HubSpot vs Salesforce – Which Is Best?

Salesforce is one of the most popular CRM options worldwide and HubSpot is a widely respected option among enterprise-level organizations. So, which one is better? That depends on what you need it for.

For sales and marketing, HubSpot offers more features than Salesforce, especially for a small business, as its dedicated Hubs offer more features at a high, but reasonable price. For customer service, Salesforce has the edge over HubSpot, thanks to offering more communication channels. Because Salesforce has so many different pricing options, your best bet is to get a quote, so you can understand how much it will cost your business.

For large businesses, it's essentially a wash between HubSpot and Salesforce, as both are aimed at enterprise-level organizations that need a lot of help to run their businesses. However, HubSpot is better for small businesses than Salesforce, as it provides a surprisingly robust HubSpot free plan that can get a lot done without costing you anything.

In this guide:

We'll be pitting HubSpot vs Salesforce head to head throughout this article. Of course, these aren't the only CRM tools to consider. Check out some of these further alternatives, below. Or, scroll on to learn more about Salesforce and Hubspot.

Salesforce is a global giant in CRM, with thousands of companies happily paying for its services. HubSpot, meanwhile, lets you get up and running for free. So, is it worth paying for Salesforce, or for the paid-for features HubSpot offers? Both CRM platforms are very capable, with a lot of features available for your team. The big question isn't so much which one is the best overall, but which CRM platform is the best for your company.

We'll take a look at Salesforce and Hubspot to give you a better idea of the strengths and advantages of each.

HubSpot Pricing

First off, we'll start with the Hubs. HubSpot offers three different types of service, or Hubs, aimed at the different purposes of CRM: sales, marketing, and customer service.

The Sales Hub and Service Hub are priced similarly, but the Marketing Hub is much more expensive, which is commonplace for marketing-focused CRM providers. Take a look at how these HubSpot Hubs match up against each other below:

Salesforce Pricing

Similar to HubSpot's Hubs, Salesforce offers different types of services depending on your needs, dubbed Clouds, for sales, marketing, and service. Each one offers a different set of pricing plans, but Salesforce offers some mix and match options that can save you some money if you want dual functionality.

Much like Hubspot, the Sales Cloud and Service Cloud are priced similarly, and can be combined for a cheaper option. Again, the Marketing Cloud is much more expensive, as it provides a wide range of additional features that are more valuable.

HubSpot is easier to use than Salesforce

While a massive feature catalog is a huge benefit for Salesforce, it does create a lot of extra work, which can seriously impede ease of use – particularly for beginners. With HubSpot, you're getting a comprehensive, intuitive interface that is easy to navigate, even if you aren't familiar with CRM software.

The biggest highlight with managing business contacts with HubSpot is the tidy user-interface where you view all the information related to a contact. HubSpot has designed a clear way of providing a holistic view of who your contact is, what interaction you’ve had, and where they work.

Simply put, HubSpot is built for ease of use, with a simple layout that will let you easily access all the tools available on the platform. In fact, HubSpot is so dedicated to improving ease of use that they tested their software with drunk users to be sure it's as straightforward as possible, no matter how impaired you might be.

Salesforce has better customer support

While Salesforce may be lacking in the ease-of-use department, the customer support options are robust, which can make it worth the hassle. Not only does Salesforce offer a huge catalog of online documentation and tutorial videos that can help you figure out any issues, but you'll also become part of the massive Salesforce community of users, who can help you solve any problems.

HubSpot also does not offer 24/7 live support on any of its plans, even the ones that cost thousands of dollars per month. Salesforce, on the other hand, provides it for an additional cost, and includes it for all Unlimited plans.

If you require an actual person to walk you through the complication of Salesforce, you're all set there too. Once you're logged into the platform, you can phone, email, and live chat with representatives to hammer out the details of your problem, so you don't have to rely on forms and forums to get it done.

Salesforce has better reporting and analytics

As you might expect, Salesforce's robust feature catalog comes with equally robust reporting and analytics functionality. The built-in system is widely customizable, just like the rest of the platform, giving you complete control over what you track and how you track it. Plus, with the new analytics add-on Tableau, you'll be able to get a full 360-degree view of how your customers interact with your business, giving you more actionable insights for improving sales.

HubSpot also offers a lot of reporting tools, and they're quite comparable to Salesforce actually. However, the only metric you get in every plan is to view revenue data, while other features like custom reports and sales forecasts are only available in the more expensive plans, which means you'll have to pay a lot to get access to the same features.

