Blog / Small Business Automation

A Deal Pipeline Inside Gmail Without Streak

By Keyona Meeks, Founder, ReRev Labs · Oct 31, 2026 · 8 min read

The short answer: You can run a small deal pipeline with two things you already have. Use Gmail labels as the stages, nested under one parent label, and keep one Google Sheet with a row per deal. A formula in the Sheet counts days since the last contact and flags any open deal that has gone quiet. It is not Streak. It has no board view and no automatic email linking. For a handful of active leads or bids, it is enough, and you own all of it.

By the end of this post, you'll be able to:

Set up stage labels in Gmail.
Build a one-tab deal tracker in Google Sheets.
Flag deals that need a follow-up with a formula.
Decide when a paid Gmail CRM is worth it.

Streak describes itself as a CRM that works directly inside Gmail. Its help center says "A pipeline in Streak can track any business process" and lists stages and columns as the parts of one. That is a good idea, and it is an idea you can copy with free parts. This post shows how, for a service firm tracking leads or bids. It is one of five tools we rebuild for free. See how to replace paid software subscriptions for the others.

I read Streak's pages as excerpts on October 30, 2026. I did not use Streak for this post, and I do not compare its features beyond those two pages. I do not quote its prices.

What does a pipeline need to do?

Three things, and only three:

Show every open deal and its stage.
Tell you which ones have gone quiet.
Keep the email conversation one click away.

Everything else is extra. If you cannot say which of the three you need most, start there.

How do you set up stages in Gmail?

Use labels. Gmail's help page says to click Create new label next to Labels on the left, enter a name, and optionally nest the label inside another one. Make a parent label called Pipeline and then child labels for each stage, such as:

Pipeline/1 Lead
Pipeline/2 Talking
Pipeline/3 Proposal sent
Pipeline/4 Waiting
Pipeline/5 Won
Pipeline/6 Lost

The numbers keep them in order in the sidebar. To apply one, the same page says to tick the checkbox next to the email, open the Labels menu at the top and choose the label. Source: Create & manage labels in Gmail, read as an excerpt on October 30, 2026. I did not confirm the exact button names on your screen, so check the live page.

When a deal moves, take the old stage label off the thread and put the new one on. A thread should have one stage label. This is the manual part. You will forget it sometimes, which is why the Sheet matters.

How do you build the tracker?

Make a new Google Sheet with these columns in row 1:

A	B	C	D	E	F	G
Deal	Contact	Stage	Last contact	Next step	Days since contact	Flag

Column C holds the stage as plain text, such as Lead, Proposal sent, Waiting, Won or Lost. Column D holds a date. Add a data validation list on column C so the words stay the same. A typo in a stage name breaks the formula below.

Put this in F2 and fill it down:

=IF(D2="","",TODAY()-D2)

Put this in G2 and fill it down:

=IF(OR(C2="Won",C2="Lost",D2=""),"",IF(TODAY()-D2>14,"Follow up",""))

Change 14 to the number of days that fits your sales cycle.

I tested both formulas in LibreOffice with five made-up rows. A deal last contacted 20 days ago showed Follow up. A deal at exactly 14 days did not, because the test is "more than 14." A Won deal and a deal with no date showed nothing. I did not test them in Google Sheets, so type a few test rows and check.

Sort or filter by the Flag column each Monday. That is your follow-up list.

How do you keep the email one click away?

Add a column H called Thread. Search Gmail for the label, open the conversation and copy its address from the browser bar into the cell. I did not test whether that address works the same in every Gmail view, and I did not try to automate this. Try the pasted address in a new tab before you rely on it.

Or skip the column. Click a stage label in Gmail and you see every thread in that stage. The Sheet is for the list and the dates. The label is for the conversation.

Where does this fall short?

Be plain about it. Streak shows a board and links email to deals inside Gmail. This does neither.

You update the Sheet and the labels by hand.
There is no board view with cards you drag.
Several people editing at once will mean conflicts in the Sheet and mixed-up labels.
The Sheet does not know when a new email arrives, so the Last contact date is only as good as your habit.

If you have many deals, several people working them or a need for shared inbox features, a paid tool may be worth it. I would say the same about any DIY tracker: it works until the volume or the team outgrows it.

What do you do with the follow-up list?

Each Monday:

Filter column G for Follow up.
Open the thread for each one.
Write the next step in column E, and send the nudge if it is the right call.
Update Last contact in column D when you send it.

A reminder is a prompt, not a decision. You choose whether a quiet deal gets a second email or gets moved to Lost. If you later want the Sheet to email you a list of stale deals, what is Google Apps Script is the place to start. I did not write that script for this post.

Where does an LLM fit in this?

An LLM can help with the messy part: reading a long email thread and drafting a two-line summary for column E, or suggesting wording for a follow-up. A person should read the thread and the draft before anything is sent. The labels, the dates and the flag are plain rules, and they do the same thing every time. My stance: AI writes the code, plain automation runs it, and an LLM shows up only where the input is messy and a person checks the result.

Where this has limits

I did not use Streak, and I read two of its pages as excerpts. I make no claim about what it does beyond those pages.
I did not test this in a live Gmail account or in Google Sheets. The formulas were tested in LibreOffice with made-up rows.
The label steps come from Gmail's help page as an excerpt. Check the live page.
It is manual. It depends on you updating labels and dates.
It suits a small number of deals and one or two people.
Docs change. Everything here is as of October 30, 2026.
No ReRev prices and no promises about sales results.

If you would like us to rebuild this on your own accounts, see the free rebuild offer on /letstalk. Bring a description of your stages and how many deals you track. Do not send passwords or login details, and do not send client emails.

Frequently asked questions

Can I run a CRM in Gmail without Streak?

For a small number of deals, yes. Use nested labels for stages and a Google Sheet for the list, dates and next steps.

How do I make pipeline stages in Gmail?

Create a parent label such as Pipeline, then nest a child label for each stage. Gmail's help page describes creating and nesting labels.

How do I know which deals have gone quiet?

Put the last contact date in the Sheet and use a formula that flags open deals older than your chosen number of days.

Does this link emails to deals automatically?

No. You apply labels and enter dates by hand, or paste the thread address into the Sheet.

When should I pay for a Gmail CRM?

When you have many deals, more than a couple of people working them, or you need a board view and automatic email linking.

Is my data safe in a Sheet?

It sits in your own Google account, and you control who can open it. I did not review Google's security terms. Keep client details out of it if your rules say so.

Read next: Google Sheets as a CRM if you outgrow the inbox view, and construction bid follow-up for the same pipeline idea applied to bids.