Zendesk Sell is retiring: Pipedrive vs HubSpot vs Attio, priced and picked
Zendesk is retiring Sell on 31 August 2027, and the built-in export leaves your emails, call logs and activity history behind. We priced the three CRMs Sell teams are moving to for a 10-seat sales team over 12 months, listed what the export misses, and took a side.
By Ishan Vats · Founder of IV Consulting · sets up sales CRMs and outbound systems for small teams
Zendesk SellRetires 31 Aug 2027
Pipedrive Growth$2,880 a year
HubSpot Pro$12,300 year one
Zendesk retires Sell on 31 August 2027, but your data is deleted when your Sell subscription ends if that comes first, so your real deadline is your renewal date. The built-in export covers leads, contacts, deals, notes, tasks and smart lists, not activity history, appointments, emails, call logs or documents. For a 10-seat team on annual billing, the tier where automation starts costs $2,880 a year on Pipedrive Growth, $9,480 on Attio Pro and $12,300 in year one on HubSpot Sales Hub Professional (including its $1,500 onboarding fee). Our verdict: move most Sell teams to Pipedrive. It is the closest model to Sell, Zendesk's named migration partner, and the cheapest automation tier by a wide margin. Pick HubSpot only if marketing and sales must share one platform, and Attio only if you want a flexible data model and API more than a classic pipeline.
The timeline
When is Zendesk Sell actually shut down, and when is your data deleted?
Zendesk announced on 9 September 2025 that Sell and the Sell mobile app retire on 31 August 2027. Customers keep full access until then. But Zendesk deletes Sell data either when your Sell subscription ends or starting 31 August 2027, whichever comes first, and once deletion begins it cannot be reversed.
That second clause is the one that catches teams out. If your Sell contract renews in March 2027 and you decide not to renew, March is your deadline, not August. Cancelling early to save a few months of fees can start the deletion clock before your export is checked.
| Date | What happens | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| 9 Sep 2025 | Zendesk announces the retirement and names Pipedrive as its migration partner | The clock started more than a year ago |
| Your renewal date | If you do not renew, the subscription ends and data deletion can begin | For many teams this is the real deadline |
| 31 Aug 2027 | Sell and the Sell mobile app retire; deletion starts for anyone still on it | The last possible day, not a target |
Source: Zendesk's own Sell retirement announcement, last edited 19 June 2026, read 5 November 2026.
Zendesk is not leaving the sales CRM business by accident. It says it is concentrating on service, which is also why it has been retiring older AI features on the support side; we covered that move in Zendesk's legacy AI agents removal. If you run Zendesk Support alongside Sell, keeping Support connected to your next CRM is part of the decision.
The export
What does the Zendesk Sell export include, and what does it leave behind?
Admins, or users with export permission, run the export from Settings, then Data, then Export, and get a CSV through a secure emailed link. It covers leads, contacts, deals, notes, tasks, smart lists, full account data and the Total Sales report. Zendesk states that activity history, appointments, emails, call logs and documents cannot be exported.
| Sell data | In the built-in export? | How to get it across |
|---|---|---|
| Leads, contacts, deals | Yes | CSV import into the new CRM |
| Notes and tasks | Yes | CSV import; tasks usually become activities |
| Smart lists, full account data, Total Sales report | Yes | Rebuild lists as filters or views; keep the report as a baseline |
| Activity history and appointments | No | Migration service, or archive |
| Emails | No | Reconnect Gmail or Outlook in the new CRM |
| Call logs and documents | No | Migration service, or archive outside the CRM |
Three details in Zendesk's notice matter more than they look:
Some fields hide in smart lists
Zendesk says some system fields, such as Parent Company ID, are only available through a smart list export. If you skip it, your company hierarchy arrives flat and has to be rebuilt by hand.
Export files expire
Exports stay in the Export panel for 30 days after creation. Run a trial export early to test your import, then a final one close to cutover so nothing created in between is lost.
Custom fields do not come with you
No target CRM inherits Sell's custom fields. Pipedrive's own migration guide says to create them in Pipedrive first, using the same names, so the import can map them automatically.
Emails still live in your mailbox
The Sell export drops emails, but the threads themselves sit in Gmail or Outlook. Connecting the mailbox to the new CRM is how most teams get conversation history back. Check how far back that sync reaches before you count on it.
