HubSpot CRM Review: Learn Whether It's Right for You

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HubSpot CRM is an industry-leading CRM rich in free and premium sales and marketing features, from real-time pipeline updates and activity tracking to inbound tools like form builders and chatbots. Other reasons for HubSpot CRM’s popularity are its general ease of use and exceptional customer service. But despite its many qualities, there may be other options if you need advanced reporting and customization. Check out our complete review below to see if it's right for you:

HubSpot CRM at a Glance

HubSpot is a top CRM software because it’s intuitive with a suite of sales and marketing features. However, it comes up short in a few areas — namely reporting and customization.

Price Range: Free to $1,200 per month for 10+ users

Overall Rating Pricing Features Ease of Use Customization Integrations Customer Support

Pros:

• Free CRM hosts unlimited users
• Includes both sales and marketing tools
• Intuitive UI and relatively simple setup
• 24/7 support for paid users

Cons:

• Premium upgrades can be expensive
• Reporting capabilities may be lacking
• Harder to customize
• No live support for free users

Visit HubSpot CRM

Beyond the general pros, cons, and overall ratings, it’s also important to consider specific scenarios where HubSpot CRM shines — as well as situations where it may not be the right choice for you:

When to Use HubSpot CRM

If HubSpot's CRM sounds right for you, head over to HubSpot to compare their available tiers. You can test out their free version before upgrading to one of their premium options.

When Not to Use HubSpot CRM

If HubSpot CRM doesn't sound like a right fit for you, there are many other options out there. Consider our list of the best overall CRM software for more information on alternative options and to read about their primary use cases. You can also check our list of the top industry-specific CRMs if you need features specific to your industry.

HubSpot CRM Pricing

HubSpot CRM offers a free entry-level plan that includes unlimited seats and a solid suite of sales and marketing tools — although functionality is limited for most features. Fortunately, it’s simple to upgrade to any of HubSpot CRM’s three premium tiers and increase feature limits. Refer to the table below for a breakdown of HubSpot CRM’s pricing structure:

Meanwhile, users can augment their HubSpot CRM paid plans with add-ons, which add an extra $200–$750 per month. That might be a significant additional expense for most companies, but it could be worth the investment for businesses that require access to more reports or expanded CRM testing capabilities. Here’s a brief rundown of what HubSpot CRM add-ons provide plus how much each one costs:

HubSpot CRM Add-Ons

Increased Reporting

Larger Lists

More Transcriptions

Higher API Limits

Expanded Testing Capabilities

Professional and Enterprise users can pay $200 more per month to increase their dashboard limit to 300 and create 3,000 extra reports.

HubSpot CRM reporting

With a Professional or Enterprise plan, pay an extra $200 per month to increase the volume of both active and static contact lists by 100 apiece.

HubSpot CRM lists

Enterprise subscribers can pay $250 more per month to add 400 transcription hours. (Note that unused hours don’t roll over to the next month.)

HubSpot CRM transcription

All Sales Hub plans qualify for additional API call volumes between the CRM and outside services — up to one million calls per day — for an extra $500 per month.

HubSpot CRM API limits

Enterprise plan holders can pay an additional $750 per month for an extra sandbox account. This will allow developers and admins to test various customizations and integrations before rolling them out publicly.

HubSpot CRM sandbox testing

Also of note is the HubSpot Starter CRM Suite from $45 per user, per month. It includes a collection of tools from every HubSpot hub (Marketing, CMS, Sales, Service, and Operations), which makes it the perfect option for companies that want multiple departments to utilize a CRM.

HubSpot CRM Features

HubSpot CRM includes a well-rounded range of sales and marketing tools to help business leaders access client data, capture leads, streamline tasks, and make actionable decisions. Here’s a look at the most notable core CRM features found in HubSpot CRM:

Contact Management

Every HubSpot CRM plan comes with one million contacts plus email tracking, inbox insights via Gmail or Outlook, and automatic list segmentation for hyper-targeted messaging. Contact management is already quite robust with HubSpot’s free CRM; however, upgrading to any of its premium plans will increase the monthly allotment of activity notifications and shared inboxes.

See how HubSpot CRM’s features and pricing compare to other CRMs in our list of the best contact management software.

