Pipefy is a business process management (BPM) platform that lets teams build, automate, and track workflows without writing code. It’s designed for departments like HR, finance, procurement, and IT that handle high volumes of repetitive requests, approvals, and multi-step processes. Instead of managing work through spreadsheets and email chains, Pipefy organizes everything into structured pipelines where each task moves through defined stages.
How Pipefy Works
At its core, Pipefy uses a visual pipeline system. You create a workflow as a series of phases, and individual items (called “cards”) move through those phases from start to finish. Think of it like a digital kanban board, but with built-in rules, forms, automations, and reporting layered on top.
A typical setup might look like this: an employee submits a purchase request through a standardized form. That request becomes a card in a procurement pipeline. It automatically routes to the right approver based on the dollar amount. Once approved, it moves to a purchasing phase, then to a payment phase, and finally closes out. Each step can trigger notifications, update databases, or push information to other systems.
Beyond the pipeline view, Pipefy includes service portals where employees or external users can submit requests and track their status, customizable databases for storing reference information like vendor lists or employee records, and dashboards that pull metrics from multiple workflows so managers can spot bottlenecks and measure cycle times.
No-Code Automation and AI Tools
Pipefy’s main selling point is that business teams can set up their own automations without involving developers. You can create rules like “when a card enters this phase, send an email to the requester” or “when a field value exceeds $10,000, route to a senior approver.” These triggers handle the repetitive coordination work that otherwise eats up hours of back-and-forth communication.
The platform also includes several AI features that go beyond basic automation:
- AI Agents can read documents, extract data from them, and feed that information into workflows. This is useful for tasks like processing invoices, matching purchase orders, or summarizing contracts.
- AI Copilot lets you describe a workflow in plain language and generates the pipeline structure for you. It also analyzes your process data to surface trends, bottlenecks, and opportunities you might not catch manually.
- AI Assistant acts as a front-end chatbot for service portals. It answers common questions, helps users find documents or policies, opens new requests, and provides status updates through a conversational interface.
Common Use Cases by Department
Pipefy is a horizontal platform, meaning it’s not built for just one industry or function. That said, the company focuses heavily on three areas where structured, repeatable processes matter most.
Procurement teams use Pipefy to standardize purchase requests, manage approval chains, onboard new suppliers, and track spending. The platform replaces the email threads that typically bounce between requesters, approvers, and vendors, creating an audit trail in the process. Dashboards can track metrics like purchase order cycle time and potential cost savings.
HR teams build workflows for recruiting, employee onboarding, time-off requests, and offboarding. Each of these involves multiple stakeholders, document collection, and sequential steps that fit naturally into a pipeline structure.
Finance teams use it for accounts payable, expense approvals, budget requests, and similar processes that require standardized forms, multi-level sign-offs, and integration with accounting software.
Integrations
Pipefy connects with a broad range of third-party tools through pre-built integrations, and also offers an API and webhooks for custom connections. The integration library covers most of the major categories a business team would need:
- CRM and marketing: Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM, Mailchimp
- Finance and accounting: QuickBooks Online, NetSuite, Sage Intacct, Xero, Bill.com
- HR: BambooHR, Workday, Greenhouse, Zenefits
- Collaboration: Slack, Google Workspace, Microsoft SharePoint, Trello, Asana
- Customer service: Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk, Jira Service Desk
- Document management: DocuSign, Dropbox, Box
- Development and IT: GitHub, Jira, AWS Lambda, Amazon S3, plus direct database connections to MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, and Oracle
If an application isn’t in the pre-built library, you can use the API to build a custom connection or work with Pipefy’s team to create one.
Pricing
Pipefy offers three tiers: Starter (free), Business, and Enterprise. The Business and Enterprise plans require contacting sales for a quote, so there’s no publicly listed price for them.
The free Starter plan gives you a working version of the platform, but with significant limits. You can have up to 10 users, 5 workflows, and 50 cards created per month. Storage caps at 2GB, and you get only 15 automation jobs and 205 API calls per month. Database records are limited to 500, and you can create only one connection between workflows. This tier works for a small team testing the platform or running a single low-volume process, but most organizations will outgrow it quickly.
The paid plans unlock higher limits across all of those dimensions, plus features like guest user access (for external stakeholders like vendors or candidates) and more interfaces for service portals.
Who Pipefy Is Built For
Pipefy sits in a middle ground between simple project management tools like Trello or Asana and heavyweight BPM platforms that require IT teams to configure and maintain. It’s aimed at business users who need more structure and automation than a task board provides but don’t want to wait months for a developer-built solution. If your team runs processes that involve forms, approvals, handoffs between people, and reporting on how long things take, Pipefy is designed to handle that without code. Teams that just need to manage tasks or projects with flexible timelines will likely find a simpler tool more appropriate.