In September 2025, Zendesk announced that Zendesk Sell will be permanently discontinued on August 31, 2027. All data will be deleted after that date. Zendesk officially recommends migrating to Pipedrive. But is it really the best choice? For companies that want to go beyond a simple sales CRM, HubSpot is a far more ambitious and often more relevant option.
If you use Zendesk Sell today, you have received the email. Zendesk is leaving the sales CRM market to refocus on customer service. The question is no longer whether you need to migrate, but where to and with whom. This article helps you make the right choice and details the Markentive methodology for securing this transition.
In September 2025, Zendesk confirmed the discontinuation of Zendesk Sell, its sales CRM. Users keep full access to the product until August 31, 2027. After that date, the product and its data will be permanently deleted.
Zendesk lets you export leads, contacts, deals, notes, tasks, smart lists and the Total Sales report as CSV files. However, activity history, appointments, emails, call logs and documents cannot be exported natively. This is a critical point to plan for in your migration.
Zendesk has named Pipedrive as its official migration partner. Pipedrive has built dedicated tools to ease the transition and offers a native integration with Zendesk Support. It is a logical choice for Zendesk: Pipedrive is a pure sales CRM, affordable, with a positioning similar to Zendesk Sell. But logical for Zendesk does not mean optimal for your company.
The timeline is clear: you have until August 2027. But companies that start their migration in 2026 will be in a much better position to avoid disruption. Do not wait until the non-exportable data is lost.
Pipedrive is a good sales pipeline management tool, simple and effective. But if your ambitions go beyond sales management alone, comparing it with HubSpot Sales Hub reveals significant gaps.
|
Feature |
HubSpot Sales Hub |
Pipedrive |
|---|---|---|
|
AI-powered CRM |
✅ Included |
❌ Not available |
|
Sales Workspace (unified view) |
✅ Included |
❌ Not available |
|
Predictive deal scoring |
✅ Included |
❌ Not available |
|
Deal Insight (AI analysis) |
✅ Included |
❌ Not available |
|
Task queues |
✅ Included |
💰 Paid add-on |
|
Sales Automation |
✅ Included |
✅ Included |
|
Meeting scheduler |
✅ Included |
✅ Included |
|
Email sequences |
✅ Included |
✅ Included |
|
AI meeting assistant |
✅ Included |
❌ Not available |
|
Guided actions (guided selling) |
✅ Included |
❌ Not available |
|
Website visitor tracking |
✅ Included |
💰 Paid add-on |
|
Account-Based Marketing |
✅ Included |
❌ Not available |
|
Deal funnel reporting |
✅ Included |
❌ Not available |
|
Custom dashboards and reports |
✅ Included |
✅ Included |
|
Lead reporting |
✅ Included |
❌ Not available |
|
Prospect activity reporting |
✅ Included |
❌ Not available |
|
Forecast accuracy tracking |
✅ Included |
❌ Not available |
|
Pipeline management |
✅ Included |
✅ Included |
|
Customizable deal stages |
✅ Included |
✅ Included |
|
Forecasting intelligence |
✅ Included |
❌ Not available |
|
Built-in native calling |
✅ Included |
❌ Not available |
|
Sales coaching playlists |
✅ Included |
❌ Not available |
|
Data quality tools |
✅ Included |
❌ Not available |
|
Live chat |
✅ Included |
💰 Paid add-on |
|
Chatbots |
✅ Included |
💰 Paid add-on |
|
Vendor phone support |
✅ Included |
❌ Not available |
The verdict is clear: of the 26 features compared, HubSpot includes all 26 natively. Pipedrive covers only 6, with 4 more available as paid add-ons and 16 missing. The gap is especially wide on AI, reporting, coaching and prospecting tools.
Overall, the Pipedrive CRM is often “too simple” to meet the needs of companies with demanding requirements in terms of features, connectivity and data modeling.
