Exact, smart and similarity matching, all free

Remove duplicates before your CRM import

Upload a spreadsheet. Pick the columns to match on. Operelio finds and removes every duplicate row, with a preview before you commit.

No credit card required. Free for up to 2,000 rows.

A completed deduplicate run in Operelio: 5,875 input rows, 4,908 unique rows kept, 967 duplicates removed across 612 duplicate groups, with the match and keep settings listed underneath.

What it does

Six things this tool does well

Column-based matching

Select one column or several. Operelio compares rows on your chosen columns and marks exact matches as duplicates. Match on email alone, or combine email and company for stricter matching.

Keep first or last

Choose which occurrence to keep when duplicates are found. Keep first is the default. Keep last is useful when later rows have more recent data.

Preview before you run

See how many duplicates were found and which rows will be removed before you commit. Nothing changes until you click Run.

Smart matching

Emails, phone numbers and company names that mean the same thing count as the same: john.doe+shop@gmail.com and johndoe@gmail.com, +1 (415) 555-0123 and 415-555-0123, Westmarch Trading and Westmarch Trading Ltd. Nothing to set up; it reads the column.

Similarity matching

Exact matching misses close duplicates like "Jon Smith" and "John Smith". Similarity matching catches typos and small differences by comparing how similar the values are, with a threshold you set.

Export removed rows

Download a separate file containing just the rows that were removed. Useful for reviewing what was dropped before you import the clean file.

How to use it

Three steps from messy to clean

1

Upload your file

Drag and drop any CSV or Excel file. Operelio reads the columns for you.

contacts_export.csv

5,875 rows, 9 columns

2

Pick columns and preferences

Select which columns to match on and whether to keep the first or last occurrence.

Match on

Entire row
Email
Company

Keep

First
Last
3

Download the clean file

Click Run and download your file with all duplicates removed. See the summary: rows checked, duplicates found, rows kept.

967 duplicates removed, 4,908 rows kept

The alternative

Doing it yourself

This is what deduplication looks like without a tool.

In Excel or Google Sheets

1Sort the data by the column you want to check
2Use Remove Duplicates in Excel or a UNIQUE formula in Sheets
3Only exact matches are caught. "Westmarch Trading" and "Westmarch Trading Ltd" survive as separate rows
4No preview of what will be removed. The rows are deleted immediately
5No way to export the removed rows for review after the fact

Several minutes per file

No preview before deletion. No similarity matching. No record of what was removed. Issues only surface when the CRM import fails.

With Deduplicate

1Upload your file
2Pick the columns and keep-first or keep-last
3Download the clean file

Seconds, not minutes

Preview before you run. Similarity matching included. Export removed rows to verify what was dropped.

Duplicates might not be the only problem in that file

Upload it and Bridgeant reviews the file before you commit to a tool. It reports what it finds, orders the problems by how much they actually matter, and points you at the tool for each one. That is on every plan including Free, and it works from a summary of your file rather than the contents.

On Starter and up it stops advising and starts doing. Describe the job in a sentence and Bridgeant plans the steps, shows you the plan, and runs them in the right order once you approve. You are not running four jobs by hand and trying to remember which came first.

See how Bridgeant works

Pricing

Free on every plan.

The whole tool is free: exact, smart and similarity matching, the blank-email guard, and the separate file of removed rows. Row limits: 2,000 on Free, 50,000 on Starter, 75,000 on Pro, 150,000 on Agency. Starter from $29.25 a month, Pro from $74.25, Agency from $224.25, billed annually.

On Starter and up it can be a step on a trail, so it runs on every file that lands in a folder, with the push into your CRM at the end.

Common questions

FAQ

How does Operelio detect duplicates?

You select one or more columns and Operelio compares every row on those columns, in one of three ways. Exact: the same value, letter for letter. Smart: emails, phone numbers and company names that mean the same thing. Similarity: typos and small differences, above a threshold you set. Rows that match are duplicates and the first occurrence is kept by default. A blank or unreadable email never counts as a match, so two rows with no email are not the same person.

What is smart matching?

Smart matching reads what kind of column it is and compares the meaning, not the letters. Gmail addresses match with dots and plus tags ignored, phone numbers match whatever the punctuation and with a US or UK country code dropped, and company names match with suffixes like Ltd, Inc and GmbH stripped. It runs on every plan.

What is similarity matching?

Similarity matching finds close duplicates by comparing how similar values are, above a threshold you set. It catches typos and variations like "Jon" vs "John" that neither exact nor smart matching would. It runs on every plan.

What file formats are supported?

CSV (.csv) and Excel (.xlsx, .xls). Upload either format and download a clean file with duplicates removed.

Does it work with multi-tab workbooks?

Yes. By default the tool reads the workbook's first tab, and a tab picker under the upload switches to any other. To remove duplicates across every tab at once, combine the tabs into one list in Merge Files first (its Source Tab column keeps track of where each row came from), dedupe the combined list, then split it back into tabs if you want the original shape back.

What does the Free plan include?

5 jobs per month, files up to 2,000 rows and 2 MB, CSV or Excel output, and 24-hour file retention. Every part of Deduplicate is included, exact and similarity matching and the separate duplicates file.

Can I export the removed duplicates?

Yes. Download a separate file with just the rows that were removed, so you can review what was dropped.

How does this compare to a dedicated deduplication tool?

Tools like Dedupely merge duplicate records that are already inside HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive. Operelio removes them from the file before they get there, so they never become records with owners and activity attached. They solve different halves of the same problem and work well together.

Can I match on more than one column?

Yes. Select multiple columns and rows are only flagged as duplicates if they match on all of them. Useful for stricter matching, like email plus company name.

Want the full walkthrough? Read the Deduplicate guide →

More guides: Remove duplicates in Excel · Clean up your CRM data · Operelio vs Dedupely

Try it on your messiest CSV

Upload a file. We'll do the rest. Free on every plan.