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Zendesk, known primarily for its customer support software, has been expanding its offerings to cover more aspects of customer engagement. Zendesk Sell is one of the best CRM platforms on the market and aims to provide sales teams with a streamlined tool for managing leads, deals, and customer interactions.

It promises to boost productivity, improve pipeline visibility, and ultimately drive revenue growth. The CRM integrates closely with Zendesk's support tools, potentially offering a more cohesive customer experience across sales and service departments.

To add a "Why you can trust TechRadar Pro" section to the Zendesk Sell review, it is effective to highlight the platform's unique position as a CRM built by a customer service giant and how TechRadar’s testing confirms whether that integration actually works.

At TechRadar Pro, our business technology experts move beyond the marketing brochures to provide hands-on, objective analysis. To review Zendesk Sell, I spent days navigating the platform’s interface, testing its Sell-to-Support data pipelines, and evaluating its AI-driven forecasting tools.

Our reviews are 100% independent. We never accept payment for product rankings, ensuring that our verdict on Zendesk’s usability and its specific value for service-heavy sales teams is based entirely on real-world performance. When we identify a strength or a deal-breaker flaw, it is because we have encountered it firsthand during our testing process.

Below, I'll dive deep into Zendesk Sell's features, usability, pricing, and overall performance to provide an unbiased analysis of how well it stacks up against other CRM competitors for sales teams. Read on for the full Zendesk Sell review.

Zendesk Sell core capabilities

(Image credit: Zendesk)

Zendesk Sell provides a centralized database for storing and accessing customer information, including contact details, interaction history, and account-specific notes. I began by importing and organizing my test contact list. I appreciated that the system supported both CSV and Excel file imports. It's helpful how the system tracks leads from initial contact to conversion.

The platform offers customizable sales pipelines, allowing me to adjust the stages to fit my sales process. I noticed the intuitive interface for moving deals through stages, making it easy to visualize progress and spot potential bottlenecks. However, some advanced lead management features, such as task automation and lead scoring, are limited to higher-tier plans.

Zendesk includes forecasting tools that enable sales managers to estimate deal volume and revenue growth. During my evaluation, I generated accurate forecasts using sample historical data and current pipeline status. While these features work well, I’ve seen more advanced predictive analytics in other CRMs.

The platform provides 20 pre-built charts, reports, and dashboards for insights into key sales metrics. It also allows the creation of custom reports using a drag-and-drop interface. Analyzing trends by region or team and predicting revenue growth adds value for sales managers. However, some users noted that competitors offer more detailed reporting options.

I liked how the CRM integrates with preferred communication tools. Zendesk works smoothly with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, automatically logging email communications. This integration saves time and ensures all customer interactions are captured within the CRM, offering a complete view of customer relationships. It also provides various automation tools, including task assignments, email follow-ups, and lead nurturing workflows. One such recent addition in this area concerns the dedicated Sales Copilot included in the CRM's AI suite. This can autonomously research a prospect’s support history to provide a sales rep with a Sentiment Summary before they jump on a call.

In addition to email, Zendesk has a marketplace with many pre-built integrations and developer-friendly APIs. You can select from thousands of pre-built connectors to popular apps like Asana, Dialpad, SurveyMonkey, and Ada. Zendesk also provides API Reference Docs to help developers create custom integrations, offering all necessary tools and step-by-step instructions.

Recently, a major UI overhaul has also narrowed the gap between Sell and Support, making using the CRM a little easier. Reps can now view full Zendesk Sunshine custom objects directly within the Sell lead card, providing a truly 360-degree view of the customer without switching tabs.

Zendesk’s mobile app, available for iPhone, iPad, and Android, offers full functionality, including geolocation features. You can create and manage tickets, view reports, and receive real-time alerts about customer requests. This allows sales reps to manage customer interactions on the go and enables sales managers to track their progress from the office.

However, while Zendesk Sell covers essential CRM capabilities, some features are restricted to higher-tier plans. Advanced permissions and roles, which are important for larger sales teams, are only available in the Professional Plan. Some users reported slow load times and occasional bugs, especially after adding third-party integrations.

How easy is Zendesk Sell CRM to use?

I found Zendesk Sell to be user-friendly, though it has some learning curves. Upon logging in, I saw a clean, modern interface that was easy to navigate. The customizable dashboard lets users prioritize important information for their roles.

I also appreciated Zendesk’s logical organization of information. Contacts, deals, and tasks are accessible from the main menu. I could switch between different views quickly as I changed my focus. The option to customize these views was helpful, allowing me to concentrate on the most relevant details for my workflow.

Zendesk’s CRM interface is very visual. Its smart lists help segment contacts and leads based on various criteria. The drag-and-drop feature for moving deals through the pipeline made it even more user-friendly. Together, these elements simplify the sales process.

Onboarding is straightforward. As an admin user, I could set up the system and invite team members easily. The guided setup process helps new users learn to create contacts, deals, and tasks. This support is useful for those new to CRM systems.

Zendesk Sell excels in integrating with other Zendesk products, especially the customer support platform. For businesses already using Zendesk for service, the smooth connection between sales and support data enhances usability and data consistency.

In terms of customization, Zendesk Sell strikes a balance between flexibility and simplicity. I tailored the system to my needs without feeling overwhelmed. Creating custom fields, deal stages, and pipelines allowed me to adjust the CRM to my specific sales process.

However, I noticed that some advanced features in higher-tier plans required more exploration to understand fully. For instance, setting up custom fields and creating advanced reports took time to master. I also found limitations in customization in lower-tier plans. Advanced automation features and custom dashboards are available only in higher-priced plans.

Zendesk offers mobile apps for both iOS and Android. I found them well-designed and responsive, providing most desktop functionality. This is beneficial for sales teams needing to access and update information while on the go.

Zendesk Sell CRM integrations

(Image credit: Zendesk)

Zendesk’s integrations are among its best features. Its close connection with Zendesk’s customer support platform ensures smooth data flow between sales and support teams, offering a unified view of customer interactions. Additionally, Zendesk Sell provides native integrations with major productivity suites such as Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.

For businesses using other popular SaaS applications, Zendesk Sell integrates with tools like Mailchimp for email marketing, QuickBooks for accounting, and Zapier for connecting to many other apps. The setup process for these integrations is easy, typically needing just a few clicks to authorize and configure.

You can find all these integrations at Zendesk Marketplace, which serves as a center for discovering and installing both native and third-party apps and plugins. Although Zendesk offers over 1,500 integrations, some competitors provide even more out-of-the-box connectors for popular applications.

