HubSpot Review | What It Does, Pricing, Alternatives, My Verdict
MARKETING SOFTWARE · TOOL REVIEW

HubSpot

★★★★★

The free CRM is genuinely excellent. The paid marketing tiers escalate fast, and that escalation catches people out.

CATEGORY
CRM and marketing platform
PRICE
Free / Paid
MY RATING
4 / 5
LINK TYPE
Affiliate
BEST FOR
Businesses with a sales team that needs CRM and marketing joined up

What it is

HubSpot is a CRM and marketing platform: contact management, deal pipelines, email marketing, landing pages, forms, live chat, ticketing and reporting, sold as separate hubs.

Its free CRM is the most generous in the market and genuinely useful on its own, which is how most businesses arrive.

Its paid tiers are where the caution belongs, because the pricing escalates sharply as contact counts and feature needs grow.

What it does

The CRM handles contacts, companies, deals and activity history properly, with email tracking and meeting scheduling included free.

Marketing Hub covers email, landing pages, forms and automation, with the good automation features in the Professional tier rather than Starter.

Sales Hub adds sequences, quotes, forecasting and call tracking for a sales team.

Reporting across the hubs is the real advantage: seeing which marketing produced which closed deal, on the same records, without integration work.

Who it's for

01Businesses with a sales team following up leads.
02Companies wanting marketing and sales on one contact record.
03Organisations with a consultative sales process worth tracking.
04Teams needing genuine attribution from lead to closed deal.
05Anyone who needs a CRM and has no budget, via the free tier.

Features

Free CRM
Contacts, deals, email tracking and scheduling at no cost.
Marketing Hub
Email, landing pages, forms and automation.
Sales Hub
Sequences, quotes, forecasting and call tracking.
Unified reporting
Marketing activity tied to closed revenue.
Live chat and ticketing
Service features on the same records.
Large integration library
Connects to most business software.

Pros and cons

PROS
Best free CRM available.
Marketing and sales on one contact record.
Reporting from lead source to closed deal.
Polished, well-documented interface.
Scales genuinely as a business grows.
CONS
Paid tiers escalate sharply in price.
Marketing automation gated behind Professional.
Onboarding fees on higher tiers.
Contact-based pricing punishes large lists.
Easy to end up paying for hubs you barely use.

Pricing

PLAN WHAT YOU GET WORTH IT FOR
Free CRM, basic email, forms, live chat. Genuinely useful. Start here.
Starter Removes branding, basic automation, low limits. Small teams.
Professional Real automation, reporting, campaign tools. Where the platform earns its price, at a steep jump.
Enterprise Advanced permissions, reporting and controls. Larger organisations.

The jump from Starter to Professional is the largest in this list, and Professional often carries onboarding fees. Model the cost at your contact count before committing.

MY RECOMMENDED PLAN

The free CRM plus a separate email platform such as MailerLite. Move to Marketing Hub Professional only when unified attribution reporting is worth the price step.

Alternatives

Pipedrive plus MailerLite
A cheaper, focused combination for most small businesses. My usual recommendation.
ActiveCampaign
Comparable automation with a lighter CRM at lower cost.
Zoho CRM
Far cheaper with a broad suite, less polished.
Free HubSpot CRM alone
Often the right answer, paired with cheaper email.

My verdict

HubSpot's free CRM is the best free business software I know, and I recommend it regularly to businesses that have been tracking enquiries in a spreadsheet. It costs nothing and it is properly built.

The paid marketing tiers are where care is needed. Professional is a large step up in price and the features below it are thin, so businesses often pay Starter money for less than MailerLite provides.

The arrangement I recommend most: free HubSpot CRM for the pipeline, MailerLite for the email. It costs a fraction of Marketing Hub and covers what most small businesses actually do.

Try HubSpot →

Who should use it

01Businesses with a sales team following up leads.
02Companies needing marketing and sales on one record.
03Anyone needing a free CRM immediately.
04Organisations wanting attribution from lead to deal.

Who should avoid it

01Small businesses that only need email marketing.
02Teams that would sit on the Starter tier, which is poor value.
03Businesses with very large contact lists.
04Anyone without somebody to own and maintain the system.

Affiliate disclosure

Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through one, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you, and it never changes the price you pay. It also does not decide what appears on this page: I recommend tools with no affiliate programme just as readily, and leave off tools with generous ones when they do not deserve the space.

All recommended tools Last reviewed September 2026