Business.com aims to help business owners make informed decisions to support and grow their companies. We research and recommend products and services suitable for various business types, investing thousands of hours each year in this process.
As a business, we need to generate revenue to sustain our content. We have financial relationships with some companies we cover, earning commissions when readers purchase from our partners or share information about their needs. These relationships do not dictate our advice and recommendations. Our editorial team independently evaluates and recommends products and services based on their research and expertise. Learn more about our process and partners here.
Salesforce and HubSpot are two leading CRM platforms for small businesses. Here's how they compare.
Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) use customer relationship management (CRM) software to improve their marketing campaigns, convert leads successfully and provide excellent customer service. Salesforce and HubSpot are two intuitive, feature-full CRM platforms that fit the bill. We’ll examine how these solutions handle contact management, email marketing, automating workflows, reporting and analytics, integrations and more to help your business achieve CRM success with the right platform.
Salesforce and HubSpot are among the best CRM software solutions around. These popular, capable and customizable platforms aim to improve business performance in multiple areas. Here’s an overview of how they stack up:
Criteria | Salesforce | HubSpot |
|---|---|---|
Starting prices | $25 per user, per month | $20 per user, per month (billed annually) |
Free trial for paid plans | Yes (30 days) | Free plan; 14-day free trial of select paid plans |
Contact management |
|
|
Email features |
|
|
Workflows and automations |
|
|
Reporting and analytics |
|
|
Integrations and application programming interface (API) |
|
|
Salesforce is best suited for SMBs that want a highly customizable CRM to boost overall business efficiency and improve sales, marketing and customer service. The software collects, manages and interprets data from marketing and sales teams and customer service departments to create a single data source for everyone. It helps you glean insights to create customized workflows and automations that make your business more effective, responsive and profitable. To learn more, read our in-depth Salesforce CRM review.
HubSpot is a great choice for businesses focused on improving sales and marketing. It’s packed with features like an integrated email marketing suite for optimized and personalized campaigns. Its dynamic active-list creation tool helps marketers pinpoint campaign targets. Sales forecasting and lead quality metrics are particularly useful for sales teams. The platform offers in-depth reporting and analytics tools — invaluable for providing actionable insights for sales and marketing managers, reps and C-suite execs. Our detailed HubSpot CRM review explains additional features and functionality.
Investing in flexible CRM software improves business efficiency through task automation and creates an invaluable information resource for your employees.
Salesforce and HubSpot are top-performing solutions in multiple areas. Here’s a direct comparison of their essential CRM features and pricing.
Salesforce’s pricing is midtier in the CRM market. HubSpot’s most feature-packed service plans are at the upper end.
Salesforce
Salesforce has a vast ecosystem of offerings. The costs below are for its Sales Cloud solutions.
Plan | Price | Features |
|---|---|---|
Starter Suite | $25 per user, per month (billed monthly or annually) |
|
Pro Suite | $100 per user, per month (billed annually) | Everything in Starter Suite, plus:
|
Enterprise | $165 per user, per month (billed annually) | Everything in Pro Suite, plus:
|
Unlimited | $330 per user, per month (billed annually) | Everything in Enterprise, plus:
|
Einstein 1 Sales | $500 per user, per month (billed annually) | Everything in Unlimited, plus:
|
Salesforce subscriptions range from $25 to $500 per user, per month. You can opt for the Starter Suite on a monthly basis but all other plans require an annual contract.
Additional features and apps may cost extra. Salesforce offers a generous 30-day free trial so you can test drive the system to see if it’s right for your business.
All Salesforce plans let you send 5,000 email marketing campaign messages daily — a generous allowance we haven’t seen from any other provider.
HubSpot
HubSpot’s pricing structure can be confusing because the company sells both its Smart CRM platform and several specialized products called Hubs. Smart CRM serves as the foundation for the HubSpot ecosystem, while products such as Sales Hub, Marketing Hub and Service Hub add functionality for specific business needs. Because this comparison focuses on CRM and sales functionality, we’ve highlighted the HubSpot pricing plans most relevant to customer relationship management, automation and sales workflows.
Plan | Price (Annual Billing) | Key Features |
|---|---|---|
Professional | $45/user/month |
|
Enterprise | $75/user/month | Everything in Professional, plus:
|
Plan | Price (Annual Billing) | Key Features |
|---|---|---|
Free | $0 |
|
Starter | $20/user/month | Everything in the Free plan (with fewer limits), plus:
|
Professional | $90/user/month | Everything in Starter, plus:
|
Enterprise | $150/user/month | Everything in Professional, plus:
|
Note that HubSpot’s listed subscription price may not reflect your total cost. Depending on your plan, you may also pay onboarding fees, purchase additional HubSpot Credits or incur charges for premium services and API usage. Sales Hub Professional customers typically pay a one-time onboarding fee of $1,500, while Sales Hub Enterprise customers typically pay $3,500.
Salesforce wins because its entry-level plan is more feature-packed than HubSpot’s and provides 5,000 free daily emails. Additionally, if you need more features, the price jump from Salesforce’s Starter Suite to its Pro Suite level isn’t as jarring as HubSpot’s jump from Starter to Professional. Still, HubSpot does offer a free tier, so it may be worth trying this out first.
