Who this onboarding is for
Onboarding is the work of getting people to use a system that already exists. It fits four situations that look alike from the outside and need slightly different handling.
- A new sales team going live. The account has been built and the first users are about to log in.
- A department joining an account. Customer success, account management or a second sales team arrives in a pipeline that was designed for someone else.
- A team inherited through an acquisition. People with their own habits, their own tools and no reason yet to trust yours.
- A batch of new hires. Several people starting in the same month, which is the moment a team either passes the habits on or loses them.
In all four, the account is the easy part. The hard part is what each person sees on day one, whether they know the three things they must do daily, and whether anyone notices in week two that one rep has stopped logging calls.
Who it is not for
Do not buy onboarding if the account still runs on default stages and a pipeline nobody has agreed on. Training people on that is training them twice. Start with the setup service for a small team or the full implementation for a larger one, and onboard on top of the result. Also skip it if all you want is a product tour. The vendor's own onboarding sessions do that well, and the page on onboarding versus implementation explains where the line between the two sits.
What we deliver, in order
Five pieces of work, in a fixed order. Each one has a deliverable you can inspect, so you know whether a phase happened.
Phase 1. Access and roles, before day one
We decide with you who gets which seat, which permission set and which visibility, and we set it up before anyone logs in. A rep who can see every deal and export every contact is a risk on day one and a habit by day thirty. You receive a role matrix: each role, what it can see, what it can edit and what it can export. The reasoning for each setting is in the permissions guide.
Phase 2. Each person's starting point
Nothing makes a new user feel lost faster than an empty screen or a screen of everyone else's work. We assign the records that belong to each person, save the filters and views that make up their day, and set the defaults for a new deal. You receive a working view per role and a check that every user's first screen shows their own work.
Phase 3. Launch sessions, by role
One session per role, on your own configured account, in the time zone the team works in. Reps see the daily path: log a call, move a deal, send a proposal, find yesterday's work. Managers see the Monday view and what to ask in a pipeline review. Administrators see what to change, what to leave alone and how to request a change. You receive a short written guide per role, in your stage names and your field names.
Phase 4. Guided weeks
Questions arrive when real work starts, not in the session. For the next weeks we run office hours, look over a few users' shoulders and answer the small questions that stop people from using the system. You receive a running list of what people asked, which doubles as a list of what the guide and the configuration got wrong.
Phase 5. The day 30 review
We review the adoption numbers, retire the fields nobody filled, rename the stage that keeps causing arguments and add the two automations the team asked for. You receive a short written review and a list of what to do next, in order. The review is worth more than an extra week of configuration before go-live.
The first 30 days at a glance
| Period | What happens | What we look at |
|---|---|---|
| Before day one | Seats, roles, views and defaults are set | Each user's first screen shows their own work |
| Week 1 | Role sessions, then real work starts in the account | Everyone logged in, and the first deal moved |
| Weeks 2 and 3 | Office hours, shoulder surfing and fixes to the guide | Which question comes up three times |
| Week 4 | Adoption review with the manager and the owner | The three signals, per person |
| Day 30 | Written review and the list of changes | Which fields, stages and automations earn their place |
The numbers we watch, and what we do about a low one
Adoption is a number, and it is cheap to measure. We look at three, per person and per team, once a week during the first month.
| Signal | A low number usually means | First move |
|---|---|---|
| Deals with a next activity | Reps do not know what to schedule, or the activity types do not match the day | Ask the rep, then fix the activity types |
| Deals updated in the last seven days | The pipeline is a record, not a tool, or a private sheet is still in use | Find the sheet and ask what it does better |
| Emails synced per user | Sync is not connected, or people write from another client | Check the connection before the person |
Where a number is low, we ask the person before we change the system. Usually the process is unclear and the tool is fine. The longer treatment of why teams stop using a CRM, and what to do each week, is in the adoption guide, and the formal definition of the rate is in CRM adoption rate.
What we need from your team
- A manager who runs the weekly pipeline review from Pipedrive, from the first week. If the manager exports to a sheet, the team will keep a sheet.
- An owner who will become the administrator, present in every session.
- The team in the room for the launch sessions, with their calendars blocked. A session that people join from a car does not stick.
- A decision, in writing, on which tools Pipedrive replaces and by what date.
What onboarding costs
Onboarding has no price band of its own in our published numbers, because what it costs depends on how much of the work is already done. Here is how it is priced in the three situations we meet.
| Situation | How it is priced |
|---|---|
| Part of a new implementation, team of 5 to 20 | Inside the adoption phases of the project, which sits in the band of $6,600 to $13,200 over 4 to 8 weeks |
| Part of a new implementation, team of 20 to 80 | Inside the adoption phases of the project, which sits in the band of $13,200 to $27,500 over 8 to 14 weeks |
| A team joining an account that already works | A fixed block, scoped on a call and agreed in writing before it starts |
For orientation, a consultant's hour on the market costs $100 to $165, but we do not quote onboarding by the hour, because a meter rewards sessions and not adoption. If the quote you hold lists a single line for training with no mention of roles, the guide or a review, run it through the quote review. Licenses are paid to Pipedrive directly, per user, per month.
What clients say
PipeDriven is powered by Sales Surge. Sales-Surge B.V. is a Pipedrive Platinum Partner and its Marketplace listing shows 5.0 from 11 reviews. Two of them speak to how a team behaved once the system was in place.
In an attempt to streamline our construction company's business processes and centralize information, we knew we had to get started with Pipedrive. But we had no idea how to begin. The Sales Surge team helped us effectively map out our company-specific pipelines, devise automations, and provide training that allows us to continue using the system independently. We also consistently received quick answers to small questions we had afterwards. Now, a month has passed since everyone has been active
Working with Sales Surge has brought clarity and structure to our enterprise sales motion. Their approach is practical and execution focused, helping us improve pipeline discipline, stakeholder engagement, and outreach consistency.
More are on the reviews page. We read the first one the same way you should: it describes a month, not a year, and a longer view of adoption is what the weekly numbers are for.
When this is not the right choice
- The account is not ready. Fix the build first. Onboarding a bad setup produces confident users of a bad setup.
- Nobody will own the account afterwards. Without an internal owner the guide goes stale and the next hire learns from whoever is nearby. The in-house admin versus partner page covers who should hold the role.
- The problem is a leadership one. If the head of sales does not use the system, no onboarding will make the team do it.
- You only need training content. The role-based format on the training and adoption page is the lighter route.
Next step
Tell us who is starting, in which month and on which account. We will say whether the account is ready to onboard onto, what the roles should look like and what the first 30 days will cost. If you are not sure the account is ready, the readiness assessment answers that in ten questions, and the data hygiene guide lists the checks that decide whether people trust what they see on day one.
Last reviewed: October 2026. Amounts are in US dollars and rounded.