Pipedrive
A weekend of work, and real gaps remain.
A sales CRM organised around a pipeline: deals move through stages, activities are scheduled against them, and the reporting answers what will close and what has gone quiet.
Build me a pipeline CRM for a small sales team, with the email problem solved honestly. STACK - Astro with a Node adapter, SQLite via better-sqlite3 - IMAP for reading mail, SMTP for sending THE MODEL - Organisation, person, deal, activity — four tables, related by id - A deal has a stage, a value, an expected close date and one owner - Stages defined in config with a probability each; pipeline value is the weighted sum EMAIL, THE PART THAT MATTERS - Poll IMAP, match messages to people by address, and file them against the person's open deal - Ambiguous matches go to a review queue rather than being guessed - Store message id, subject, direction and a body snapshot; never delete on the server ACTIVITIES - Call, meeting, task — each with a due date and an owner - A deal with no future activity is marked as rotting after a configurable number of days, and that is the main list on the dashboard HISTORY - Every stage change appended with who and when, so time-in-stage is computable - Never overwrite a field: the previous value goes to a revision table REPORTS - Deals won and lost per month, average time in each stage, and pipeline by stage - All computed at query time from the history Include a README on the IMAP credentials, the matching rules, and how to export everything as CSV.
What you lose
- Two-way email sync that files every message against the right deal without anyone remembering to
- Call logging, dialling and recording from inside the record
- Lead sources and deal-rotting rules that surface what has gone quiet
- Reporting that sales managers already know how to read
- Mobile apps that work on the road, which is where the job is done
If you would rather not build
- Close — paid, calling and email built into the record
The escape hatch
open source · no votes, no paid placement
Twenty
$0Open-source CRM with pipelines, custom objects and a modern interface.
twentyhq/twentyfree · open source
EspoCRM
$0Mature self-hosted CRM covering contacts, deals and email integration.
espocrm/espocrmfree · open source
Why this verdict
our own opinion · changed only by a person
54/100
Verdict kinda at 54: the pipeline and the history are a weekend, and the rotting-deal list is the one report that changes behaviour. Email sync is where builds get thin — matching messages to deals reliably is fiddly, and everything else depends on it being right.
History
tracked since 9 Aug 2026 · nothing is ever overwritten
Nothing recorded yet. This chart fills in once the page has visitors, votes or prompt copies — it will not draw a flat line to look busy.
Questions about Pipedrive
answered from the record above
Is Pipedrive free?
No — the plan we track is $24 a month. Growth at about $24 per seat per month billed monthly, less annually; email sync and automations sit on higher tiers.
Can you replace Pipedrive by building your own?
ALMOST. A weekend of work, and real gaps remain. Replacement score 54 out of 100, build time a weekend. Read what you lose before you decide.
How much does Pipedrive cost?
$24 a month on Growth — $288 a year. Recorded 9 Aug 2026.
What do you lose by replacing Pipedrive?
Two-way email sync that files every message against the right deal without anyone remembering to; Call logging, dialling and recording from inside the record; Lead sources and deal-rotting rules that surface what has gone quiet; Reporting that sales managers already know how to read; Mobile apps that work on the road, which is where the job is done. If any of those carry weight for you, keep paying.
Is there an open-source alternative to Pipedrive?
Yes: Twenty, EspoCRM. The prompt on this page is for when you want it your way instead.
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