Pipedrive vs Instantly: Which is the Best CRM for You in 2025?

Choosing the right CRM can feel like picking out a new car. Overwhelmed by options?

Two popular choices are Pipedrive and Instantly, both of which promise to streamline your sales process and boost your bottom line.

But which one is the best fit for your needs?

In this head-to-head matchup, we’ll examine the key differences between Pipedrive vs Instantly, including their features, pricing, and ease of use.

By the end, you will have all the necessary information to make a confident decision and move your business forward.

Overview

We’ve spent weeks testing both Pipedrive and Instantly to give you the most accurate comparison.

We’ve explored their features, navigated their interfaces, and contacted their customer support teams.

Now, let’s dive into what we discovered.

What is Pipedrive?

Ever feel like your sales process is a bit chaotic? Pipedrive helps you organize everything.

Think of it as your command center for sales.

It lets you track deals, manage contacts, and automate tasks.

Pretty handy, right? Plus, it has a clean and straightforward interface that’s easy to learn.

Also, explore our favorite Pipedrive alternatives…

Key Benefits

Pipedrive keeps things straightforward. Here’s what it does best:

• Visual sales pipeline: See all your deals in one place, from initial contact to closing.
• Activity reminders: Never miss a follow-up with automated reminders and notifications.
• Customizable reports: Track your sales performance with detailed reports and insights.
• Mobile app: Manage your deals and contacts on the go with their mobile app.
• Integrations: Connect Pipedrive with other tools you use, like email marketing platforms and calendars.

Pricing

• Essential: $14/user/month.
• Advanced: $24/user/month.
• Professional: $49/user/month.
• Power: $59/user/month.
• Enterprise: $79/user/month.

What is Instantly?

Want to reach more people and book more meetings? Instantly is your secret weapon.

It’s designed for high-volume outreach, mainly if you’re focused on cold email.

Think of it as your email assistant, but it is way more powerful.

It helps you write better emails, send them at the perfect time, and avoid spam filters. Sounds good, right?

Also, explore our favorite Instantly alternatives…

Key Benefits

• Unlimited email warm-up: No more limits on how many accounts you can warm up.
• AI-powered lead database: Find verified leads in seconds.
• Universal inbox: Manage all your email accounts in one place.
• Deliverability boost: See an average increase of 35% in inbox placement.
• AI email writer: Generate high-converting email copy in minutes.

Pricing

• Growth CRM: $37.9/month, unlimited seats.
• Hyper CRM: $77.6/month, unlimited seats.

Feature Comparison

Now, let’s get down to business and compare the core features of Pipedrive and Instantly.

This side-by-side comparison will help you see which CRM best fits your needs and workflow.

1. Contact Management

Both Pipedrive and Instantly allow you to create detailed contact profiles.

You can store essential contact details like names, email addresses, phone numbers, and company information.

However, they differ in their organization and customization options.

• Pipedrive: Organizes contacts within “Organizations,” making it easy to see the relationships between individuals and the companies they work for. You can also add custom fields to capture specific information relevant to your business.
• Instantly: This tool focuses on individual contacts and their email engagement history. While you can add notes and tags to contacts, it lacks Pipedrive’s robust organizational structure.

2. Deal Management

If you want to track your sales team’s progress, both platforms offer visual pipelines to manage deals. But their approaches are slightly different.

• Pipedrive: Provides a highly customizable pipeline view. You can create multiple pipelines for different sales processes and drag and drop deals as they progress through each stage.
• Instantly: Offers a more streamlined pipeline view focused on email outreach and follow-up. It automatically tracks email opens, clicks, and replies, giving insights into your engagement.

3. Email Marketing

While both CRMs offer email features, they cater to different needs.

• Pipedrive: This platform includes basic email integration for sending and receiving emails directly within the platform. However, it lacks advanced email marketing features like bulk sending or automated sequences.
• Instantly: Excels in email marketing. It allows unlimited email sending, provides an AI-powered email writer, and includes a built-in warm-up feature to improve deliverability.

