How to Set Up a Sales Pipeline in monday CRM (2026 Guide)

Quick answer: To set up a sales pipeline in monday CRM, first write down your sales stages and the exit criteria for each. Then configure the Deals board: a stage column, deal value, owner, close probability and expected close date. Link it to your Contacts and Accounts boards and route new leads in through a Leads board or a form. Connect Gmail or Outlook so emails show on each deal, and add a few automations for assignment, follow-ups and stage changes. Finish with a dashboard that shows pipeline by stage and a weighted forecast. Plan choice matters: Basic’s limits (1,000 active contacts and deals, 5 columns per board at the time of writing) suit only a very small team, so most working pipelines start on Standard.

Updated October 2026

monday CRM is the sales product built on monday.com’s work platform. Everything in it is a board, so a pipeline is a Deals board whose stage column you view as a Kanban, a table or a forecast. That makes it quick to set up. It also means a few early decisions (stages, columns, how boards connect) shape how useful the CRM is six months later. This guide walks through the setup in the order that avoids rework.

For product details, see the monday CRM profile on Spotsaas. For costs, see monday CRM pricing and our monday CRM billing explainer.

How to set up a sales pipeline in monday CRM, step by step

Step 1: Define your stages and exit criteria

Before touching the software, write down the stages a deal passes through and what must be true to move it forward. A common B2B starting point is:

1. New lead: contact details captured.
2. Qualified: fits your target customer and has a real need.
3. Discovery or demo: meeting held, requirements known.
4. Proposal: quote or proposal sent.
5. Negotiation: terms being agreed.
6. Won or Lost, with a loss reason.

Keep it to five to seven stages. Too many stages slow reps down; too few hide where deals stall. Exit criteria matter more than stage names, because they make the forecast honest.

Step 2: Start from the CRM’s built-in boards

A new monday CRM account typically starts with a ready-made set of boards for leads, contacts, accounts and deals. Use those instead of building from scratch: rename the stages in the Deals board’s stage column to match Step 1, and delete sample items before you import real data.

Step 3: Configure the Deals board

Each deal is an item. Give the board the columns your team will actually fill in:

Watch the column limit on your plan: at the time of writing Basic allowed 5 columns per board, Standard 15, Pro 75 and Ultimate unlimited. A full deal board like the one above needs at least Standard.

Use groups for something stable, such as “Active deals”, “Won” and “Lost”, or one group per quarter. Use the Kanban view grouped by stage as the everyday pipeline view.

Step 4: Set up Contacts and Accounts boards

Keep people and companies on their own boards and connect them to deals with Connect boards columns. Add mirror columns where it helps, for example to show the account’s industry or region on the deal. One record per person and company, linked everywhere, avoids the duplicate data that makes CRMs unreliable.

Step 5: Route leads in

Decide where new leads arrive: a Leads board fed by a monday.com form on your site, an import from a spreadsheet, or an integration with your marketing tools. Add a qualification status (New, Contacted, Qualified, Disqualified). When a lead qualifies, create the contact, account and deal, either by hand or with an automation, so the Deals board only holds real opportunities.

Step 6: Connect email

Connect each rep’s Gmail or Outlook so conversations appear on the relevant contact and deal. At the time of writing, Standard added a communications hub that shows emails, calls, meetings and notes in one timeline. Pro added mass email with tracking and automated email sequences. If sequences are central to how you sell, budget for Pro from the start.

Step 7: Add automations

Start with a few automations that remove manual work:

• When a new lead arrives, assign an owner (round robin or by region).
• When the stage changes to Proposal, create a follow-up task or notify the owner after a set number of days.
• When a deal is marked Won, notify the team and create an onboarding item on a delivery board.
• When the expected close date passes and the deal is still open, notify the owner.

Automations are metered: at the time of writing Standard included 250 custom automations a month and Pro 25,000. A busy team that automates assignment and follow-ups can use up Standard’s allowance quickly.

Step 8: Build dashboards

Create a sales dashboard with pipeline value by stage, deals by owner, won revenue this month and quarter, and stalled deals (no activity or past their close date). Managers usually want a second dashboard for activity: emails, meetings and calls by rep. Dashboard counts are plan-limited: at the time of writing Basic allowed 1, Standard 5, Pro 50 and Ultimate unlimited.

Step 9: Add a forecast

The simplest reliable forecast is a weighted pipeline: deal value multiplied by close probability, summed by expected close month. You can set probability per stage (for example, a fixed percentage for Proposal) or let reps set it per deal. Show weighted and unweighted totals side by side on the dashboard, and review them weekly. Check monday CRM’s plan comparison for dedicated forecasting features on higher plans; the weighted method works with standard columns.

Step 10: Import existing data and roll out

Import contacts and accounts first, then open deals, so the connections can be made. Clean duplicates before importing. Train the team on three habits: update the stage, set a next step and log emails. Then run a weekly pipeline review from the dashboard so the board stays accurate.

Which monday CRM plan does your pipeline need?

Prices below are monday CRM’s per-seat prices at the time of writing (checked 2026-09-28); check current pricing before you buy. All paid plans have a 3-seat minimum, and there is no free CRM plan, only a trial.

Choose Basic if you are one to three people testing the CRM with a short list of deals. Choose Standard if you need a full deal board, email in one timeline and a handful of automations. Choose Pro if sequences, mass email or many dashboards matter, or you will automate heavily. Choose Ultimate if you need advanced permissions, compliance controls or limits beyond Pro.

Limitations to plan around

• Plan limits shape the design. Column, dashboard, contact and automation caps can force an upgrade before seat count does.
• Separate product, separate bill. monday CRM and monday work management are billed separately. If delivery teams also need boards, see our monday.com vs monday CRM comparison.
• Flexibility cuts both ways. Because everything is configurable, a CRM without agreed stages and required fields drifts quickly. Write the rules down.
• Seat minimum. A one- or two-person team still pays for three seats.

If you are still choosing a CRM, compare options in our best CRM for sales teams guide and the CRM software category.

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