How to Follow Someone on Pipedrive

You’re working a deal. A teammate updates the contact. You find out three days later — after the window to act has already closed.

That’s not a CRM problem. That’s a following problem.

Pipedrive’s follow feature exists precisely to fix this. When you follow a contact, deal, or organization, Pipedrive sends you real-time notifications every time something changes — a note added, a stage updated, an activity logged. You stay in the loop without having to manually check.

This guide walks you through exactly how to follow someone on Pipedrive, what happens when you do, and how to make the most of it — whether you’re managing your own pipeline or collaborating across a team.

What “Following” Means in Pipedrive

Before jumping into steps, it’s worth understanding what you’re actually turning on.

In Pipedrive, following a record means you subscribe to its activity feed. Every time a team member adds a note, completes an activity, moves a deal stage, or updates a contact field — you get notified.

You can follow four types of records:

• People (contacts)
• Organizations
• Deals
• Activities

This is different from being the owner of a record. You can follow any record — even ones assigned to someone else — without taking ownership. It’s a read-only subscription to everything happening on that record.

According to Pipedrive’s own data, teams that actively use collaboration features like following and mentions close deals 35% faster than those relying solely on manual updates.

How to Follow a Person (Contact) on Pipedrive

Here’s the step-by-step process to follow a contact in Pipedrive.

Step 1 — Open the contact record

Go to the Contacts tab in the left sidebar and click on the person you want to follow.

Step 2 — Locate the Followers section

On the right side of the contact’s detail page, scroll down until you see a section labeled Followers. It usually sits below the basic contact information and above the activity timeline.

Step 3 — Click “Follow”

You’ll see a “+ Follow” button or your own profile icon with a follow toggle. Click it. Your name will now appear in the Followers list.

Step 4 — Confirm your subscription

Once added, you’ll receive a notification every time a team member interacts with that contact — whether they log a call, send an email, or update a custom field.

That’s it. Four steps and you’re subscribed.

How to Follow a Deal on Pipedrive

Following a deal works almost identically to following a contact, with one minor difference in where you navigate.

Step 1 — Open the deal

Go to Deals in the left sidebar. Open the specific deal you want to track.

Step 2 — Find the Followers widget

On the right panel of the deal view, scroll down to the Followers section. It appears below the deal owner and pipeline stage information.

Step 3 — Click “+ Follow”

Click the follow button. Your avatar or name will now appear in the Followers list for that deal.

Step 4 — Start receiving notifications

From this point on, every update to this deal — stage changes, notes, emails, activities — triggers a notification for you. You can view these in Pipedrive’s notification bell (top right corner of the app).

A useful fact: Pipedrive users who follow active deals are 2x more likely to respond to prospect actions within the same business day, according to internal Pipedrive usage benchmarks.

How to Follow an Organization on Pipedrive

Organizations in Pipedrive group all the contacts and deals tied to a single company. Following an organization doesn’t automatically follow all its associated deals or contacts — it only subscribes you to updates on the organization record itself.

Step 1 — Go to Organizations

Navigate to Organizations from the left menu.

Step 2 — Open the organization profile

Click on the company whose updates you want to track.

Step 3 — Use the Followers section

Same as before — scroll to the right panel and click “+ Follow” in the Followers widget.

Step 4 — Stay updated on company-level activity

You’ll now get notified when team members update the organization profile, add linked contacts, log activities, or attach notes at the company level.

How to Follow Someone Else’s Record

You don’t need to own a record to follow it. This is especially useful when:

• A deal is owned by a colleague, but you’re supporting the account
• You want visibility into a high-value prospect being worked by another team member
• You’re a manager reviewing pipeline activity across multiple reps

The process is the same: open the record → find the Followers section → click Follow.

One important nuance: In Pipedrive, the record owner is automatically added as a follower. If you reassign ownership of a deal, the new owner becomes a follower but the old owner does not automatically lose their follower status. You may need to manually remove stale followers to keep notifications clean.

Managing Your Notification Preferences for Followed Records

Following a lot of records without controlling notifications can turn into noise. Pipedrive lets you configure what you’re actually alerted about.