Pipedrive is a sales tool that requires third-party tools for marketing, customer service and advanced automation. HubSpot is a complete platform where sales, marketing, customer service and operations share the same database and the same interface. For a company that already uses Zendesk Support, this point carries particular weight: HubSpot Service Hub can also replace or complement your customer service tool, creating full sales, marketing and service alignment on a single platform.
Many Zendesk Sell users are also Zendesk Support customers. This is in fact Pipedrive's main argument: its native integration with Zendesk Support. But it is also an opportunity to rethink your stack in depth.
HubSpot also offers a native integration with Zendesk Support. You can migrate your sales CRM to HubSpot while keeping Zendesk for customer service. Zendesk tickets are visible in HubSpot, and customer data is synchronized between the two platforms.
This is the most ambitious scenario and often the most relevant in the medium term. HubSpot Service Hub covers ticket management, the knowledge base, satisfaction surveys, SLAs, customer portals and AI customer service agents (Breeze Customer Agent). By unifying sales and customer service on a single platform, you eliminate synchronizations, data silos and the cost of multiple licenses.
To show concretely what the Sales Hub + Service Hub combination makes possible, here is the example of zeop, a leading telecom operator in La Réunion. A HubSpot customer for 5 years with 200 users, zeop reached a milestone in 2024 by deploying an AI Customer Agent connected to its FAQ and website, with support from Markentive.
The results are tangible and measurable:
5,000 tickets resolved automatically each month by the AI agent
200 users on the HubSpot platform
↑ Higher customer satisfaction and measurable productivity gains for support teams
HubSpot's Customer Agent handles customer requests using zeop's FAQ and website, interacts with customers in natural language and fits into the support teams' workflow. Simple requests are resolved automatically; complex cases are escalated to human agents with all the necessary context. This is exactly the kind of deployment a Zendesk Support user can consider when migrating to HubSpot Service Hub.
At Markentive, we have been supporting HubSpot Service Hub deployments for several years. The team attends AI project lessons-learned sessions twice a month and has a lead consultant dedicated to the topic. The Sales Hub + Service Hub combination with an AI agent is a scenario we master, as the zeop project demonstrates.
Map your Zendesk Sell ecosystem: pipelines, deal stages, custom properties, smart lists, integrations, volumes. Identify exportable data (leads, contacts, deals, notes, tasks) and non-exportable data (activity history, emails, call logs, documents) that requires a specific backup strategy. Define the scope: Sales Hub only, Sales + Marketing, or Sales + Service Hub.
Design the HubSpot data model: pipelines, deal stages, contact and company properties, scoring, automation workflows, reporting. If you are adding Service Hub, also design ticket pipelines, SLAs, the knowledge base and AI agents. Our consultants prepare each workshop in depth: 70% of the work is done before the session.
Full configuration of Sales Hub (and Service Hub where applicable), development of API integrations, internal acceptance testing, then extended acceptance testing with your key users.
Markentive delivers 100% of its projects with in-house, permanent staff. More than 700 clients supported in 12 years, 9/9 HubSpot technical accreditations (the only partner worldwide), ISO 27001:2022 certification. 534 customer reviews with an average rating of 4.95/5.
Data export from Zendesk Sell (CSV), cleaning and enrichment, field mapping to the HubSpot model, batch import with integrity checks. For data that cannot be exported natively, we set up backup and migration strategies via API or specialized third-party tools, before this data becomes inaccessible.
Training is the step that determines adoption, and therefore the ROI of your migration. Teams leaving Zendesk Sell have ingrained habits that need to be turned into HubSpot reflexes, not simply replaced. That is why we build tailored programs for each user group: sales reps, managers, CRM administrators and, where applicable, support teams if Service Hub is deployed.
Each program is built around your actual use cases, not generic HubSpot training. Our trainers work from the configuration that has just been deployed so that the hands-on exercises reflect the teams' day-to-day work. In practice, our programs include an individual preparation questionnaire, a tailored training plan, customized user manuals (with links, visuals and procedures), hands-on exercises in your own HubSpot portal and post-training follow-up to measure how well users have adopted the tool.
A point specific to migrations: we recommend that managers attend the training sessions and act as the first ambassadors of the new tool.
