The Pipedrive data health checklist: 19 checks and how to fix each one
A healthy Pipedrive has one record per person, company and deal, a next step on every open deal, an owner who still works there on every record, and a recent export you could restore from. These 19 checks cover all of that with Pipedrive's own tools: where to look, how to fix it and what can go wrong when you do. Export first, then start with duplicates and phone formats, because they make every other fix harder.
Duplicate detection, merges, phone fields, bulk edits, imports, Restore data and API costs tested in a Pipedrive sandbox in October and November 2026. Filters checked in the sandbox app on November 2, 2026. Help center articles checked the same day. What we couldn't verify.
Want your own numbers instead of a checklist? The Claude health check kit runs 13 of these checks on your account, read-only.
Step 0: look for the Data cleanup tab
Pipedrive's help center describes a Data cleanup tab under Company settings > Usage that groups items to review: items owned by deactivated users, items with no updates in the last 12 months, items with no linked activities, overdue activities, pipeline and stage issues, duplicate data and inactive contacts. Groups with something to look at say "Review needed" (help center, updated October 28, 2026).
The same article says you need account settings access, deals admin or global admin rights to see it. Logged in as a regular user, our sandbox showed only the Overview and Deals waitlist tabs under Usage, and we haven't opened it as an admin. If you see it, use it as a map for the checks below.
People and organizations
1. Duplicate people and organizations
Where: Tools and apps > Merge duplicates. It lists people and organizations only, and the list didn't refresh in our sandbox until we clicked Preview.
Why it misses some: Pipedrive flags two people as duplicates when they have the same name and the same phone, email or organization, and two organizations when they have the same name and address (help center, updated September 3, 2026). In our sandbox it compared exact values. It ignored capital letters in emails, but not phone formats (the same number written with dashes and without them didn't match), accents, nicknames or company suffixes ("Ltd" and "Limited"). It found 1 pair. On the same data our own matching found 8 pairs of people and organizations, some planted on purpose for the test, plus 4 duplicate deals the tool never checks. More in how to remove duplicates in Pipedrive.
Fix: clean phone formats first (check 2), then merge. Watch out: merges can't be un-merged (help center, updated September 3, 2026), and merging two people through the API added both sets of emails and phones without normalizing them. Read what you can't undo first.
2. Phone numbers in mixed formats
Where: there's no native report. Add the Phone column to the People list and scan it.
Watch out for three traps we measured:
- The Convert phone numbers to US format preference is per user and only changes how numbers look. The API still returned what was stored, and numbers with spaces didn't change at all.
- A bulk edit of Phone with Edit current value replaced a person's two phones with the one new number.
- An import matched by Pipedrive System ID replaced a two-phone list with the single number in the file, without a warning.
Fix: both of those are reversible: bulk edits for 30 days from Restore data (product updates, March 2026, although the bulk editing help article still says changes can't be undone) and imports for 48 hours, but test on one record first. How to clean phone numbers and emails has the safe routes.
3. Records nobody has touched in a year
Where: the Data cleanup groups for items with no updates in 12 months and inactive contacts, if you have them (step 0).
Why it matters: contacts have no usage limit, but leads and deals do, per seat: 2,500 on Lite, 5,000 on Growth, 15,000 on Premium and 20,000 on Ultimate (help center, updated October 12, 2026).
Fix: export first, then archive or delete. Deleted items stay in Restore data for 30 days. Watch out: when we deleted a person through the API, their note, activity and deal stayed active and pointed at the deleted person. See how to bulk delete in Pipedrive.
Deals
4. Duplicate deals
Where: nowhere automatic. Merge duplicates doesn't check deals, and neither does an import, because Pipedrive has no duplicate identifier for deals (help center, updated September 3, 2026). Sort the Deals list by title or organization and look.
Fix: open the deal, then More > Merge. Watch out: when we merged two deals with different owners, the winner kept its own value and the other deal's value was lost. The other owner became a follower, got no notification, and the merge didn't appear in the deal's history.
5. Open deals with no next activity
Where: in the Deals list, add a filter with Status is open and Next activity date is empty. Both are available in the filter editor.
Fix: schedule an activity. Bulk edit can add activities to up to 100 deals at a time on Growth and above (help center, updated September 3, 2026).
6. Rotting deals
Where: in the pipeline view, edit the pipeline and turn on Rotting in (days) for each stage. Rotting deals turn red (help center, updated September 3, 2026).
Watch out: the timer ignores the next activity date, so a deal with an activity planned next month can still rot. It resets when someone schedules or completes an activity, edits the deal, or adds a note, a file or an email, so updating close dates (check 8) also hides stuck deals.
7. Deals stuck in one stage
Where: Insights > Create > Report > Deal > Duration shows the average days per stage (help center, updated September 3, 2026). To list the deals, filter by Date of entering stage is before a date you choose.
Fix: move them on, or mark them lost. Rotting (check 6) measures inactivity, not time in a stage, so check both.
8. Open deals with a close date in the past
Where: filter with Status is open and Expected close date is before today's date.
Fix: update the date or close the deal. Pipedrive's cleanup article recommends keeping deal statuses accurate, and notes that won and lost deals still count toward your limit until you archive them (help center).
9. Deals missing the fields you rely on
Where: Personal preferences > Data fields. Important fields flag missing data on a deal without blocking it, and required fields block saving until they're filled (help center, updated October 28, 2026). That article puts important fields on Growth and above and required fields on Premium and above. The important fields article (updated September 3, 2026) still says they need the "Advanced" plan, an old plan name.
Fix: mark the fields your team relies on so new deals come in complete, then fill the gaps with a bulk edit.
