CRM comparison for NZ insurance & investment advisers

A side-by-side look at three options — Trail, Pipedrive, and the Find Advice managed CRM (built on HighLevel). Written to help you decide what fits your practice today, not to push a single answer.

Prepared by Find Advice · May 2026 · NZD pricing where shown, USD noted where applicable.

Executive summary

All three platforms can run an advice practice. They make different trade-offs.

Trail — built in NZ for NZ advisers. Strong on advice document generation, mortgage workflows, and live insurance premium estimation. Priced per broker, with admin staff added at a reduced rate.
Pipedrive — a global, general-purpose sales CRM. Easy to start with, mature interface, broad integrations. Not designed for FAP compliance, not designed for insurance or investment workflows. Priced per user, every seat.
Find Advice managed CRM — a managed setup on HighLevel, tailored to NZ personal risk and investment advice. Flat monthly fee, unlimited users, every workflow specific to NZ insurance and KiwiSaver included. Newer to the NZ market than Trail.

Who builds and maintains each platform

Trail

Auckland-based SaaS

Founded: 2015
Founders: Chuck Slogrove, Ben Krebs, Jon Krebs
Leadership: Warwick Slow (CEO), Sarah Johnston (GM), Dilip Patel (Sales)
HQ: New Zealand. Engineering team in Vietnam. Finance/support in the Philippines.
Team size: ~25+ documented across all divisions.
Funding: Privately held; no published external funding rounds.
Origin story: Founders ran their own mortgage advice business — settled $200M in two years — and built Trail from their own internal tools.

Pipedrive

Global general-purpose CRM

Founded: 2010 in Estonia.
Ownership: Acquired by Vista Equity Partners (2020).
Team size: ~900+ employees worldwide.
Customers: 100,000+ businesses globally.
Focus: Sales pipelines for any industry. Not built for financial advice or NZ regulation.
NZ presence: No NZ office, no NZ-specific compliance support.

Find Advice managed CRM

Built on HighLevel — managed by Find Advice for NZ advisers

Platform: HighLevel (the underlying CRM and automation engine).
HighLevel founded: 2018, bootstrapped (no outside funding).
HighLevel scale: ~785 employees · 2024 ARR US$82.7M (up from US$38.5M in 2023) · 70,000 customers / 1.2M businesses on the platform.
Find Advice role: sub-account configuration, custom-object schema, FAP-aligned pipelines, lead enrichment, integrations, ongoing maintenance.
NZ presence: Find Advice is NZ-based and the configuration is tailored to NZ regulation, NZ insurers, and KiwiSaver.

Sources: gettrail.com/about, pipedrive.com, getlatka.com/companies/gohighlevel.

Pricing — what each option costs you

Trail does not publish per-broker prices; the figures below reflect quotes shared with us by NZ advisers. Pipedrive prices are published in USD; NZD figures are approximate (~0.59 USD/NZD). Find Advice is a flat NZD price.

Plan	Headline price	Per user?	Notes
Trail	~NZD $2,300 / broker / year. Admin staff at a fraction of that.	Yes — per broker; volume discount as broker count grows.	Custom quote only. 60-day money-back guarantee. Setup time depends on practice.
Pipedrive — Growth	USD $39 / user / month (annual) ≈ NZD ~$66 / user / month.	Yes — every seat.	Email sync, automation builder. Add-ons (LeadBooster, Campaigns) extra.
Pipedrive — Premium	USD $49 / user / month (annual) ≈ NZD ~$83 / user / month.	Yes — every seat.	Adds forecasting, custom reporting.
Find Advice managed CRM	NZD $200 + GST / month, flat.	No — unlimited users included.	Includes platform fee, configuration, ongoing setup help. Add SMS/voice/email usage at cost (HighLevel rebill).

Total cost at common team sizes (NZD, 12 months)

Team size	Trail (est.)	Pipedrive Growth	Pipedrive Premium	Find Advice managed CRM
1 adviser, 0 admin	~$2,300	~$780	~$984	$2,400 + GST
1 adviser + 1 admin	~$3,400	~$1,560	~$1,968	$2,400 + GST
3 advisers + 1 admin	~$7,800	~$3,120	~$3,936	$2,400 + GST
5 advisers + 2 admin	~$13,500	~$5,460	~$6,888	$2,400 + GST
10 advisers + 3 admin	~$26,000	~$10,140	~$12,792	$2,400 + GST

Trail estimates assume ~NZD $2,300 / broker dropping ~10–15% per broker with volume, plus admin at ~50% of broker rate. Pipedrive is published USD pricing × 0.59. Find Advice is flat regardless of team size, plus per-message comms usage. Verify Trail's exact pricing with their sales team for your scenario.