For custom integration development, Zendesk Sell features a powerful API that enables developers to create specific connections with other systems. It includes both REST APIs for basic CRUD operations and advanced APIs like the Sync API for real-time data synchronization. The API documentation is thorough and well-organized, including step-by-step instructions for developers. I appreciate how Zendesk allows you to submit your custom integrations as paid apps to the Zendesk Marketplace, enabling you to earn from your work.

While examining the integration capabilities, I also noticed a few limitations. Some advanced integration features are available only in higher-tier plans, which may affect smaller businesses or those with budget limitations. There’s also a premium API for creating advanced custom apps that’s accessible only from the Growth plan onward.

How good is Zendesk Sell CRM customer support?

(Image credit: Zendesk)

When assessing Zendesk Sell's customer support, I found a well-rounded system built on Zendesk's customer service expertise. The platform offers various ways for users to get help, including live support and self-service options.

Zendesk Sell provides support via email and live chat for all pricing tiers. However, phone support is limited to higher-tier plans, which might pose challenges for smaller businesses. Chat support is quick, with agents usually available during business hours.

Email support is accessible 24/7, benefiting businesses across different time zones. Users receive replies within a few hours, even during off-peak times. The quality of email responses is generally high, offering detailed answers and step-by-step instructions when necessary.

Zendesk Sell's self-service features are strong, showcasing the company's expertise in knowledge management. The extensive knowledge base covers many topics, from basic setup to advanced features. I found the articles clear, concise, and frequently updated to reflect recent platform changes. Helpful screenshots and video tutorials enhance understanding, particularly for visual learners.

Zendesk's community forum is another useful self-service resource, active and well-moderated, with contributions from both company staff and experienced users. Peer support can be especially valuable for addressing unique or complex issues not detailed in standard documentation.

In terms of response and resolution times, Zendesk Sell generally performs well. Its service level agreements state that the company aims for a first response time of under 8 hours for standard inquiries and under 1 hour for urgent issues on higher-tier plans. Resolution times depend on the issue's complexity, but straightforward problems usually receive solutions in the first interaction.

Zendesk Sell CRM pricing and plans

Plan

Team

Growth

Professional

Enterprise

Price

$19/user/month

$55/user/month

$115/user/month

$169/user/month+

Best For

Small teams needing basic CRM functionality

Growing businesses requiring more advanced tools

Larger teams needing customization and automation

Enterprise-level organizations with complex needs

Features

Customizable sales pipeline; Email integration; Basic reporting

Advanced sales reports; Sales forecasting; Prospecting tools

Lead and deal scoring; Task automation; Advanced permissions

Unlimited pipelines; Custom APIs; Premium support

Limitations

Limited to 2 sales pipelines

Lacks advanced automation features

May be costly for smaller teams

Pricing may be prohibitive for some businesses

Zendesk Sell employs a tiered pricing model with four plans tailored for various business sizes and needs. The pricing is clear, calculated per user, per month. While Zendesk Sell's pricing is competitive in the CRM market, it may not be the most cost-effective choice, this means Zendesk typically isn’t the best CRM for start ups on a shoestring budget.

The entry-level Team plan costs $19 per user each month with annual billing. It offers essential CRM features like contact and deal management, email integration, and basic reporting. While this plan makes Zendesk a contender as one of the best CRM for small business, it lacks some common features in other platforms' entry-level plans, such as web-to-lead forms and advanced analytics.

The mid-tier Growth plan is priced at $55 per user per month when billed annually. It introduces advanced features like sales forecasting, bulk email templates, and product catalogs. This plan strikes a better balance of features and cost, making it suitable for growing businesses.

The Professional plan at $115 per user per month provides more advanced tools, including lead and deal scoring, task automation, and advanced permissions. These features can greatly enhance sales processes, but the significant price increase from the Growth plan may cause hesitation for some businesses.

At the highest level, the Enterprise plan begins at $169 per user per month with annual billing. This plan encompasses all features from the lower tiers, along with advanced customization options, dedicated account management, and premium support. While thorough, this pricing positions Zendesk Sell among the higher-priced enterprise-level CRM solutions.

Certain advanced features, like the power dialer or extra storage, incur additional costs. Zendesk offers a bundle called the Zendesk Suite, which combines Zendesk Sell with other products like Support and Chat, potentially offering significant savings for businesses using multiple products.

Additionally, Zendesk Sell provides a 15% discount for annual billing compared to monthly billing, which can lead to substantial savings for larger teams. A 14-day free trial is available for all plans, allowing potential customers to explore the platform before committing. However, Zendesk misses out on being one of the best free CRM platforms with no free tier, which may be a drawback for very small businesses or individuals seeking a no-cost CRM solution.

How to pick

Choosing Zendesk Sell is a strategic move if your primary goal is customer lifecycle visibility rather than just lead acquisition. To decide if it fits your tech stack, consider your strategy and internal resources carefully.

For instance, assess your technical ability. Zendesk Sell is built on Zendesk Sunshine, an open, flexible CRM platform. This is ideal if you plan to build custom apps or need to pull in data from external data warehouses like Snowflake. However, if you don't have developer resources and just want a plug-and-play tool with no customization required, you may find the depth of Zendesk's platform more than you actually need.

Another factor in your decision should be whether you actually need a CRM or, at least, an upgrade on one. If your team is used to the dense, spreadsheet-heavy legacy systems of the early 2010s, Zendesk Sell will feel like a massive upgrade. It focuses on a single-pane-of-glass philosophy. However, if your team requires highly visual, board-based project management alongside their CRM, you might find Monday Sales CRM more flexible for your specific layout needs.

How we choose

At TechRadar Pro, our review process is designed to focus on the actual daily workflows of a modern business. We don't just look at screenshots. We perform a full installation, importing live datasets (typically from CSVs or rival CRMs like HubSpot) to measure the Time-to-Value. We specifically look for how many manual steps are required before a sales rep can make their first call.

Moreover, we direct our assessment based on unique aspects of the particular CRM we are evaluating. So, for Zendesk, we tested the bi-directional data flow between Sell and Support. We simulated customer tickets to see if the sales rep receives real-time sentiment alerts and if the data remains consistent across both platforms without manual syncing.

We also took mobile capabilities into account, knowing that this is of increasing importance for sales teams. As such, we tested the Zendesk Sell mobile app in the field, evaluating its offline capabilities, geo-mapping for lead proximity, and how easily a rep can update a deal stage while on the move.

Zendesk Sell CRM: Summary

After analyzing Zendesk Sell, I find it a strong and user-friendly option that balances essential features with ease of use. Its strengths include an intuitive interface, solid integration with customer support tools, and regular updates that keep the platform competitive.

Zendesk Sell suits small to medium-sized businesses seeking a unified approach to sales and customer support. Its seamless integration with other Zendesk products makes it a great choice for companies using or considering their support platform.

