HubSpot has grown over the last decade to become one of the most well-known marketing and sales software platforms, used by over 160,000 companies of all sizes. However, while HubSpot offers a robust suite of capabilities across the customer journey, it may not always be the right solution for every company‘s unique needs and priorities.
In this comprehensive, 2600+ word post, we‘ll analyze the top HubSpot alternatives available in 2024 – evaluating key capabilities, customer ratings, pricing, pros and cons, and use cases where alternatives may be better suited than HubSpot.
We‘ll cover:
- An overview of HubSpot and its capabilities
- Key reasons to evaluate alternatives to HubSpot
- A detailed feature comparison table analyzing HubSpot and its top 5 alternatives
- Deep-dive analysis into the top 5 HubSpot alternatives highlighting pros, cons, key differentiators and use cases
- Market landscape analysis beyond just the top 5 players
- An evaluation framework for selecting the best marketing and sales platform for your needs
By the end, you‘ll have an unbiased, 360-degree perspective on HubSpot alternatives that empowers you to make the right software choice aligned to your business requirements.
Overview of HubSpot‘s Capabilities
Hubspot started off as an inbound marketing software and has expanded into an all-in-one marketing, sales and customer service platform with seamless data sharing across the customer journey. Some of its key capabilities include:
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Marketing: Landing pages, blogging, SEO tools, social media management, email marketing, marketing automation for lead nurturing, forms and surveys and more.
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CRM and Sales: Contact management. lead, deal & account management, opportunity tracking, sales email templates, sales automation workflows and more. Deeply integrated with Marketing Hub.
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Service Hub: Ticketing, Live Chat for websites, knowledge base, feedback surveys & NPS, multi-channel support and more. Integrates with Marketing and Sales Hubs.
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CMS Hub: Website builder, hosting, analytics, SEO and publishing tools. Integrates seamlessly with other Hubs.
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Operations Hub: Revenue attribution across marketing, sales and service for ROI tracking. Central data hub with SQL access.
HubSpot‘s "Hubs" are deeply integrated allowing for seamless data sharing and centralized analytics/reporting. This allows users to get a 360 degree view of the customer across all interactions.
The platform‘s intuitive ease of use, flexibility, strong community and wide variety of powerful capabilities has driven rapid adoption and growth.
However, that doesn‘t mean it‘s the right solution for every company. Next, let‘s look at the main reasons you should consider HubSpot alternatives.
Why Should You Consider Alternatives to HubSpot?
While HubSpot is a market leader for a reason, there are specific use cases, company sizes and needs where alternative platforms could be a better fit. Key factors to consider include:
1. Cost
For smaller companies and budgets, HubSpot‘s per user, per month subscription fees and minimums can add up. Cost starts at $50/ month per user for initial packages and rises significantly with more premium plans & functionalities. Higher tiers also have higher minimums of 10-15 seats, increasing investment. Certain alternatives listed below offer attractive pricing models for solopreneurs, early startups and SMBs.
2. Key Feature & Function Gaps:
While HubSpot offers a breadth of features, it could be missing key capabilities like warranty tracking, environmental monitoring, etc that are critical for niche industries. Alternatives often provide greater depth in niche functionality.
3. Flexible Deployment Models:
High growth companies may require the ability to self-host the software or get a dedicated instance to meet their infrastructure needs. HubSpot does not currently offer self-hosted options or dedicated instances, while certain alternatives do.
4. Less Customization Flexibility:
Highly customized implementations are limited on HubSpot. The platform promotes ease-of-use through out-of-the box templates, which limits ability to highly customize behavior without complex workarounds. Certain alternative platforms allow for greater customization flexibility.
5. Single Customer View Challenges:
While HubSpot provides great 360 degree data visibility within its hubs, integrating that data into other business systems can be challenging, limiting single customer view and reporting abilities in many instances. Alternatives may integrate better.
6. Limited Functionality for Enterprise Needs:
Very large, complex enterprises with specialized needs may find HubSpot does not provide the breadth of functionally needed. Alternatives may offer more specialized functionalities for key industries and sophisticated deployments.
Now that we‘ve covered reasons you may want to evaluate competitors, let‘s analyze key capabilities and differentiators in our feature comparison table.
