Logo - Full (Color)
Skip to content

Salesforce vs HubSpot

Choosing the right sales and CRM platform is foundational to the success of your business. This page compares two of the top-rated CRM platforms — HubSpot and Salesforce — to help you choose the platform that’s right for you.

Ready to see the power of HubSpot’s sales CRM? Talk to sales for a demo.

Talk to sales

Overview

While there are many CRM options on the market, HubSpot and Salesforce are consistently rated the top CRM platforms. Both platforms provide large sales teams with a robust solution that can scale with growth. However, the differences start to emerge when you look at how both platforms were built, and how that foundation contributes to ease-of-use and adoption. This page will help you understand the differences between HubSpot and Salesforce, so you can choose the right CRM for growing your business.

What does HubSpot do?

HubSpot is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform that helps scaling businesses grow better with sales, service, marketing, and content management software. It provides a single source of truth that empowers your front office teams to deepen their relationships with customers and provide a best-in-class experience. HubSpot was built in-house on one code base, which means you get a unified experience that’s easier for your team to adopt and use.

 

An Overview of Sales Hub

Sales Hub is built within HubSpot’s all-on-one CRM platform. It includes custom objects, sales engagement software, CPQ tools, conversation intelligence, and powerful sales analytics to help teams work more efficiently, save time, and grow revenue. 

What does Salesforce do?

Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform with applications for sales, service, marketing and more that help bring customers and companies together. Salesforce was built together through acquisitions which means the experience and connections can be different depending on the products you’re using. Because of that, Salesforce may present a steeper learning curve and require more admin resources or more budget to get systems working together.

 

An Overview of Sales Cloud

Sales Cloud is an all-in-one sales CRM that brings together sales automation tools, reporting, deal management, and more. 

Sales Cloud enables businesses to manage leads, track progress, and automate sales processes.

Pricing

To help you understand the difference in total cost of ownership between HubSpot and Salesforce, let’s break down the common expenses.


Differences Between Paying for Seats

HubSpot includes all the features you need in its advertised price, and you only pay for additional revenue-generating sales seats. Free seats are available for team members who need visibility into the business, such as reporting, without any of the day-to-day functionality of sales tools. Learn more about the value of HubSpot’s free seats.


Salesforce charges for every user and requires paid add-ons for essential features. Aligning your marketing and sales teams, giving executives visibility into reporting, or even letting your reps operate in a shared inbox is going to cost extra. See a breakdown of additional costs for marketing software here.

Sales Software Costs for a Team of 50

Scroll to see more
 HubSpot
Sales Hub Enterprise Pricing		 Salesforce
Sales Cloud Enterprise Pricing
Expense
List Price

$6,000/mo for 50 paid users (source)

$7,500/mo for 50 users (source)

Licensing Costs

Pay $120/mo for each additional paid user (source)

Pay $25 - $150 per additional user depending on package (source)

Implementation

Flat rate of $3,000 for Enterprise onboarding.

Additional technical consulting services available for additional fees (source)

Salesforce offers a ‘Jump-Start’ implementation for $5,000 (source)

Platform Maintenance

Enjoy a seamless platform built on one code base (source)

Set-up and maintain connectors for multi-cloud integrations

20 work hours to configure, with regular updates ($5,000) (Example - Marketing Cloud)

Outbound Calling Software

Included in all plans. Calling limits apply (2,000 minutes per user/mo for Enterprise); not available in all countries (source)

Calling and Logging $40/user/mo (for 1,000 minutes) (source)

Sales Engagement Software

Included with Enterprise:

  • team email
  • conversations inbox
  • HubSpot video
  • email sequences
  • tasks & calling queues
  • playbooks
  • documents & templates
  • meetings
  • mobile app & more
(source)

Salesforce Engage ($50/user/mo), and High Velocity Sales with Salesforce Inbox (listed below)
(source)

Conversation Intelligence and Call Coaching Software

Included with Enterprise: 1,500 transcription hours per account/mo. Additional capacity available for purchase (source)

High Velocity Sales ($75/user/mo) includes Einstein Call Coaching, Salesforce Inbox, sequences, and queues (source)

Customer Support Costs

Phone and email support included for all Professional and Enterprise plans (source)

20% of net-cost for phone support and 24/7 coverage

30% of net-cost for additional feature access (Add 5% for U.S. based support)
(source)

Total
Estimated Total Cost for 1 Year for a team of 50

$75,000

$236,800

Capabilities

Your CRM is the foundation of your sales process. It should keep you organized, increase efficiency, give leadership clear direction on how to grow revenue, and scale with your growth. See how HubSpot and Salesforce compare across some of the most critical CRM capabilities.