4. Automation

Both Pipedrive and Instantly offer automation features to streamline your workflow.

• Pipedrive: Provides a visual automation builder to automate tasks like sending emails, updating deal stages, and creating follow-up reminders. You can set triggers based on dates, activities, or deal progress.
• Instantly: Focuses on automating email sequences and follow-ups. You can create personalized email campaigns that send automatically based on triggers like email opens or clicks.

5. Reporting and Analytics

Both platforms offer reporting and analytics to track your performance and gain valuable insights.

• Pipedrive: Provides customizable reports and dashboards to track key metrics like deal progress, revenue, and sales performance. You can filter data by date range, pipeline, or team member.
• Instantly: Offers detailed analytics on email campaign performance. You can track open rates, click-through rates, reply rates, and other engagement metrics.

6. Integrations

Both CRMs integrate with other popular business tools.

• Pipedrive: Offers various integrations with apps like Google Calendar, Zapier, and Mailchimp.
• Instantly: Integrates with fewer apps, primarily focusing on email marketing and outreach tools.

7. Mobile App

Need to access your CRM on the go? Both Pipedrive and Instantly have mobile apps.

• Pipedrive offers a mobile app for iOS and Android devices. From your phone or tablet, you can manage deals, view contacts, and track activities.
• Instantly: AIt also provides a mobile app for iOS and Android, allowing you to monitor email campaigns and outreach performance.

By now, you should have a good grasp of the critical differences between Pipedrive and Instantly. Let’s move on to the final verdict!

What to Look for When Choosing a CRM Platform?

• Ease of use: How intuitive is the interface? Can you easily navigate and find the information you need?
• Customization: Can you tailor the CRM to your sales process and workflow?
• Scalability: Can the CRM grow with your business?
• Customer support: What kind of support does the company offer? Is it available 24/7?
• Pricing: Does the pricing fit your budget? Are there different plans to choose from?
• Integrations: Does the CRM integrate with your other tools, such as your email marketing platform or accounting software?
• Mobile access: Do you need to access your CRM on the go? Is there a mobile app available?
• Specific features: What features are most important to you? Do you need advanced reporting, automation, or email marketing capabilities?
• Security: How secure is your data within the CRM? Do they offer robust security measures and compliance certifications?
• Reporting and Analytics: How comprehensive are the reporting features? Can you easily track vital metrics and gain insights into your sales performance?
• User adoption: How easy can your team learn and use the CRM? A CRM is only effective if your team uses it.
• Reviews and reputation: What are other users saying about the CRM? Check out online reviews and ratings to understand its strengths and weaknesses.

Final Verdict

So, which CRM comes out on top? For us, it’s Instantly. Why?

Because it offers unlimited email sending and powerful features like the AI email writer.

This makes it an excellent choice for businesses that rely on outreach and want to scale their efforts.

For example, if you send hundreds or even thousands of emails daily, Instantly can help you automate your outreach and improve your results.

However, Pipedrive is still a solid option, especially if you need a more affordable CRM that focuses heavily on deal management.

Ultimately, the best choice depends on your specific needs and priorities.

We’ve given you the information; now it’s your turn to decide!

More of Pipedrive

Here’s a comparison of Pipedrive against other CRM software:

• Pipedrive vs GoHighLevel: Pipedrive focuses on sales pipeline management, offering a clear visual flow, whereas GoHighLevel is an all-in-one platform with broader marketing and sales automation features.
• Pipedrive vs Keap: Pipedrive excels in visual sales pipeline management, while Keap specializes in robust marketing automation, lead scoring, and advanced email sequences.
• Pipedrive vs ActiveCampaign: Pipedrive is a sales-centric CRM with intuitive pipeline visualization, while ActiveCampaign prioritizes marketing automation and customer journey building.
• Pipedrive vs HubSpot: Pipedrive is a more focused sales CRM known for simplicity, while HubSpot offers a comprehensive suite of marketing, sales, and service tools, being more complex.
• Pipedrive vs ClickFunnels: Pipedrive is a sales pipeline CRM, while ClickFunnels primarily focuses on building sales funnels and landing pages, with basic CRM aspects.
• Pipedrive vs Folk: Pipedrive is strong in sales pipeline management, whereas Folk emphasizes simple contact organization and relationship building for smaller teams.
• Pipedrive vs ClickUp: Pipedrive is a dedicated sales CRM that is excellent for pipeline tracking. ClickUp is a versatile work management platform that can also be used as a CRM and offers broader project management.
• Pipedrive vs Monday CRM: Pipedrive is a sales-focused CRM with visual pipelines, whereas Monday CRM is a highly customizable work OS that can be configured for CRM purposes and emphasizes workflow management.
• Pipedrive vs Capsule CRM: Pipedrive focuses on visual sales pipeline management, while Capsule CRM is a simpler, growth-oriented CRM for managing contacts and relationships, often for smaller businesses.
• Pipedrive vs Insightly: Pipedrive specializes in sales pipeline visualization, while Insightly offers a broader CRM solution with project management, marketing automation, and more robust reporting.
• Pipedrive vs Freshsales: Pipedrive offers deep sales pipeline visualization, while Freshsales CRM provides a more complete solution with built-in phone, AI tools, and integrated marketing features.
• Pipedrive vs Salesforce: Pipedrive is user-friendly and sales-focused for SMBs, whereas Salesforce is a highly customizable, enterprise-level CRM with extensive features across sales, service, and marketing.
• Pipedrive vs Zendesk: Pipedrive emphasizes visual sales pipeline management and automation, while Zendesk primarily focuses on customer service and support. It also offers CRM capabilities with built-in communication tools.

More of Instantly

Here’s a brief comparison of Instantly with these software solutions:

• Instantly vs Gohighlevel: Instantly specializes in cold email outreach and deliverability, while GoHighLevel offers a comprehensive suite for sales, marketing, and lead generation, including broader automation.
• Instantly vs Keap: Instantly excels at scalable cold email outreach and lead generation, whereas Keap provides an all-in-one platform for sales and marketing automation with CRM capabilities.
• Instantly vs ActiveCampaign: Instantly is primarily for high-volume cold email outreach and deliverability; ActiveCampaign is a robust marketing automation platform with advanced segmentation and CRM features.
• Instantly vs Hubspot: Instantly streamlines outbound email campaigns and lead warming; HubSpot offers a comprehensive CRM, marketing, sales, and customer service platform with extensive features.
• Instantly vs Clickfunnels: Instantly is an email outreach automation tool; ClickFunnels is a sales funnel builder for creating landing pages and automating sales processes.
• Instantly vs Folk: Instantly focuses on automated cold email campaigns and lead generation; Folk is a collaborative contact management CRM that emphasizes easy organization.
• Instantly vs Clickup: Instantly is designed for cold email outreach and deliverability; ClickUp is a versatile workspace for project management, task tracking, and broader team collaboration.
• Instantly vs Monday CRM: Instantly excels in automated outbound email and lead nurturing; Monday CRM provides visual project and workflow management, with integrated CRM features.
• Instantly vs Capsule CRM: Instantly specializes in automated cold email sequences; Capsule CRM is a simple contact management and sales pipeline tool for small businesses.
• Instantly vs Insightly: Instantly streamlines cold email outreach with robust deliverability features; Insightly offers a comprehensive CRM with project management and sales pipeline capabilities.
• Instantly vs Freshsales CRM: Instantly focuses on automated email outreach and lead scoring; Freshsales CRM is a full-featured sales automation and CRM solution with extensive reporting.
• Instantly vs Salesforce: Instantly is a specialized tool for scalable cold email outreach; Salesforce is an enterprise-grade, highly customizable CRM platform for sales, service, and marketing.
• Instantly vs Zendesk: Instantly focuses on lead generation through automated email outreach; Zendesk is a comprehensive customer service and support platform with robust ticketing.

Frequently Asked Questions