Best HubSpot Alternatives (Free and Paid) for 2023

If you're looking for alternatives to HubSpot CRM, you might find appeal in Freshsales' cheaper CRM platform, as it provides marketing and sales features in an all-in-one package whereas HubSpot will require you to buy these features separately.

Freshsales is loaded with important features, like ticketing, time tracking, and even an AI. There's also a free Freshsales plan, which is pretty rare. Saying this, HubSpot has its own free tier, containing plenty of team management and customer support features, plus customization based on your priorities, so if you've not yet tried HubSpot, it's at least worth a try for a more direct comparison.

The smallest teams and budgets will also want to know about monday.com‘s easy-to-use CRM platform, which is available for just $10 per user, per month for Unlimited users and 5GB storage.

In this guide we'll cover all the best HubSpot CRM alternatives, so you can find the best choice for your team.

In this guide:

• Best HubSpot Alternatives
• Should You Choose HubSpot Anyway?
• Free Alternatives to HubSpot
• Frequently Asked Questions

Best Alternatives to HubSpot

The CRM market is full of big names and flashy ads, but the biggest name doesn't necessarily mean the best fit for your business. Each CRM offers a unique proposition, and different providers and plans are better suited for different types of team. To keep things simple, below are our top recommendations for HubSpot alternatives, depending on the needs you may have.

Freshsales is the best HubSpot CRM alternative overall, because it offers a more holistic experience for small businesses, but can still keep pace with HubSpot when it comes to features, for an even lower price. For example, its first paid package, the Growth plan, has all the data tools you might need for a variety of uses, including custom reports. It even includes instant messaging support for Facebook messenger, which HubSpot doesn't include in its standard tier.

Freshsales also has security features, like Single Sign-On, on multiple plans — HubSpot only offers this for Enterprise customers. Freshsales scored 4.5/5 in our latest round of CRM testing, compared to HubSpot's 4.3/5.

monday.com's CRM is the strongest HubSpot competitor for small businesses in need of an easy-to-use, inexpensive CRM. Our research team awarded monday.com 4.1 stars overall, but a perfect 5/5 for value, with a first tier package that costs just $10 per user, per month.

If you're looking for a HubSpot Sales Hub alternative for your Sales team, Pipedrive Sell is the way to go. Pipedrive matches monday.com's CRM score in our tests, with 4.1 out of 5, but has more useful lead generation features and integrations available.

When it comes to customer service, there's a reason Salesforce is so well-known. Costs are much higher, so this isn't a good HubSpot alternative for those with strict budgets, but the service you'll be able to provide through using the Salesforce CRM platform could transform your operations and customer retention.

Finally, Zendesk Sell is another strong alternative to HubSpot Sales Hub when it comes to user experience. If your team is apprehensive about picking up a new software, then Zendesk should be a consideration.

Use the links below to jump to our full reviews.

The five best HubSpot alternatives are:

1. Freshsales – Best HubSpot alternative overall
2. monday.com CRM – Best HubSpot alternative for small businesses
3. Pipedrive Sell – Great HubSpot alternative for sales
4. Salesforce Service Cloud – Best HubSpot alternative for customer service
5. Zendesk Sell – Best HubSpot alternative for beginners

Freshsales CRM – Best HubSpot Alternative Overall

Freshsales CRM features and overview

Freshsales is the best HubSpot alternative overall, because it offers a competitive feature set for both sales and marketing, whilst remaining more affordable.

HubSpot scores the same as Freshsales for customer support features (both 4.2/5) and overall features (4/5), and although Freshsales lags behind on scalability (3.9/5 vs HubSpot's 4.3/5), our analysis showed it's better value for money (4.6/5) than HubSpot (3.7/5).

In our small-business testing, Freshsales scored 4.7/5 for its Growth suite functionality. This was the joint highest CRM system score achieved along with Zoho CRM, and our research theme also listed it as the 2nd best sales-focused CRM on the market. It's also incredibly easy to use, especially for a program with so many features.