  • HubSpot is uniquely dedicated to ease-of-use and simplicity for admins, reps, and managers. This way, you spend less time (and money) getting your CRM system to work the way you want it to. Customers have the freedom to organize and administer their CRM without the need to hire a dedicated admin. Need a more sophisticated approach? Use custom objects to architect your CRM in a flexible, intuitive way for your business, and seamlessly import crucial 3rd party data into your CRM. We made our pricing suitable for businesses without an unlimited budget.

    Salesforce implementation and maintenance requires experienced and well-trained administrators. Most Salesforce customers need to bring in a consulting agency (source), hire one or more full-time admins (with an average salary of $77,503 according to Glassdoor), or have current employees become Salesforce administrators.

    “HubSpot is a refreshing change from Salesforce and MS Dynamics. The user interface is clean, polished, straightforward, and easy to learn. It is nice to have a place where sales and marketing data and notes can be stored in a seamless way. You also have all the essential tools for accelerating and automating repetitive tasks: email templates, automated outreach sequences, automated meeting scheduling, engagement tracking, and a dependable mobile app. Best of all, HubSpot can be administered in-house without third-party developers or consultants...Less than a year in, we've got buy-in from the entire team and we've armed our sales directors with real data and dashboards to use for managing the growth.” - Brandon Stewart, Marketing Content Manager at Hamilton Company, Biotechnology, Enterprise (501-1,000 emp.)

    “We switched to HubSpot about 3 years ago. Salesforce was just too difficult to make do what we want without pricey consultants, whereas HubSpot was easy and intuitive out of the box...It is so much cheaper and easier to use than Salesforce, which means people actually use it!” - Beth Morgan COO at TrueData, IT & Services, SMB (11- 50 emp.)

  • HubSpot CRM combines a consumer grade user experience with enterprise power. Sales Hub delivers on contact management, sales analytics, sales automation, pipeline management, and much more. Sales Hub products are trusted by thousands of growing mid-market B2B companies, enterprise brands, and high-growth unicorns to scale with them as they grow.  

    Salesforce offers endless customization for businesses that have enough admins and developers to set up complex processes.  They include top-of-the-line contact management, dashboards, analytics, pipeline management, sales automation, forecasting, and much more. You’ll get a wide range of powerful products for businesses of all sizes.

    Both HubSpot and Salesforce offer the most powerful, complete tools for sales teams on the market.

    “People are often resistant to change … but the difference between Salesforce and HubSpot is night and day. It’s like switching from Windows 95 to the modern era … the sales team can log in to HubSpot and see all the information all in one place … they can conduct their next move, right there, inside of HubSpot, or have that page open when emailing leads. It’s our source of truth for contacts, companies, and deals … Today, sales and marketing are much more aware of what the other side is doing,” says Nathan Innis of Novus. See why Novus switched to HubSpot. 

    “HubSpot is powerful...Having all the sales tools and marketing tools in one place is awesome for our sales team....I like segmenting customers by their behavior to map out progress through the buyer's journey. But the biggest thing is that it's a very powerful suite of tools that is easy for our sales reps to take advantage of. We use things like sequences and vidyard all the time. I can customize the CRM to force compliance of our sales process too.” - Mike Wille, CRO at Localfluence, Marketing & Advertising, SMB (11-50 emp.)

    "I have used both Salesforce and HubSpot and I can see the best feature out of both platforms is the email sequence feature HubSpot offers. It allows me to set up a sequence of intro and follow up emails and lets me set and forget. The biggest flaw for most people in sales is following up, this lets you set and forget while getting results. I prefer HubSpot over any other CRM that I have used, including Salesforce." - Kyle Parcell, Account Manager at Cybba, IT, Mid-Market (51 -1,000 emp.)

     

  • HubSpot features an elegant user experience that's optimized for the things customer people do every day. By combining powerful features with intuitive UX, HubSpot is loved by admins and end-users alike. And it’s why HubSpot is consistently ranked the most user-friendly CRM and B2B software (source), with rep adoption often cited as a key benefit among HubSpot users. As a result, customers making the switch to HubSpot often see an improvement in their data quality. When paired with HubSpot’s powerful reporting and automation features, high-quality data gives admins greater visibility into the overall health of their business. 

    Salesforce is incredibly powerful with robust reporting that’s endlessly customizable. This customization can take time to implement and require training to master. G2 crowd users ranked HubSpot above Salesforce in ease of setup and admin (source).

    HubSpot and Salesforce both offer powerful tools for scaling businesses. But what good is power if the tools are hard to learn, understand, and put to use? A great CRM should be easy-to-use and loved by all. 

