Short answer
A sales pipeline is every open deal by stage, from first enquiry to won or lost, showing what is stuck and what will likely close. Off-the-shelf tools like Pipedrive (USD 14 to 69 per user a month, billed annually) suit small teams with a standard process. Build your own when your selling, or links to ERP, stock or LINE OA, do not fit.
Key points
- Define each stage by something the customer did, not by how the salesperson feels about the deal.
- Plan with the weighted forecast: in our example, 8.9 million baht in the pipeline is about 2.75 million likely to close.
- Published prices (September 2026, before VAT): Pipedrive USD 14 to 69, monday USD 12 to 28 per user a month.
- On our stated assumptions, Pipedrive Premium costs more than a 700,000-baht-a-year custom system from about 34 users.
- A spreadsheet suits one to three people; it breaks on reminders, deal history and shared editing.
What is a sales pipeline?
A sales pipeline is every deal your team is working on, laid out by how far along it is: first enquiry, meeting, quotation, then won or lost. It answers the sales manager's three weekly questions: what is open, what happens next on each deal, and how much will likely close this month.
A spreadsheet can hold that list, but past a few people it stops keeping itself current. Nobody is reminded to follow up, deal history lives in someone's LINE chats, two people edit the same row, and the forecast is whatever each salesperson says on Monday. Pipeline software keeps the stage, next step and activity history on each deal, flags deals that go quiet, and adds up the numbers.
A pipeline is the deals-in-progress part of a CRM. For customer records, CRM products and LINE OA, see our CRM guide; this guide stays on the pipeline.
What are the stages of a sales pipeline?
Most B2B pipelines follow the same six stages. Rename them to suit your business, but define each one by something the customer did, not by how the salesperson feels about the deal.
- LeadInterest through a form, call, LINE message or trade show; ability to buy still unknown
- QualifiedReal need, budget, rough timeline and the decision-maker confirmed
- Meeting or demoYou have met, visited the site or shown the product, and know what they need
- QuotationA quotation (ใบเสนอราคา) is sent, often with a spec or scope attached
- NegotiationPrice, delivery, payment terms or scope under discussion; the quotation may be revised
- Won or lostA PO or signed contract arrives, or a no. Record why you lost: it is the data you learn from
| What happens | What it means for your stages |
|---|---|
| The quotation is revised several times | Keep every version on the deal, with the date and who approved the discount |
| A PO arrives days or weeks after the verbal yes | Consider a separate stage between agreed and PO received, so the forecast does not count it twice or too early |
| Credit terms of 30, 60 or 90 days | A won deal is not cash yet; record the terms if the pipeline also feeds cash-flow planning |
| Several approvers on the buyer's side, and discount approval on yours | Record who has approved and who has not, and who in your company can approve which discount |
| Government or large-company tenders | Add stages for the tender documents, the submission and the result, because the dates are fixed by the buyer |
Which numbers in a pipeline matter?
Four numbers do most of the work. Deal value is what the customer would pay. Win rate by stage is the share of deals reaching a stage that are eventually won, taken from your own past deals, not a vendor's default. Cycle length is the usual number of days from lead to won. The weighted forecast multiplies each open deal's value by its stage's win rate and adds them up.
Plan with the weighted figure, not the total. In the illustration below (made-up round numbers, not any real company's data), the team has almost 8.9 million baht in the pipeline, but only about 2.75 million baht is likely to close.
The weighted figure is only as good as its win rates. Work them out from at least a few months of your own won and lost deals, and review them each quarter. A pipeline full of deals that never move means nobody updates the stages, not that the quarter is strong.
| Stage | Open deals | Total value (baht) | Win rate from this stage | Weighted value (baht) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qualified | 10 | 3,000,000 | 10% | 300,000 |
| Meeting or demo | 6 | 2,400,000 | 25% | 600,000 |
| Quotation sent | 5 | 2,000,000 | 40% | 800,000 |
| Negotiation | 3 | 1,500,000 | 70% | 1,050,000 |
| Total | 24 | 8,900,000 | 2,750,000 |
How does pipeline software help you sell better?
Software does not sell for anyone. It stops deals slipping through the gaps between people, which is where small sales teams often lose them.
- Every deal and its next step on one board, so the manager sees what is stuck without calling a meeting
- Reminders when a follow-up is due or a deal has gone quiet for too long
- Activity history on the deal: calls, emails, visits, notes and files, so anyone can pick it up
- Quotations issued from the deal, with the customer's details and your price list already filled in
- A forecast that adds itself up from stages and win rates, instead of from Monday's guesses
- Handover when a salesperson leaves: the deals and their history stay with the company, not on a personal phone
- Coaching from real data: where each person's deals stall, and which stage loses the most
- Automation of the repetitive parts: assigning new leads, creating follow-up tasks, sending a standard email when a stage changes
Which sales pipeline software is popular, and what does it cost?