The first weeks after go-live are decisive. This is when teams move from theory to daily practice, when concrete questions arise and when small configuration adjustments make the difference between a tool that is adopted and a tool that is bypassed. Markentive systematically provides hypercare for 2 to 4 weeks after go-live.
During this period, your Markentive consultants remain available to answer field questions in real time, fix minor irritants before they become obstacles to adoption, adjust workflows or reports based on the first real-world usage, and handle edge cases that acceptance testing did not cover. The goal is for every user to have a smooth experience from the first days, because this is when the lasting perception of the tool is formed.
At the same time, we set up adoption monitoring based on concrete indicators: login rates, deal update frequency, contact record completeness, use of sequences and automation. These metrics make it possible to quickly identify users who are falling behind and to step in with targeted action, through individual coaching, a catch-up session or a configuration adjustment.
At the end of hypercare, we produce a full review documenting the adjustments made, the points to watch going forward and medium-term optimization recommendations. This review serves as the roadmap for the ongoing support phase, whether you run it in-house or entrust it to Markentive through a recurring support package.
Pipedrive is a good tool for small sales teams looking for a simple, affordable CRM. But for companies that want to do more than manage a pipeline, its limitations quickly become apparent.
Pipedrive is designed for sales teams. It offers no marketing automation, no customer service and no content management. As your company grows, you will have to stack third-party tools to fill these gaps, recreating exactly the data silos you were trying to eliminate.
Pipedrive users on G2 regularly report limitations in advanced reporting and automation. Workflows are confined to sales processes and do not extend to marketing, customer service or customer lifecycle automation. HubSpot offers cross-Hub automation that covers the entire customer journey.
Pipedrive's AI is limited to a sales assistant that gives advice and suggestions. HubSpot Breeze includes a conversational copilot, specialized agents (prospecting, content, customer service) and data enrichment intelligence, all natively in the interface, with no additional module.
Pipedrive does not offer phone support. Several users report slow and limited support. HubSpot includes phone support in its Professional and Enterprise licenses, and users regularly praise it in their reviews.
The end of Zendesk Sell is not just a technical problem, it is a strategic opportunity to rethink your CRM setup. Markentive supports this thinking and its implementation from start to finish.
Zendesk Sell will be permanently discontinued on August 31, 2027. All data will be deleted after that date. We recommend starting the migration no later than early 2027 to avoid any pressure on the timeline.
Zendesk has entered into a commercial partnership with Pipedrive, which has built dedicated migration tools and maintains a native integration with Zendesk Support. It is a choice of convenience for Zendesk, not necessarily the best choice for your company. In its announcement, Zendesk itself states that it recommends exploring Pipedrive “or other CRM options”.
Generally 1 to 3 months, depending on the complexity and size of your organization. We structure projects in phases for progressive go-lives.
Zendesk Sell's native exports do not cover activity history, emails, call logs or documents. To preserve this data, you need to act through the Zendesk Sell API or specialized third-party tools before the product shuts down. We scope this topic from the audit phase onward.
Yes. HubSpot offers a native integration with Zendesk Support. You can also consider migrating to HubSpot Service Hub to unify sales and customer service on a single platform.
Pipedrive has a lower price per user, but it requires third-party tools for marketing, customer service, advanced reporting and cross-functional automation. The total cost of ownership (TCO) over 3 years is often comparable, or even higher, once the additional tools are taken into account. HubSpot includes all these features natively.
Yes, this is a key step in our pre-sales process. HubSpot's pricing model (several Hubs, three tiers, seat and marketing contact logic) can make sizing complex. Markentive analyzes your use cases to recommend the most suitable combination of licenses: which Hubs, which tier, how many seats, with what growth trajectory over 2 to 3 years. As an Elite partner, we have in-depth knowledge of the pricing grid, its recent changes and the commercial terms. We work transparently with your HubSpot contact to ensure the best balance between features and investment, without oversizing or unpleasant surprises.
→ Contact Markentive for a free assessment of your CRM ecosystem