The affordable Pipedrive alternative

Pipedrive is an established, sales-focused CRM with strong visual pipeline management and extensive features for sales teams. Its strength lies in mature sales pipeline visualization, but this comes with a steeper learning curve and higher investment. Customermates, by contrast, focuses on instant onboarding, full flexibility without artificial limits, and transparent, low costs – ideal for teams that want to be productive immediately without onboarding overhead.

Setup & onboarding

Customermates enables an immediate start: set up in two minutes and ready to go. The interface is intuitive – no training required, start working with real data right away.

With Pipedrive, the situation is different. Compared to enterprise CRMs, the platform is considered user-friendly, but onboarding still takes several hours to days. Users report a steep learning curve and an unintuitive interface. The system is heavily centered around sales pipelines – anyone deviating from this model must adapt.

Pricing & cost model

The price difference is significant. Customermates costs €12 per user – no tiered plans, no hidden limits. Pipedrive starts at €14 per user on the cheapest plan (Lite, annual billing), but quickly rises to €24 (Growth), €49 (Premium), or even €79 (Ultimate) with annual billing. With monthly billing, prices are 30–70% higher. In addition, it is not possible to mix subscription types, meaning costs for 5 users can quickly reach €245 per month.

On top of that, Pipedrive offers paid add-ons: LeadBooster (from €32.50/month), Web Visitors (€49–299/month), Campaigns (from €16/month), and Projects (€6.70 per user/month). These additional costs add up quickly.

Usage limits & flexibility

Customermates: unlimited records, unlimited custom fields. No artificial restrictions.

Pipedrive: strict limits depending on the plan:

• Lite: 3,000 deals/leads
• Growth: 10,000 deals/leads
• Premium: 100,000 deals/leads
• Ultimate: 300,000 deals/leads

Custom fields are also plan-dependent, with exact limits varying. Formula fields are limited to 10 per account and only available in premium plans. As teams grow, upgrades become unavoidable – and expensive.

Functional differences

Both systems offer core features: deals, pipelines, contacts, email integration, and task management. Pipedrive stands out with advanced visual pipeline management and specialized sales features such as Sales Assistant (AI) and revenue forecasting – but only in higher-tier plans.

The key difference: Pipedrive is tightly aligned with a classic sales process. Teams that deviate from this model quickly encounter limitations. Customermates is more flexible and adapts to a wider range of workflow requirements without forcing rigid structures.

Automations in Pipedrive are only available from the Advanced plan (€24), while Customermates includes automation from the start.

Data protection & hosting

Customermates hosts exclusively in the EU or Germany and offers full GDPR compliance.

Pipedrive is GDPR compliant but hosts data across both the EU (Frankfurt, Dublin) and the USA (AWS). EU customers contract with the EU entity in Estonia, but Pipedrive uses US-based subprocessors. Data may be transferred between regions. For companies with strict data protection requirements and a preference for EU-only hosting, this can be a critical issue.

Integrations & automation

Both support API access, n8n integration, and automations. Pipedrive offers over 500 marketplace integrations and is very well connected. However, many automation features are plan-dependent and sometimes complex to set up.

Customermates focuses on simple, clear processes with immediate access to all features without plan barriers.

Who is each system for?

Pipedrive is suitable for:

• Sales teams with a classic B2B sales process
• Companies that prioritize visual pipeline management
• Teams with budget for higher-tier plans and add-ons
• Users willing to invest time in onboarding

Customermates is suitable for:

• Teams that want to get started immediately
• Companies with limited budgets
• Teams seeking flexible workflows beyond classic sales pipelines
• Growing teams without fear of forced plan upgrades