10. Lost deals with no usable reason
Where: filter by Status is lost and add the Lost reason column. By default reasons are free text (help center, updated September 3, 2026).
Fix: a deals admin can turn on predefined reasons in Company settings > Lost reasons, so the list can be grouped.
Leads
11. Duplicate leads
Where: by hand in the Leads Inbox. Merge duplicates doesn't cover leads.
Watch out: merging two leads deletes one on the spot. The dialog says 30 days, but the merged lead returned "not found" immediately and never appeared in Restore data. Details in can you merge leads in Pipedrive.
12. Old leads never converted or archived
Where: the Leads Inbox, with its filters and columns (help center, updated September 23, 2026).
Why it matters: leads count toward the same limit as deals (check 3). Fix: convert them to deals or archive them.
Activities
13. Overdue activities
Where: the Activities list, with Select period and Everyone in the owner filter (help center, updated September 3, 2026), or the Data cleanup group for overdue activities.
Fix: mark them done, reschedule or delete them. Watch out: marking an activity done resets the rotting timer on its deal (check 6), so a cleanup can hide deals that really are stuck.
Users and access
14. Records owned by people who left
Why it matters: when you deactivate a user, their deals and contacts stay owned by them, and the seat is still billed until you remove it (help center, updated September 3, 2026).
Where: in any list, Filter > Owners > that user (help center, updated September 3, 2026), or the Data cleanup group for deactivated users.
Fix: bulk edit the Owner field. Watch out: from a normal list, changing the owner of deals doesn't change the owner of their people and organizations, so repeat it in Contacts. The Data cleanup view can move linked activities, people and organizations in one go (help center, updated September 3, 2026).
15. Who can see and restore what
Where: Settings > Manage users > Visibility groups. Lite and Growth have one default group with "Item owner" or "All users"; Premium and above add custom groups (help center, updated September 3, 2026).
Why it matters: in our sandbox, a regular user with default permissions had no Delete option on their own deal, but could open Restore data and restore people an admin had deleted. The undo map covers what each help article says about it.
16. Apps that can write to your CRM
Where: Tools and apps > Marketplace apps. Each installed app shows its granted permissions and who uses it (help center, updated September 3, 2026).
Why it matters: every app and integration spends the same daily API budget (check 18), and in our sandbox, edits made one record at a time through the API didn't appear in Restore data. Fix: uninstall what nobody uses.
17. Custom fields nobody fills in
Where: edit a field and click View field stats to see where it's filled in and which filters use it. Admins only (help center, updated October 28, 2026).
Why it matters: Lite allows 30 custom fields per company, Growth 100, Premium 300 and Ultimate 500 (help center, updated October 12, 2026). Watch out: deleting a field deletes its data too, so export first.
API budget and backups
18. Your daily API budget
Where: Pipedrive's API docs say admins get an email at 75% and 100% of the budget, and point to an API usage dashboard in Company settings (API docs, updated September 17, 2026).
What you have: 30,000 tokens a day times your plan's multiplier (Lite 1, Growth 2, Premium 5, Ultimate 7) times your seats, plus any top-ups you buy, up to 100 million. It's shared by every app, script and AI assistant on the account. When it runs out, calls fail until the reset.
What we measured: the budget reset at 07:00 UTC in October 2026, which is midnight US Pacific time, not midnight UTC. The docs only say it resets at midnight in the server's time zone. Our per-call costs matched the costs listed for each endpoint in Pipedrive's API reference: 1 token to get a record with API v2, 10 to list records, 5 to update one and 40 for a merge. The generic table on the rate limiting page (2, 20 and 10) is higher, because v2 endpoints cost less.
At those measured costs, 1,000 merges take about 40,000 tokens, more than the whole daily budget of a one-seat Lite account. We measured the reset before the US clock change on November 1, 2026 and haven't measured it since. Why Claude used up your Pipedrive API tokens explains what spends the most.
19. A recent export you could restore from
Where: Tools and apps > Export data > Generated exports. Exports stay there for 28 days (help center, updated September 3, 2026). If the list is empty, you haven't exported in the last four weeks.
Why it matters: Restore data brings back deletions and list-view bulk edits for 30 days, but not merges or one-by-one edits made by integrations and AI. Fix: export each data type before any cleanup above. Steps in how to back up Pipedrive, and what each action leaves behind in the undo map.
What we couldn't verify
- The Data cleanup tab: we couldn't open it with a regular user and haven't checked it as an admin, so its plans and exact group names come from the help center only.
- "Is empty" filters on people and organization fields. We confirmed them on deal date fields only.
- Whether lost reasons can be made mandatory.
- Whether the API usage dashboard breaks usage down by app.
- Whether the API budget reset moved after the November 1, 2026 clock change, and whether other accounts reset at the same time. We measured one account.
- The cost of searches through the API.
- How common duplicates are in a real account. Our 14 pairs include pairs we planted for the test.
FAQ
How do I clean up data in Pipedrive?
Start with an export, then fix phone formats and merge duplicate people and organizations with Tools and apps > Merge duplicates. Then check deals without a next activity, rotting deals and records owned by people who left. The 19 checks above give the filter and the native fix for each.
Does Pipedrive have a data quality tool?
Partly. Merge duplicates finds duplicate people and organizations with the same name, and the help center documents a Data cleanup tab under Company settings > Usage for admins. Neither checks duplicate deals or phone formats.
Why doesn't Pipedrive find all my duplicates?
Every detection rule needs the same name, and in our tests it compared exact values: different phone formats, accents, nicknames and company suffixes kept real duplicates apart. It also never checks deals.
How often should I audit Pipedrive?
There's no official cadence. A practical one is a monthly pass on checks 1, 5 and 14, and a full run before any import, migration or cleanup, together with an export.