HubSpot CRM Review: Is It Right for Your Business?
Jess served on the founding team of a successful B2B startup and has used a wide range of sales and marketing tools over the course of her 15-year career. She uses her industry knowledge to deliver the best answers to your questions about sales tools and sales management.
Jill is a writer at Fit Small Business specializing on Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.
This article is part of a larger series on CRM.
HubSpot CRM is our overall top-recommended customer relationship management (CRM) system for small businesses. In our evaluation of the best CRMs, HubSpot CRM came in first with a score of 4.95 out of 5 based on our assessment of affordability, general features, ease of use, customer support, and expert ratings.
Overall Score:
4.95 / 5
What We Like
- Free plan offers useful email marketing tools, such as email templates and reply tracking
- Unlimited users and contacts
- User-friendly interface
- Can integrate multiple social media accounts
What's Missing
- Free plan lacks access to customer support and is limited to forums
- Plan upgrades are expensive
- Additional cost for added marketing, sales, and customer service tools
When to Use HubSpot CRM
- Social CRM: HubSpot CRM ranks #1 in our guide for the best CRMs that connect with social media
- Free CRM: HubSpot also ranked #1 in our guide for the best free CRMs due to the robust features under its Free plan
- Outlook integration: HubSpot also earned the top spot for the best CRM that integrates with Outlook in our guide
When to Use an Alternative
- QuickBooks integration: Choose a CRM tool that integrates with QuickBooks for accounting and billing requirements
- Ecommerce CRM: Check out this guide for top CRM options to manage your ecommerce business
HubSpot CRM is a CRM system that offers business owners a centralized, user-friendly interface to manage customers, understand their behavior, and increase retention rates. It provides email, social media, lead, and pipeline management tools. It is best for businesses looking for a free or affordable, feature-rich CRM system.
HubSpot CRM Deciding Factors | |
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Supported Business Types | Solo entrepreneurs to enterprise businesses—depending on the plan chosen |
Standout Features |
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Pricing Plans |
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Contract Duration | Monthly and annual plans are available |
Key Integrations |
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Customer Support | Email and in-app chat support |
Are you interested in learning more about the best CRM options for your organization? Check out our guide on the best CRMs for small businesses.
HubSpot CRM Alternatives
If HubSpot CRM doesn’t meet your business needs, below are some alternatives that you can consider:
 |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|
Best For | Teams that need a scalable CRM with a feature-rich, in-app telephony | Companies that need visual representations of their sales pipelines | Businesses that want an affordable CRM with excellent analytics tools |
Starting Price | Offers a free plan while paid plans start at $15 per user, each month | Starts at $14.90 per user, per month | Offers a free plan while paid plans start at $14 per user on a monthly basis |
HubSpot CRM earned a pricing score of 2.75 out of 5 in our evaluation. It is well-known for having an excellent Free plan. It also has paid pricing plans that range from $45 per month with a minimum of two users to $1,200 per month for 10 users. More users can be added to each plan and cost $23 to $120 per additional user, depending on the plan chosen, making it somewhat expensive for teams with a tight budget that need advanced features.
Plans | Free | Starter | Professional | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Best For | Solo entrepreneurs | Small to medium businesses | Medium-sized businesses | Enterprise-level businesses |
Monthly Pricing ($/Month)* | Free | $50 per month for 2 users | $500 per month for 5 users | N/A |
Annual Pricing ($/Month) | N/A | $45 per month for 2 users | $450 per month for 5 users | $1,200 per month for 10 users |
Cost per Additional User for Monthly Pricing | N/A | $23 per user | $90 per user | $120 per user |
Email Marketing | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Email Templates | 5 | 5,000 | 5,000 | 5,000 |
Sales Pipelines | 1 | 2 | 5 | 100 |
Sales Analytics | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
Predictive Lead Scoring | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
*Monthly pricing lets the users pay on a monthly basis, but HubSpot CRM still requires them to commit to an annual contract.
Free
The Free plan includes team email, email scheduling, and one inbox with five free email templates and five canned snippet responses. It allows users to schedule meetings directly from the app and allocates 15 minutes’ worth of calls. It also offers users a one-deal pipeline and a reporting dashboard that includes three dashboards with 10 reports for each.
Starter
The Starter plan includes all the functionalities under the Free plan. Its email features give users access to up to 5,000 templates and snippets. It includes eight hours’ worth of calls, two pipelines, and 10 report dashboards with up to 10 reports under each one. It also includes deal stage, task, and lead rotation automation.
