Move deals through stages and forecast revenue. 6 tools in this list, 4 with a free plan.
How this list is ranked. Tools are ordered by how strongly they are built for this job (as tagged in VERILO’s catalogue), then by editorial score and editor rating. Affiliate relationships and featured status are never inputs.
For a team that knows who its prospects are and needs to see where each deal stands, who owes the next step and what is likely to close. If the problem is scattered contacts rather than stalled deals, contact management is the better place to start.
How to choose
Pipeline tools live or die on whether the people selling keep them updated. In VERILO's assessment Pipedrive and HubSpot are among the easiest here to pick up, and Salesforce the hardest — it is built for organisations with defined processes and someone to administer them. A pipeline nobody updates reports nothing.
Decide how much beyond the pipeline belongs in the same tool. HubSpot shares one contact record with marketing and support; monday.com is a general work platform whose boards can carry a pipeline alongside the rest of the team's work; folk suits relationship-led selling more than stage-by-stage forecasting.
Then check where email sync and automation sit in the plan ladder. On several of these tools the follow-up automation and the reporting that make a pipeline useful are a tier or two above the entry plan, and one of them sells lead generation and projects as separate add-ons.
What to compare
Stages that match how you sell
The default pipeline is someone else's process. Check that you can rename, reorder and add stages, and run more than one pipeline if you sell in more than one way.
Email sync and follow-ups
Most deals stall in the gap between conversations. Two-way email sync and simple automated follow-ups matter more for a small team than scoring or forecasting.
Reporting you will read
Decide the two or three questions you want answered — what closed, what is stuck, what is forecast — and confirm they are answerable on the plan you are actually pricing.
Seat rules
Pipelines are priced per user, and one tool on this list requires a minimum number of seats on every paid plan. Count the seats you need before comparing entry prices.
Room to grow
Changing CRM later is disruptive. If marketing or support will join the same system within a year, favour a platform where they share one contact record.
Common questions
Which sales pipeline tools have a free plan?
HubSpot and Salesforce Sales Cloud have a free plan, with limits on usage, users or features. Pipedrive (14 days) and folk (14 days) offer a free trial instead. Pricing for Zoho CRM has not been checked against the vendor in the last 90 days, so it is not included.
How much does sales pipeline software cost?
The entry paid plans as each vendor lists them, checked against its pricing page: HubSpot Sales Hub Starter at $20 per user a month, Pipedrive Lite at $24 per user a month, Salesforce Sales Cloud Starter Suite at $25 per user a month and folk Standard at $30 per user a month. Some vendors quote the annual-billing rate, and seat minimums, higher tiers and add-ons all change the real cost, so price the plan you actually need. Pricing for Zoho CRM has not been checked against the vendor in the last 90 days, so it is not included.
How many pipeline stages should we have?
Few enough that every deal sitting in a stage needs the same next action. Long stage lists usually describe what the seller is doing rather than what the buyer has decided, and they make the forecast harder to read, not easier.
Do we need a CRM if we already have a project tool?
If your work platform can hold the deal, the owner and the next step, it can run a light pipeline — monday.com is on this list for that reason. Dedicated CRMs add email sync, sequences and forecasting; the question is whether you need those yet.