Loading tutorials…
Loading tutorials…
The Pipeline view is the single most-referenced screen in Pipedrive. Set it up wrong, the forecast number is fiction and reps stop trusting it. Set it up right, and the Monday-morning pipeline review takes 20 minutes instead of an hour.
Who this is forSales leaders and founders running sales themselves who need pipeline reports they can actually trust. If you have ever explained to a board why 'commit' was $400K and bookings came in at $180K, this tutorial is for you.
What you'll need
Step 1
Company settings → Pipelines & stages. Pipedrive ships with one default pipeline and 5 stages — most teams need to redesign both before adding deals.
Open Pipedrive → Company settings (initials, top-right) → Pipelines & stages.
Default stages: Qualified → Contact Made → Demo Scheduled → Proposal Made → Negotiations Started. These are reasonable but generic — they describe rep activity, not buyer signals.
For each stage, ask: "what observable buyer action triggered this move?" If you cannot answer, rename it.
Common B2B SaaS rebuild: Discovery Booked → Discovery Completed → Demo Completed → Proposal Sent → Contract Sent. Each stage = a clear buyer signal.
Keep stage count at 5-7 max. Past 7, reps cannot reliably distinguish them and forecasts become noise.
Step 2
Each stage gets a probability — the historical close rate from that stage. Pipedrive uses this to calculate Weighted value and Insights forecasts.
In Company settings → Pipelines & stages, click any stage → edit. The probability field is a percentage.
Pull historical data: of deals that hit Demo Completed, what % closed won over the last 6-12 months? Use that number, not aspiration.
Typical B2B SaaS pattern: Discovery Booked 5-10%, Discovery Completed 15-20%, Demo Completed 25-35%, Proposal Sent 45-60%, Contract Sent 75-90%.
If you do not have historical data yet, use industry benchmarks but mark them as "calibrate in Q2."
Probability drives the "Weighted value" column shown in pipeline view (Sum of deal value × stage probability). Wrong probabilities = useless forecast. Recalibrate quarterly.
Step 3
New Business, Expansion, Renewal, and Channel each often deserve their own pipeline with different stages and probabilities. Pipedrive supports unlimited pipelines on every paid plan.
Company settings → Pipelines & stages → "+ Add new pipeline."
Common splits: "New Business" (cold prospect to first close), "Expansion" (existing customer upsell), "Renewal" (retention / renewal motion), "Channel" (partner-sourced deals).
Each pipeline gets its own stages, probabilities, and rotting periods. A renewal deal does not need a Discovery stage; an expansion deal does not need an SDR-handoff stage.
In Pipeline view, switch between pipelines via the dropdown at the top. Each rep can set a default pipeline in Personal preferences.
Resist building too many pipelines. 3-4 is healthy; past 5 the maintenance cost (reports, automation, training) outweighs the clarity benefit.
Step 4
A deal becomes "rotten" if no activity has been logged for X days. Set the threshold per pipeline because motions have different rhythms.
Company settings → Pipelines & stages → click pipeline → edit → "Deal rotting after X days."
New Business B2B SaaS: 30-45 days. Enterprise/government: 60-90 days. Transactional/SMB: 14-21 days. Renewal: 60 days (most renewals only need touch points monthly).
Rotting deals appear with a small red icon in Pipeline view, sorted to the top by default. The whole point is visibility — too aggressive and the icon becomes meaningless background noise.
Pipeline view → filter by "Rotting" to get the stuck-deal triage list. This becomes your weekly cleanup queue.
Step 5
Workflow Automation can prevent stage moves until required fields are filled. "Cannot move to Proposal Sent without budget and decision-maker."
Workflow Automation lives in Tools and integrations → Automations (Professional+ tier).
Create a new automation: Trigger = "Deal stage updated" → Conditions = "If [field X] is empty AND new stage = Proposal Sent" → Action = "Update deal" or notification.
For deals moving to Discovery Completed: require Pain Point (custom field), Decision Maker (linked contact label), Budget Range, Timeline.
For Proposal Sent: require Proposal Value, Proposal Sent Date, Next Step.
For Contract Sent: require Expected Close Date, Champion identified.
Required-field gates are the single highest-leverage pipeline hygiene tool. Reps either fill the fields or the automation kicks the deal back to the prior stage.
Step 6
Insights → Reports. Build a Pipeline overview report and pin to the company dashboard. Review every Monday.
Insights (left sidebar) → Reports → '+ Add report' → 'Pipeline.' Choose your New Business pipeline.
Include: total pipeline value, weighted pipeline value, deals by stage, stage-to-stage conversion rates, average deal age per stage.
Build a complementary Forecast report (Insights → Reports → Forecast) for monthly/quarterly close projections by deal owner.
In the weekly review, walk every deal over a threshold ($X amount) and ask: is this in the right stage? Has it moved in the last 30 days? Is the close date realistic?
Stage-to-stage conversion rates are the most valuable metric most teams ignore. If Demo → Proposal is 30% but Proposal → Closed Won is 85%, the leakage is qualification, not closing. The fix is upstream, not "close harder."
Step 7
Any deal that has not moved stages in 60 days is suspect. Pull the rotting list monthly, force a disposition (move it or close it lost).
In Pipeline view → filter → "Rotten deals only." Sort by Last activity ascending. The oldest stuck deals are at the top.
For each, ask the owner: is this real? If yes, what is the next step and when does it happen? If no, mark Lost with a reason like 'Stalled — no buyer urgency.'
Most stuck deals are wishful thinking. Closing them properly improves forecast accuracy by 20-40% within a quarter.
Pipedrive forecast accuracy degrades 10-15% per quarter when stale deals are not closed out — they sit in weighted pipeline forever and the projected number drifts above actual.
