If you’re comparing Pipedrive vs Monday.com as potential CRM tools, you’re probably struggling to decide which one truly fits your business and delivers the best value.

A common mistake I see companies make is choosing a CRM for its flashy features or low price rather than for how well it supports their actual operations. 

Many also underestimate the time and effort required for setup and data migration, while overlooking long-term scalability and hidden costs.

By the end of this review, you’ll see which platform suits your business model, where unexpected costs appear, and how each tool performs as your team grows.

Pipedrive vs Monday: Understanding the Basics

Pipedrive is a purpose-built sales CRM tool. Its foundation is a deal pipeline that helps sales teams discover sales opportunities, manage deal pipelines, and convert leads.

Pipedrive includes customizable pipelines, notifications when deals stall, and email integrations to help teams nurture and convert leads within the platform. 

It also has some project management features, but these are more limited than what monday.com offers. Overall, Pipedrive is ideally suited for sales teams and lead generation specialists.

Monday is set up differently. It’s more of a project management tool that helps you organize projects, tasks, and campaigns, improving your productivity. 

The Monday sales pipeline feature was added later, so it now offers more than just workflow management. This add-on is why people often compare Monday with Pipedrive.

For some companies, this added functionality is a blessing. Marketing, operations, HR, and sales can all build boards that reflect their workflows while also managing their sales pipeline.

However, this flexibility requires more setup time, additional customization options, and a steeper learning curve for sales teams who mainly want to focus more on closing deals.

[Insert infographic here: Venn diagram or feature-overlap chart showing “Pure Sales CRM” (Pipedrive) vs “Work OS with CRM Layer” (Monday)]

Pipedrive vs Monday: What Each Does Best

When you line Pipedrive and Monday side by side, the differences in how they approach sales and team workflows become apparent quickly. Here’s where each shines and where you might run into friction.

Sales Pipeline & Deal Management

Sales pipeline and deal management are Pipedrive’s core features. You can drag and drop deals through stages, see bottlenecks immediately, and track probability percentages at every step. Monday is primarily a management tool that replicates a sales pipeline through its board system. 

You can add stages, columns, and automation to progress deals. Still, you’ll spend more time configuring columns, statuses, and automations before it feels like a proper sales pipeline, making it less intuitive than Pipedrive.

And based on experience with the Monday Sales CRM, it also lacks several advanced CRM features that Pipedrive offers by default. Features such as lead scoring, email, deal rotting, and customizable reporting require premium plan upgrades or external integrations, which often feel clunky compared to Pipedrive’s more straightforward approach.

Lead Capture and Automation 

Pipedrive is a sales-focused tool that uses a Kanban-style board to help you track opportunities throughout your sales pipeline. It includes lead capture tools such as web forms, chatbots, and the LeadBooster add-on, which provides access to a large database of leads. 

Its marketing and sales automation features make it easier to generate, qualify, and nurture leads as they move through your pipeline. Once you close a deal, the system automatically creates a project for you, which appears in your Projects dashboard.

Pipedrive gives you all the sales tools you need and offers more value than Monday’s sales CRM. While Monday is good for bringing in and managing leads through forms, imports, integrations, or enrichment tools, it doesn’t provide prospect lists or automatically find leads for you like Pipedrive does, so you’ll have to source leads from external tools.

Reporting, Analytics & Forecasting

Pipedrive makes reporting and forecasting easier to set up and use right out of the box. Through my time with it, I didn’t need to spend hours building dashboards before I could track deals, revenue, or progress against targets. The default reporting already gives you the analytics to track sales performance. 

Its forecasting tool is also practical for day-to-day sales work, especially with weighted deals and close dates, though I sometimes wish it offered more advanced modeling options.

With Monday, you get more flexibility when you combine sales data with other workflows. You can customize dashboards and build out different widgets, which helps bring sales and marketing context into one place. 

But it requires more time to set up than Pipedrive. And while it’s visually appealing, the forecasting dashboard felt too basic for longer or more complex sales cycles.

Email Automation, Communication & Integrations

From experience, Pipedrive feels more natural for sales-focused communication. Its native Gmail and Outlook integration makes it easy to track opens, clicks, and replies directly inside the deal view, and the automation for follow-ups and reminders keeps you from missing leads. 