One unique offering from Freshsales is its AI-powered Contact Scoring tool “Freddy”, which gives your contacts an automated lead score based on the data you've collected. For example, we found in our testing that mock leads who behave similarly to existing customers are awarded a good score, to indicate their strong potential to join your customer base. Freshsales is also home to a range of data visualization tools for displaying sales data.

Freshsales offers a number of features useful for marketing, such as multichannel engagement emails and SMS & WhatsApp support, web forms, and website visitor tracking. It really is a comprehensive 2-in-1 CRM, and has one up on HubSpot in this way, since HubSpot will make you purchase different packages for different focuses.

Freshsales CRM pricing vs HubSpot pricing

Freshsales CRM is made up of four plans, one of which is a free plan. Freshsales offers better value than Hubspot in almost all areas.

Comparing free plan to free plan, Freshsales has more customer support options than HubSpot, but fewer integrations, data reporting features, email features, and contact management capabilities.

Freshsales' first paid plan, available for $15 per user, per month, is worth the upgrade and expands Freshsales to a fully featured marketing and sales CRM rolled into one, with a large offering of lead conversion and communication features. HubSpot's pricing for sales teams starts with the HubSpot Sales Hub Starter plan ($9 per user, per month) which is actually quite affordable in the industry.

Freshsales' Growth plan has more features, including phoneline support, lead scoring, a number of data visualization tools, the ability to communicate with leads through mobile messaging apps, and a custom dashboard.

The gulf between the plan prices widens substantially when you get to HubSpot and Freshsales' pricier plans and, as we said previously, Freshsales has a number of marketing features HubSpot does not offer.

Freshsales' Pro plan ($39 per user, per month) has AI-powered deal insights and insights and a product catalog — and is much cheaper than HubSpot's Professional plan ($90 per user, per month + $750 joining fee).

monday.com CRM – BestHubSpot Alternative for Small Businesses

monday.com CRM features and overview

monday.com's CRM is the best low-cost solution we have found, and an excellent choice for small businesses who just want something cheap, cheerful, and straightforward. Overall, our researchers award monday.com a 4.6/5 rating as a small business CRM, in large part due to how customizable it is and how much freedom you have with the software, whereas HubSpot scores 4.4/5 overall on our small business-specific criteria.

monday.com scores a perfect 5/5 for value for money as a Sales CRM, but only 3/5 for sales-specific features, compared to HubSpot‘s score of 4/5 for its range of sales features. This is because monday.com does not include any lead capture or communication features aside from web forms.

HubSpot also scores higher (4.3/5) than monday.com (2.3/5) for sales CRM scalability. Although monday.com has some team communication features for organizational purposes (you can “@” team members on tasks and emails), its score is affected by the fact it has relatively few management features on its initial plans, with no individual target-setting function or internal knowledge base functionality unless you pay for the Enterprise plan.

One key advantage of monday.com is the level of customization afforded to users on this platform, as well as how easy it is to use. Many platforms require users to do a lot of menu-diving through the settings to really sculpt a CRM system to their specific needs, but monday.com lets you get underway with just a couple of mouse clicks.

Another unique thing about monday.com is that it will open a mini dashboard for each contact you have in your database, and you can add different widgets. This makes it great for sales teams.

However, monday.com's CRM lacks customer support options and only really offers direct support via email, which will be a turn-off for teams who want to position their CRM at the center of their business operations. HubSpot, on the other hand, offers direct support via email, live chat, and phone on all its plans except HubSpot Free. 

monday.com CRM pricing vs HubSpot pricing

All in all, monday.com has four CRM plans that are less expensive than HubSpot but also less comprehensive.