For call logs, appointments and documents, you have two routes: a migration service that reads more than the CSV (Pipedrive offers its own for Sell customers, and third parties such as Import2 and Faye sell tools for it), or accepting that history stays behind and archiving what you need. Ask any service for a written list of which Sell objects it moves before you pay. We have not tested these services, so treat their claims as claims until a trial import proves them.
The arithmetic
Pipedrive vs HubSpot vs Attio: what does a 10-seat team pay over 12 months?
Compare like with like: the tier where automation and email sequences start, because that is what a Sell team running cadences actually uses. For 10 seats on annual billing, that is $2,880 a year on Pipedrive Growth, $9,480 on Attio Pro and $12,300 in year one on HubSpot Sales Hub Professional, which carries a required $1,500 onboarding fee.
List prices read from each vendor's pricing page on 5 November 2026, US dollars, annual billing, 10 seats, 12 months, before tax and before any negotiated discount or add-on. We did not price Zendesk Sell itself because Sell is no longer something you can choose to stay on. Your quote may differ; the method holds.
| Tier, per seat per month (annual) | Pipedrive | Attio | HubSpot Sales Hub |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry paid tier | Lite $14 | Plus $35 (capped at 10 seats) | Starter $20 list |
| Entry tier, 10 seats, 12 months | $1,680 | $4,200 | $2,400 |
| Automation tier | Growth $24 (automations and nurturing sequences) | Pro $79 (sequences, call intelligence) | Professional $90 (plus $1,500 one-time onboarding) |
| Automation tier, 10 seats, 12 months | $2,880 | $9,480 | $12,300 year one, $10,800 after |
| Next tier up | Premium $49, $5,880 a year | Enterprise, custom | Enterprise $150 plus $3,500 onboarding |
| Monthly billing instead | Up to 26% more | Plus $44, Pro $99 | Professional $100 |
| Sell-specific help | Named Zendesk partner: 1:1 onboarding, unlimited migration, native Zendesk Support integration | Migration service on paid plans via sales | Standard onboarding (paid on Professional) |
Sources, read 5 November 2026: pipedrive.com/pricing, Pipedrive's Zendesk Sell page, attio.com/pricing and hubspot.com/pricing/sales. HubSpot was showing a new-customer discount on Starter that day; we used the $20 list price. Older reviews quote Attio at $29 and $69; the live page now shows $35 and $79 on annual billing. We have no commercial relationship with any vendor here.
The spread is the story. Pipedrive's automation tier costs less for a full year than HubSpot Professional's onboarding fee plus two months. Attio sits in the middle on price but caps its Plus plan at 10 seats, so a team of exactly 10 that hires one more rep is pushed to Pro at more than double the seat price.
A migration is the one moment you get to rebuild your pipeline stages, lead sources and signal fields without fighting legacy data. Most teams copy Sell field for field and inherit every workaround. See how we map the buying signals for your ICP into a CRM that routes leads instead of just storing them.
The verdict
Our verdict: which Zendesk Sell alternative should you move to, Pipedrive, HubSpot or Attio?
Move to Pipedrive unless you have a specific reason not to. For a 5 to 20 seat sales team leaving Sell, it is the lowest-risk and lowest-cost move: the same pipeline-first model, Zendesk's own migration partner, free onboarding and migration for Sell customers, and an automation tier at $24 a seat. We take that side for three reasons, and name the two cases where we would not.
1. Same shape, least retraining
Sell is a deal pipeline with leads, contacts, companies and tasks. Pipedrive maps those almost one to one: leads to leads, contacts to persons, companies to organizations, deals to deals, tasks to activities. Your reps keep the mental model.
2. The migration is someone else's job
Pipedrive built migration tooling with Zendesk and advertises unlimited migration with no hidden fees for Sell customers. Neither HubSpot nor Attio has a Sell-specific offer on its pricing page.
3. A quarter of the cost
$2,880 a year against $9,480 on Attio Pro and $12,300 on HubSpot Professional for 10 seats. That gap pays for a lot of setup work, or a data tool, every year.