Professional
This tier adds additional features, such as 16 hours of calls, up to 100 inboxes, 5,000 templates, and 5,000 snippets. The Professional plan provides up to 15 pipeline deals per account and up to 300 workflows for its deal stage, task, and lead rotation automation feature.
Enterprise
The main additions to the Enterprise plan are 33 hours of calls and up to 100 pipeline deals per account. It is the only plan that offers highly advanced features, including predictive lead scoring, forecasting across team hierarchies, quote-based workflows, recurring revenue tracking, and user roles.
HubSpot CRM Add-ons
All paid plan users can purchase a Starter CRM Suite that starts at $45 per month. It includes marketing, sales, content management, operations, and customer service tools for growing business needs. It is ideal for creating content, generating leads, streamlining lead outreach, and tracking customer communications.
HubSpot CRM Features
HubSpot CRM provides essential features fundamental to managing and nurturing customer relationships. These include tools to track leads and deals, monitor pipelines, and forecast sales. Below are some general and standout features we like best from HubSpot CRM.
We gave HubSpot CRM’s general features a score of 5 out of 5. It has all the crucial features small businesses need to manage customers and track their sales activities. A lot of these features are also included in the Free plan, such as email scheduling, email marketing, quotes, pipelines, and Facebook Messenger integration.
HubSpot CRM’s sales rep productivity dashboard (Source: HubSpot)
- Lead management
- Email scheduling
- Shared inbox
- Meeting scheduling
- Reporting
- Deal stage automation
- Lead rotation automation
- Deal scoring
- Sales forecasting
One of HubSpot CRM’s key features is lead nurturing through email marketing. It allows you to have unlimited users and unlimited contacts, which is useful if you are running a larger sales team that handles large volumes of clients. Its extensive third-party software integrations let you manage your accounts from other software that you’re using, including project management, help desk, and analytics.
HubSpot CRM scored 5 out of 5 in specialized features as it provides a well-rounded platform for managing customers—from basic features to more advanced ones. These include tools for lead management with lead information, activity history, and tickets. It also has robust email marketing features that enable users to run campaigns using professional-looking templates. Below is a breakdown of some of the other specialized features that HubSpot CRM offers:
Lead Management
HubSpot CRM lets you streamline your lead management, routing, and nurturing processes by putting all pertinent information about a contact in a single page. Each contact page gives you an overview of the emails, calls, and meetings associated with a particular contact. It also has a sales activity log that lists your deal opportunities, tickets, and attachments, so all pertinent customer information is found in a single place.
- Lead database
- Lead scoring
- Communication history
- Activity history
- Lead segment lists
HubSpot CRM provides all the important information in each lead profile, including personal information and activity history. (Source:HubSpot)
Email Marketing
HubSpot CRM helps you automatically create and send personalized, professional-looking emails to your mailing list. This feature improves the chances of your contacts engaging with your emails, thereby improving the overall conversion rate. It can also help you input relevant email subjects, content, and calls to action based on any information about the contact, such as their sales pipeline stage or list segment.
HubSpot’s key email marketing features include:
- Email templates
- Open rate tracking
- Read receipts
- Link click tracking
- Personalized emails
HubSpot CRM shows you the status of emails sent to contacts, including open and read rates. (Source: HubSpot)
Pipeline Management
HubSpot CRM enables you to create custom pipelines that fit your sales processes and provide an overall view of expected revenue. When you create deals involving saved contacts, all their details, such as contact information and communication history, are automatically filled into the deal. This automation eliminates the need to enter data manually, so you can focus on closing deals with leads and prospects.
Below are HubSpot’s main pipeline management features:
- Pipeline customization
- Deal management
- Pipeline health tracking
- Pipeline trends analysis
- Deal assignments
HubSpot CRM has a straightforward pipeline that allows you to see pertinent details of each lead or deal, as well as its total value. (Source:HubSpot)
Third-party Integrations
HubSpot CRM has integration capabilities with many third-party applications, allowing you to synchronize all your customer data with the platform. These include managing social media accounts and projects, tracking insight trends, and enhancing overall productivity levels. It integrates with various apps that have ecommerce, analytics, lead generation, sales, helpdesk, social media, and project management.