Lead Management

HubSpot CRM offers a detailed timeline of lead activity so sales professionals will know exactly how to proceed. It’s among the best software for inbound lead management, with a suite of free tools that consist of personalized meeting links, chatbots, and landing page builders. Paid plans add features like automatic conversation routing, lead rotation, and standard contact scoring.

Find out how HubSpot CRM fares among other platforms with rich lead management tools by checking out our list of the best lead management software for salespeople.

Pipeline Management

HubSpot CRM makes it dead simple to create new opportunities within the pipeline. It minimizes the need for manual data entry by automatically populating the deal pipeline with sales information directly from contact records. HubSpot CRM pipelines are also fully customizable, as users can add as many (or as few) steps as they need. HubSpot’s free CRM includes access to a single pipeline, while its top-tier Enterprise plan offers up to 100 pipelines.

Further explore the pipeline management capabilities of HubSpot CRM versus its competitors in our list of the best sales pipeline software.

CRM Reporting

For basic, no-fuss reporting, HubSpot CRM is an excellent option. All HubSpot CRM plans come with access to over 150 pre-made report templates that users can filter and customize (within certain parameters). Report types include deals created, monthly revenue, website traffic, and social media interactions. Custom reporting is also available but only with Sales Hub Professional and Enterprise, which allow for 100 to 500 custom reports, respectively.

Check out our complete guide to CRM reporting to learn which reports are most integral to making better sales decisions — in HubSpot CRM or another platform

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CRM Dashboards

Every HubSpot CRM plan comes with multiple dashboards that can support various types of sales and marketing reports. Its free tier includes three dashboards capable of hosting up to 10 reports each, while Sales Hub Enterprise allows for as many as 50 dashboards with up to 30 individual reports apiece. Sales teams can share private and public dashboard links via email or through HubSpot CRM’s Slack integration.

Discover the benefits of dashboards — and learn how to set one up yourself — in our comprehensive guide to CRM dashboards.

Email Marketing

HubSpot CRM is renowned for its abundance of free email marketing features, which include email scheduling, customizable templates, canned responses, activity tracking, and message open notifications. Paid upgrades increase message tracking limits, provide access to a library of over 5,000 templates, and allow for more precise email optimization via A/B testing.

Learn about the many ways sales automation can help your business thrive — whether it’s with HubSpot CRM or another CRM of your choice — in our guide to CRM automation.

Mobile CRM

The HubSpot CRM mobile app — free for iOS and Android — features many of the tools found in the full version of HubSpot CRM but with a few noteworthy app-exclusive additions. The most notable of those is the HubSpot Keyboard, which integrates with WhatsApp, Gmail, and other third-party apps to insert CRM data for seamless communication with clients and leads. Other features include a business card scanner, caller ID, and offline access to contact data.

Field professionals seeking a reliable mobile component should take a look at our guide to the best mobile CRM apps, which includes HubSpot CRM.

App Integrations

Although it lacks inherent customizable elements versus some of its competitors, HubSpot CRM makes up for it with a robust selection of app integrations. The HubSpot App Marketplace contains more than 500 native apps — a number that’s steadily growing each year. Most apps can be incorporated with all HubSpot CRM plans, including its free platform. Notable integrations include Mailchimp, Slack, Eventbrite, PandaDoc, and Facebook Messenger.

Our complete guide to CRM integration explains which integrations you should add to your CRM and also provides step-by-step instructions, which can be applied to HubSpot CRM.

Sales Automation

Sales automation is limited to HubSpot CRM’s paid plans; it’s not available on its free-for-life platform. Sales Hub Starter allows users to automate email notifications and trigger tasks when deals change stages in the pipeline. Meanwhile, Sales Hub Professional includes up to 300 customizable workflows; Sales Hub Enterprise boasts as many as 1,000 workflow rules and also adds the ability to trigger sequences.

Learn about the many ways sales automation can help your business thrive — whether it’s with HubSpot CRM or another CRM of your choice — in our guide to CRM automation.

Social Media Management

Social media management is not a part of Sales Hub per se, but HubSpot does offer this feature with its premium-tier CRM Suite bundles and Marketing Hub plans. Publish posts to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest — then monitor their interaction and ROI — from one central location. Companies can connect between 50 and 300 social media accounts for up to 10,000 posts per month. Posts can be scheduled as far as three years in advance.

