파이프드라이브 vs 세일즈포스: 에이전시용 CRM은 어느 쪽이 승리할까?

Agencies don’t struggle with “finding tools.” They struggle with keeping pipeline execution consistent while delivery stays on track. When prospect context lives across inboxes, calendars, and spreadsheets, follow-ups slip, handoffs break, and forecasting becomes guesswork. A CRM for agencies has to keep new business moving fast while preserving enough account history to support renewals, upsells, and referrals.

Pipedrive and Salesforce solve that problem from two very different angles. Pipedrive focuses on a visual pipeline and activity-based follow-ups, built to keep deals moving with minimal operational overhead. Salesforce is a highly configurable CRM platform designed for complex processes, deeper permissions, and extensive automation and reporting.

The right choice depends on process complexity, required customization, and how much ongoing ownership the agency can dedicate to setup and administration.

Why Agencies Need a CRM in 2026?

Agencies don’t lose revenue because of a lack of demand. Revenue leaks when lead context gets scattered across inboxes, calendars, Slack threads, and spreadsheets, and when follow-ups depend on memory instead of a system. A CRM creates a single source of truth for prospects, clients, partners, and renewals, so next steps stay visible and ownership is clear.

✔️ Pipeline visibility and forecasting without spreadsheets

✔️ Centralized prospect and client context across email, calls, and meetings

✔️ Standardized follow-ups, handoffs, and next steps across the team

✔️ Clear ownership on every lead, deal, and account to avoid drops

✔️ Performance tracking by source, service line, and stage conversion

In 2026, agencies run more channels, shorter decision cycles, and more stakeholders per deal, with clients expecting faster response times and tighter coordination. Without a CRM, proposals stall, warm leads go cold, renewals happen late, and referrals are handled inconsistently because the team can’t see the full history and the current plan in one place.

What is Pipedrive?

Pipedrive is a sales CRM centered on a visual pipeline and activity-based selling. It is commonly used by agencies that want straightforward deal tracking, clear next steps, and lightweight process enforcement. Multiple pipelines can separate new business from renewals or partnerships, while activities keep follow-ups scheduled and visible. Automations can reduce admin work for repetitive updates and reminders. This fits teams that prioritize pipeline execution and speed over a broad “suite” approach.

What is Salesforce?

Salesforce is an enterprise CRM platform built for deep customization, complex data models, and large-scale sales operations. It can be a fit for agencies that need advanced permissions, multiple business units, or highly specific processes mapped into record types and automation. Reporting and dashboards support multi-level pipeline management when data is structured consistently. Integrations are widely available through AppExchange and custom development. This is typically chosen when the agency expects heavy customization, governance, and long-term scalability.

Pipedrive vs Salesforce: Feature Comparison

Multi-pipeline and custom stages

In Pipedrive, multiple deal pipelines can be created from the pipeline view, and each pipeline can have its own set of stages. Stage attributes can be edited, including the stage name and probability, and stages can be added or removed as the process changes. This allows separating agency motions such as new business, renewals, and partnerships into distinct pipelines while keeping stage definitions specific to each process.

In Salesforce Sales Cloud, opportunity stages are configured, then different pipelines can be implemented using Sales Processes and Opportunity Record Types. A Sales Process is a filtered list of opportunity stages, and Record Types can assign different sales processes to different teams or motions. This lets an organization maintain distinct stage sets for different services or regions while keeping the Opportunity object consistent. Stage probability is managed as part of stage setup and can be used in pipeline views and reporting.

Client and Deal Activity Tracking

Activities in Pipedrive represent scheduled actions tied to people, organizations, leads, deals, or projects, such as calls, meetings, or follow-ups. Calendar sync can be set up as one-way or two-way sync so Pipedrive activities and external calendar events stay aligned as configured. Logged activities appear on the relevant records, which supports tracking what happened and what is scheduled next for an account or deal.

Salesforce tracks activities through tasks and events that display on record activity timelines. Email and calendar activity can be captured using Einstein Activity Capture depending on configuration, permissions, and licensing, and captured items can appear on related records. Activities can be associated to accounts, contacts, leads, and opportunities so deal context includes scheduled and completed actions. The exact behavior varies by setup choices and the activity capture mode used.