    “Don't let your users today influence your decision. I had a team of seasoned sales rep very comfortable with Salesforce and adamant that this was a bad move. After three months they started to see the benefits and now more than two years later they still finding things they love about HubSpot and it is truly allowing them to do more with less time." Ashley Neu, Director of Sales and Marketing at Phoenix TS, Contractor Training, Mid-Market (51 -1,000 emp.)

    "I find myself logging everything in HubSpot, when I could not even bear to do so in SFDC. It really does depend on your organization and size. Hubspot is a brilliant smart choice for most organisations who want to get quick results from their sales and marketing teams with minimal fuss."  Stephen Serrem, Regional Sales Manager at PeopleDoc, IT & Services, Mid-Market (51 - 1,000 emp.)

     

     

  • HubSpot’s CRM Platform and supporting Sales, Marketing, Content Management & Service Hubs have all been built by HubSpot from the ground up. The result is a unified and consistent user experience where data, reporting, and individual tools are all similar and work in concert with each other. 

    Salesforce offers more products and tools, but their breadth can come at the cost of usability and maintenance. Their platform has grown through acquisitions such as Pardot, which can create a less integrated user experience for customers. When your systems are less integrated together, your data, channels, and teams become disjointed. The result is that your customer experience may suffer.

    HubSpot and Salesforce are CRM platforms. They both offer a CRM along with all the tools your front office teams need including sales, marketing, content management, and service tools. But they were built differently. Choosing an all-on-one CRM for your teams to use will not only unite your work and data, but also create a better end-to-end customer experience.

    “The best part is being able to have all the information we need for marketing, sales, and customer management under one platform which was relatively simple to implement and onboard. We transitioned from Salesforce to Hubspot and it really made our lives simpler. Before we had to do a lot of manual passing of data between sales team and marketing. When our annual renewal for Salesforce came up we were happy to switch. Plus much better customer service.” - Alex Chamberlain, Marketing Team Manager at ERA Environmental Management Solutions, Environmental Services, Mid-Market (501-1,000 emp.)

    "We were left to rely on third parties to support our marketing and sales efforts and used our CRM as a fancy rolodex for the sales team. Everything changed the day we signed our Hubspot contract. Transitioning systems took little to almost no effort and within two months we had full team adoption of the new system. We were able to bring all the marketing support in-house without adding to our team’s capacity and for the first time we could manage and measure the end-to-end customer journey across all our paid and organic marketing channels and follow them through the sales process. With a system that makes it so easy for us to manage an integrated sales and marketing strategy we are now able to look at more complex, ‘higher level’ strategies and channels with the support of all the Hubspot tools, training and support materials available." - Erin Shepherd. ROBO Global, Financial Services, Head of Global Marketing, SMB (11 - 50 emp.)

     

  • HubSpot doesn't sacrifice power for usability. Customize it to meet your business needs without adding complexity -- and scale up gracefully, without months of custom dev work. HubSpot offers a flexible data structure for your CRM with custom objects, so custom implementations are a breeze. You can stay agile as you scale, adapting easily to whatever the world throws at you.

    Salesforce offers endless customization for the most complex organizations. But CRMs that are less integrated get clunky the more users, data, and processes you add. It slows you down just when you need to speed up. This level of customization allows for nuanced forecasting and reporting dashboards. However, these features may require more admin support and developer resources, which can make it difficult for businesses to change and adapt their Salesforce instance over time.

    HubSpot and Salesforce both offer powerful software for fast-scaling businesses. As a business evolves, it’s important for your CRM to be able to grow and change with your business needs. With this in mind, having the flexibility and control to customize your CRM is critical. See why and how HubSpot's Global Sales team moved fully off of Salesforce CRM to be 100% on HubSpot CRM Platform.

    “Sales Hub is straightforward enough that my sales team (who are newer HubSpot users) can get value out of it easily, and the customization options are flexible enough that I can create really sophisticated, custom campaigns for demand gen... I've also switched my sales team from using Salesforce to using HubSpot almost exclusively because the deal tracking feature is so much easier to use….HubSpot aggregates a feed on each type of record so you can see the complete history of that person, company, or deal - including website visits, email engagement, ad engagement you name it.” - Olivia Watson, Marketing and Business Development Manager  at Sense360, Market Research, SMB (11 - 50 employees)

     

  • HubSpot’s App Marketplace takes the same approach to 3rd party integrations as it does its own software – focusing heavily on power, ease-of-use, and quality. Installing and configuring integrations via the marketplace is simple with over 500 apps and integrations, many of which are native (HubSpot-built) integrations.

    Salesforce’s AppExchange is the largest and broadest CRM app marketplace, offering a wide variety of options for different requirements. AppExchange is the fast and easy way to extend Salesforce with over 3,400 apps and integrations. 