These are the products Thai businesses most often shortlist. Prices are as published on each vendor's site in September 2026, before VAT. They change often, so check before you budget. We have no partnership with any of them and sell no licences.
Pipedrive is what most people mean by pipeline software: built around a drag-and-drop deal board and easy to start. HubSpot and Salesforce are full CRM platforms with a pipeline inside. monday sales CRM grew out of a work-management product. Odoo CRM is one app in a system that also covers sales orders, invoicing and stock. Venio is Thai and priced in baht. The last row, SyncEdge, is a system built for one business, not a subscription.
Entry plan to top listed plan per user per month, billed annually, before VAT: monday and Odoo are cheapest, Salesforce Pro Suite and HubSpot Professional the highest.
Vendor pricing pages, read September 2026. HubSpot Starter is its monthly-billed price. Salesforce editions above Pro Suite start at USD 195. Zoho (regional pricing) and Venio (baht) not shown.
| Best at | Published price per user | Thai interface | LINE | Main limitation | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pipedrive | A simple visual pipeline that salespeople actually update | USD 14 (Lite) to 69 (Ultimate) a month, billed annually; higher billed monthly | Not listed among its interface languages when we checked; confirm with the vendor | No official LINE integration documented; third-party connectors | Pipeline-focused; quotations in Thai tax format, stock and accounting need other tools |
| HubSpot Sales Hub | Pipeline plus marketing and service on one customer record | Starter USD 20 billed monthly, lower billed annually; Professional USD 90 billed annually, plus a USD 1,500 one-off onboarding fee | Yes; support and onboarding are not in Thai | Through third-party marketplace apps, not built in | The features growing teams need sit in Professional, and the cost jumps there |
| Salesforce Sales Cloud | Large teams with complex processes and many custom fields | Starter Suite USD 25; Pro Suite USD 100, billed annually; higher editions from USD 195 | Yes; help pages in English | A LINE channel exists in its service product, not in the sales CRM | Needs a skilled administrator or partner to set up and change |
| Zoho CRM | Many features for the price, and a free plan | Standard to Ultimate per user; price shown by region, cheaper billed annually; see vendor | Yes | Built-in LINE business messaging on paid editions | Many settings to learn; Thai tax documents need Zoho's other apps or custom work |
| monday sales CRM | Teams that already plan work in monday.com | USD 12 (Basic) to 28 (Pro) a seat a month, billed annually; minimum 3 seats | Check with the vendor | No official LINE integration documented | Built on a general work-management board, so deep sales logic needs workarounds |
| Odoo CRM | Pipeline that flows into quotations, sales orders, invoices and stock in one system | USD 13.50 to 25.50 a month for all apps, depending on plan | Yes | No official connector; third-party modules or custom work | Worth most when you also use its sales, stock and accounting; setup needs care |
| Venio (Thai) | Thai field sales teams, with check-in and visit tracking | Monthly base price covering 5 users, then per extra user; from 2,990 baht | Yes | Facebook, LINE and TikTok chat listed on the Pro+ plan | Fewer integrations with foreign software than the global products |
| SyncEdge (custom build) | A pipeline shaped around your own stages, quotations and approvals, connected to the systems you already run | A build cost set by the agreed scope, then hosting and an optional maintenance retainer | Yes; screens and documents in Thai, in the terms your team already uses | LINE OA connected through LINE's Messaging API, so chats land on the deal | Costs more up front, needs scoping and a build before you can use it, and you depend on whoever maintains it |
Can you run a sales pipeline in Excel or Google Sheets?
Yes, and for one to three people it is often the right place to start. Use one row per deal with these columns: deal name, customer, contact person and phone, salesperson, lead source, stage, deal value, expected close date, next step, next-step date, date of last contact, and a reason if lost. Add a win-rate column per stage and one formula multiplying it by value, and you have a weighted forecast.
As the team grows, sheets break in the same places, and those are the places pipeline software fixes.
Spreadsheet
- No reminders, so next-step dates go stale within weeks
- Shows the stage; calls and LINE chats live elsewhere
- Rows overwritten, or scrambled by one sort
- Private copies, so the manager's version is never current
- Quotations retyped in Word or Excel
- No record of stage changes, so no win rates or cycle length
Pipeline software
- Reminders when a follow-up is due or a deal goes quiet
- Calls, emails, visits, notes and files on the deal
- One shared record per deal
- Quotations issued from the deal
- A forecast that adds itself up from stages and win rates
What are the limits of off-the-shelf pipeline software?