However, larger enterprises or those needing specialized CRM features may find Zendesk Sell somewhat limited compared to established enterprise solutions. Also, while the pricing structure is competitive, it might be high for very small businesses or startups.

Zendesk Sell CRM FAQWhat are Zendesk Sell's core features?

Zendesk Sell offers a centralized database for customer information, customizable sales pipelines, and tools for sales forecasting and reporting. It also integrates with email and offers various automation tools, meaning it has most of the core capabilities that users expect from a CRM.

How does Zendesk Sell handle customer data?

Zendesk Sell provides a centralized database for storing and accessing contact details, interaction history, and notes. It also supports importing data from CSV and Excel files. As such, it provides a variety of ways for users to input and store customer data.

How does Zendesk Sell support the sales process and its aftermath?

Zendesk Sell gives users a customizable sales pipelines with an intuitive drag-and-drop interface for moving deals between stages. This helps sales teams visualize progress and identify bottlenecks.

Once the sales process has concluded - either successfully or not - Zendesk Sell also boasts reporting and analytics functionality. The platform includes 20 pre-built charts and dashboards and allows for the creation of custom reports using a drag-and-drop interface. This helps sales managers analyze trends and predict revenue growth.

Is Zendesk Sell a good choice for small businesses?

That all depends. Certainly, the entry-level "Team" plan is geared towards small teams and offers essential CRM functionality. However, the pricing may not be the most cost-effective for startups on a tight budget, as there is no free tier.

Does Zendesk Sell have a mobile app?

Yes, Zendesk Sell has a well-designed and responsive mobile app for both iOS and Android, offering most desktop functionality for sales reps on the go. This is especially important now that hybrid work has become commonplace, with many sales and marketing professionals working remotely at least some of the time.

How does the platform integrate with Zendesk's other products?

Zendesk Sell integrates seamlessly with Zendesk's customer support platform, ensuring a unified view of customer interactions for both sales and service teams. If businesses already use some of the other tools within the Zendesk suite, the appeal of Zendesk Sell is sure to increase.

What are some of the limitations of Zendesk Sell?

Perhaps the biggest limitation - although, certainly not one that is unique to Zendesk Sell - is that some advanced features, such as task automation, lead scoring, and advanced permissions, are restricted to higher-tier plans. Some users have also reported slow load times and occasional bugs after adding third-party integrations.

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Although businesses aren't seeing returns from AI, many are moving from pilots to real-world deployments, so they must be confident.

Founded in 2010, Pipedrive has grown to serve over 100,000 companies across more than 175 countries. It’s designed to help sales teams manage leads, track deals, and streamline sales processes.

At its heart, Pipedrive CRM offers a visual sales pipeline that lets users easily move deals through different stages by dragging and dropping them. Its intuitive interface is supported by features such as contact management, email integration, reporting tools, and workflow automation. Ultimately, it aims to simplify sales management by providing insights that help teams close more deals, making it one of the best CRM platforms out there.

In this review, I'll take a close look at Pipedrive's key features, usability, pricing, and overall performance to see if it lives up to its reputation as a user-friendly and effective CRM solution. I'll share my hands-on experience with the software and compare it to other CRM solutions in the market to see how it stacks up.

At TechRadar Pro, our business software experts don’t just summarize product pages - we get hands-on with the tools we review. To evaluate Pipedrive, I spent dozens of hours building custom sales pipelines, importing real-world lead data, and testing the platform's automation recipes to see if they truly save time.

Our reviews are 100% independent. We never accept payment for product rankings, ensuring that our verdict on Pipedrive’s ease of use and its sales-first philosophy is based solely on practical performance. When we recommend a feature or highlight a limitation, it is because we have encountered it ourselves during our rigorous testing process.

Pipedrive's core capabilities

(Image credit: Pipedrive)

At the heart of Pipedrive’s system is the contact and lead management feature. I liked how easy it was to import and organize contacts, with the ability to add custom fields to capture specific information relevant to my sales process. The system allows for a comprehensive view of each contact, including communication history, associated deals, and activities.

Pipedrive’s visual pipeline interface is one of its standout features, allowing me to track and move deals through various stages with a simple drag-and-drop action. I found it very easy to maintain a clear overview of my sales pipeline and quickly identify which opportunities needed attention.

There’s a paid LeadBooster add-on that enhances Pipedrive’s lead management capabilities even further. It includes web forms, live chat, and a prospecting tool that can help generate and qualify leads automatically. While these are powerful and well-designed, it's worth noting that they come at an additional cost on top of your base plan.

Pipedrive also offers advanced forecasting capabilities — the platform creates customizable sales forecasts based on the deals in your pipeline, allowing for accurate revenue predictions. I found the ability to create multiple pipelines particularly useful, as it allowed me to customize the sales process for different products or customer segments separately.

Pipedrive's Projects add-on has been overhauled recently, allowing for a seamless transition from Closed-Won to post-sale implementation, including automated task assignment for delivery teams.

While the CRM offers a range of pre-built reports based on various KPIs, Pipedrive’s custom reports are where it really shines. It offers a range of options to measure team efficiency, software effectiveness, and sales performance from a bevy of different angles. The reports themselves are incredibly visual, making it easy to understand the different charts, graphs, and numbers.

You can automate your sales workflows easily with Pipedrive. I found the process of setting up these automations to be straightforward, with a visual builder that made it easy to create complex workflows without needing any coding knowledge. However, there isn’t any support for marketing automation, which can put off some teams.

How easy it Pipedrive CRM to use?

Pipedrive’s minimalist design eliminates clutter, allowing users to focus on what matters most - managing their sales pipeline and customer relationships. The visual pipeline view is particularly user-friendly, offering a drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy to move deals through various stages.

Something that really impressed me was the smart contact data feature. With a single click, the system can search the internet for information about a prospect and populate records automatically. It saves a lot of time on data entry and research, allowing reps to focus more on actual selling activities.

Customization options on this platform are robust yet straightforward to implement. Pipedrive allows users to tailor fields, pipelines, and workflows to match their specific sales processes. During my testing, I was able to easily add custom fields to capture industry-specific information and create multiple pipelines for different product lines.

Pipedrive offers a variety of learning materials, including video tutorials, webinars, and a knowledge base. Its in-app guidance is particularly noteworthy, providing contextual tips and explanations as users navigate through different features.

Automation features in Pipedrive further enhance its usability. The platform offers a range of pre-built workflow automations that can be easily customized to fit specific needs. They help streamline repetitive tasks, such as follow-up emails or activity creation, allowing sales reps to focus more on building relationships and closing deals.

