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CRM · Migration guide

Moving from Pipedrive to Salesforce

Reviewed by Switchpoint Editors ·

Why teams switch

The honest reasons

What's wrong with Pipedrive

  • Light on marketing features

What Salesforce does better

  • Most configurable CRM on the market
  • Deepest ecosystem and integrations
  • Audit, permissions, governance for regulated orgs

Switching cost

What it actually takes

Contacts, deals, and activities export cleanly. Automations and custom fields rebuild manually. HubSpot, Salesforce, and Close all have official Pipedrive importers — typical migration is 1 week.

Step by step

A safe cutover plan

  1. 1

    Audit

    Inventory every workspace, project, or asset in Pipedrive you actually use. Most teams discover 30-40% is dormant.

  2. 2

    Export

    Run Pipedrive's official export. Note exactly which fields, relations, or attachments lose fidelity — those are your manual rebuild.

  3. 3

    Rebuild structure in Salesforce

    Set up Salesforce skeleton (workspaces, teams, permissions) before importing. Importing into an empty workspace creates a mess.

  4. 4

    Import cleanest layer first

    Bring in the data that maps 1:1. Defer custom fields, automations, and integrations.

  5. 5

    Parallel run for 1-2 weeks

    Keep Pipedrive read-only. Anything you find missing in Salesforce, fix during this window.

  6. 6

    Cut over integrations

    Switch every webhook, Zap, link, and bookmark. This is the longest part — budget for it.

  7. 7

    Archive, don't delete

    Keep Pipedrive archived for 90 days. You will need it.

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