the monday API, which is included with every monday plan at 1,000 calls per day on Basic and Standard.
The one-way sync tells me who it is for: a company that sells in Pipedrive and delivers in monday.com, and wants closed deals to appear as project items. If you are choosing your first CRM, integration is not a reason to pick one over the other.
What reviewers say
Based on reviews, monday CRM vs Pipedrive is close to a draw, with Pipedrive's scores resting on a sample about three times as large.
Platform | Pipedrive | monday CRM |
|---|---|---|
G2 | Pipedrive scores 4.3 out of 5 from 5,089 reviews. | monday CRM scores 4.5 out of 5 from 1,849 reviews. |
Capterra | Pipedrive scores 4.5 out of 5 from 3,064 reviews, with 4.5 for ease of use and 4.4 for value for money. | monday CRM scores 4.7 out of 5 from 467 reviews, with 4.7 for ease of use and 4.5 for value for money. |
TrustRadius | Pipedrive scores 8.6 out of 10 from 520 reviews. | monday CRM scores 8.2 out of 10 from 240 reviews. |
Apple App Store | The Pipedrive app has a score of 3.7 out of 5 based on 675 ratings. | The monday.com app, which also runs monday CRM, scores 4.8 out of 5 from about 48,000 ratings. |
Google Play (US) | The Pipedrive app has a 4.0 out of 5 rating based on about 3,590 reviews. | The monday.com app has a 4.7/5 rating based on about 45,000 reviews. |
On G2's side-by-side scores, the two tie on meeting requirements (8.5 each) and quality of support (8.4 each). Pipedrive leads on ease of setup (8.7 against 8.5). monday CRM leads on ease of use (8.8 against 8.7), ease of admin (8.7 against 8.6), and product direction (9.1 against 8.9). Reviewers report one month to implement Pipedrive and two for monday CRM, and a return on investment after eight months, against 10. Small businesses are the largest group of reviewers for both.
Capterra's 2026 CRM Shortlist ranks Pipedrive seventh and monday CRM 11th of 25.
The mobile row is the one gap. Pipedrive's iPhone app scores 3.7, the weakest number in the table. The monday score rates the whole monday.com app, since monday CRM runs inside it, and a standalone monday CRM iPhone app arrived in August 2026 and has too few ratings to show a score yet. There is no standalone monday CRM app for Android.
Recent complaints, quoted as written, name the costs the plan table shows.
On monday CRM's seat buckets: "So if you add one user who becomes the 11th, you end up paying for four more seats you'll never use." And on its credits: "I'm never clear on how many credits we have available, or how much each function is costing us." Adam T., operations director at a small business, G2, September 17, 2026, rated 4 out of 5.
On monday CRM's plan ladder: "Some more advanced features are available only on higher-tier plans, which can increase costs as the company grows. Additionally, due to the high level of customization, the initial setup may require some time to fully leverage the platform's potential." Douglas, staffing and recruiting, Capterra, August 4, 2026, rated 4 out of 5.
On Pipedrive: "While the interface is clean and user-friendly, the reporting features can feel somewhat limited for highly complex enterprise-level analytics. Additionally, some users may find that the depth of the automated workflows requires a learning curve to set up perfectly for intricate sales processes." Marquita V., sales manager in business supplies and equipment, Capterra, August 4, 2026, rated 5 out of 5.
And on Pipedrive's gating: "some useful features, like advanced reporting and certain automations, are only available in the higher-priced plans." Emmanuel C. J., director of digital marketing and sales at a small business, G2, April 28, 2026, rated 4.5 out of 5.
One reviewer made the switch the keyword implies, from monday's work platform to Pipedrive. Kira H., senior operations manager in restaurants, gave Pipedrive 4 out of 5 on Capterra on July 3, 2025, and wrote under reason for choosing: "We liked the ease of automatons and pipeline management." Her con was the same feature: "Setting up automations can be unintuitive." Both halves ring true to me.