For starters, monday.com no longer has a free plan anymore, while HubSpot's free offering is one of the best available, offering a solid option for businesses on a budget that need a CRM. It's obviously a bit limited, but it's certainly more useful than monday.com's 14-day free trial.

monday.com's Basic CRM plan is $10 per user, per month and adds a suite of data and reporting features for general CRM purposes. However, when compared to HubSpot's starting plan ($9 per user, per month), it offers significantly fewer useful sales functions, with effectively no lead capture and communication features.

Similarly, monday.com's Standard ($14 per user, per month) and Pro plans ($24 per user, per month) are significantly cheaper than HubSpot's Pro plan ($90 per user, per month + $750 joining fee). However, HubSpot offers a lot more team infrastructure and sales tools. Ultimately, you get what you pay for when it comes to monday.com CRM vs HubSpot's plans, but the smallest teams might not need the extra features and will benefit from lower outgoing costs.

Pipedrive Sell – Great HubSpot Alternative for Sales Teams

Pipedrive features and overview

Pipedrive is a great HubSpot alternative for sales teams and offers a customizable sales pipeline, database management features such as list segmentation and duplicate-contact deletion, as well as lead capture add-ons including website visitor tracking, a website chatbot, and web forms.

Pipedrive contains many features that sales teams would find helpful for organizing and communicating, including a team messenger function with which you can leave comments, a calendar, individual targets, and organizational KPIs. However, HubSpot has more team features and scores 4.2/5 for team infrastructure, whereas Pipedrive scores 3.9/5 in this area, in Tech.co's impartial testing.

If you're thinking of switching from HubSpot to Pipedrive, you'll be pleased to know that Pipedrive has multiple integrations you can use to expand your software offering. There are 83 lead generation integrative apps, for example – which is more than some providers offer for all of their different categories. Pipedrive is also rated equally as highly as HubSpot for customer support (both scoring 4.2/5), thanks to a 24/7 live support feature and a useful community forum and knowledge base.

Pipedrive pricing vs HubSpot pricing

Pipedrive has no free plan, while HubSpot does, so if you're looking for a simple CRM system that won't cost you any money, then HubSpot's free version is the way to go.

If you're prepared to spend a little money to improve your operations, then Pipedrive's Essentials plan ($14.90 per user, per month) is a bit more expensive than HubSpot's Starter plan ($9 per user, per month), as is Pipedrive's Advanced plan ($24.90 per user, per month).

On Pipedrive's Professional plan ($49.90 per user, per month), you'll get everything on the Advanced plan, as well as one-click calling, call tracking, the ability to project revenue and forecasts, and advanced custom reporting – and it'll only cost you around half the price of HubSpot's comparable Professional plan ($90 per user, per month + an onboarding fee of $750). However, once again, HubSpot does have a slightly better suite of Sales features, if you can afford the more expensive monthly costs.

Salesforce Service Cloud – Best HubSpot Alternative for Customer Service

Salesforce Service Cloud features and overview

Salesforce Service Cloud is a good customer service alternative to HubSpot. All in all, it's one of the best customer service solutions on the market, but as is the case with many of Salesforce's products, they're very expensive which means they lose value-for-money marks, despite being excellent software programs. Overall, despite a poor pricing score (2.3/5), Salesforce scored 4.3/5 as a customer service solution.

Salesforce Service Cloud has a great range of team management features on all of its plans, such as an internal knowledge base, automated and manual ticket routing, user hierarchies, and more. Salesforce also excels when it comes to security, with multi-factor authentication and IP restriction, which will come in particularly handy if you're handling sensitive customer information.

HubSpot does have a HubSpot Service Hub package geared towards customer service teams, but it doesn't have as many customer service-focused features as Salesforce can offer. Overall, our Tech.co research found HubSpot to be more user-friendly (3.9/5 vs 3.8/5), but not nearly as capable as Salesforce.