Similarly with AI, Pipedrive has integrated generative AI directly into its email composer. Unlike generic AI, this tool looks at the history of the specific deal to draft context-aware follow-ups that match the previous tone of the conversation, boosting productivity for sales reps and marketers who need to send a lot of messages.

Pipedrive offers a mobile app for both iOS and Android. It provides a seamless experience, allowing users to update deals, access contact information, and log activities on the go. I found the mobile interface to be just as intuitive as the desktop version, ensuring that sales teams can stay productive even when out of the office. This is an especially helpful feature for businesses with mobile sales teams.

However, I did find that setting up some of the more advanced features, like email sequences and certain automations, required a bit more time and effort to master. Still, Pipedrive offers ample documentation and training resources to get through the initial stages after implementation.

Pipedrive CRM integrations

(Image credit: Pipedrive)

Pipedrive CRM offers a powerful ecosystem that allows users to connect the CRM with a wide array of third-party applications. Pipedrive's Marketplace hosts over 400 out-of-the-box integrations, covering essential business tools across categories like email marketing, document management, project management, analytics, live chat, and accounting.

Connecting Pipedrive with popular tools like Slack, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams was a seamless process, allowing for real-time notifications and improved collaboration. The integration with email platforms like Gmail and Outlook was particularly useful, enabling me to manage emails and CRM data from a single interface. One integration that stood out was the Leadfeeder connection, which automatically transfers website lead data into Pipedrive.

There’s also an open API, which provides developers with the flexibility to create custom integrations when needed. It uses a JSON format for output and supports CORS requests, which adds to its versatility. I was impressed by the comprehensive documentation and developer resources available for API users, making it relatively straightforward for technical teams to extend functionality through custom integrations.

For users who aren't developers, Pipedrive offers integration with Zapier, a popular automation tool that can connect Pipedrive to thousands of other applications without requiring coding skills. This greatly expands the potential for creating automated workflows across different platforms, even if they don't have a direct integration with Pipedrive.

For a smooth flow of information, the platform uses database replicas that sync in real-time, ensuring data continuity and minimizing the risk of data loss. However, for those concerned about data backup, Pipedrive also conducts nightly backups of all database machines and creates encrypted off-site backups of customer databases.

For businesses looking to create more complex integrations or automate specific workflows, Pipedrive's Developer Platform offers additional tools. This includes webhooks, API endpoints, and SDKs, allowing for deeper customization of the CRM experience.

Plus, users will find that Pipedrive has deepened its native integrations recently to include Slack and Microsoft Teams. It's now possible to move deals between stages and update record values directly from a chat window without switching back to the CRM tab

How good is Pipedrive CRM customer support?

(Image credit: Pipedrive)

For all users, regardless of plan, Pipedrive provides 24/7 email and chatbot support. While the latter is a great option for basic queries requiring quick resolution, the former is meant for more complex issues that aren’t so time-sensitive.

Users on the Advanced, Professional, Power, or Enterprise plans have access to human agents during live chat. Response times are quick, usually within a few minutes. Support agents are knowledgeable, and able to address most of my basic queries efficiently. However, for more complex issues, I noticed that the initial response often involved directing me to relevant knowledge base articles rather than providing immediate solutions.

The availability of live chat support depends on your subscription tier. Advanced plan users can access live chat during business hours (9:00 am to 5:00 pm in the user's timezone), while Professional plan subscribers enjoy 24/5 support. Power and Enterprise users benefit from round-the-clock support, seven days a week.

For users on the Power or Enterprise plans, Pipedrive also offers phone support. However, it's worth noting that this service is only available during limited hours - from 7:00 am to 11:00 pm (CET/CEST) for English speakers, and from 10:00 am to 11:00 pm (CET/CEST) for Portuguese speakers.

For self-help purposes, Pipedrive’s knowledge base is extensive and well-organized, covering a wide range of topics from basic setup to advanced features. I found the articles to be clear, concise, and often accompanied by helpful screenshots or video tutorials.

Pipedrive also offers an online learning platform called Pipedrive Academy. This resource provides a series of video courses and tutorials designed to help users master various aspects of the CRM. I found these courses to be well-structured and particularly useful for new users or those looking to expand their knowledge of specific features.

Pipedrive CRM pricing and plans

Plan

Essential

Advanced

Professional

Power

Enterprise

Price

$12/user/month

$24/user/month

$49/user/month

$59/user/month

$79/user/month

Best For

Small teams starting with CRM

Teams scaling sales processes

Larger teams optimizing performance

Big teams with complex needs

Large organizations requiring robust management

Features

Visual sales pipeline; Basic lead management; Simple reporting

Email sync and tracking; Customizable automations; Sales prospecting tools

AI sales assistant; Contract management; Revenue forecasting

Project management; Expanded permissions; 24/7 phone support

Unlimited custom fields; Enhanced security; Advanced customization

Limitations

Limited open deals and custom fields

Restricted automation capabilities

No project management features

Fewer customization options

Minimum 10 users required

Pipedrive’s pricing is competitive and flexible, offering a range of options to suit different business needs and sizes. As of my review, Pipedrive offers five main pricing tiers: Essential, Advanced, Professional, Power, and Enterprise.

The Essential plan starts at $12/user/month, billed yearly. It offers basic CRM features: contact and deal management, customizable pipelines, and simple reporting. This option makes Pipedrive one of the best small business CRM platforms out there. Higher plans add more advanced features.

I found the Advanced plan, at $24/user/month, to be particularly great value. It includes email templates, tracking, and customizable automations, boosting sales team productivity. The Professional plan, priced at $49/user/month adds AI features, revenue forecasting, and e-signatures. It’s perfect for growing businesses.

For larger companies or those needing more complex solutions, the Power and Enterprise plans are available at $59 and $79 per user per month, respectively. These plans include project management, better security, and unlimited custom fields. They also offer incrementally higher limits on deals, reports, and automation workflows.

Across all plans, opting for annual billing instead of monthly can save you up to 17%. Pipedrive also offers a 14-day free trial for all its plans, which is less than some competitors but still reasonable. While the base plans offer comprehensive features, Pipedrive provides several add-ons that can enhance functionality. These include LeadBooster for lead generation (starting at $32.50 per company monthly), Web Visitors Tracking ($41 per company monthly), and Campaigns for email marketing ($13.33 per company monthly).

A potential drawback I noticed is that Pipedrive doesn't offer a free plan beyond the trial period. For very small businesses or solopreneurs looking for a free CRM solution, this could be a limitation. This means Pipedrive isn't necessarily one of the best CRM for start ups on a shoe string budget, although start ups with a small budget could benefit from the affordable Essential plan.

