Pipedrive x Hubspot: Which CRM excels at WhatsApp integration?

When WhatsApp drives your sales efforts, selecting the right CRM can be the key to transforming a potential deal into a closed sale rather than a lost opportunity. With Pipedrive vs Hubspot, you gain access to instant chat, effortless message logging, AI-driven follow-ups, and intuitive drag-and-drop workflows. However, each platform offers unique strengths in customization, pricing transparency, and pipeline management. Meanwhile, a next-gen contender is quietly redefining what genuine WhatsApp integration should deliver.

Why WhatsApp CRM Integration Matters

Integrating WhatsApp with your CRM creates a seamless link between conversations and revenue. With automated contact syncing and message logging, you eliminate manual data entry and reduce the risk of lost leads, ensuring every interaction is an actionable record.

• Accelerate response times by initiating follow-ups and reminders as soon as a customer engages.
• Enhance engagement with personalized, template-based outreach that feels tailor-made.
• Simplify workflows with a single dashboard that consolidates chats, contacts, and campaign analytics.

When your team can view every WhatsApp message alongside emails, calls, and deals, they spend less time searching for context and more time closing deals—transforming casual conversations into reliable conversions.

What is Pipedrive?

Pipedrive transforms pipeline management into a visually engaging experience; simply drag deals between stages as they advance. Automated follow-ups and task reminders ensure your team never overlooks a lead or overdue duty. With seamless integrations for over 400 apps—like Slack, Outlook, and Zapier—your data flows effortlessly wherever it's needed. Tailored for small to midsize teams, its user-friendly mobile and desktop applications get everyone onboard in minutes. You can also integrate WhatsApp Messenger through official or Twilio apps for automatic syncing of conversation history with contacts, leads, and deals, even allowing you to create new deals directly from chats without leaving Pipedrive.

What is Hubspot?

HubSpot offers a free CRM that consolidates all your contacts, deals, and tasks into a sleek interface—no credit card needed. Enjoy features like live chat, email tracking, meeting scheduling, and ticketing tools right from the start. Its robust integrations with Marketing Hub and Service Hub facilitate smooth automation between teams. Plus, as part of HubSpot's ecosystem, you can easily upgrade to paid plans whenever you require more advanced automation or reporting capabilities. HubSpot’s native WhatsApp integration enables you to send and receive messages directly in the shared inbox, automate template-based notifications through workflows, and maintain two-way conversations with customers at scale.

Feature comparison of Pipedrive and Hubspot

Two-Way Messaging

Pipedrive enables WhatsApp messaging via third-party integrations like Twilio and TimelineAI, allowing real-time synchronization of chat messages with Pipedrive’s leads, contacts, and deal records. Although not natively integrated, this solution ensures sales teams have complete visibility of conversations within their pipeline and customer timeline.

In contrast, HubSpot offers a native WhatsApp integration for users on Professional and Enterprise Service Hub plans, allowing two-way messaging directly in your shared conversations inbox. Agents can seamlessly respond to customer inquiries using text, images, or videos from within HubSpot. Incoming messages automatically create a new thread linked to the relevant contact, company, deal, or ticket record, while outbound messages—whether templates or free-form—initiate 24-hour sessions to keep the discussion ongoing. You’ll gain full visibility of session limits and conversation counts, helping you manage your monthly quotas without unexpected surprises. Additionally, workflows can trigger business-initiated template messages for re-engagement or reminders, logging every interaction as a timeline event.

Template Management

Managing WhatsApp templates in Pipedrive relies on the functionality of connected apps like TimelineAI or Twilio, as Pipedrive does not provide a built-in interface for creating or storing templates. Consequently, users must handle templates externally and import them into their campaigns or workflows, which can be cumbersome for those engaged in high-volume automation.

In contrast, HubSpot’s WhatsApp integration (available for Professional and Enterprise Service Hub) features a synchronized template manager directly within your CRM. Once you link your WhatsApp Business account, all approved templates from Meta are automatically synced to HubSpot’s CRM under the Templates > WhatsApp tab, allowing you to filter by status (Ready to use, Needs personalization, Rejected), language, and category (promotional, transactional, OTP).

Automated Responses & Chatbots

Pipedrive enables multimedia sharing through WhatsApp when using Twilio or TimelineAI, allowing you to link images, PDFs, or audio clips to the timeline of specific contacts or deals. This keeps all exchanged assets organized and contextually relevant, although media handling is not natively supported by Pipedrive.