For more information on the best CRMs for social media management, read our guide on the top social CRM software.

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HubSpot CRM's free plan is packed with key features, and upgrading to a paid tier gives the user access to more robust versions of those features, along with additional ones.

HubSpot CRM Ease of Use

HubSpot CRM is considered one of the easiest CRMs to learn, which makes it a fantastic choice for salespeople who are largely unfamiliar with such software. It features a guided step-by-step onboarding process that makes outside assistance unnecessary during CRM implementation. That’s punctuated by a straightforward user interface throughout all aspects of the CRM, from contact management and app integrations to sales automation.

Meanwhile, if you want to fully harness the power of HubSpot CRM with personalized, hands-on training, a Sales Hub Onboarding service is available. These sessions are fully remote and range in price from $250 to $4,000, depending on which paid Sales Hub plan you have. This onboarding will cover everything you need to know about HubSpot CRM — from how to generate baseline reports to ways to customize your CRM.

HubSpot CRM Customer Service

HubSpot CRM’s customer support has a reputation among sales professionals as being timely and friendly. It helps that HubSpot CRM offers 24/7 access to live chat and email support as standard with all of its paid Sales Hub subscriptions. (Phone support is also included with Professional and Enterprise plans.) Those who use the free CRM are unable to take advantage of these all-hours support options; however, they’re hardly left stranded in times of need.

All users (whether free or paid) are able to browse HubSpot CRM’s knowledge base, which is flush with how-to articles, blog posts, and documentation. There’s also HubSpot’s well-organized and active community forums, which is a 24/7 live support channel in itself, and HubSpot Academy, which boasts hundreds of self-paced courses you can complete for official HubSpot certifications or to simply become better acquainted with the software.

What People Think of HubSpot CRM

What is the buzz surrounding HubSpot CRM? Scouring software review hubs reveals that HubSpot CRM has an overwhelmingly positive reputation among the thousands of people that use it during their day-to-day operations. Here is a breakdown of HubSpot CRM’s ratings across some of the top software review aggregate sites:

4.5 / 5 stars	4.5 / 5 stars	4.4 / 5 stars
2,900+ total reviews	2,800+ total reviews	8,000+ total reviews

HubSpot CRM boasts high overall marks from a combined 13,000-plus users across the top three software review aggregate sites — but that only tells one part of the story. Why do sales and marketing professionals rate HubSpot CRM so favorably, and conversely, why might some people give it less-than-favorable marks? Below, we elaborate on the reasons why reviewers have given HubSpot CRM high (or low) scores.

What People Like About HubSpot CRM

Positive reviews for HubSpot CRM point to its functionality and usability. People like that it’s easy to learn and has a robust suite of sales and marketing functions. Small business owners especially appreciate the robustness of HubSpot’s free CRM, as it allows them to save money while also having access to a viable set of tools. As noted in the previous section, HubSpot’s customer support receives plenty of praise for its prompt and professional service.

What People Wish HubSpot CRM Did Better

Criticism for HubSpot CRM mainly focuses on its lack of development when it comes to custom reporting and sales automation — along with the significant increase in cost to avail of such features. Several sales and marketing professionals also lament the rigid interface when it comes to customization, noting that HubSpot CRM doesn’t provide as much leeway in this area as one of its main competitors: Salesforce.

Alternatives to HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM may be an industry leader, but that doesn’t make it the right fit for every company. Whether you’re seeking a highly customizable CRM, super-detailed reporting and analytics, or a more affordable way to access premium features, there are several options you can consider. Below are three CRMs we find to be the best HubSpot CRM alternatives:

Do none of the above options fit what your business is looking for in terms of functions and/or costs? Head over to our list of the best HubSpot CRM alternatives to learn more about HubSpot’s other top competitors — including use cases, pricing, and features.

Bottom Line: HubSpot CRM Review

HubSpot CRM is revered for its excellent free platform, minimal learning curve, and fantastic customer support. Beyond trying the software for yourself, seeking out a selection of HubSpot CRM reviews — from our own expert assessment to detailed accounts from daily users of the software — will give you a clearer picture of whether it’s the right sales and marketing solution for your business.