In Monday’s case, its email integration isn’t as seamless. You’ll have to rely on third-party connectors or an extra automation setup to get it working smoothly. But where it really stands out is through cross-team collaboration. 

Features like tagging, commenting, and centralized updates make it easy to keep everyone on the same page, and the integrations with marketing, HR, and project tools go beyond what Pipedrive offers.

Project/Task Management & Cross-Functional Use

Using Pipedrive for project management loses ground to monday.com. It’s not a project management tool at heart, but it does have an add-on called Projects, which is still basic compared to a full task manager. 

The kanban view works for tracking deals, but for managing complex projects, its project management feature is too simple, as it doesn’t include multiple phases, dependencies, and priorities for managing complex or long-term workflows. 

What it does provide is a drop-down list of tasks and activities, and it doesn’t offer timeline views of Gantt charts, which makes it difficult to see how different tasks connect or meet deadlines. 

As a result, you lose the ability to visualize your project progress, a key feature of a proper project management tool like Monday.com. 

AI Features

Both Pipedrive and Monday are leaning heavily into AI, but in different ways. Pipedrive’s AI provides an AI Sales Assistant that offers deal summaries, activity reminders, and opportunity alerts to help prioritize deals. 

You can also create personalized and summarized emails and generate sales reports from simple prompts to save time and improve communication. 

Monday also provides AI features that boost productivity, such as the ability to create automations and project dashboards with AI, and also autofill them with AI-generated information using its Autofill feature. 

And just like Pipedrive, you can also summarize, extract information from files, categorize your data, and organize it by type or urgency.

When it comes to AI features, Monday’s sales CRM feels superior compared to Pipedrive’s AI. 

Pipedrive vs Monday: Pricing Showdown & Cost Considerations

Pipedrive.com Pricing

Pipedrive CRM pricing offers a per-user, per-month pricing plan, including the Lite, Growth, Premium, and Ultimate plans, with the Lite plan starting at $14 per user per month when billed annually, making it an attractive option for small teams. But you have to pay $49 per user each month for the Advanced plan to get automations. 

AI features are only in the Growth plan at $69 or the Premium plan at $79 per user each month. Ultimate plan users pay $99 per user each month. 

Extra features like Projects ($6.67 per user each month) and LeadBooster ($32.59 per company each month) make it cost more. 

With these extra features, Pipedrive costs about twice as much as Monday and can feel pricey for small teams, but you can save up to a 42% discount with the yearly billing option, but even with the discount, it’s still expensive.

Monday CRM Pricing Plans

Monday follows the same per-user structure, but costs fluctuate depending on which version you pick. The Monday CRM pricing plans include Basic, Standard, Pro, and Enterprise. 

Monday’s basic plan starts at $12 per user each month, and the Standard plan at $14 per user each month is the first viable option for sales teams, as it unlocks automations and integrations. 

The Pro plan at $24 per user each month includes time tracking, more boards, automations, and ways to connect with other tools. 

Every plan gives you unlimited pipelines, contacts, and boards, and the higher plans add things like email tracking, sales forecasting, and automation.

Cost Comparison in Practice

If you’re running a five- to ten-person sales team and need all advanced sales features, the Pipedrive Growth plan may cost more overall than Monday Pro. But if your company wants a single platform for sales, projects, and marketing, Monday can become cost-effective because it replaces multiple tools.

For startups, Pipedrive looks expensive on a budget. For cross-functional teams that want one central hub for sales, marketing, and project management, Monday may be a better choice, especially if you’re looking to get a bang for your buck.

Pricing Snapshot (Illustrative Only):

Pipedrive vs Monday: Ease, Onboarding & Ongoing Management

Adoption makes or breaks a CRM. If your team can’t learn it quickly, the platform will sit unused, no matter how powerful it looks on paper. Here’s how Pipedrive compares to Monday in terms of learning curve, user experience, and onboarding: 

Learning Curve

Pipedrive wins hands down when it comes to ease of adoption, and its simplicity makes onboarding new reps quick and painless. Even team members with zero CRM background can pick it up in no time.

In Monday’s case, setting up CRM boards, customizing workflows, and building automations aren’t things you can jump into. 