Automation and Workflows

Pipedrive automations run based on defined triggers, such as a deal being created or reaching a specific stage, then execute configured actions. Email-related actions can be included, with options like sending an email or sending an email using a template once conditions are met. Automations can also include steps like delays and additional actions depending on the workflow design and plan access.

Salesforce automation is commonly built with Flow Builder, including record-triggered flows that run when data changes. Salesforce announced that support for Workflow Rules and Process Builder ended on December 31, 2025, and recommends migrating automation to Flow. Existing processes may continue to run after that date, but Salesforce guidance positions Flow as the primary automation tool going forward. Automation can be used to update fields, create tasks, route records, and enforce process logic based on CRM events.

Reporting and Analytics

Reporting in Pipedrive is handled through Insights, which includes custom reports, dashboards, and goals. Dashboards can be shared internally with teammates, and public links can be generated when permissions allow, so stakeholders can view a dashboard without direct account access. Goals in Insights track progress across deals, activities, and forecasts, depending on the configuration and plan limits.

Salesforce provides reporting through reports and dashboards that can be built on standard objects like opportunities and activities. Opportunity stage concepts are used in reporting filters and stage type reporting, and activity reports can summarize open and completed activities. Dashboards can combine multiple report charts for pipeline monitoring and sales management, with access controlled by org permissions and sharing settings. Reporting coverage depends on which objects are enabled and how fields and stages are configured.

Integrations and Data Hygiene

Pipedrive integrations are distributed through the Pipedrive Marketplace, which includes apps and integrations that can be installed from within the account. For data hygiene, the Merge Duplicates feature surfaces potential duplicate people and organizations and provides a workflow to merge records. Pipedrive also documents how duplicate identification follows rules aligned with its import logic, which affects how duplicates are detected and proposed for merging.

Integrations for Salesforce are commonly added through AppExchange, which is Salesforce’s marketplace for apps and solutions that extend the platform. For data hygiene, Salesforce uses matching rules to define how potential duplicates are identified, and duplicate rules to define what happens when duplicates are detected during record creation or when viewing records. Salesforce documentation also describes how duplicate sets and reports list duplicates found by these rules and jobs. These settings are configured in Setup and applied per object based on admin choices.

folk: The Best CRM for Agencies in 2026!

folk is an AI CRM designed to centralize contacts, conversations, and deal context without turning setup into a project. It fits agency teams where multiple people touch the same account across prospecting, onboarding, delivery, and renewals. The record keeps the relationship history visible, so handoffs do not depend on memory or scattered notes.

• Multi-pipeline and custom stages for different agency motions
• Contact and deal timelines that keep interaction history in one place
• Email and calendar sync to attach conversations to the right records
• Tasks, reminders, and follow-up tracking to standardize next steps
• Contact enrichment to fill missing company and contact data
• Deduplication tools to merge duplicates and keep the database clean
• Simple pipeline reporting to monitor stage health and deal progression
• Integrations and automation connectors to reduce manual updates

For agencies, the core value is operational clarity across parallel relationships. Pipelines can reflect different revenue motions like retainers, projects, partnerships, and referrals, while tasks and reminders keep follow-ups consistent across the team. Data hygiene features like enrichment and deduplication reduce duplicate records and missing fields, which keeps pipeline reporting usable over time.

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결론

folk is the best option for most agencies because it targets the real problems behind lost revenue: scattered prospect and client context, inconsistent follow-ups, and handoffs that break when multiple people touch the same account. Pipedrive can work when the priority is a simple pipeline and activity-based execution, and Salesforce can fit agencies that need heavy customization and have dedicated ops ownership. Both approaches come with trade-offs in either depth or ongoing overhead.

folk stays closer to how agencies operate day to day. It keeps relationship history, tasks, and deal progression connected on the same records, supports multiple motions without turning configuration into a project, and puts emphasis on data hygiene so the CRM does not decay over time. For agencies that want a CRM that gets used consistently and keeps deals moving without a large admin burden, folk is the stronger choice.