Salesforce pricing vs HubSpot pricing

Salesforce offers a wide range of CRM functionality, including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Marketing Cloud packages, including Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (formerly Pardot) for marketing automation. Salesforce's Service Cloud is a customer service offering that is on the top end of the pricing spectrum and would be a more expensive but more powerful alternative to HubSpot's Services Hub.

HubSpot's free version stacks up surprisingly well next to Salesforce's Essentials plan ($25 per user, per month) with its customer service features. HubSpot's free plan also includes other basic features for a wider range of purposes — it has marketing, sales, and customer service options— so if you're going to be doing a mixture of these things, even with an emphasis on customer service, it's worth taking out for a spin, since it won't cost you a thing.

However, with Salesforce Essentials, you'll have more customer service-specific tools, and you'll also get a calendar and custom reporting on top of this. With HubSpot, you'll get web chat forms, an email marketing designer, reporting dashboard, email tracking & notifications, and a Facebook Messenger integration.

Salesforce's Service Cloud Professional plan ($75 per user per month) is more expensive than HubSpot's Service Hub Starter plan ($18 per month for two users), but slightly cheaper for five users than HubSpot's Service Hub Professional plan ($450 per month for 5 users).

Salesforce's most expensive tier is the Enterprise plan ($150 per user, per month). Compared to HubSpot's top tier, HubSpot will let you create a customer portal, forecasting tools, and helpdesk automation, but Salesforce has superior team infrastructure features for organizations and a huge library of integrations.

Our detailed Salesforce Pricing guide can tell you exactly which plan to go for, if you are in need of a system as powerful as Salesforce.

Zendesk Sell – Best HubSpot Alternative for Beginners

Zendesk Sell features and overview

Zendesk Sell – the provider's Sales CRM – didn't score amazingly on our tests and was only awarded 3.4/5 overall, compared to HubSpot's 4.3/5 overall as a sales CRM.

Zendesk Sell didn't score very well when it came to customer support (2.4/5) because it doesn't have email or phone support (which HubSpot does), and it doesn't have a wealth of features (2.8/5), with no custom reports or chart builders and few features that will help you capture leads such as website visitor tracking.

However, Zendesk is a sales tool that prioritizes user experience and keeps things simple – so it's not entirely surprising that its features don't quite match up with what HubSpot is offering. HubSpot scored 4/5 for features and 4.2/5 for team infrastructure – a score derived from the management and organization options a provider offers, such as a unified inbox and separate team inboxes – which Zendesk doesn't offer on any plans.

There are good security options on all Zendesk plans, and there's also a customizable sales pipeline, SMS support, and built-in video conferencing tools, as well as useful data-oriented tools such as sales forecasting features.

Zendesk caters very well as an alternative to HubSpot for those looking for a simple solution for beginners.

Zendesk pricing vs HubSpot pricing

Zendesk didn't score as well for pricing (2.8/5) as HubSpot (3.7/5) mainly because it just doesn't offer as many features for the cost — but Zendesk's USP is providing a simple user experience that isn't overwhelming.

HubSpot offers a free plan, whereas Zendesk's lowest priced option, the Zendesk Team plan is available from $19 per user, per month. Head-to-head, HubSpot offers video conferencing and social media integrations on its free plan, whereas Zendesk's Team plan doesn't have this, as well as website visitor tracking and other lead capture tools, which Zendesk doesn't have.

HubSpot's first paid plan is $9 per user, per month, which is cheaper than both of Zendesk's paid plans (including Growth at $49 per user, per month) by quite a bit. There's not a whole lot between the two plans when it comes to organization and management features, but Zendesk has better security and data management options, while HubSpot has better lead capture and customer support features.

HubSpot's Professional plan is actually cheaper than Zendesk's third plan (also called the Professional plan), with HubSpot's coming in at $90 per user, per month whilst Zendesk's is $99 per user, per month. However, HubSpot requires you to pay a $750 joining fee, where Zendesk doesn't.

HubSpot and Zendesk both offer enterprise-level plans, with Zendesk's starting from $150 per user, per month. HubSpot is cheaper at $120 per user, per month but commands a $3,000 joining fee.

