Customer relationship management (CRM) platforms can save businesses time and boost sales by tracking and automating client interactions. The best CRM software helps businesses organize customer information and engage with leads and customers via multiple channels, creating a consistent and effective communication strategy.
Salesforce and HubSpot are top-tier CRM solutions that can help many businesses. We’ve evaluated key elements of our Salesforce CRM review and our HubSpot CRM review to help businesses weigh their similarities and differences and choose the right CRM software for their needs.
Criteria | Salesforce | HubSpot |
Starting price | $25 per user per month | Free plan available; paid plans start at $20 per user per month |
Free trial | Yes (30 days) | Yes (14 days) |
Third-party integrations | Salesforce supports API and third-party integrations with a wide range of apps and software services. | An expansive App Marketplace hosts over 1,000 integrations. |
Customer support | Customer support is available 24/7 via email, live chat or phone. | Support options vary by plan. Phone support is available only to Professional and Enterprise customers. Starter plan customers can access chat and email support. Free-tier users must consult community resources. |
Sales features | Salesforce CRM comes with robust sales tools, including:
| HubSpot offers a wide range of sales features, including:
|
Marketing features | Upgrade your marketing with Salesforce’s marketing functionality, including:
| Streamline and automate marketing efforts through HubSpot’s marketing tools, including:
|
While Salesforce is an excellent option for any business, we recommend the platform particularly for businesses with advanced customization or automation needs.
Salesforce is a well-known and highly respected CRM vendor used by thousands of companies worldwide, including big names like IBM, Mercedes-Benz, NBCUniversal, Herman Miller, Morgan Stanley, PayPal, AT&T, 3M, ADP, Adidas and Asana. Its high-level sales and marketing features can help businesses of all sizes generate leads, close sales, and improve and streamline operations. We especially like its AI-powered Einstein tool, which automates sales tasks and provides rich deal insights, call coaching and sentiment analysis to help your sales team perform more effectively.
We appreciate that Salesforce offers an expansive range of plans to accommodate the needs of various businesses. In this evaluation, we focused primarily on its impressive small business offerings. Salesforce’s lowest tier starts at an affordable $25 per user per month; as businesses scale and their needs grow, they can upgrade to more feature-full plans.
The following features make Salesforce a top CRM choice:
Salesforce offers easy-to-read dashboards and AI-powered personalized insights. Source: Salesforce
We recommend HubSpot for small businesses implementing a CRM for the first time or companies with teams new to using CRM software. Its user-friendly interface promises a short learning curve that can help quickly get your staff up and running.
HubSpot boasts well-rounded sales and marketing features. Its intuitive setup and navigation will make it easy to manage customer relationships, track customer and lead communications, build a sales pipeline, monitor in-progress deals, and much more. Additionally, its expansive integration options can help businesses connect their CRM to their existing business software, creating a customized solution.
We were impressed by HubSpot’s free offering, which provides essential sales, marketing, commerce and operations tools to help small businesses on a tight budget manage leads and customers. As they grow, they can opt for the affordable Starter tier for $20 per user per month and gain more extensive sales and marketing features.
We think the following features help HubSpot stand out among the competition:
HubSpot’s education platform, HubSpot Academy, offers training courses in multiple areas, including sales training and digital marketing skills development.
HubSpot offers a wide range of sales and marketing tools, including email templates and tracking. Source: HubSpot
Salesforce offers various plans with features to improve lead management, sales, marketing and more. Various add-ons are available for enhanced CRM analytics capabilities, marketing features, commerce options and more. We like that it offers a reasonably priced Starter plan; however, it’s missing notable features like automations and detailed CRM reporting. We were also disappointed that you must opt for the Unlimited plan to access lead scoring.
The following prices reflect monthly charges with annual billing. You’ll pay more for monthly billing.
Plan | Price | Features |
Starter | $25 per user per month | Lead management, offline functionality, duplicate blocking, Einstein activity capture, email integration, mass emails, custom sales processes, mobile apps, custom dashboards and reporting, file sharing, and up to five automation workflows |
Professional | $80 per user per month | Everything in Starter, plus sales forecast management (desktop and mobile), Sales Cloud Everywhere functionality, offline mobile functionality, order and quote creation and tracking, additional collaboration tools, and five flows per organization |
Enterprise | $160 per user per month | Everything in Professional, plus workflow and process automation, advanced pipeline management, opportunity scoring, deal insights, sales console apps, sales team tools, advanced reporting and forecasting, opportunity splits, territory management, opportunity scoring, deal insights, a waterfall chart, and web service APIs |
Unlimited | $330 per user per month | Everything in Professional, plus lead scoring, advanced Einstein tools and insights, built-in AI, premium support, advanced automation, sales engagement tools, and more |
HubSpot has various iterations related to marketing, sales, customer service, operations and content management. For our evaluation purposes, we’re looking at HubSpot’s CRM Suite and its pricing.
We love that HubSpot CRM Suite has a free tier – few competitors offer this perk. While the free tier lacks some crucial features, including marketing campaign management, it’s still a great deal to help businesses get started with using a CRM.
The following plans and prices reflect an annual billing discount. (You’ll pay more for monthly billing.)
