How to Set Up a Sales Pipeline in amoCRM
Practice3 minInnovialabs editorial team
In short
An amoCRM pipeline is built from your real sales process: each stage is a verifiable action by the customer or salesperson; then you add the fields you need, per-stage tasks and messages, and lead sources.
The short answer: what makes a good pipeline
A pipeline in amoCRM is not a list of statuses copied from someone else — it is a reflection of how customers actually reach a purchase. Each stage should answer: "What has already happened with this deal?" If a salesperson cannot say clearly which stage a deal is in, the stages are wrong.
Setup order:
- Map the sales process.
- Create the stages.
- Configure deal and contact fields.
- Add per-stage automation.
- Connect lead sources.
Step 1. Stages from the real process
Take your recent deals and trace their path. A typical pipeline for services:
| Stage | What it means |
|---|---|
| New inquiry | Request received, nobody has contacted the customer yet |
| Qualification | A salesperson made contact and understood the need |
| Proposal sent | The customer received a quote |
| Negotiation | Terms are being discussed |
| Awaiting payment | Invoice issued |
amoCRM has system stages: Incoming leads for new requests, plus Closed – won and Closed – lost at the end. You do not delete them — your stages go in between.
Tips:
- 5-7 working stages are usually enough;
- name stages after a completed event, not an intention;
- if products are sold differently, create separate pipelines (for example wholesale and retail) instead of one long list.
Step 2. Fields
Fields keep salespeople from digging through chats and let managers build reports.
- Deal fields: service or product, budget, loss reason, source.
- Contact and company fields: phone, messenger, city, tax ID for companies.
- Make loss reason a dropdown, not free text — otherwise you cannot analyze it.
- Do not add fields "just in case": every extra field lowers the chance the card gets filled in.
Some fields can be made required to enter a stage — for example, a deal cannot move to "Awaiting payment" without an amount.
Step 3. Per-stage automation
In amoCRM automation is configured right in the pipeline, on each stage. Typical actions:
- Create a task for the salesperson when a deal enters the stage: "Contact within an hour".
- Send a message to the customer via messenger or email: inquiry confirmation, payment reminder.
- Change the owner or distribute leads among salespeople.
- Run a Salesbot — a dialog script that asks questions and fills in fields.
- Send a webhook to an external system, such as accounting or a warehouse.
Start with two or three automations that fix the main problem — usually forgotten inquiries. Add complex chains once the team is used to the system.
Step 4. Lead sources
Every inquiry should land in Incoming leads automatically, tagged with its source:
- website forms — via amoCRM's built-in forms or the API;
- messengers — Telegram, WhatsApp, Instagram via integrations from the amoCRM marketplace;
- telephony — calls create deals and are logged in the card;
- email — incoming mail is linked to deals.
Pass UTM tags from your site into deal fields to see which ads bring sales.
Common mistakes
- Stages named after departments instead of deal events.
- All products in one pipeline with a dozen stages.
- Automated customer messages without checking the text and send time.
- No rule for when to close a deal as lost, so the pipeline fills with dead deals.