Where the cost difference comes from. Trail and Pipedrive price each seat because their commercial model covers a per-user platform cost on their side. Find Advice's flat fee works because HighLevel is sold to us as an agency platform — we absorb the platform cost and price the service instead. The trade-off: with Find Advice, the platform itself is not yours to take elsewhere; with Trail or Pipedrive, your subscription is direct.

Feature comparison — what each platform actually does

Capability	Trail	Pipedrive	Find Advice managed CRM
Core CRM
Contact, pipeline, task management	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mobile app for advisers	Yes	Yes	Lead Connector app
Two-way Gmail / Outlook sync	Yes	Yes	Yes
Multiple linked contacts per client (partner, executor, trustee)	Limited	No native	Designed in (up to 10 per contact)
NZ insurance advice
Live insurance premium estimation in CRM	Yes	No	In-house calculator engine; 17 products covered (not connected to insurer APIs)
Automated Statement of Advice generation	Yes	No	Planned — currently FNA form + advisor doc workflow
Policy schedule storage per client	Yes	Free-text only	Dedicated Policy + Policy Documents custom objects
One client → multiple insurance policies (life, IP, health, trauma)	Yes	Not natively	Yes — one record per schedule
Claims tracking pipeline	Generic	Generic	Purpose-built 10-stage claims pipeline
Annual review automation (multi-channel: WhatsApp → SMS → email → call)	Calendar + email	Automation builder, generic	Built-in 4-step sequence with language branching
NZ investment advice
KiwiSaver record management	Stores fund info as product	No	Time-series snapshots, govt-min tracking, withdrawal pipeline
Portfolio / managed-fund tracking	Holds product info	No	Financial Profile object; live portfolio integration via WealthRelay on roadmap
Investment review automation	Anniversary events	Generic	Same annual-review engine as insurance, configurable per object
Compliance & data
FAP record-keeping (7-year retention, advice records, complaints register)	Designed for NZ FAPs	Not designed for FAP	Period Snapshot object, complaints pipeline, audit-grade conversation history
Auditor access	Dedicated auditor login	Read-only user	Sub-user with restricted permissions
NZBN / Companies Office enrichment	Native NZBN integration	No	Custom enrichment — 43k LBP/PGDB dataset already loaded
Multi-language client communication	Not built in	Not built in	Yes — Spanish, Pacific, English branching
Sales & lead generation
Sales pipeline reporting	Yes	Mature forecasting	Yes — per-adviser and cross-account
Lead capture forms / website widgets	Calculators, CTAs	LeadBooster add-on	Built-in funnels, websites, surveys, FNA form
SMS / WhatsApp / voice from inside CRM	SMS via add-ons	Add-on / 3rd party	All native, including Call Connect and Conversation AI
Call recording + AI transcription + coaching	Not built in	Not built in	Yes — Assembly AI pipeline scoring against EARS/CHAT/RESPONSES
Extensibility
Public API for integrations	Documented	Mature, well-documented	HighLevel API v2 + webhooks
Custom objects / fields	Predefined	Custom fields, basic objects	Full custom objects (Policy, KiwiSaver, Will, EPA, Trust, etc.)
Third-party integrations marketplace	Curated list	Hundreds via Marketplace + Zapier	Zapier, native webhooks, Make

What each option does best — honest take

Where Trail wins

Built for NZ from day one. Workflows, terminology, integrations and compliance are all NZ-native.
Statement of Advice automation is mature and tightly integrated with the advice process.
Live insurance premium estimation inside the CRM — useful at the table during fact-find.
Auditor access is a first-class feature, not a workaround.
Mortgage workflow depth (UMI, LVR, bank servicing calculators, fixed-rate review) — best-in-class for mortgage-led practices.
Established — 10+ years in market, large NZ adviser user base.

Where Pipedrive wins

Speed to value. Sign up today, build a pipeline this afternoon.
Mature, opinionated UI — generally rated the easiest sales CRM to learn.
Integration ecosystem — hundreds of native + Zapier connectors.
Reporting and forecasting on the higher tiers is well-developed.
Vendor scale and continuity. 900+ staff, owned by a major US PE firm.

Where Find Advice managed CRM wins

Cost per user collapses to zero. $200 + GST covers an unlimited team.
One platform for adviser, admin, and lead-gen. SMS, WhatsApp, calls, calendar, funnels, surveys, payments, AI receptionist — all included.
Built around the NZ FAP advice process. Custom objects for Policy, KiwiSaver, Will, EPA, Trust, Financial Profile, Period Snapshot.
Call recording, transcription and coaching integrated — every call becomes structured notes and a coaching signal.
Lead enrichment included. 43,000+ NZ LBP / PGDB / shareholder records already loaded and tagged for advisers who want construction leads.
Multi-language support at the contact level — useful for advisers serving Pacific and Latin communities.
Managed service. Setup, custom objects, workflows and integrations are configured for you, not by you.