HubSpot and Salesforce offer lots of integrations with other software

While both HubSpot and Salesforce are considered two of the most robust CRM options on the market, they can't do it all. In that case, you might be interested in integrating these platforms with other third-party apps that can, in fact, do it all. Fortunately, both Salesforce and HubSpot offer a lot when it comes to integrations, so no need to worry there.

Both HubSpot and Salesforce offer massive app stores that can unlock a wide range of functionalities for your business. They can integrate with Google Workplace, WordPress, FreshBooks, Eventbrite, and dozens of others.

HubSpot Salesforce Integration

If you really can't decide between the two, HubSpot has a peculiar feature that allows you to sync information from Salesforce into HubSpot and then back again. This is very different from the usual features that let you import data from Salesforce in order to migrate to a new platform. It seems curious to offer deep integration with a competitor, but there are situations where this integration could become useful. If you already use HubSpot's Marketing Hub, for example, but the sales team is on Salesforce, then this integration could help bridge the gap between the data held by the two teams.

HubSpot's integration is bi-directional, which means you can send information to Salesforce as well as pull information from it. There are limits to how much data you can pull from Salesforce on any given day, depending on how many API calls your contract with Salesforce allows.

This feature is nice enough if you need it, though having both teams on the same platform would be much easier and offer more seamless data sharing. Salesforce integration is not available on the free or Starter tiers, requiring at least Sales Hub Professional.

HubSpot has simpler implementation and training

Because HubSpot is easy to use, the setup process is pretty easy. You won't have to spend hours setting up your metrics, your analytics, or your integrations, as most of them will be set up for you upon installation. If you do need a bit of help, you can sign up for onboarding sessions for between $1,500 and $5,000 for your whole team, which is obviously not very cheap.

More specifically, the first part of the onboarding process for HubSpot — where you’re following a demo — is quite easy to follow and provides hands-on information on how to use the platform.

With Salesforce, you're a lot more likely to need the help getting started, and the company offers a wide range of helpful tools to do so. Between the online community of users and the robust support team, you'll be taken care of – and you'll need it, too, due to the complicated nature of the CRM. Salesforce even offers training seminars, which typically cost approximately $4,500. Again, definitely not the cheapest option.

In fact, our research found that the setup process for Salesforce was a full three minutes longer than that of HubSpot, mostly due to the clunkiness of the Salesforce platform.

Salesforce has better automation

One of the primary reasons why a business would sign up for CRM software is the use of automation to make business life a bit easier. Powered by artificial intelligence, these features can make a huge difference in freeing up time and resources for human employees to really get work done.

This matchup is a close one, but in the end, Salesforce's Einstein takes the cake. The AI-powered tool can help you automate a wide range of processes, from lead management to customer onboarding, with a world-leading company's resources behind it. Even better, these automation features are available at a much lower price than HubSpot, which is always beneficial.

Salesforce does, however, have a trick up its sleeve with Salesforce Pardot Marketing Automation. This functionality – which is an add-on to Salesforce Marketing Cloud – can automate sales funnels for new prospective customers and gives a killer edge to Salesforce's marketing capabilities.

Because CRM software is built on automation, HubSpot has solid options as well, although they're a bit less consolidated. Tools like lead and contact management features automation capabilities, with simple “if this then that” functionality, allowing you to automate where you see fit. Still, it's not as impressive as Salesforce's full-on automation suite, so we have to give the win to them.

Best CRM for Sales

Yes, it's hard to beat Salesforce when it comes to sales, as you may have guessed from the name. Still, it's an incredibly robust option that can be a bit intimidating for smaller businesses or just businesses that don't need all those features. If you're looking for a provider that's a bit more manageable, we've done a bunch of research on the topic and can help you find a better CRM for sales.

Best CRM for Marketing

HubSpot is truly a top-tier CRM when it comes to marketing, but it's not perfect for everyone. The high prices and the massive feature catalog can be too much for some, which means that another alternative could be a better fit. Fortunately, we've done the research to find some of the best options out there for CRM for marketing. Take a look and get started today.

Best CRM for Customer Service

Neither HubSpot nor Salesforce are ideal for customer service, although they certainly provide some robust options to handle it. Still, we've done the research and found a wide range of other options that might be a better fit for your business. Zendesk is one of our favorite but take a look at some of the other CRM alternatives to get started today.