Some of the most popular integrations include:
- Mailchimp
- Slack
- Facebook Messenger
- Google Workspace
- Microsoft Outlook
- Calendly
- Shopify
- WordPress
- Survey Monkey
- Typeform
- Stripe
- Zoho Analytics
- LiveChat
HubSpot CRM’s vast ecosystem of third-party integrations (Source: HubSpot)
We scored HubSpot CRM a 5 out of 5 for its customer support due to the channels available for its paid plans. It offers customer support during official business hours (Eastern Standard Time). Support is available through email, in-app chat, and phone. Types of support vary depending on the plan purchased. Below are the available customer support touchpoints for each plan:
- Free: None; users can visit community forums and blogs to check out helpful articles
- Starter: Email and in-app chat support only
- Professional: Email and in-app chat support only
- Enterprise: Email, in-app, and chat support
HubSpot CRM once again got a perfect score of 5 out of 5 for ease of use. We scored it as such as it has an intuitive and user-friendly interface, making it an ideal choice for first-time CRM users. Most customer reviews for HubSpot CRM highlight how easy it is to get up to speed with using the software—with little to no learning curve expected.
HubSpot CRM got a score of 4.75 out of 5 for the expert score. We found that it has mostly positive reviews, particularly its ease of use, customer support, and automation features. Areas for improvement include the quality of its search functionality—especially for users with a high volume of data stored in the system and the limited features under its Free plan.
At the time of this publication, HubSpot CRM had the following review scores from popular user review sites:
- G2: 4.4 out of 5 based on 9,382 reviews
- Capterra: 4.5 out of 5 based on 3,402 reviews
- Software Advice: 4.5 out of 3,399 reviews
Methodology: How We Evaluated HubSpot CRM With Expert Scoring
To evaluate HubSpot CRM against other CRM systems, we test each system ourselves. We start by looking at affordability along with a core set of features every CRM should have, including sales pipeline, lead, and deal management. Ease of use, customer support, availability of a mobile app, and the overall value each system offers are always heavily considered.
Click through the tabs below for our CRM system evaluation criteria:
10%
Pricing
10%
General Features
30%
Niche Features
15%
Ease of Use
20%
Support
15%
Expert Score
10% of Overall Score
Cost is typically an important criterion for any business, so it was one of our considerations when evaluating the cost-effectiveness of HubSpot CRM. We typically give a high score to providers that offer a starter plan that costs $30 or less. We also took into account free plan availability, scalable pricing options, and having options to pay monthly or save by paying annually.
10% of Overall Score
We looked at overall features we feel are necessary for any CRM system, such as integration options, reporting, and analytics tools. We also took into consideration the availability of a mobile app—which is important for sales reps who are always on the go.
30% of Overall Score
We also looked at the niche and targeted features of the software to see the value that a user can get by subscribing. Specifically for HubSpot CRM, we took a look if they offer specialized features such as lead scoring, email and SMS marketing, and workflow automation.
15% of Overall Score
We evaluated HubSpot CRM’s platform usability. This was analyzed in terms of the expertise needed to set up an account, the learning curve to use its features, and the ease of integrating with other third-party applications.
20% of Overall Score
Extensive support and service help prevent poor user experiences and outcomes users may encounter while using HubSpot CRM. Help and support were evaluated in terms of customer service hours and the availability of support via phone, live chat, and email.
15% of Overall Score
In addition to our firsthand experience with using HubSpot CRM, we evaluated what other users say about each product. These criteria consider how customers feel, based on their reviews, to gain insight into platform popularity, ease of use, and overall value for the price.
*Percentages of overall score
HubSpot CRM Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Who should use HubSpot CRM?
HubSpot CRM is suitable for a wide range of business owners—from solo entrepreneurs to enterprise-level businesses. Interested users can choose from its range of four available pricing plans to see which one suits their business best. It tops our list of the best CRM systems for small businesses.
When should I use an alternative to HubSpot CRM?
- HubSpot CRM is not a good fit for users who run online stores or ecommerce businesses. Check out our guide on CRMs that integrate with QuickBooks for better options.
- It is not a good fit for beginners using a free plan who want access to customer support. Instead, users can check out Freshsales, which provides 24/5 support via live chat, phone, and email, even for its free plan.
Bottom Line
HubSpot CRM is an easy-to-use CRM packed with features for sales and marketing. Its Free version is suitable for startups and small businesses that do not need advanced tools to handle their leads and contacts. Its paid version under HubSpot CRM’s Sales Hub, on the other hand, can keep up with larger businesses and enterprises, especially those that focus on building their social media presence and nurturing leads.
