Lead Pipeline
Your pipeline defines the stages that a lead moves through from first contact to close. 500 Leads ships with a default pipeline, but you can fully customize it.
Default pipeline
Section titled “Default pipeline”Every workspace starts with these stages:
| Stage | Color | Description |
|---|---|---|
| New | Blue | Lead just came in |
| Contacted | Yellow | You have reached out |
| Qualified | Purple | Lead is confirmed as a fit |
| Converted | Green | Deal won |
| Closed | Gray | Deal lost or lead disqualified |
Creating a custom pipeline
Section titled “Creating a custom pipeline”- Go to Settings > Pipelines
- Click New Pipeline
- Give it a name (e.g. “Enterprise Sales”, “Inbound Funnel”)
- Add stages with names and colors
- Mark one stage as the Win stage and one as the Lost stage
Stage types
Section titled “Stage types”- Win stage: Marks a lead as successfully converted. Only one per pipeline.
- Lost stage: Marks a lead as lost. Only one per pipeline.
- Regular stages: Everything in between.
Moving leads through stages
Section titled “Moving leads through stages”There are several ways to move leads:
- Kanban board: Drag and drop lead cards between columns
- Lead detail page: Use the status dropdown
- Bulk actions: Select multiple leads and update their stage
- API: Update the
stageIdfield via the Leads API
Multiple pipelines
Section titled “Multiple pipelines”You can create different pipelines for different use cases. For example, one pipeline for inbound leads and another for partner referrals. Each lead belongs to one pipeline at a time.
Automated AI processing
Section titled “Automated AI processing”When a lead enters 500 Leads (via webhook, form capture, CSV import, or API), it automatically goes through a two-step AI processing pipeline:
Step 1: Enrichment
Section titled “Step 1: Enrichment”The system gathers additional data about the lead:
- Email verification — checks if the email domain has valid mail servers
- Email classification — identifies the email as business, personal (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.), disposable, or invalid
- Geolocation — determines the lead’s approximate location from their IP address (when available)
- Company inference — for business emails, identifies the company from the domain
Step 2: AI Analysis
Section titled “Step 2: AI Analysis”An AI model analyzes the complete lead profile (all fields, enrichment results, and custom data) and produces:
- Score (0-100) — data completeness and quality rating
- Qualification (hot/warm/cold) — how promising the lead is
- Qualification reason — a human-readable explanation of why
- Company name — inferred from custom fields or email domain if not explicitly provided
The AI can recognize company information regardless of what the form field is named (“company”, “organization”, “employer”, “business_name”, etc.).
Leads qualified as hot or warm are automatically enrolled in any matching active sequences.
What if AI analysis fails?
Section titled “What if AI analysis fails?”If the AI cannot analyze a lead (e.g., API outage), the lead is marked as failed and you are notified. The lead data is preserved and analysis can be retried. We do not silently fall back to inaccurate rules.
Pipeline analytics
Section titled “Pipeline analytics”The dashboard shows your pipeline as a funnel, with conversion rates between each stage. This helps you identify where leads are getting stuck.