A Pipedrive alternative run from your AI

What is Pipedrive good at?

Pipedrive is a pipeline-first sales CRM for small and mid-sized sales teams. As of 2026-10-18, it wins on a simple pipeline UX, its price and more than 500 integrations. Pipedrive AI, for reports and summaries, is included in its seats.

If your team works by looking at a board of deals and dragging them between stages, that view is the reason to stay. Sashimi has no board by default.

Does Pipedrive work with Claude and ChatGPT?

Yes. As of 2026-10-18, Pipedrive has had a native MCP server since 30 June 2026, on all plans, with OAuth, permissions and an audit trail, according to Pipedrive's announcement.

What separates the two is what sits behind the connector. Behind Pipedrive's is its pipeline app. Behind Sashimi's there is no app to learn, only 140 tools written for a model doing pipeline work:

• Many deals per call. update_deals moves or edits a whole list of deals at once, and create_deals takes up to 100 rows.
• Pipeline reports on request. crm_report returns a forecast by expected close month or a stage-to-stage funnel.
• No double writes. Write tools accept an idempotencyKey, so a retry after a timeout changes nothing twice.
• Accountable. list_mcp_activity lists every AI call, and the AI never gets more rights than its member has on the web.

Can I manage a pipeline from chat?

Yes. You ask in plain language and your AI calls the deal tools. Changes pass the same permission checks as the web app, and your AI client can ask you to approve each write.

• "List my open deals by stage, with their amounts." Your AI calls list_deals.
• "Move the Acme and Northwind deals to Negotiation." One update_deals call moves both.
• "Add a stage called Contract sent before Won." For an admin, the AI uses create_deal_stage and reorder_deal_stages.
• "How does my pipeline look by expected close month?" crm_report answers with the forecast.

Can I run email sequences from chat?

Yes. Your AI builds a sequence with create_sequence, and creating it sends nothing. Emails are scheduled only when you enrol a lead, company or deal with launch_sequence, and stop_sequence_run cancels a run.

A sequence mixes manual steps, which become tasks for a person, and automatic email steps based on a template. A typical request: "Create a sequence with an intro email on day 0, a follow-up email on day 3 and a call task on day 7." If a template variable has no value and no default, that email is held and a review task is created instead of sending a broken message. list_sequence_queue shows what is waiting.

Automatic emails go out through your own Gmail, and that sending is beta while Google reviews Sashimi's access.

What do I give up with Sashimi?

The board, the integrations and the built-in AI. Sashimi is a small sales-prospecting CRM, available as a private beta by invitation.

• The visual pipeline. You see deals through your AI's answers; on-demand screens are coming soon, in beta.
• The catalogue. Sashimi offers webhooks and Apollo for prospect data, against Pipedrive's 500+ integrations.
• Built-in AI. Sashimi's own agents are switched off during the beta; your AI does the reasoning.
• Email sending without a beta label. Sequence emails go through your own Gmail, in beta while Google reviews Sashimi's access.
• A plan you can buy today. Sashimi is free during the beta. At launch there is a 14-day trial with no card, then a plan per account, starting with Solo at $15 a month for 3 workspaces and 1 seat.

How do I move from Pipedrive to Sashimi?

Set up your stages, then load a spreadsheet or CSV you already have. Your Claude or ChatGPT plan must support custom connectors; the Claude page explains which plans do. On Claude Team and Enterprise an owner adds the connector; members can't add it themselves.

1. Connect your AI with the connection guide. Your AI app sends you to Sashimi, you choose the workspace and approve.
2. If you are an admin, ask: "Set the deal stages to Qualified, Demo, Proposal, Negotiation, Won and Lost."
3. Attach the file and ask: "Create these deals with their companies, and these contacts as leads." Your AI calls create_deals, create_companies and create_leads, up to 100 rows per call.
4. Leads are matched on email and companies on domain or name. Deals are never matched, so import them once. Then run find_duplicates, and an admin folds any pairs together with merge_leads or merge_companies.

Deleted records wait in the trash for 30 days, and deleting records from your AI needs an admin. Other changes stay as they are, with no undo, so load a few deals before the whole file.

If you sell for clients, see Sashimi for agencies. The tool list is on the MCP server page, and other comparisons are on the CRM alternatives page. The idea behind Sashimi is on the AI native CRM page.