It's also worth mentioning that Pipedrive's pricing can vary depending on your location and the currency you're billed in. I found that prices are often kept at the same numerical value across different currencies (e.g., $99 USD, €99 EUR, £99 GBP), which can result in higher costs for users outside the US.

After thoroughly evaluating Pipedrive across multiple key areas, I believe this is a top-tier CRM platform with its visual pipeline interface and intuitive deal management tools standing out as significant strengths.

With its user-friendly interface and straightforward customization options, companies should have no trouble ensuring a healthy level of adoption even through the early stages of implementation. But while Pipedrive offers a solid range of integrations and a well-documented API, there's room for improvement in terms of advanced marketing automation capabilities. The customer support, though generally responsive and helpful, could benefit from more consistent quality and faster response times for email inquiries.

Overall, Pipedrive CRM is a strong choice for small and midsize businesses looking for an accessible yet feature-rich sales management platform. While there are areas for improvement, it delivers more than its share of value for the price point.

How to pick

To choose the right CRM, a company must decide whether they need a broad business platform or a specialized sales engine. Pipedrive is the latter so if your primary goal is pipeline velocity rather than all-in-one business management, it's a solid pick.

If you need a single tool to handle marketing, customer support, and sales, HubSpot or Zoho may be better solutions, but if your sales team feels overwhelmed by those complex interfaces, Pipedrive is the winner. Similarly, if you have a dedicated IT team to build custom objects and complex logic, Salesforce offers more raw power. But if you need to be up and running in 48 hours without a consultant, Pipedrive’s visual drag-and-drop interface is virtually foolproof.

As always, price is also a consideration. So, before picking, calculate your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). If you need 10 different add-ons, a mid-tier Monday Sales CRM or Freshsales plan might actually be more cost-effective for your 2026 budget.

How we choose

At TechRadar Pro, we don’t just rank software based on market share or name recognition. Our selection process for "Best of" lists and individual reviews like this one follows a weighted evaluation framework designed to separate operational utility from marketing hype. When we choose to feature or recommend a platform like Pipedrive, it is because it has met or exceeded various criteria - from ease-of-use to pricing.

By sticking to our rigorous standards, we ensure that our recommendations - whether for a solo founder or a scaling enterprise - are based on the platform's ability to act as a genuine growth engine for your business.

Pipedrive CRM review: Summary Pipedrive CRM FAQWhat is Pipedrive's core feature?

At its heart, Pipedrive is built around the visual sales pipeline. This standout feature allows users to easily track and manage deals through different stages with a simple drag-and-drop interface. This makes it incredibly easy to maintain a clear overview of your sales process and quickly identify which opportunities need attention.

Of course, there's much more to Pipedrive too, including lead management and workflow automation features. The latter, for example, centers around a visual builder, which makes it straightforward to set up automations for repetitive tasks, such as sending follow-up emails or creating activities. However, it is worth noting that it does not natively support marketing automation, which may be a consideration for some teams.

Can I create my own sales reports with Pipedrive?

Although Pipedrive offers a range of pre-built reports, its custom reporting is where it truly shines. You can create highly visual reports to measure team efficiency, software effectiveness, and sales performance from a variety of angles, making it simple to understand the numbers behind your team's success.

Does Pipedrive have a mobile app?

Yes, Pipedrive offers a mobile app for both iOS and Android. The app provides a seamless experience, allowing sales teams to update deals, access contact information, and log activities on the go, making it an especially helpful feature for businesses with mobile sales teams.

How easy is Pipedrive to use?

Pipedrive's ease of use is one of the platform's core strengths. The CRM is known for its user-friendly interface and minimalist design, which helps users focus on their sales activities without unnecessary clutter. Its visual pipeline and drag-and-drop functionality are particularly intuitive. The platform also includes a smart contact data feature that automatically populates records with information from the internet, saving reps a lot of time on data entry.

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GMKtec NucBox M7 Ultra: 30-second review

Having just reviewed the GMKtec M5 Ultra, that prior investigation puts an interesting twist on the M7 Ultra now before me.

Because the M5 was built on a platform that wasn’t widely utilised, and the M7 Ultra turned out to be built on a platform from 2022 that nobody used at all.

However, don’t be put off by the older hardware, because this Ryzen 6000 series processor with Zen3+ architecture is well-suited for a mini PC. It has DDR5 support, USB4 and plenty of PCIe lanes, enabling the M7 Ultra to deliver a well-rounded and confident performance level that’s above any of the Ryzen systems that use DDR4 and the Vega 8 GPU.

It’s also got plenty of potential for upgrades, either internally with the SODIMM and M.2 slots, or externally via USB4. And it must also be one of the cheapest systems to come with Oculink, enabling the external connection of discrete graphics cards via its 64Gb/s interconnect.

Compared to a cutting-edge system, it only has eight cores (sixteen threads), the DDR5 is only 4800 MT/s, and while it is a PCIe 4.0 system, it only supports PCIe 3.0 on the M.2 slots.

Those caveats make me think that the M7 Ultra is suitable for someone who needs a little big more power, but not the performance of a Ryzen 9 or Ryzen AI machine.

For that person who does more than just basic office tasks, this might be ideal, and if they suddenly need more graphics performance, it can be added via Oculink.

Where this system is flawed is that it's slower than the M7 and M7 Pro that came before it. Given the silicon's age, this isn’t going to feature in our round-up of the best mini PC systems, but with a reasonably effective platform and plenty of ports, it's not junk either.

GMKtec NucBox M7 Ultra: Price and availability

• How much does it cost? From $310/£260/€300
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? Direct from GMKtec and via online retailers

Much like the M5 Ultra, the M7 Ultra is offered in three basic SKUs that go from the baseline barebones system with no memory or storage, to an intermediate 16GB+512GB option that’s reviewed here, to the top spec with 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.

In the USA, these machines are priced at $309.99, $439.99, and $529.99, respectively.

GMKtec doesn’t have a specific UK outlet, but from the European site (e.g., de.gmktec.com), these systems are £260, £347 and £408, which, if you have DDR5 and an M.2 module, looks like a great deal. Euro prices are €299.99, €399.99 and €469.99. And all the M7 Ultras bought in Europe come with a free 8-in-1 USB docking hub reputedly worth €29.99.

I'm also seeing it available on both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk with similar pricing.

For those curious, based on the current exchange rates when writing this, the 32GB+1TB model is almost the same price no matter where you buy it, but the barebones model is 12% more expensive.

Another obvious question is how these prices compare with the M5 Ultra? In short, the M7 Ultra is about $50 more than the M5 Ultra for the barebones, and about $40 more for the 32GB+1TB option. When you consider that the M7 Ultra comes with USB4, uses DDR5 and is significantly faster, then the price difference is modest.