Pick HubSpot instead if
- Marketing already runs on HubSpot, or needs to, and you want one contact record across both teams
- You can budget for Professional; Starter will not replace a Sell setup that relied on automation
- You want HubSpot's credit-metered AI agents and accept that their usage adds to the bill
Pick Attio instead if
- Your process is not a classic pipeline, such as partnerships, investors or a product-led motion
- Your ops run on n8n or custom code and API, webhook and MCP access matter more than a sales UI
- You are 10 seats or fewer on Plus, or already planning for Pro pricing
What we would not do: use the retirement as a reason to move into Notion or a spreadsheet to save money. That can work for a founder-led team with a handful of deals; we compared it honestly in Notion CRM vs HubSpot vs Pipedrive. A team that already had Sell's cadences and reporting will feel the loss in the first month.
We have not migrated a Zendesk Sell account ourselves, so this is not a migration war story. It is a verdict from the vendors' own documents, priced on the day, plus what we see setting up CRMs for small sales teams: the CRM matters less than whether stages, owners and lead sources are defined before data goes in. Pipedrive wins here because it removes the most risk for the least money, not because it is the most powerful tool on the list.
The plan
How do you migrate from Zendesk Sell without losing data?
Five steps, in this order: find your real deadline, inventory and recreate custom fields, run a trial export and import, decide what history you will rebuild or archive, then do a final export and cut over before you cancel Sell. Do not cancel until the final import is verified.
Find the real deadline
Check your Sell renewal date. If it lands before 31 August 2027 and you will not renew, that date is your cutover deadline. Work back eight weeks from it.
Inventory and recreate fields
List every custom field, pipeline, stage and lead source in Sell. Delete what nobody uses, then create the rest in the new CRM with matching names so the import maps them.
Trial export and import
Run the standard export plus a smart list export for fields like Parent Company ID. Import into a test pipeline, then check that contacts link to companies and deals link to both. Keep unique IDs or emails to rejoin records exported separately.
Decide on history
Emails: reconnect mailboxes in the new CRM. Calls, appointments and documents: use a migration service that confirms it moves them, or archive them outside the CRM. Write down what you chose to leave behind.
Final export, cutover, then cancel
Freeze Sell for a day, run the final export, import, spot-check 20 deals end to end, switch reps over, and only then let the Sell subscription lapse.
If the reason you are rebuilding is outbound, plan the enrichment and signal fields now rather than bolting them on later. Our guide to buying signals worth acting on covers which ones deserve a CRM field and an owner.
FAQ
Questions about the Zendesk Sell retirement
When is Zendesk Sell being retired?
Zendesk Sell and the Sell mobile app retire on 31 August 2027. Zendesk announced it on 9 September 2025. Data is deleted when your Sell subscription ends or from 31 August 2027, whichever comes first, and deletion cannot be reversed.
What data can you export from Zendesk Sell?
The built-in export covers leads, contacts, deals, notes, tasks, smart lists, full account data and the Total Sales report as CSV. Activity history, appointments, emails, call logs and documents cannot be exported, and some system fields such as Parent Company ID are only available through a smart list export.
What is the best Zendesk Sell alternative?
For most 5 to 20 seat sales teams, Pipedrive. It has the closest data model to Sell, is Zendesk's named migration partner with free onboarding and migration for Sell customers, and its automation tier costs $24 a seat a month on annual billing. HubSpot fits teams that need marketing and sales on one platform; Attio fits teams that want a flexible data model and API.
How much does it cost to replace Zendesk Sell for a 10-person team?
On list prices read 5 November 2026 with annual billing, the automation tier for 10 seats over 12 months costs $2,880 on Pipedrive Growth, $9,480 on Attio Pro and $12,300 in year one on HubSpot Sales Hub Professional, including its required $1,500 onboarding fee. Entry tiers cost $1,680, $4,200 and $2,400 respectively.
Can I move Zendesk Sell emails and call logs to a new CRM?
Not through Sell's built-in export. Emails still live in your Gmail or Outlook mailbox, so connecting it to the new CRM is the usual way to restore conversation history. For call logs, appointments and documents, use a migration service that confirms in writing that it moves them, or archive them outside the CRM before Sell data is deleted.
Ishan Vats
Founder, IV Consulting · GTM engineering & automation
I set up sales CRMs and outbound systems for small teams, wired to Clay, Smartlead and n8n. The retirement dates and export limits come from Zendesk's own notice, and every price was read from the vendor's pricing page on 5 November 2026. We have not migrated a Sell account ourselves, so the verdict is reasoned, not a case study; swap in your own quotes.
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Read the guide →Moving off Zendesk Sell anyway? Rebuild the pipeline, not just the data.
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