Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is the backbone of any growing business, especially in the B2B world where long-term relationships are paramount.
Choosing the right CRM is an important decision you make for your company, when you’re focused on driving growth. Two of the most popular CRMs in the market today are HubSpot and Salesforce. Both are widely respected, offer comprehensive solutions, and cater to businesses of all sizes. But which one is right for you?
In this guide, we’ll take a deep dive into HubSpot and Salesforce, comparing their features, pricing, ease of use, integrations, and customer support. We’ll also explain why HubSpot CRM might be the better choice for small-medium sized businesses looking to grow efficiently and effectively.
Author's note: Cobloom is a HubSpot customer and affiliate. We may earn commission if you sign-up for the software after using our links, which helps support our publishing. It doesn't change the amount you will pay for the software.
The Core Differences Between HubSpot and Salesforce
Before diving into the details, it's essential to understand the core differences between HubSpot and Salesforce.
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Target Audience: Salesforce, originally designed for large enterprises, is feature-rich but often seen as more complex and tailored to bigger businesses with extensive resources. On the other hand, HubSpot started as inbound marketing software with small-medium businesses in mind, offering simplicity and ease of use.
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Philosophy: HubSpot is built on an "all-in-one" philosophy, meaning that its CRM integrates seamlessly with its other products (marketing, sales, service, and operations), providing a unified experience. Salesforce operates on a modular approach, where businesses can purchase different functionalities and customise them.
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Pricing: HubSpot offers a free CRM with affordable upgrades, making it an attractive choice for small businesses. Salesforce is best known for its comprehensive offering for large businesses and the enterprise, meaning the costs quickly escalate as you add functionalities and users.
Feature Comparison: HubSpot vs Salesforce
Both platforms provide a robust set of features, but they differ in terms of approach, flexibility, and ease of use.
1) User Experience & Interface
HubSpot:
One of HubSpot’s strongest selling points is its user-friendly interface. It was designed with simplicity in mind, ensuring that businesses without dedicated technical teams can still manage their CRM efficiently. The dashboard is clean, intuitive, and highly visual, allowing users to get up and running quickly.
- Ease of Setup: HubSpot is known for its quick setup process, requiring minimal training.
- No Coding Required: HubSpot’s CRM can be customised without needing deep technical knowledge.
- Visual Dashboards: The CRM provides users with easy-to-understand visuals for tracking sales, leads, and performance metrics.
Salesforce:
Salesforce, in contrast, offers a more complex interface with countless customisation options. While it can be highly powerful, the learning curve is steeper, and users usually require a dedicated administrator or a third-party consultant to set it up correctly.
- Highly Customisable: Salesforce allows for deep customisation, but this often requires technical expertise.
- Feature-Heavy Interface: Its wealth of features can overwhelm users who don’t need advanced tools immediately.
- Training Required: Most businesses using Salesforce find they need significant time and resources to train their team.
2) Marketing & Sales Tools
HubSpot:
HubSpot originated as an inbound marketing platform, so its marketing and sales tools are particularly well-integrated. For businesses focused on generating leads and nurturing customer relationships, HubSpot’s marketing automation is incredibly strong.
- Email Marketing: HubSpot’s CRM seamlessly integrates with its marketing tools, allowing users to create and send personalised email campaigns based on their CRM data.
- Lead Nurturing: HubSpot’s CRM excels at managing leads through the sales funnel, allowing businesses to set up workflows and automated triggers to move prospects through different stages.
- Lead Scoring: HubSpot offers built-in lead scoring, which helps sales teams prioritise their efforts based on the likelihood of conversion.
Salesforce:
Salesforce also provides excellent marketing and sales tools, but it often requires purchasing additional modules or integrating third-party applications to achieve the same level of functionality that HubSpot offers out of the box.
- Pardot Integration: Salesforce’s marketing automation is powerful, but it typically comes at a premium through tools like Pardot.
- Customisation: While Salesforce offers a vast range of marketing and sales functionalities, the complexity of setup can be a drawback for smaller businesses.
3) Customisation & Scalability
HubSpot:
For small-medium sized businesses, HubSpot provides just the right level of customisation. It’s flexible without being overwhelming. You can customise your sales pipelines, set up workflows, and integrate with third-party apps, but you won’t usually need to hire a developer to make it work for you.
- Workflows: HubSpot’s visual workflow editor is one of the best in the business. It allows users to automate processes based on criteria, actions, and triggers.
