Functionality | 8 <p>Pipedrive offers most of the functionality that SMBs will need. Besides allowing you to manage contacts, leads and your sales pipeline, Pipedrive also allows you to send email sequences, automate workflows, and layer on marketing functionality via add-ons (e.g. create marketing emails, chat bots, web forms, track website visitors).</p><p>However, it lacks some advanced features such as a dialer that allows you to make calls from your browser, adding contacts from LinkedIn and data enrichment. These will require 3rd party integrations.</p> | 6 <p>Relate delivers the core functionality early-stage B2B startups need. It excels in prospecting, sales pipeline management, data enrichment, sequencing, LinkedIn contact imports, and customizable reporting.</p><p>However, it’s missing several features that larger teams rely on, such as workflow automation and robust third-party integrations.</p> |
Ease of Use | 8 <p>Pipedrive is built for sales team - we found it very easy to locate key information, and most sales workflows such as prioritising and routing leads were also highly intuitive. An average SMB employee should only require 1-2 hours to master key functionalities of the product.</p> | 9 <p>If you’re an early-stage B2B startup, you’ll likely find Relate intuitive and closely aligned with how your processes already work. Getting up to speed is quick and straightforward.</p><p>However, if you’re familiar with traditional CRMs, you might experience a learning curve. Relate introduces some unique concepts, like connecting pipelines through “processes,” which may take a little time to adjust to.</p> |
Look and feel | 7 <p>We find Pipedrive's interface clean and modern, and acceptable to load <span style="color: rgb(9, 9, 11);">(~2 seconds per page).</span></p> | 8 <p>Relate’s modern, minimalist design will appeal to tech startups, but it might come across as too plain for others. That said, the platform shines with its blazingly fast page loads—easily some of the fastest we’ve seen, which offers a seamless user experience.</p> |
Customisability | 5 <p>Built for sales teams, this also makes Pipedrive less customisable compared to competitors. Although you can customizable most fields and pipeline stages, most of its modules and terminology are rather sales-oriented e.g. you must have a "leads inbox", pipeline cards must be "deals".</p><p>It also lacks the ability to add custom objects, which allows you to track items besides people and companies e.g. subscription types or vendors and track custom web events e.g. add to cart.</p> | 6 <p>Relate offers strong customizability for early-stage B2B startups. You can tailor pipelines and reporting to match your workflows. However, it’s not as flexible as more general-purpose CRMs (like Folk and Attio). The platform is firmly sales-focused, with pipelines designed exclusively for tracking deals and reporting geared entirely toward sales metrics.</p> |
Ease of Setup | 6 <p>Pipedrive offers a free trial without need to speak to sales. Completing basic setup is simple, taking about 10 minutes to import your contacts and set up pipelines. That said, getting the platform fully up and running, and getting your team up to speed, can take up to a week. This is especially true if you’re exploring Pipedrive’s add-ons for marketing, prospecting, and project management.</p> | 8 <p>Relate offers a self-serve free trial. Thanks to Relate's familiar spreadsheet-like layout, we found the initial setup to be extremely simple (taking <10 mins). The only nit is that unlike other modern CRMs (e.g. Attio, Folk), connecting your email doesn't sync your contacts automatically. For B2B sales team, Relate's thoughtful set up out-of-the-box means it's easy to fully customise the platform, and should be largely done within 1-2 business days.</p> |
Customer Support | 9 <p>Pipedrive offers 24/7, in-app chat with live human agents. Our team has always found the Pipedrive support team to be friendly, quick to respond, and very helpful.</p> | 8 <p>Relate provides in-app live chat support during US business hours with a friendly team that usually responds in around an hour. The help center is another strong point—it's well-written, thorough, and easy to follow.</p> |
Integratability | 8 <p>Pipedrive has pre-built integrations with most relevant 3rd party products and an API that allows buyer to build own integrations where necessary.</p> | 1 <p>Integrations are a major weak spot for Relate. It only connects with Google Calendar, Outlook, and Slack, and basically pushes you to build you own integrations entirely through Zapier. There’s no API for custom integrations.</p> |
Ease of Migration | 8 <p>Pipedrive allows users to export key data (contacts, accounts, deals) via self-serve. Export of most other data are also available via API or on request.</p> | 6 <p>Relate allows you to export key contact, organization, and deal information through its reporting module. The process is self-serve, but limited to basic data.</p> |