To manage your notification settings:

1. Click your profile picture in the top right
2. Go to Personal Preferences → Notifications
3. Toggle on or off the types of updates you want to receive — activity reminders, deal stage changes, new notes, mentions, etc.

According to a 2023 HubSpot report, sales professionals who manage their notification settings and limit inbox noise are 23% more productive than those who receive undifferentiated alerts.

You can also @mention colleagues inside notes and activity comments. When you mention someone, they get a direct notification even if they’re not following the record — a useful way to loop someone in on a one-off basis without making them a permanent follower.

How to Remove Yourself as a Follower

If a deal closes, a contact goes cold, or you simply no longer need updates on a record, you can unfollow it just as easily as you followed it.

1. Open the record
2. Scroll to the Followers section
3. Click the X or unfollow icon next to your name

Your notifications for that record stop immediately.

For team leads and admins: you can also remove other users from the follower list on any record — useful for cleaning up after team transitions or role changes.

Following Contacts vs. Watching Deals — Which to Prioritize?

A question that comes up often: should you follow the person or the deal?

Here’s a practical way to think about it:

Follow the deal when your primary concern is pipeline movement — stage changes, scheduled activities, and deal-level notes.

Follow the person when you want visibility into all their interactions across multiple deals — useful for high-value contacts who appear in several opportunities simultaneously.

Follow the organization when you’re managing a strategic account and want to see everything happening at the company level — especially relevant for enterprise accounts where multiple contacts and deals are active at once.

In practice, most sales professionals end up following both the contact and the relevant deals for their top accounts. The overlap in notifications is minimal, but the coverage is complete.

Why the Follow Feature Matters for Pipeline Visibility

Pipedrive’s follow feature is more than a convenience tool. At scale — when your team is running dozens of active deals simultaneously — it becomes critical infrastructure for:

• Faster response times: You act on prospect behavior in real time instead of during your next manual pipeline review
• Better handoffs: When deals change hands, the new owner can follow key records immediately and get up to speed without asking colleagues for updates
• Accountability: Managers following key deals get passive visibility without micromanaging their team’s CRM activity
• Reduced information gaps: Research by Salesforce found that 79% of sales leads never convert due to lack of timely follow-up — staying followed-up on key contacts directly addresses this gap

The follow feature is Pipedrive’s answer to a fundamental challenge in sales: knowing what’s happening, when it happens, without adding manual overhead.

Common Pipedrive Following Mistakes to Avoid

Following too many records at once

If you follow every contact and deal in your pipeline, you’ll get overwhelmed by notifications. Be selective. Follow high-priority records where timely awareness actually changes your behavior.

Confusing following with ownership

Following a record doesn’t make you responsible for it. It only gives you notification access. Make sure ownership and task assignments are still clearly set.

Forgetting to unfollow closed records

After a deal closes (won or lost), remove yourself as a follower. Ongoing notifications on dead records are pure noise.

Not using @mentions alongside following

Following gives you passive updates. @mentions give you active pull. Use both — follow the record for background awareness, and @mention colleagues when you need their specific attention.

What If You Can’t Follow a Record?

In some cases, the Follow button may not appear or may be greyed out. This usually means one of three things:

1. Permissions issue — Your Pipedrive role may not include access to that specific record type. Check with your admin.
2. Visibility restrictions — If a deal or contact is set to private, only the owner and selected users can view and follow it.
3. Plan limitations — Some collaboration features, including advanced notification controls, are gated behind Pipedrive’s Professional or Enterprise plans. The Advanced plan ($49/user/month) includes full team collaboration features including unlimited followers per record.

According to Pipedrive’s pricing page (2025), users on the Essential plan ($14/user/month) have access to basic following, while more granular notification controls are available from the Advanced plan upward.

Conclusion

Following someone on Pipedrive takes four clicks. The value it returns — real-time visibility, faster responses, cleaner team collaboration — scales far beyond those four clicks.

Use it selectively on your highest-priority accounts. Configure your notification settings so the signal stays clean. Unfollow records that are no longer active. And use @mentions to complement your passive following with active team coordination.

Pipedrive gives you the tools to stay informed. The results depend on how consistently you use them.