Is monday.com a good CRM?
monday CRM is a good CRM for a team that wants to design its own pipeline and can live with a three-seat minimum. It scores 4.5 on G2 and 4.7 on Capterra, leads Pipedrive on G2 for ease of use and ease of admin, and includes quotes, invoices, and a built-in phone on every plan. Its weak points are the plan ladder (email sync waiting for Standard, and sequences, templates, open tracking, and forecasting waiting for Pro), and the lack of a free or single-seat option. monday.com, the work platform, is a different product with a free plan and a higher G2 score (4.7 from more than 17,000 reviews), and a comparison that quotes that number is rating the project tool.
Is Pipedrive better than monday CRM?
Pipedrive is better for a team whose whole job is selling, that wants a seat count of one or two to be possible, and that wants its automations counted in workflows instead of monthly firings. monday CRM is better for a team that already runs projects on monday.com, wants a built-in phone and quotes on the cheapest plan, or wants to shape the CRM board by board. In the monday vs Pipedrive choice, I would let two rows decide: the automation row and the seat minimum. A team of six that depends on automation picks Pipedrive. A team of three that wants to build its own board picks monday.
What are the disadvantages of Pipedrive?
Pipedrive's disadvantages start with the Lite plan. At $14, it has no email sync, no automations, no sequences, and 30 custom fields for the whole company, so the real price is $39 for Growth. Growth gives the company 50 automations and five sequences, which a team of five can use up. Smart Docs and LeadBooster are add-ons from $32.50 each until Premium. There is no built-in phone anymore, no free plan, and no marketing email without the Campaigns add-on. Its iPhone app scores 3.7. And Pipedrive is a sales tool only, so a team that wants project boards next to its deals will need a second product.
What are the disadvantages of monday CRM?
monday CRM's disadvantages sit in its plan limits. Every plan requires at least 3 seats, and seats come in buckets, so a team of 6 pays for 10. Basic has no email sync, no automations, five columns per board, and room for 1,000 contacts and deals. Standard caps automation at 250 actions a month for the account, and sequences, templates, open tracking, mass email, and forecasting wait for Pro. AI lead scoring needs Ultimate. The built-in phone works only with numbers from the US, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Israel, and only from the mobile app. The forecast is a probability you type in yourself. And monday does not publish how many AI credits a CRM plan includes each month, so the cost of calls, agents, and AI blocks is hard to predict.
Where Bigin fits
Disclosure first: Bigin is our product, a pipeline CRM built by Zoho for small businesses, so read this section knowing who wrote it. If you came here looking for a Pipedrive alternative or a monday alternative sized for a small team, Bigin is the one I work on.
Bigin Express costs $7 per user per month, billed annually, or $9 per user per month, billed monthly, and Bigin also has a free plan with no seat minimum. Every plan, Free, has a built-in phone. Express includes WhatsApp, 30 automations, 3 team pipelines, room for 50,000 records, and free onboarding. Bigin scores 4.6 on G2 from 877 reviews and 4.7 on Capterra from 744, where it sits on the 2026 CRM Shortlist and holds Capterra's best ease of use and best value for money recognitions. Bigin stops short in a few places: 10 custom fields per module on Express and 50 on Bigin 360, no project boards, and nothing like Pipedrive's 500-app marketplace. If your team needs 100 custom fields or a prospecting database, Bigin is the wrong pick. Our guide on choosing a CRM covers this decision in more detail.
Wrapping up
Pipedrive is the purer sales tool. Its real starting price is $39 for Growth; you can buy a single seat; every plan now includes meeting notes; and it has no built-in phone and no project boards. monday CRM is cheaper per seat and sells seats in 5-seat buckets. Standard at $17 is where it starts to work, Pro at $28 is where the sales tools are, and a phone and quotes come with every plan. The only connector between them is one-way and creates records without updating them. Reviewers rate the two within a few tenths of each other on every site. And if your team has fewer than 10 people, try Bigin free before you pay $39 a seat or buy three seats for two people.