- Hub Add-Ons: HubSpot’s platform is built around a central CRM, and you can expand it with additional features (e.g., Sales Hub, Marketing Hub, Content Hub, Commerce Hub and the various tiers within each) as your business grows.
Salesforce:
Salesforce offers nearly limitless customisation and scalability. The platform is well-suited for businesses that need complex workflows and deep integrations. However, with great flexibility comes the need for dedicated resources to manage and optimise it.
- Complex Workflows: Salesforce allows for highly complex workflows, but this often requires significant technical expertise to set up.
- Scalable for Enterprises: Salesforce is designed to scale with even the largest enterprises, but the downside is that small-medium sized businesses may end up paying for features they don’t yet need.
4) Integrations and Ecosystem
HubSpot:
HubSpot integrates with over 1,000 apps, including Gmail, Outlook, Slack, Shopify, and WordPress via its App Marketplace. What’s impressive is how seamlessly HubSpot’s CRM works with its own suite of tools, providing an all-in-one solution for marketing, sales, customer service, and operations.
- Native Integrations: HubSpot has strong native integrations with major business apps, and they are easy to set up without a developer.
- Unified Platform: Since all of HubSpot’s tools are built on the same platform, there’s no need to worry about data syncing issues between different systems.
Salesforce:
Salesforce’s integration capabilities are vast, with a massive app marketplace known as AppExchange. However, many of the best integrations come at an extra cost and often require custom development.
- AppExchange: Salesforce’s marketplace is one of the largest in the CRM world, but integrating third-party apps often requires technical expertise.
- Complex Integrations: While Salesforce’s integration potential is limitless, small-medium businesses may find it difficult to manage without a dedicated IT team. A lot of add-on Salesforce functionality was acquired via acquisition, meaning integration is more difficult.
5) Pricing and Total Cost of Ownership
HubSpot:
HubSpot offers a free CRM, and you can use it without any time limits or strings attached. As your business grows, you can upgrade to paid tiers, which start affordably, especially for small-medium businesses. HubSpot’s pricing is transparent, and there are no hidden costs or complex licensing fees.
- Free Plan: HubSpot’s free CRM includes essential features like contact management, pipeline tracking, and email templates.
- Paid Tiers: Upgrading gives you access to advanced tools such as sales automation, advanced reporting, and AI-based insights, but the cost remains within reach for most SMBs.
Salesforce:
Salesforce’s pricing is more complicated, with different tiers for different modules. The base price may seem competitive, but once you add features, integrations, and customisations, the costs can escalate rapidly.
- High Initial Costs: While Salesforce offers an extensive feature set, the pricing structure can quickly become prohibitive for small-medium businesses.
- Additional Costs for Customisation: Customising Salesforce usually requires third-party consultants, which adds to the total cost of ownership.
6) Customer Support and Resources
HubSpot:
HubSpot is renowned for its excellent customer support, especially for small businesses that may not have a large technical team. HubSpot Academy provides extensive free resources, including courses, certifications, and tutorials that help users get the most out of the platform.
- Free Training: HubSpot Academy offers free, in-depth training for all users.
- Responsive Support: HubSpot provides responsive customer support, with additional support available at higher-tier plans.
Salesforce:
Salesforce offers robust support options, but many of these come at an additional cost. Most businesses will need to invest in a dedicated Salesforce administrator or consultant to manage their CRM effectively.
- Premium Support Tiers: Salesforce offers premium support, but at an added cost.
- Complexity Requires Expertise: Most businesses using Salesforce end up hiring a consultant or administrator to handle customisation and integrations.
Why HubSpot CRM is Better for Small-Medium Sized Businesses
While both HubSpot and Salesforce are top-tier CRMs, HubSpot is arguably the better choice for small-medium sized businesses. Here’s why:
1) Ease of Use
HubSpot’s intuitive interface makes it easy for businesses to get started quickly without the need for a dedicated IT team. Small-medium businesses often don’t have the resources for extensive training or complex customisation, making HubSpot’s user-friendly platform an ideal choice.
2) Cost-Effective
For small-medium businesses focused on growth, HubSpot’s free CRM and affordable paid tiers offer tremendous value. The transparent pricing model ensures that businesses only pay for what they need, without hidden fees or escalating costs as they scale.
3) All-in-One Solution
HubSpot offers a complete suite of tools for sales, marketing, and customer service. This integrated approach allows you to manage every aspect of your customer relationships in one place, without needing to juggle multiple systems.