Should You Choose HubSpot Anyway?

After all this, maybe you're thinking HubSpot doesn't look too bad after all – and you wouldn't be wrong! HubSpot is a greatly respected name in the world of CRM, so opting for it above these other options is still a very valid choice.

CRM as an idea can be split into three different categories, Sales CRM, Service CRM, and Marketing CRM, all of which have their own HubSpot platform. These can be bundled together at different levels to craft your ideal CRM software.

HubSpot was the third-best sales CRM we tested, with a score of 4.1/5, and was one of the better small business CRMs overall, with a score of 4.4/5.

HubSpot scores 4.2/5 for customer support, one of the highest customer support scores out of any provider we tested, whilst also scoring well for team infrastructure features (4.2/5) which helps businesses organize themselves while using their CRM system. HubSpot, thanks to its multiplicity of plans for different purposes, scores 4.4/5 for customization, meaning you'll be able to sculpt it to your business's needs more easily than most CRM competitors.

Once you get past the free tier, HubSpot is definitely one of the pricier providers out there, but you get what you pay for. The free version is certainly a HubSpot advantage — a free tier isn't offered by any other competitors other than Freshsales CRM. If your business has slimmer profit margins and doesn't want to throw capital around, a free plan might be just what you need.

HubSpot features

• The ability to import, customize, and create new contacts, deals, and leads
• Gmail and Outlook email integrations
• The ability to create and publish SEO blog posts or social media posts from within the interface
• Report-building features
• Flexible support tickets
• Mobile app available on iOS and Android
• Email campaign tracking

Free Alternatives to HubSpot

Maybe you just aren't willing to drop money every month for software that you might be able to get for free. Because of the difference CRM software can make to improving your customer retention, contact management, and lead-capturing rates (among other things), free CRM software is not common.

Outside of free trials which expire quickly, there are only one free plan worth mentioning: Freshsales.

Freshsales is our top alternative to HubSpot and while it has an array of paid tiers, here's how the free option compares. With the Freshsales free plan, you can:

• Maintain details of your leads, customers, deals
• Capture leads through web forms
• Native VoIP capabilities (Make calls from within the CRM)
• Create marketing email journeys
• Set up chatbots for your website
• Manage tasks within the CRM
• Add unlimited users
• Get unlimited support
• Single Sign-On and MFA

HubSpot itself offers a free plan, and it's surprisingly robust. It's obviously not everything you'd get from a paid plan, but it could carry a small business for a while. Features include:

• Management tools for contacts and deals
• Track visitors on websites and set up web forms
• Native VoIP (make calls from within the CRM) – 15 mins a month
• Customizable sales pipeline
• Integrations for Gmail, Outlook, and HubSpot Connect
• Ticketing support
• Multi-factor authentication
• Unified inbox & Team messaging
• Ad management
• Reporting dashboards
• Email tracking and templates

How Did We Rate HubSpot Alternatives?

Here at Tech.co, we're lucky enough to have an in-house research team that spends every day investigating all the different products, services, and software that we write articles about. Our team has delved into the world of CRM systems in great detail, and devised a complex research framework and testing criteria that we use to assess providers and assign scores out of 5.

For the broad software category “CRM”, our insights team focused on multi-purpose, small business CRMs, sales-focused CRMs like many of the HubSpot alternatives reviewed in this article, and Helpdesk CRMs, which have customer service-specific features.

We used the decision factors which matter most to you to determine our final verdicts: pricing (starting price + value for money), customization, team infrastructure features, sales-focused features, customer support, usability, and scalability.

Tech.co is an editorially independent publication, meaning our product and provider rankings are based entirely on our research findings. We do have commercial partnerships with some of the providers we write about, but it is our testing insights that guide our judgments, not our partnerships – exactly how it should be.

Frequently Asked Questions