Make this a recurring calendar event. Pipeline audit cadence is what separates teams with accurate forecasts from teams with theater forecasts.
Common mistakes
Using internal activity stages ("Working," "Negotiating") instead of buyer signals
What goes wrong: Reps mark deals 'Negotiating' indefinitely. Stuck deals hide in the pipeline. Forecast keeps saying $400K is coming and you keep missing the number. Eventually trust in the pipeline collapses entirely.
How to avoid: Rewrite every stage as a buyer signal: "Discovery Booked," "Demo Completed," "Proposal Sent" — each requires an observable buyer action. Internal activity = task or note, not a stage.
Inheriting default stage probabilities without calibrating
What goes wrong: Pipedrive default probability for Demo Scheduled is 50%. Your historical rate is 15%. Weighted forecast overstates the pipeline by 3x. Board reviews predict more revenue than actually arrives. Each quarter the credibility gap widens.
How to avoid: Pull historical close-rate data per stage from the last 6-12 months of closed deals. Set probabilities to historical reality. Recalibrate quarterly.
One mega-pipeline mixing new business + expansion + renewal
What goes wrong: Renewal deals (95% close rate) and new-business deals (10% close rate) sit in the same pipeline. Average close rate becomes meaningless. AE compensation calculations break. Reports cannot answer 'how is our new-business motion doing?'
How to avoid: Separate pipelines per motion: New Business, Expansion, Renewal, Channel. Each gets its own stages, probabilities, ownership, and rotting period.
Leaving rotting period at 30 days for a 90-day sales cycle
What goes wrong: Half of healthy enterprise deals get flagged rotten constantly. Reps stop trusting the icon. When deals are genuinely dead, they hide in the noise. Loses 10-15% of forecast accuracy with stale deals piling up.
How to avoid: Set rotting period per pipeline (Company settings → Pipelines & stages → edit pipeline). Match it to your real sales-cycle length per motion.
No required-field gates at stage transitions
What goes wrong: Reps move deals to Proposal Sent without identifying the Decision Maker, the budget, or the timeline. Half of those deals stall and forecast accuracy plummets. Pipeline reviews become guesswork because key data is missing.
How to avoid: On Professional+, use Workflow Automation: trigger on Deal stage updated → check required fields → block or warn. Set 2-3 required fields per progression stage.
Never running the stuck-deal audit
What goes wrong: Deals stuck in Proposal Sent for 9 months sit in the weighted pipeline. Leadership 'expects' $200K from them. Nobody acknowledges they are dead. Pipeline coverage looks healthy; actual conversion is brutal.
How to avoid: Monthly: filter Pipeline view by Rotting status. Force disposition — move forward with a concrete next step, or mark Lost. Make it a calendar recurrence.
Recap
Done — what's next
How to set up Pipedrive from scratch without rebuilding in 90 days
Read the next tutorial
Hand it off
Pipeline design is the highest-leverage CRM work most owners do — and the easiest to do wrong because it requires judgment about your real sales motion. A specialist who has built 50+ pipelines knows which stages tend to be theater, which probabilities to trust, and how to set up the weekly review cadence. EverestX Pipedrive specialists run $400-1,000/mo at $14-16/hr.
See specialist rates
5-7 stages plus Won and Lost. Past 7 stages, reps stop reliably distinguishing them and forecast accuracy suffers. If you feel like you need more, the answer is usually a second pipeline (Expansion, Renewal) — not more stages in the same pipeline.
Yes. From any deal record → Details → Pipeline field → change. The deal carries its history and notes but resets stage to the first stage of the new pipeline (or you can pick a specific stage). For bulk moves, use the Deals list view → select rows → Edit → Pipeline. Note: changing pipeline can break in-flight Workflow Automation tied to the source pipeline.
Pipedrive forecasting (Insights → Forecast) is simpler than both. You get a deal-by-deal projection based on stage probability × expected close date. It is great for teams under 30 reps. HubSpot adds AE-submitted commit/best-case categories (Sales Hub Pro+). Salesforce adds custom forecast categories, override workflows, multi-currency rollups — more powerful but 5-10x more setup work.
Yes — always. Pipedrive ships with a Lost reason field (required when marking Lost on Advanced+ tier — configure in Company settings → Deal settings). Set 5-7 standard reasons: 'No budget,' 'Lost to competitor,' 'No timeline,' 'No champion,' 'Wrong fit,' 'No response.' Quarterly review of lost reasons is where the biggest motion-improvement leverage hides.
Pipeline view → top filter bar → 'Owner is [me]' or use the 'My deals' quick filter. Save it as a custom filter (top right → 'Save as filter'). Each rep can set their default pipeline view in Personal preferences. For managers, the default should be team-wide; for reps, the default should be 'my deals.'
Pipedrive
Pipedrive is fast to spin up and easy to break in the first month. Most owners skip the company defaults, invite the team on the wrong plan, and rebuild 90 days in. Here is the setup sequence that holds up.
Pipedrive
Custom fields are how Pipedrive bends to your business. They are also how owners create chaos in 60 days — 47 fields, half empty, three that say the same thing. Here is the discipline that prevents the cleanup project.
Pipedrive
Workflow Automation is the single biggest force multiplier in Pipedrive Professional+ — and the easiest feature to misuse. One bad automation can email 4,000 prospects at 3am. Here is the discipline that scales.
HubSpot CRM
A HubSpot pipeline is the single most-referenced screen in the CRM. Set up wrong, the forecast number is fiction and reps stop trusting it. Set up right, the CRO walks into Monday with a real number. Here is the discipline that holds up.
Pipedrive
DIY Pipedrive is a great idea — until it isn't. This is the honest framework: when the cost of self-managing exceeds the cost of hiring a specialist, and how to tell which side you are on.