Where the Find Advice CRM is weaker — read this before deciding

An honest comparison has to call out the gaps. These are real and matter for some practices.

Not NZ-native software. HighLevel is a US platform. The Find Advice layer adapts it to NZ, but you'll occasionally meet US-shaped defaults (date formats, ZIP fields) that have to be configured around.
Statement of Advice generation is not as polished as Trail's. Trail has spent years on document templating. Find Advice generates structured content via the FNA form and the policy data model, but a Trail-grade SOA builder is on the roadmap, not in the product today.
No direct insurer API integrations. Trail has worked with NZ insurers for years. Find Advice runs an in-house calculator engine for premium estimates across 17 products; it does not pull bind-ready quotes from insurer systems.
Newer to the NZ adviser market. Trail has been the default NZ adviser CRM for many years. Find Advice's CRM service is newer, with a smaller adviser base — meaning fewer peers using the same setup.
You don't own the GHL agency relationship. The HighLevel sub-account is provisioned under the Find Advice agency. If you ever leave, your data is exportable, but the configuration is not transferable as a stand-alone HighLevel account without a migration step.
Smaller direct support team. Trail has a dedicated NZ support function. Find Advice's CRM support is a small, direct team — fast for engaged clients, but with less call-centre capacity than a larger vendor.

What changes if you're investment-led vs insurance-led

If your practice is...	Trail	Pipedrive	Find Advice managed CRM
Insurance-only (personal risk, business risk)	Strong fit. Live pricing + SOA automation are real differentiators.	Workable but generic — you'll build everything yourself.	Strong fit. Designed end-to-end for the NZ FAP insurance process, including claims and clawback tracking.
Investment / KiwiSaver-led	Workable — stores product info but limited portfolio depth.	Weak fit. No investment-specific objects.	Good fit for KiwiSaver and household financial profile today. Live managed-fund integration (WealthRelay) on roadmap.
Mortgage + insurance combined	Strongest fit of the three for mortgage workflows.	Weak for mortgage process automation.	Mortgage workflows are not the focus today; insurance + investment are.
Solo adviser, low volume	Cost may be high vs activity.	Cheapest entry point.	Cost-effective if you also want SMS, WhatsApp, funnels and automation included.
Team of 3+ advisers + support staff	Cost scales with each broker.	Cost scales with every seat.	Flat fee — cost advantage grows with team size.

Quick decision framework

Choose Trail if NZ-native SOA generation, mature mortgage tools, and a long-established NZ vendor relationship are your priorities — and per-broker pricing fits your team size.
Stay on Pipedrive if you want a lightweight sales pipeline only, are comfortable building your own compliance and document processes outside the CRM, and your team will stay small.
Move to the Find Advice managed CRM if you want unlimited team seats on one flat fee, an NZ-tailored insurance + investment data model, built-in call recording and coaching, multi-channel client communication, and a managed setup rather than a DIY one.

What's included with the Find Advice managed CRM — full list

Platform & data model

HighLevel sub-account, configured for your business
NZ FAP-aligned contact field schema (Personal, Employment, ACC, Estate Planning, Lead Intelligence folders)
Custom objects: Policy, Policy Documents, KiwiSaver, Financial Profile, Will, EPA, Trust
Six pipelines: Leads, Advisor, Claims, Insurance Review, KiwiSaver Withdrawal, Complaints
Annual review automation across WhatsApp / SMS / email / call

Lead gen & intake

FNA form deployed at your sub-domain
Funnels, websites, surveys, calendars all included
Optional: 43,000+ enriched LBP / PGDB / shareholder dataset
NZBN, Companies Register and LBP register enrichment
WhatsApp, SMS, email and voice — all from one inbox

Quality & coaching

Call recording (phone, video, in-person) via Assembly AI
Transcripts posted into the client record automatically
Conversation scoring against EARS / CHAT / RESPONSES frameworks
Per-adviser coaching prep dashboard (in build)
Show-rate, BAMFAM and pipeline progression metrics

Notes on this comparison

Trail pricing is from quotes shared with Find Advice by NZ advisers. Trail does not publish a price list. Final price for your practice will come from Trail directly.
Pipedrive pricing is the published 2026 list price converted to NZD at ~0.59 USD/NZD. Currency rates fluctuate.
Find Advice's flat fee is NZD $200 + GST per month. Comms usage (SMS, voice, AI) is billed at HighLevel cost.
HighLevel scale figures (employees, ARR, customer count) are from public reporting (GetLatka, May 2025).
Trail company details are from gettrail.com/about.

Have a question this doesn't answer? Find Advice will give you a straight answer about what the managed CRM can and can't do for your practice today. Same goes for Trail and Pipedrive — talk to them directly to confirm any number above.