compare · pipedrive and hubspot

a crm for selling anything, or one built for winning projects.

Pipedrive and HubSpot are good general-purpose CRMs, made to suit any business that sells. tiny+ is made for one kind: firms that design things, and win work through relationships, proposals and tenders. This is what that difference looks like in an ordinary week.

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tiny+ · the board, beside a general-purpose pipeline

Projects · boardphases: yours to name

fee proposal$2.1m

Harbourside Primary

Dept of Education · $610k

due Thu · 40%via 3 builders

Summit Lane Townhouses

Summit Capital · $390k

going quiet · 35%

referred by Harbour Builders

negotiating$1.5m

Riverside Library

Riverside Council · $1.5m

healthy · 75%

commissioned$3.8m

Harbour Street Offices

Harbour Partners · $2.2m

won Tuesday · on the feed

Oakline Apartments

Oakline Group · $1.6m

won · a repeat client

tiny+: a fee proposal through three builders is one project, counted once

DealsQ4 quota62%

Qualified4

Acme deal

$12,000

rep Alex · 30 days

Northwind

$8,500

rep Sam · sequence 2 of 5

Proposal3

Riverside

$45,000

rep Alex · sequence 4 of 5

Globex

$9,900

rep Priya · call booked

Negotiation2

Initech

$22,000

rep Sam · closes 28 Nov

Closed won$61k

Umbrella

$61,000

rep Alex · commission 4%

a general-purpose pipeline: one owner, one deal, one close date, a quota

an ordinary week

six things that happen in a design firm, and what happens next.

The same week in a general-purpose CRM and in tiny+. No feature grid: just what your directors, project leads and marketing team would actually do.

mondayA tender goes out through three builders.

in a general crmThree deals, one for each builder. The fee is in the pipeline three times until someone adjusts it, and when you win, the other two are recorded as losses.

in tiny+One project with three bid teams. The fee is counted once, the win rate stays true, and you can see which builders pick you and how often their bids win.

tuesdayA client contact moves to a new developer.

in a general crmThe person who heard is a project architect. If she doesn’t have a seat, it reaches the CRM when she tells someone who does.

in tiny+She posts it on the feed from her phone. The whole firm reads it, the contact is updated, and the new developer starts life with someone who knows them.

wednesdayMarketing wants the health clients for a newsletter.

in a general crmHome turf. Build the segment and send the campaign from the same tool, with sequences and landing pages if you want them.

in tiny+Ask for “health clients we’ve worked with since 2024”, save the list, and send it to Mailchimp or Campaign Monitor. The list also knows who has gone quiet and who knows them.

thursdayA director asks who knows anyone at Oakline.

in a general crmWhoever has a seat and logged an activity. What sits in the rest of the firm’s inboxes isn’t part of the answer.

in tiny+Known by is filled in from everyone’s Microsoft 365 mail headers, never the subject or body. The answer includes the interiors lead who wrote to them last month.

fridayThe job is won.

in a general crmClosed won. Then the job is set up again, by hand, in practice management.

in tiny+Move the card to Commissioned. The feed tells the firm, and with Synergy the job is set up with its number, client, fee and contacts.

monday againThe directors meet.

in a general crmDashboards designed around reps, activity and quota. Pipeline by sector, or win rate by lead firm, is a report you build.

in tiny+The Monday email is already in each director’s inbox: what moved, what’s due, win rate by sector and by lead firm, limited to what each of them may see.

a general crm · per seat

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2 seats for the people doing BD. The other 22 in the studio: no login, no feed, no capture.

tiny+ · per firm

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24 logins on one plan. The project architect who knows the client is in it, not just the director.

Jo Chen posted on Mark Ellis: moved to Meadow Developments, planning 240 apartments. Jo is a project architect, not part of the BD team. She has a login.

priced for the whole firm

the people who know your clients all have a login.

The relationships in a design firm are held by directors, associates, project leads and the marketing team. Per-seat pricing asks you to choose which of them are worth a login, and the CRM only knows what those few type in.

tiny+ is priced per firm. Everyone is in it, so the feed, Known by and the pipeline describe the firm rather than the BD desk.

on day one

what you’d configure in a general crm is how tiny+ arrives.

A general CRM can be bent into most of this with custom fields, custom objects and a consultant. tiny+ starts there.

Phases for proposals and tendersExpression of interest, fee proposal, negotiating, commissioned: yours to rename.

Bid teamsOne project pursued through several lead firms, counted once.

Companies with more than one roleThe same firm as client, collaborator and competitor, across different jobs.

Relationship plansKey clients on a schedule the firm keeps, with a nudge when one is overdue.

Sectors, categories and feesPipeline and win rate by the things a practice reports on.

SynergyTwo-way sync with practice management, job number and all.

the relationship

keeping clients, not only finding them.

Most of a design firm’s next year comes from this year’s clients and the people who refer them. tiny+ puts each key client on a plan, shows who in the firm knows them, and tells you when one has gone quiet while there is still time to pick up the phone.

Your marketing team gets the same picture: who to invite, who to send the newsletter to, and who a director should call first.

Oakline Groupdeveloper · client since 2023

going quiet · 52 daysKey client2 projects won · $1.4m

who knows them

Nick Smith· directorset by hand · last lunch in June

Jo Chen· project architectcorresponds with · wrote 7 weeks ago

Priya Nair· interiors leadcorresponds with · wrote 3 months ago

Relationship plan · Key clientoverdue · 9 days

Coffee· Nick · every 6 weeksLog it ›

Jo met them Tuesday at the Ashgrove site visit — log that instead?

Known by fills itself in from your Microsoft 365 mail headers. Nobody logs a thing.

to be fair

when a general crm is the better choice.

We’d rather you picked the right tool than found out in six months.

Campaigns are how you win workIf new work comes from landing pages, ad tracking and automated nurture across thousands of leads, HubSpot is a marketing platform and tiny+ isn’t one.

You are two peopleA per-seat plan for two can cost less than a plan for a firm. tiny+ earns its keep when more of the firm is in it.

Or run bothPlenty of firms keep a marketing platform for campaigns and tiny+ for clients and projects. Lists go to Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor; Zapier and the API connect the rest.

pricing, plainly

per seat on theirs, per firm on ours.

We won’t quote the other products’ prices here; their pages are current, and so is ours.

PipedrivePer-seat plans, published on their site.see their page ›HubSpotFree CRM, then per-seat Starter, Professional and Enterprise.see their page ›tiny+Standard and Pro, priced per firm, so everyone can have a login. 30-day trial.see pricing ›

the other comparisons

the other two pages a practice manager reads.

Each one is honest about what the other tool does better.

tiny+ vs practice management CRMsDeltek, BQE Core, Monograph, Rapport3 tiny+ with Synergya pairing, not a comparison

the three-sentence version.

tiny+ is for design firms that win work through relationships, proposals and tenders, with directors, project leads and marketing all in it. A general CRM suits you better if campaigns and automation are the centre of how you win work. Try it free, and run a real tender through it.

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