What I’d advise against is sourcing this via Amazon, as their systems only come with 512GB of storage, and the asking price is $489.99.

In this part of the review, I’d normally list the other mini PCs that use the same platform and how some are more expensive, and others are cheaper, but not today.

Unless I missed one, no other mini PC maker is using this platform, and I couldn’t find any retail computer, of any variety, that uses it. There are several mini PCs with AMD Ryzen 7 6800H, 6850H, and other “H” series chips, but these are not the same as the PRO 6850U.

Why is this the case? I’ve no information to share. It might be that AMD has TMSC make bins of many Ryzen 6000 mobile chips with no clear market, and now they’re having a clear out of those that didn’t sell.

Whatever the reason, this is a mid-2022 platform built on a fab AMD no longer relies on, and it might be that the GMKtec M7 Ultra is the one and only machine the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U gets to see the light of day.

Which might go some way to explain how competitively priced this system is.

• Value: 4 / 5

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)GMKtec NucBox M7 Ultra: Specs

Item

Spec

CPU:

AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U( 8C/16T, up to 4.7GHz)

GPU:

AMD Radeon 680M, up to 2.2 GHz

NPU:

N/A

RAM:

16GB DDR5-4800 (8GB x 2) expandable to 64GB

Storage:

512GB M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 3

Expansion:

1x M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 3

Ports:

2x USB4, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 2x USB 2.0, 1x HDMI 2.0, 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x 3.5mm Audio, 1x Oculink

Networking:

2x 2,5GbE Realtek RTL8125, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2

OS:

Windows 11 Pro (pre-installed)

Base Power:

15W-28W

PSU:

19V 6.32A 120.08W

Dimensions:

132 x 125 x 58 mm

GMKtec NucBox M7 Ultra: Design

• Decent build quality
• Easy internal access
• VESA mountable

There are two important things about GMKtec systems I like, and those are the build quality and the ease of internal access. And, the M7 Ultra doesn’t confront either of those expectations.

While the top and underside of this NUC are plastic, the part that is likely to take the greatest amount of abuse, the sides, is metal on all faces.

It’s a cool gunmetal grey, and the plastic top is painted to match.

Access is remarkably straightforward, with the top rotating to come away, and with that removed, there are four large screws visible that most people should have a suitable screwdriver for.

I like that these are large, easily visible screws, not the tiny ones that ping under my desk before activating their inbuilt cloaking devices. These are only discoverable either with socked feet or the use of a stupidly powerful electromagnet.

Even I couldn’t misplace these screws was my first thought on seeing them.

With those removed, the DDR5-4800 modules and M.2 slots are unobscured, and upgrading either of them merely requires the replacement parts and a couple of spare minutes.

The memory modules were branded as GMKtec, but the chips had OEM Micro branding. Therefore, based on the repositioning of that source for memory, we won’t be seeing this in future GMKtec products.

Thankfully, you can swap the RAM with any DDR5-4800 SODIMMs of any brand, as long as they’re the same type and size.

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

On the outside, the M7 Ultra doesn’t go off the beaten path with all the ports on the front or back, and those on the front are well placed for the attachment of storage. Both USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports are on the front, along with the USB4 port, the 3.5mm audio jack and the Oculink port. Oh, and the power button.

Maybe the Oculink port might have been better on the back, but there isn’t much room with dual 2.5GbE LAN sockets, dual USB 2.0, another USB4 port and both HDMI and DisplayPort.

One feature which is slightly controversial on the M7 Ultra is that hot air is ejected under the external ports, not above them. While there is the possibility that it might impact the connected cables, I can’t see this air getting heated enough to melt the insulation on these.

As GMKtec do with most of its systems, included with the M7 Ultra, is a plate that can be used to VESA mount the system to the back of a monitor. As the scale of this system might make it tempting for someone to pick it up and take it home, connecting it to the monitor is probably a good idea. For those seriously concerned about theft, it also has a security slot on the rear.

As with the M5 Ultra, the engineering, accessibility and port deployment are good, and there doesn’t appear to be any significant design issues with this design.

• Design: 4 / 5

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)GMKtec NucBox M7 Ultra: Hardware

• AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U
• DDR5 Memory
• Gen 3 PCIe M.2 Slots

The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U is a mobile processor featuring eight cores, launched in April 2022 as an offshoot of the Ryzen 6000 series. And, the closest silicon from the core series is the Ryzen 7 6800H, a Zen 3+ (Rembrandt) architecture chip made for Socket FP7.

AMD’s Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) doubles the effective thread count to sixteen, giving it some potential for multi-threaded software.

Operating at a base frequency of 2.7GHz, boosting up to 4.7GHz when required, this silicon was part of the swansong of the 6nm process at TSMC before AMD moved to the 4nm fabrication in the 7040 series.

The thermal design power (TDP) is just 15W, but that can be bumped to 28W, making it highly energy-efficient. It supports DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, with a maximum official speed of 4800 MT/s. It also supports 6400 MT/s for surface-mounted LPDDR5, but GMKtec hasn’t chosen to use that.

And, as I’ve alluded to already, this is the only PC I’ve found that uses this specific processor, so it now seems unlikely that a machine using the greater bandwidth memory is ever likely to appear.

Since Zen3+, AMD has evolved the Zen4 and Zen5 architectures, with more powerful GPUs, 8000MHz DDR5 options and larger core and thread capabilities.

In this context, the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U provides a solid underpinning to the system where it can run reliably for long periods and remain effectively silent.

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

However, there are a few choices GMKtec made that are more nuanced than merely picking an older processor. One might assume AMD let this business have these at a bargain price.

As is often the case, this all revolves around PCIe lanes and how these critical resources are allocated. In this system, there are various draws on the bandwidth of the PCIe subsystem, which has twenty lanes of PCIe 4.0 at its disposal. The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U has an integrated USB4 controller, but it still needs at least four lanes for USB4 and at least four more for Oculink, leaving only eight lanes for everything else.

In that pile are all the other USB ports, dual 2.5GbE LAN ports, the small M.2 slot for the Wi-Fi, and most importantly, the two M.2 slots. However you dice this up, without using a PCIe switch, something had to give, and what gave here was the M.2 slots ended up being only Gen 3, not Gen 4.

I can see a strong argument that either one of the USB4 ports or the Oculink should have been sacrificed to provide Gen 4 storage, but that might have created a thermal issue for keeping the NVMe drives cool.

With the amount of bandwidth available, this was a tough choice, and GMKtec went with Oculink and two USB4 ports but downgraded the M.2 slots, for good or bad.