If you’re interested in CRMs with free service plans, check out our review of Zoho CRM. This platform offers a three-user free tier with essential features that may work well for very small businesses.
Contact management tools help small business owners track and monitor real-time prospect and client interactions.
Salesforce
HubSpot
Salesforce offers excellent customization and object control. However, HubSpot’s dynamic lead capture and management tools impressed us. We also really like HubSpot’s time-saving and intelligent active lists feature that identifies contacts who might be ready to purchase soon.
Email marketing is a low-cost, effective way to engage with and sell to your target audience.
Salesforce
Salesforce CRM includes Gmail integration, so you can view and work with Salesforce data directly in Gmail. Source: Salesforce
Salesforce CRM includes basic email marketing tools in its Free and Starter suites. Businesses that need more advanced marketing automation — including AI-powered campaign creation, customer journeys and enterprise personalization — can add Salesforce Marketing Cloud Next. Read our Salesforce Marketing Cloud Next review to learn more.
HubSpot
HubSpot wins this round. Unlike Salesforce, HubSpot’s email marketing functionality is fully integrated into the platform. Its user-friendly tools make creating and launching campaigns quick and easy. Salesforce’s plug-ins are good, but HubSpot’s features are better.
Workflow automations save you and your team time, so you can focus on improving the business.
Salesforce
HubSpot
Creating workflows in HubSpot is straightforward, with no coding required. Source: HubSpot
Salesforce’s extensive workflow and automation capabilities are flexible and precise. You can better manage teams, marketing campaign structures and much more. The platform’s Process Builder tool is superb. Although HubSpot’s visual editors are more user-friendly and you can code in JavaScript or Python, the platform doesn’t offer Salesforce’s advanced automation capabilities and ease of use.
Reporting and analytics tools give SMB owners actionable insights to formulate growth strategies and improve inventory turnaround times.
Salesforce
Salesforce’s visual dashboard reports on sales team activities in real time. Source: Salesforce
HubSpot
Salesforce comes out ahead in this category thanks to its comprehensive toolset and visually appealing dashboards. The AI-powered Einstein tool and its predictive analytics and decision-making support add real value. However, HubSpot’s reporting and analytics functions are also powerful; they’re likely enough for most SMBs.
CRMs can integrate with your other business software apps for better data synchronization across your business.
Salesforce
HubSpot
HubSpot’s App Marketplace has more than 1,700 apps to choose from. Source: HubSpot
Salesforce wins thanks to its extensive range of third-party applications and superior API interface. Its AppExchange platform offers more choices than any other CRM we reviewed, including HubSpot. HubSpot also offers an impressive selection of marketing and sales integrations. However, the scale and depth of Salesforce’s offerings make it stand out among CRM providers.
APIs are helpful when you want your CRM to connect to other business software, such as the best email marketing services, in a specific way that a prebuilt app doesn’t allow.
Salesforce and HubSpot are both excellent general CRM platforms. We recommend both platforms for companies with the following specific needs.
Salesforce is feature-packed and user-friendly. As your business grows, this platform can accommodate ever-increasing operational complexity. Salesforce is a high-level tool that can help you build sales-enabling databases and efficient workflows. Its app store and API functions enhance its functionality and customizability. Salesforce isn’t cheap, but its features, ease of use and flexibility make it an excellent investment.
If your goal is to generate more leads and boost sales, HubSpot has many valuable features that can help. Its integrated email marketing platform, market segmentation tools, omnichannel capabilities, active lists and in-depth sales forecasting functionality will quickly become indispensable. Given the platform’s flexibility, the Professional package is competitively priced. However, you can start with the free plan to evaluate whether HubSpot suits your needs.
Which platform is better depends on your needs. HubSpot is more straightforward. It has a built-in email marketing platform and its reporting and analytics tools appeal to companies that want better returns from their sales and marketing teams. However, Salesforce offers more customization options, better reporting and analytics tools and is easier to connect to other business software. For companies wanting to improve all aspects of their customer-facing performance, Salesforce is better.
Salesforce is more customizable, with an extensive app store and a well-executed API interface. It’s generally better for more complex businesses. HubSpot is easier to use out of the box and its main focus is on improving sales and marketing performance. HubSpot may be better for smaller businesses with less complex workflows.
HubSpot is popular for several reasons, including its ease of use. HubSpot is helpful for companies that want to improve their inbound marketing campaigns; its built-in email marketing platform, landing pages and analytics tools are valuable. HubSpot is one of the few CRM platforms offering a free service plan with respectable functionality. This option is important for companies that want to test the system without making a substantial financial commitment.
While switching CRMs can be complex, you may want to move from HubSpot to Salesforce if you need a deeper level of customization and scalability. Salesforce offers a wider choice of third-party integrations to extend its functionality, as well as a greater range of analytical and reporting features and workflow automation options. Still, HubSpot is a very capable system and you should ensure the move is necessary before changing systems.
HubSpot is both a customer relationship management (CRM) platform and a content management system (CMS). Its Smart CRM serves as the foundation for products such as Sales Hub, Marketing Hub, Service Hub, Content Hub, Data Hub and Revenue Hub. Content Hub helps businesses create and manage websites, landing pages, blogs and other digital content, while the CRM stores customer data and supports sales, marketing and customer service activities.