Plan | Price | Features |
Free tools | Free | Up to 2,000 emails monthly (with HubSpot branding), App Marketplace integrations, marketing tools, service tools, CMS tools, email scheduling, one inbox and live chat (with HubSpot branding) |
Starter | $20 per user per month for two users
($25 for each additional user) | Includes everything in the free tier (removes HubSpot branding from emails and live chat), plus access for two users to HubSpot Sales Hub Starter, Marketing Hub Starter, Service Hub Starter and CMS Hub Starter |
Professional | $1,600 per user per month (for five users)
$100 for each additional user
One-time $3,000 onboarding fee | Everything in Starter, plus access for five users to Sales Hub Professional, Marketing Hub Professional, Service Hub Professional, CMS Hub Professional and Operations Hub Professional |
Enterprise | From $5,000 monthly for 10 users | Enterprise-level tools, including 10,000 marketing contacts |
We’re calling a tie in this round; your business’s needs and budget will dictate the most affordable package for you. HubSpot’s free plan is unmatched; however, it may not be enough for your business’s sales and marketing goals. The Starter plan adds essential features, but there’s an enormous price jump to its Professional plan if you need more extensive functionality. Salesforce may end up being a better value if you need a higher-level plan. Its Professional Plan is $80 per user per month, offering businesses a way to upgrade beyond essential features without incurring exorbitant expenses.
Check out our review of monday Sales CRM to learn about another popular CRM platform with a generous free tier.
Salesforce offers a 30-day free trial, allowing businesses to thoroughly test its CRM platform. No credit card is required to sign up for the free trial. To sign up, you’ll complete an online form with essential information like your name, contact information, company size and company name.
HubSpot offers a 14-day free trial for its paid service plans. Additionally, businesses can sign up for a free account to access a more limited range of CRM tools.
While both vendors allow you to test their software for free, HubSpot wins this category. Businesses can use its free offering as long as necessary before upgrading to a paid version.
Salesforce can integrate with various software packages and productivity applications, including Slack, Google Cloud, Dropbox, Mailchimp, QuickBooks and DocuSign. Salesforce integrations can be managed through Zapier, AppExchange plug-ins or API integrations.
HubSpot offers robust integration options within its App Marketplace, including popular business software like Gmail, Asana, Zapier, Microsoft Outlook and Calendly. It even offers integrations with competing CRM tools like Salesforce, Zendesk, Pipedrive, Freshsales and Zoho CRM.
HubSpot offers an expansive range of integrations in its user-friendly App Marketplace – over 1,000. Additionally, setting up integrations with HubSpot is exceptionally quick and easy.
CRM integrations are crucial for many businesses, allowing them to utilize existing software, including productivity and communication apps.
Salesforce’s customer service team is available 24/7 by phone, email and chat. However, the support line frequently experiences a high call volume that may lead to long wait times. Salesforce encourages customers to take advantage of the available online self-help tools or request a support call via an online form.
HubSpot’s customer support options vary depending on your plan:
HubSpot also offers many self-service features and training options online.
While Salesforce’s customer support options aren’t perfect, we appreciate that the company offers 24/7 support through multiple communication channels. We think it’s crucial for small businesses to have access to phone support, as even the most user-friendly CRMs have a learning curve.
You don’t need to be a HubSpot customer to access the company’s training library. HubSpot Academy courses and certifications are free, providing a great resource for training on skills like sending marketing emails and improving SEO.
HubSpot offers a wide range of sales features, including deal tracking. Source: HubSpot
Salesforce offers comprehensive and user-friendly sales features, even in budget plans. The Salesforce CRM is one of the most popular tools for sales teams because the platform offers strong sales tracking functionality along with robust analytics, forecasting capabilities and AI-powered insights to help boost sales teams’ productivity and performance. We also like how well Salesforce organizes lead data and routes leads to the correct sales team member.
Track the performance of specific marketing assets or campaigns with Salesforce’s helpful marketing data dashboards. Source: Salesforce.
The HubSpot Marketing Hub includes the following features:
Access advanced marketing reporting with visual charts and graphs with HubSpot’s marketing features. Source: HubSpot
HubSpot’s marketing features shine, with multiple options and ease of use. We also like that the vendor offers marketing skill-building courses to train marketing teams.
Both Salesforce and HubSpot provide essential CRM features; however, one may be better than the other for your specific business needs.
Choose Salesforce if:
Choose HubSpot if:
Salesforce does not have a free plan but does offer a free trial. If you are looking for a free CRM option, consider HubSpot’s free CRM plan.
HubSpot has different plans and features targeted toward different functions, including sales and marketing. A stand-alone Sales Hub can be purchased by companies that just need sales-focused features.
Both vendors offer comprehensive CRM tools that can meet the needs of a wide range of businesses. HubSpot offers more affordable pricing and a shallower learning curve, making it a great option for many small businesses. Salesforce’s enhanced customization options make it well suited for larger businesses.
Yes. QuickBooks offers a Salesforce Connector that can integrate data between Salesforce and QuickBooks.
According to HubSpot, over 184,000 businesses globally are using its service.