I’d have liked at least one Gen 4 M.2 slot, but I’m not the one trying to shoehorn all this technology into a tiny box.

• Features: 3.5 / 5

GMKtec NucBox M7 Ultra: Performance

Mini PC

GMKtec NucBox M7 Ultra

GMKtec NucBox M5 Ultra

CPU

AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U

AMD Ryzen 7 7730U

Cores/Threads

8C 16T

8C 16T

RAM

16GB DDR5 (2x8GB)

32GB DDR4 (2x16GB)

Storage

512GB AirDisk SSD

1TB NVMe

Graphics

Radeon 680M

Radeon Vega 8

3DMark

WildLife

9846

6711

FireStrike

4149

3154

TimeSpy

1495

1264

Steel Nom Lt.

1420

1035

CineBench24

Single

90

78

Multi

401

414

Ratio

4.47

5.29

GeekBench 6

Single

2096

1806

Multi

8582

5939

OpenCL

22656

12823

Vulkan

21484

11472

CrystalDisk

Read MB/s

3558

3624

Write MB/s

2520

2642

PCMark 10

Office

6973

5581

WEI

8

8.1

Given the modest price difference between the M7 Ultra and its M5 Ultra little brother, these seem the obvious systems to compare.

And, unsurprisingly, with DDR5 memory and the 12 cores of the Radeon 680M in its corner, the M7 Ultra is a good bit quicker than the M5 Ultra in the majority of the tests.

Although, for some curious reason, the CineBench24 multi-core test is a win for the AMD Ryzen 7 7730U over the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U. But these results aren’t replicated in Geekbench or PCMark 10.

Why Windows Experience Index scores the GPUs inaccurately in this instance is another mystery, but that's the precise result reflected here.

There is, however, a hollow aspect to this victory, which is that my results from the old GMKtec NucBox M7, which used the Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H, were much better, scoring 14909 for 3DMark WildLife. Given that the original M7 system used DDR4, something doesn’t add up.

Yes, this system is up to 50% faster than the M5 Ultra, but it should be even quicker than that. It’s like it's operating on a single memory module, though I checked that it isn’t.

Looking back at the original M7 and the M7 Pro, the M7 Ultra has less processing power and lower GPU performance than both of these.

Unfortunately, the M7 is out of stock, and the M7 Pro is discontinued, I suspect.

I’ve concluded that, unless there was a fault with my machine, the M7 Ultra has the unfortunate accolade of offering less power than the models it replaced, sadly.

• Performance: 3 / 5

GMKtec NucBox M7 Ultra: Final verdict

(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

Not sure what to think about the GMKtec M7 Ultra, since it uses a processor no other machine has ever used and yet delivers performance numbers below those of its predecessors.

What’s the most curious thing about this system is that it uses DDR5 memory, but with the same 680M GPU, it's slower than the M7, which used DDR4. How is that possible?

The M7 Ultra's bandwidth should make it faster, not 66% of the M7’s speed in the 3DMark Wildlife benchmark.

I’m hoping that this system merely needs a firmware update to deliver the results the hardware should be capable of.

Because of these issues its not an obvious replacement for the M7 or the M7 Pro, but there are plenty of alternatives using Ryzen 6000 and 7000 chips that can perform better.

Should I buy a GMKtec NucBox M7 Ultra?

Value

Affordable system, especially barebones

4/5

Design

Easy access and a good port selection

4/5

Features

Odd processor, but Oculink and USB ports

3.5/5

Performance

Not as quick as it should be on paper

3/5

Overalls

Dissapointing follow-up to M7 and M7 Pro

3.5/5

Buy it if...

You want a medium-cost NUC
Not super-cheap but still affordable, the M7 Ultra has a specification that is suitable for users who need extra performance above an entry-level system. While not as fast as the original M7, it's still better than most Intel Core i5 systems.View Deal

You need a flexible NUC
Compared to some NUC designs, this one is remarkably flexible. With two 2.5 GbE LAN ports and dual M.2 slots, it can be used as a hardware firewall, media server or marketing display controller. But adding an Oculink port also enables it to be enhanced with a discrete video card, making it suitable for graphics-intensive tasks that the integrated graphics would not handle.View Deal

Don't buy it if...

You want ultimate performance
This is a mid-range mini PC, lacking the power of those with the fastest processors, such as the Ryzen AI Max+ 395. View Deal

Also consider

Geekom A5
The Geekom A5 mini PC delivers a decent user experience for office work in a small, easy-to-deploy package. It doesn't have a second M.2 slot, but it does have a SATA and a place for a 2.5-inch drive.
In testing it produced almost identical performance to the M5 Ultra, using its AMD Ryzen 5 7430U CPU.

Check out my Geekom M5 review View Deal

GMKtec NucBox M5 Plus
Another mid-tier mini system, this time the prior design from the same brand as the M5 Ultra. This one utilises the AMD Ryzen 7 5825U (8 cores, 16 Threads) CPU and features 1TB of onboard NVMe storage. Where this is slightly better than the A5 is that the second M.2 slot is 2280, and it has dual 2.5GbE LAN ports.

Check out my GMKTec NucBox M5 Plus review View Deal

The GMKtec M7 Ultra is a replacement for earlier M7 designs, but it fails to perform as well

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Light spoilers follow for all eight episode of Wonder Man.

2026 is a big year for Marvel. With its cinematic universe struggling to rediscover the consistency that defined its first decade, there's never been more pressure on highly-anticipated movies like Avengers: Doomsday and Spider-Man: Brand New Day to get people back onside.

And yet, it falls on Wonder Man, the comic book giant's first Disney+ show of the year, to convince casual fans that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is worth sticking with or jumping back into. It's a wonderful thing, then, that Wonder Man is a franchise-disrupting, metatextual caper that's arguably the studio's most creative TV original since WandaVision.

I was born to play this character

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II portrays Simon Williams, a down-on-his-luck, Los Angeles-based actor (Image credit: Marvel Studios)

Produced under the Marvel Spotlight banner, Wonder Man introduces us to Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul- Mateen II), a luckless and capricious actor struggling for work in the MCU's version of Hollywood.

Williams' tortured nature is captured with pitch-perfect intensity and gravitas by Abul-Mateen II

When Williams learns that Oscar-winning director Von Kovak (Zlatko Burić) is remaking 'Wonder Man', an in-universe movie that's also his favorite film of all time, Williams vows land the lead role. Well, as long as he can keep his biggest secret – as one of Wonder Man's teasers confirmed, that he possesses actual superpowers – under wraps.

Having superhuman abilities should be advantageous for a project like this, right? Not if you're Simon Williams, a serial overthinker whose passion for his craft often makes him difficult to deal with personally and professionally.