    HubSpot and Salesforce both offer excellent add-on functionality through a robust app ecosystem. Both offer open APIs and developer tools to help you cater your CRM to your company. 

     

  • HubSpot is invested in your success from day one. Our world-class support and customer success teams are available to all customers– with phone and email support at no extra charge for Pro and Enterprise customers– and you won’t pay more for it as you grow. HubSpot Academy, consistently ranked as one of the top online learning platforms in the world (source), is also available for free right at your fingertips. 

    Salesforce charges 20% of your net contract price for 24/7 premier support, while additional feature access costs 30% of your net contract price. With percentage pricing as you spend more on additional seats and add-on features, you’ll have to pay more for the same support. When choosing a Salesforce support plan, you’ll want to carefully forecast how much your team will need.

    "I love that HubSpot has amazing training programs that are free and excellent customer service. It was so easy to get started without any tech gurus or IT expenses. I am a salesman and I set up everything for my team by myself. I looked at doing the same for Salesforce and kept getting bogged down in all of the details. I am sure Salesforce is great but just not easy to get started in. Our sales team is not particularly technical or strong on computer skills so ease of use was paramount to acceptance in implementation.” - Greg Cooper, Sales & Marketing at San Jacinto Environmental Supplies, Wholesale, SMB (11-50 emp.)

     

HubSpot and Salesforce Integration

With HubSpot’s fast, reliable, and powerful integration with Salesforce, syncing your data can be done in minutes – no technical setup required. This makes it possible to use both platforms for your different teams. Learn more about our integration here.

 

Switching from Salesforce to HubSpot

Our dedicated migrations team is here to help you confidently move your team onto HubSpot, with minimal disruption to your business.

At HubSpot, we don’t just copy paste your old, sub-optimal process. We help you design a new, better system – one that will scale with you for years to come. Below is a look at our proven phased approach for switching.  

Learn how businesses switch from Salesforce to HubSpot

Migrate from Salesforce to HubSpot

What are customers saying?

HubSpot received G2's top 100 Software Sellers and Best Software Awards for 2021.

  • We were a Salesforce-heavy organization and recently made the switch to HubSpot’s Sales Hub Enterprise. It’s an out-of-the-box solution that’s easy to use and intuitive, while also offering powerful automation tools and robust reporting. With HubSpot, we can see the complete lifecycle of a customer from lead to close, and our teams can own the customizations needed to get their job done. We have had 100% user adoption and couldn’t be happier.
  • On the sales side, the team was pigeonhole into using Salesforce CRM platform, which proved to be overly complex when it came to managing contacts and updating lead information. While data entry took up a lot of time and resources, the sales reps also felt hindered by the lack of qualified leads in their pipeline. With the leads they did have, it was challenging for sales reps to fully understand where a lead was within the sales cycle. Without those insights, the sales team struggled to identify and take the appropriate next step.
    Learn how Ceros increased monthly meetings booked 7x by switching from Salesforce to HubSpot.
  • It needed to be more affordable than Salesforce, it needed to offer the same functionality, and it needed to support our plans of developing an automated marketing machine. So far we have been tremendously successful with our move and wouldn't go back.
    See how HR Cloud increased conversion rate 51% by switching from Salesforce to HubSpot.
  • 'We were using HubSpot as our marketing tool and Salesforce as our sales tool. So when a lead became a sales opportunity, we had to take all the information out of HubSpot and copy it into Salesforce. It was time-consuming and inefficient.' After looking at different alternatives, Feyi decided to implement Sales Hub Enterprise. She chose this solution over Salesforce because it’s part of HubSpot’s CRM Platform, an integrated suite of marketing, sales, and customer service tools. 'We set up our sales process without having to hire a CRM engineer,' says Feyi. 'We could set up new fields, permissions, sequences, and reports without adding to our overhead.'
    See how CancerIQ increased sales productivity by switching from Salesforce to HubSpot

HubSpot is trusted by over 121,000 businesses in more than 120 countries.

A Community That Has Your Back

HubSpot Solution Partners

HubSpot’s Solution Partner Program is a network of over a thousand agencies to help you resource your marketing strategy with HubSpot. Whether you need someone to help create content, set up ads, or build workflows, there’s a partner here for you.

HubSpot Community

Our Community is there when you need them. Whether it’s getting set up or figuring out the best way to customize Marketing Hub for your needs, there are over 85,000 community members ready to answer your questions.

Knowledge Base

You’re busy. You don’t have time to file a support ticket. You’re also extremely smart and can find answers on your own. Search our comprehensive Knowledge Base to answer any question you might have about our products.

See the benefits of selling with HubSpot today.

Explore how Sales Hub can take the pain out of your pipeline management.

Talk to sales