With HubSpot's WhatsApp integration available on Service Hub Professional and Enterprise, you can set up workflows to automatically send messages—such as welcome sequences, abandoned cart reminders, and delivery updates—directly as WhatsApp template notifications.

Although HubSpot doesn't include a native chatbot builder for WhatsApp, you can connect external chatbot platforms through Zapier or respond.io, which will funnel conversation flows into HubSpot’s shared inbox and customer records. This allows a chatbot to qualify leads or manage common inquiries before escalating issues to a live agent, all seamlessly integrated into your existing workflow.

Multimedia Support (Images, Videos, Files)

Pipedrive, when integrated with Twilio or TimelineAI, enables multimedia sharing through WhatsApp, allowing users to link images, PDFs, and audio clips directly to the timeline of the relevant contact or deal. This feature ensures that all exchanged assets are stored in context; however, it's important to note that media handling is not a native function of Pipedrive itself.

In contrast, HubSpot’s native WhatsApp integration (available with Service Hub Professional and Enterprise) facilitates the sending and receiving of various media attachments—including images, videos, audio, stickers, and documents up to 15 MB—directly from the conversations inbox or contact record.

Moreover, incoming media messages generate timeline events complete with thumbnails and download links, allowing sales and support teams to easily view or forward assets without the need to switch between apps.

Contact & Lead Synchronization

TimelineAI seamlessly syncs WhatsApp conversations and contacts with leads, individuals, and deals, including updates on pipeline status. This functionality, however, depends on the correct setup of integration and the reliability of external services.

HubSpot’s native WhatsApp integration, available for Professional and Enterprise Service Hub users, automatically syncs each new WhatsApp conversation to the appropriate contact record in your CRM, either creating or updating the contact based on their phone number.

Upon connecting your WhatsApp Business account, only new messages will initiate this sync (historical chats will remain in WhatsApp). Each incoming message generates a new timeline event linked to that specific contact or associated deal. For channels requiring lead capture, such as click-to-WhatsApp ads, you can automate contact creation from form submissions and continue the conversation through WhatsApp, all tracked within HubSpot.

Workflow Triggers & Notifications

Although Pipedrive lacks native WhatsApp-triggered workflows, users can set up automations using Zapier or TimelineAI. Activities on WhatsApp—such as new messages or updates in conversations—can initiate actions like sending an email, updating a deal stage, or notifying a representative via Slack or CRM alerts.

HubSpot’s Service Hub integrates with WhatsApp through certified partners, allowing it to capture events like new messages, template sends, or delivery failures directly within its workflow engine. This enables you to trigger downstream automations, such as converting urgent conversations into deals or support tickets and sending alerts to your team, ensuring that every WhatsApp interaction is transformed into an actionable insight within your CRM.

folk CRM: The Ultimate CRM Integrated with WhatsApp

If your sales team utilizes WhatsApp to connect with leads and finalize deals, folk CRM's WhatsApp integration is a revolutionary tool.

With folk’s WhatsApp CRM, every conversation is automatically synced and recorded in your CRM—eliminating the need for manual copying and preventing lost messages. Enjoy complete visibility into your team's WhatsApp interactions with leads and customers, ensuring you grasp the context of every deal. Whether it's a follow-up or a crucial decision point, the complete picture is always at your fingertips.

However, folk is more than just a WhatsApp tool.
It seamlessly integrates with Gmail, Outlook, LinkedIn, Google Meet, Instagram, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and more, allowing you to manage emails, meetings, and social interactions all from one platform. Easily import contacts from any channel and manage them efficiently within folk.

What truly distinguishes folk is its AI agents, which enhance your sales process by automating workflows, uncovering deal insights, and increasing productivity—liberating your team from administrative tasks so they can focus on closing deals.
Are you ready to revolutionize your sales operations and achieve remarkable results?

Conclusion

Both Pipedrive and HubSpot offer unique strengths in WhatsApp CRM integration; Pipedrive excels in pipeline management with robust task reminders, while HubSpot shines with its native WhatsApp features and seamless automation capabilities. However, for those seeking a comprehensive solution that integrates WhatsApp with various platforms like Gmail and LinkedIn, folk stands out as a superior alternative. With AI-driven insights and effortless syncing of all communications, folk empowers your sales team to maximize efficiency and close deals more effectively.

Start your 14-day free trial or book a demo today.