Off-the-shelf products handle the standard pipeline well. The limits appear where your sales process is not standard, or where the pipeline must talk to the rest of the business.
- Per-seat pricing: the bill grows with every salesperson, coordinator and manager who needs access, and usually in US dollars
- Fixed shapes: stages and fields can be renamed, but tenders, project sales with phases, sales through dealers, made-to-order pricing and multi-level discount approval often do not fit the shape of a deal
- Thai documents: quotations, tax invoices and receipts in the format your customers and your accountant expect often need a template add-on, a second product or manual retyping
- Split data: the pipeline does not know your stock, production capacity or credit limits, and won deals are keyed again into the ERP or accounting system
- LINE-first customers: if most conversations happen in LINE, a product without a LINE connection leaves the history outside the deal
- Adoption: if updating the deal takes longer than the salesperson thinks it is worth, the pipeline goes stale however good the product is
- Leaving: check how you export deals, activity history and attachments before you commit, not after
When does a custom pipeline cost less than a subscription?
It depends mostly on how many people need access. The chart is an illustration built on stated assumptions, not a quote from any vendor and not SyncEdge's price. Subscriptions: Pipedrive Premium at USD 49 and monday sales CRM Pro at USD 28 per user per month, both billed annually, at 35 baht to the dollar, before VAT, with no add-ons, onboarding or price rises. Custom: an assumed build of 1.2 million baht, the middle of the mid-size range in our custom software cost guide, spread over three years (400,000 baht a year), plus 20% of the build a year for maintenance (240,000 baht) and 5,000 baht a month for hosting (60,000 baht), about 700,000 baht a year. We hold the custom figure flat across team sizes for simplicity; in practice more users add a little hosting and support.
Under these assumptions the Pipedrive line passes the custom line at about 34 users. The monday line stays below it across the whole chart; it would only reach it at about 60 users, and monday asks teams over 40 to request a quote, so its 50-user point is our extrapolation. At a more expensive plan the crossing comes much earlier: HubSpot Sales Hub Professional at USD 90 passes 700,000 baht a year at about 19 users, before its onboarding fee.
So cost alone rarely justifies building for a small team. Under about 20 people the reasons to build are fit and integration, covered below; cost becomes one only as the team grows or the plan you need gets expensive.
- Pipedrive Premium, USD 49 per user per month
- monday sales CRM Pro, USD 28 per user per month
- Custom system, build over 3 years plus upkeep
| Users | Pipedrive Premium | monday sales CRM Pro | Custom system |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 102,900 | 58,800 | About 700,000 |
| 10 | 205,800 | 117,600 | About 700,000 |
| 20 | 411,600 | 235,200 | About 700,000 |
| 30 | 617,400 | 352,800 | About 700,000 |
| 40 | 823,200 | 470,400 | About 700,000 |
| 50 | 1,029,000 | 588,000 | About 700,000 |
Which pipeline fits a business like mine? Four example scenarios
These are illustrative composites of common situations, not real businesses or our clients. Find the one closest to yours.
| Situation | What usually fits | Why | |
|---|---|---|---|
| A 3-person team | The owner and two salespeople track deals in one Google Sheet and talk to customers on LINE. Follow-ups depend on memory. | A tidied sheet with next-step dates, or a low-priced plan such as Pipedrive Lite or a free CRM plan. | Three people can still see everything; the gain from a paid tool is reminders, and the cost of switching later is small. |
| A 15-person distributor | Salespeople send dozens of quotations a week from Excel templates, prices differ by customer group, and discounts need the manager's approval. | Odoo CRM with the Sales app, or an off-the-shelf pipeline plus a quotation add-on; custom if the price rules are complex. | The bottleneck is quotations, not the board. Quoting from the deal with the right price list saves the most time. |
| A project or engineering company | Deals are tenders or projects worth millions, run for six to eighteen months, and need technical review, several approvals and revised quotations. | A custom pipeline with tender and approval stages, or a highly configured Salesforce with an administrator. | Standard deal shapes do not hold phases, approvals and document versions well, and a few large deals justify the setup. |
| A manufacturer | Before quoting, sales must check stock and production capacity. Once won, the order is keyed again into the ERP. | A custom pipeline connected to the existing ERP, or Odoo if the ERP is being replaced anyway. | The value is in the connection: availability visible while quoting, and won deals flowing into production without retyping. |
Off-the-shelf pipeline software or a system built by SyncEdge: what is the difference?