Williams' life is falling apart when we meet him in Wonder Man's premiere (Image credit: Marvel Studios/Disney+)

His failure to secure regular work and tendency to lose the roles he does get due to a passion interpreted as overzealous interference are, unsurprisingly, emotionally destabilizing moments for Williams. Add in your demonstrably powerful abilities appearing whenever you experience negative emotions, and that's a recipe for disaster.

That's especially true if Williams' abilities ever manifest while on set. The reason? Enhanced individuals are banned from working in Hollywood, so it's not the ideal profession for Williams, whose tortured nature is captured with pitch-perfect intensity and gravitas by Wonder Man's lead star Abdul-Mateen II.

Trevor Slattery (right) has two options: help the DoDC or complete his prison sentence for his crimes as The Mandarin (Image credit: Marvel Studios/Disney+)

Wonder Man is as much Trevor Slattery's (Ben Kingsley) story as it is Williams', though.

A washed-up thespian and recovering substance abuser who we first met as fake terrorist The Mandarin in Iron Man 3, Slattery is an important cog in Williams' journey and the Marvel Phase 6 show's wider narrative.

Slattery is the uproarious fulcrum for many of Wonder Man's hijinks

Apprehended by the Department of Damage Control (DoDC) at an airport following his redemption arc in Shang-Chi, Slattery is coerced into helping the superhuman-monitoring US government agency keep track of Williams, whom it believes to be a highly dangerous individual.

Rather than position Slattery as a primary supporting character, though, Marvel installs Kingsley as the series' co-lead. It's a storytelling decision that not only allows Wonder Man to thoroughly examine this enigmatic and eccentric character's background, personality, and motives in greater detail than before, but also plays to Kingsley's strengths as an actor.

Utilizing the British icon's extensive affiliation with the Royal Shakespeare Company and penchant for playing characters as straight as possible, Wonder Man gives Kingsley a stage to really shine on. Equipped with Slattery's awkward and unfiltered persona, Kingsley is the uproarious fulcrum for the various hijinks that ensue throughout, too.

Just the two of us

Williams and Slattery are another absorbing buddy cop pairing to add to the MCU's growing roster (Image credit: Marvel Studios/Disney+)

Armed with either of these likeable albeit lost souls, Wonder Man would be an enthralling watch. The resolution to build its plot around both, then, is a match made in heaven.

The decision to build Wonder Man's plot around Williams and Slattery is a match made in heaven

From their initial encounters at a Midnight Cowboy screening and then the 'Wonder Man' auditions, where a regret-filled Slattery takes pity on Williams as he struggles to maintain his composure, they're a mesmerically mismatched pair that deserve to be added to the MCU's ever-expanding collection of charming double acts.

A two-hander in all but name, it's the kind of odd-couple dynamic that doesn't come along often, but produces all manner of on-screen fireworks from the outset.

Williams and Slattery's professional and personal lives become entwined as the story progresses (Image credit: Marvel Studios/Disney+)

It's a bond initially formed by their mutual love for their craft. Slattery sees his tactless and ego-driven self in Williams and uses his experience and calming influence to guide the less-seasoned actor through the murky world of Hollywood. It isn't long, though, before their student-teacher relationship blossoms into a genuine bromance – and, like me, you'll soon be rooting for them to individually and collectively succeed.

You'll soon be rooting for Williams and Slattery to individually and collectively succeed

That said, I'll admit my desire to root for them was strained at times. Whether it's the emotionally unavailable Williams occasionally shutting out his mentor, or Slattery's duplicity in trying to keep both Williams and the DoDC onside – honestly, at one point, I genuinely thought Slattery would fully betray his new friend – theirs is a companionship buffeted by numerous outside forces. Ultimately, though, the earnestness of their buddy-cop dynamic, plus the hardships these tragic characters have endured, is what'll make you cheer them on.

And all the world's a stage

Von Kovak (right) will ultimately decide if Williams and Slattery land roles in his 'Wonder Man' movie remake (Image credit: Marvel Studios/Disney+)

With its intimate, dual-character-study-first approach, Wonder Man plays more as a tragicomedy with sitcom elements than a biting commentary on the corporate Hollywood machine.

Wonder Man doesn't hold up a taunting mirror to Hollywood in the same way that The Studio does

Sure, Wonder Man's metatextual layers run deep, and it doesn't shy away from the cutthroat nature of the entertainment business. However, it's not a fourth-wall-breaking project in the way She-Hulk: Attorney at Law or the Deadpool films are. Nor does it hold up a taunting mirror to Hollywood in the same way that The Studio does. Laugh-out-loud funny though Wonder Man is, it's not as outrageously chaotic or toe-curlingly hilarious in its takedown of the industry as that Apple TV Original is, or as scathingly satirical of the superhero genre like Prime Video's adaptation of The Boys is.

Riveting as Wonder Man is, it isn't without its missteps (Image credit: Marvel Studios/Disney+)

I don't consider those to be faults that Wonder Man possesses, but Marvel's latest small-screen offering isn't beyond reproach.

For one, its Williams and Slattery-absent Twilight Zone-esque fourth episode provides context for one of Wonder Man's early mysteries, but brings its primary narrative to a grinding halt just as it's really beginning to build momentum. Similarly, while its circumnavigation of Williams' complicated comic book history facilitates an easier MCU introduction for the character, this source material deviation will irritate some Marvel Comics purists.

And then there's the finale, which falls foul of the same problem that's plagued other Marvel TV Originals on one of the world's best streaming services. In its favor, it foregoes the archetypal – not to mention predictable – CGI showdown between hero and villain, which is a welcome departure from the Disney subsidiary's usual TV blueprint.

Nonetheless, just another five to 10 minutes showing how Williams has grown as an individual across its eight-episode run would've helped its pacing and stopped it from racing towards an ending that may be perceived as somewhat anticlimactic.

My verdict

Ultimately, though, those niggles didn't prevent me from having a blast with Wonder Man. Pardon the pun, but it's a wonderfully executed slice of television that's both a celebration of the performing arts and an eye-opening peek behind the curtain of an industry that continues to entertain us to this day.

It might be a bit on the short side, runtime-wise, and its narrative flow is a little uneven, especially in the first half. But, armed with a charismatic leading pair firing on all cylinders, and a story that'll resonate with anyone who's set out to achieve their wildest dreams and did so, Wonder Man deserves a standing ovation for proving nothing is impossible if you put your mind to it – and if you have a little help along the way.

Wonder Man releases in full on Tuesday, January 27 (North and South America) and Wednesday, January 28 (everywhere else). To learn more about the series ahead of launch, read my guide on everything we know about Wonder Man.

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