It requires trial and error, and you’ll need time to really learn the system, but once you get the hang of it, it can provide greater value for a sales workflow centralized hub. 

User Experience and Interface

Pipedrive’s user interface is clean, focused, and anchored in the pipeline view. Almost everything happens inside that view, which keeps you centered on deals, and its drag-and-drop pipeline makes managing opportunities intuitive rather than juggling multiple dashboards.

What I appreciate most about Pipedrive is how creating custom fields, defining pipeline stages, or adding automations feels straightforward for new users. On top of that, features like built-in email tracking and integrations with tools like Gmail or Slack make it feel seamless. 

With Monday, you get a colorful, modular, and modern interface, but with its robust features that it offers, it does have a steeper learning curve and is less focused on pure sales execution compared to Pipedrive, making its onboarding slower, especially for team members with no CRM background. 

Support, Training, and Documentation

Pipedrive offers reliable support depending on your plan. All users get access to email and chatbot support, along with a detailed knowledge base that includes articles and videos for troubleshooting. Live chat is available from the Advanced plan upward, and Power and Enterprise accounts also receive phone support.

Monday’s support resources cover more than CRM, extending into project management, HR, and marketing workflows. Every plan includes email and live chat support, as well as access to a help center with articles and video tutorials. 

Monday also has an active user community where you can ask questions and share solutions, but it lacks the tiered support options Pipedrive provides.

Pipedrive vs Monday: Which One Should You Choose?

After comparing features, pricing, and adoption, the real question is how each platform fits your business setup. 

When Pipedrive Makes More Sense

Choose Pipedrive if sales are your main driver. If your team spends most of the day working deals, making calls, and following up on leads, the Pipedrive sales CRM will keep everyone aligned. It works best when:

• You’re a small to mid-sized team that wants fast adoption.
  
• Sales processes are straightforward and don’t require layers of custom boards.
  
• You need strong forecasting and reporting out of the box.
  
• You’d rather add lightweight project tools separately than force-fit them into your CRM.
  

When Monday Is the Better Fit

Monday is best if sales are just one piece of the puzzle. If your business has multiple teams collaborating on sales, operations, marketing, and HR, the Monday CRM sales pipeline gives you one system to manage all of it. It makes sense when:

• Your team already uses Monday for projects or campaigns.
  
• You want custom workflows that connect sales with other departments.
  
• You’re willing to invest in setup and ongoing admin support.
  
• You prefer flexibility over a strict sales-first interface.
  

Quick Decision Matrix

Pipedrive vs Monday: FAQs

Is Monday better than Pipedrive?

It depends on your team’s goals. Monday is better if you want one platform for multiple departments, including sales, projects, and marketing. Pipedrive is better if your entire workflow is focused on selling and getting prospects.

Can Pipedrive do project management?

Yes, but it’s limited. Pipedrive offers an add-on called Projects that helps manage tasks linked to deals. It works for simple follow-up or onboarding tasks, but won’t replace a full project management system. If you need advanced project tracking, Monday handles that more effectively.

What’s the difference between Monday CRM and Monday.com?

Monday.com is a tool for tasks, projects, and workflows, while Monday CRM is more like a feature within Monday.com that manages deals, pipelines, and sales activity. 

Does Pipedrive include marketing tools?

Not by default. Pipedrive is built for sales, not marketing. You can extend it with add-ons like LeadBooster for lead capture and integrate it with email marketing platforms. If you need a built-in marketing automation suite, Monday offers more flexibility through integrations and connected boards.

What support and uptime guarantees do they offer?

Both platforms guarantee high uptime, with SLAs available on enterprise plans. Pipedrive’s support focuses on sales use cases. Monday offers broader support, covering all its workflows. For mission-critical sales teams, Pipedrive’s sales-specific support is often more helpful.

Conclusion

Choosing between Pipedrive and Monday comes down to how you sell and how you run your business.

If sales and lead generation are what you do, Pipedrive is a better fit. If you need to manage all workflows, including sales and marketing, Monday handles all that perfectly. However, if your focus is solely on marketing, Monday is also a great fit. 

The truth is, you can’t pick the right CRM from a comparison chart alone. The best you can do is to run a free trial of each tool and use them in your daily workflows and tasks to see which tool serves you better.