An off-the-shelf product gets a standard pipeline running this week, and the vendor maintains it. A system we build costs more up front and takes longer, but follows your own stages, documents and approvals, and connects to the ERP, accounting system or LINE OA you already use. If your process fits a product and the team is small, the product is usually the better choice, and we will say so.
| Off-the-shelf software | Built by SyncEdge | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to start | The same day; test it on a free trial or a low-priced plan | After scoping and the build; how long depends on the scope |
| How you pay | Per user per month for as long as you use it, often in US dollars | A build cost set by the agreed scope, then hosting and an optional monthly maintenance retainer |
| Fit to your sales process | Standard stages and fields you can rename; tenders, dealer sales and approval chains often need workarounds | Stages, fields, price rules and approvals follow how your team already sells |
| Quotations and Thai documents | Quotation templates vary by product; Thai tax invoice formats often need an add-on or another tool | Quotations, tax invoices and receipts issued from the deal, in the format your customers and accountant expect |
| LINE OA | Depends on the product and the plan; some have no LINE connection | Connected through LINE's Messaging API, with chats saved on the deal |
| Connection to ERP, accounting and stock | Through the vendor's integrations or a connector, if one exists for your system | Built to read from and write to your existing ERP, accounting or stock system directly |
| Where the data sits | On the vendor's servers; it leaves only through the vendor's export tools | On cloud infrastructure in Thailand, under the terms set out in the contract |
| Who maintains it | The vendor: hosting, security and new features are included | We do, under a monthly retainer, or your own team using the handover documentation |
When does custom pipeline software make sense, and when does it not?
Build when the way you sell is what the products do not fit: tenders, phased projects, dealers who need their own portal, prices calculated from specifications, approval chains, or a pipeline that must read stock, capacity or credit limits from systems you already run. Build too when many people need access and the per-seat bill keeps rising, or when customers live on LINE and you want those chats on the deal.
Do not build when your process is standard and the team is small. A product you can start this week beats a longer build, and the vendor carries hosting, security and new features. If you do not yet know your stages, run a spreadsheet or a low-priced plan for a few months, and build once you know what the system has to do.
Many teams end up in between: an off-the-shelf product or Odoo for the standard parts, with custom pieces around it such as a quotation generator, a dealer portal, or a connection to the ERP or LINE OA. We build those systems and implement Odoo CRM ourselves; we sell no licences, so we have no reason to push one route.
Check whether your pipeline needs a better system
- Each stage is defined by something the customer did, not by a feeling
- Every open deal has a next step and a date
- Deals that go quiet trigger a reminder, not a Monday meeting
- The history of each deal, including LINE chats, is on the deal
- Quotations are issued from the deal, not retyped
- Win rates by stage come from your own past deals
- A departing salesperson's deals can be handed over in a day
- Won deals reach the ERP or accounting system without being keyed again
Frequently asked questions
What is a sales pipeline?
A sales pipeline is the set of deals your team is working on, grouped by stage from first enquiry to won or lost. Each deal carries a value, a next step and a date, so the team sees what is stuck and the manager can forecast what will close this month.
What are the stages of a sales pipeline?
A common set is lead, qualified, meeting or demo, proposal or quotation, negotiation, and won or lost. Thai B2B sales often add steps for quotation revisions, approvals and the purchase order. Define each stage by something the customer did, and match the stages to how your customers actually buy.
What is the difference between a sales pipeline and a CRM?
The pipeline is the deals in progress and their stages. A CRM is the wider system that holds the pipeline plus customer records, contact history, and often marketing and service. Most CRMs include a pipeline, and pipeline tools such as Pipedrive have grown into CRMs. Our CRM guide covers the wider picture.
Can I run a sales pipeline in Excel?
Yes, for a small team. One row per deal with stage, value, expected close date, next step and its date covers the basics. It tends to break once several people edit it, nobody is reminded to follow up, and quotations and chat history live elsewhere.
What is Pipedrive, and how much does it cost?
Pipedrive is pipeline-focused CRM software built around a drag-and-drop board of deals. When we checked in September 2026 it published plans from USD 14 (Lite) to USD 69 (Ultimate) per user per month billed annually, with higher prices billed monthly, before VAT. Check the vendor's pricing page, as prices change.
Is it worth building my own sales pipeline system?
It is worth it when your sales process does not fit the standard products, when the pipeline must connect to your ERP, stock or LINE OA, or when many users make the per-seat bill large. For a small team with a standard process, a subscription is usually cheaper and faster.