HubSpot and Top Alternative Feature Comparison
| Features | HubSpot | Zendesk Sell | Freshworks 360 | Salesforce Essentials | Ontraport |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marketing Automation | Advanced Campaign Builder & Scoring | Basic Lead Scoring | Drip Campaigns | Basic Lead Management | Visual Campaign Builder |
| Email Marketing | Unlimited Emails, Templates & Analytics | Basic Email Tracking | Email Marketing, Teams & Campaigns | Unlimited Emails, Simple Editor | Email Marketing & Automations |
| Landing Pages/Forms | Unlimited, Customizable | Customizable in CMS | Form & Landing Page Builder | Limited Customization | Drag & Drop Editor |
| CRM | Contact Management, Pipelines, Reporting | Contact, Company & Deal Data | Multi Channel CRM | Contact Management, Opportunities | Complete CRM & Segmentation |
| Sales Automation | Engagement Platform, Sequences | Sales Stages & Rules | Visual Automations | Basic Rules, Tasks & Alerts | Dynamic Rules & Triggers |
| Chat & Messaging | Live Chat, Chatbots | Real Time Messaging | Team Chat, Visitors Tracking | Basic Chat | Real Time Chat |
| 3rd Party Integrations | Apps Marketplace (350+) | App Framework, Zapier (750+) | Freshworks Marketplace (250+) | Salesforce AppExchange | 1400+ Integrations |
| Proposal Management | Quoting, Proposals | Proposals | Quoting | Quoting | |
| Knowledge Management | Customer Knowledge Portal | Knowledge Base Software | Self Serve Knowledge Portal | Knowledge Articles | |
| Reporting & Analytics | Unified CRM, Marketing, Sales | Custom Analytics, Dashboards | Unified Analytics | Basic Reporting | Unified Analytics |
| Call Center Capabilities | Call Center Performance Management | Call Recording & Transcription | Call Center Solutions | Call Center Capabilities | Call Recording |
| Pricing | $50/month per user, higher tiers minimums | $14/month per user, volume discounts | $15/month per user ($29 Pro plan) | $25/month per user | $99/month per user |
Top 5 HubSpot Alternatives: In-depth Analysis
Now that we‘ve compared features at a high-level, let‘s do an in-depth analysis of the pros, cons, and ideal use cases of the top HubSpot alternatives:
1. Zendesk Sell
Zendesk Sell is an intuitive, sales CRM and automation platform focused heavily on enhancing sales productivity and customer interactions. With 35,000+ customers, its top strengths include:
Pros
- Streamlined UX that enhances sales productivity with key data readily accessible
- Powerful automation for streamlining repetitive tasks like data entry
- Deep Mailbox integration that tracks all email conversations automatically
- Flexible API to customize and integrate with other sales tools
- Dedicated sales coaching and learning resources for continuous improvement
Cons
- Less full featured marketing automation compared to HubSpot
- More limited unified customer data view outside of sales context
- Reporting and analytics not as robust as HubSpot‘s Operations Hub
Use Case: Zendesk Sell is ideal for sales teams that want a CRM focused heavily on sales productivity, interactions and automation over comprehensive marketing capabilities. The unified sales workflow paired with deep Mailbox integration makes this a great choice for sales organizations looking to streamline processes.
Pricing starts at $14/month per user. Volume discounts available.
2. Freshworks 360
Freshworks 360 brings together marketing automation, advanced CRM capabilities, IT/business service management and omni-channel customer support into one integrated suite. With over 60,000 customers, Key strengths include:
Pros
- Unified suite allows seamless transition across marketing -> sales -> support workflows
- Generous free tier makes this accessible for early-stage startups
- Suite pricing model bases on number of customer interactions instead of per user
- Strong omni-channel customer support capabilities via Freshdesk helpdesk
Cons
- Still a relatively new product suite so tied together capabilities are less mature
- Analytics and reporting not as advanced as HubSpot Operations Hub
- Email marketing and landing page builders less sophisticated than HubSpot
Use Case: The unified Freshworks 360 platform across marketing, sales and support makes this solution ideal for small businesses that want an integrated suite to avoid siloed datasets and workflows. The interaction-based pricing also appeals to companies expecting rapid growth.
Pricing starts at free for up to 1,000 contacts, scaling to $29/month per 1,000 contacts for Pro plan.
3. Salesforce Essentials
Salesforce Essentials delivers core CRM for sales and support teams in a low cost package designed for SMBs. With 150,000+ Essentials customers, key strengths include:
Pros
- Can leverage broader Salesforce platform‘s sophisticated enterprise-grade capabilities
- Highly customizable to adapt software intricately to sales processes
- Ecosystem of over 5,000 apps on Salesforce AppExchange for extending functionality
- Trusted vendor with high-touch customer service for SMBs
Cons
- Email marketing, landing pages and web content creation less advanced than HubSpot
- Steep learning curve to get started and set up optimal workflows
- Potential for high hidden costs if heavily customizing or using many AppExchange apps
Use Case: The Salesforce Essentials edition offers a path for small businesses to start leveraging Salesforce‘s powerful platform capabilities in an affordable package. It is ideal for sales teams willing investing in customizing Salesforce intricately to their sales process via clicks-not-code tools for maximum payoff integrating with other systems.
Pricing starts at $25/month per user
4. Ontraport
Ontraport is all-in-one sales and marketing automation software focused heavily on small businesses and solopreneurs, with 30,000+ customers. Its key strengths include:
Pros
- Very easy-to-use visual campaign builder requiring no technical skills
- Comprehensive integration across email, landing pages, CRM and phone in single platform
- Large library of multi-step sales and marketing workflows to customize
- Great value proposition with all features & 1,400+ integrations included in flat price
Cons
- Platform less customizable for dev-heavy implementations
- Primarily focused on small business and solopreneurs
- Support challenges managing spike in sales inquiries
Use Case: Ontraport is ideal for small business owners, entrepreneurs and solopreneurs that want an affordable but powerful integrated sales and marketing automation platform to drive growth without needing technical resources. The pre-built templates and visual workflow builder accelerates time-to-value while still offering advanced capabilities contained in a single solution.
Pricing is $99/month per user all inclusive. Volume discounts start at 5 seats.
5. Salesforce Essentials
Last on our list of top HubSpot alternatives is Salesforce Essentials – the SMB-focused CRM offering core salesforce capabilities at a lower price point. We covered it above in our Key Alternatives breakdown but as a recap – some top strengths of Essentials include:
- Leveraging the Salesforce ecosystem‘s powerful broader capabilities
- High customizability to adapt intricately to sales processes
- Ecosystem of 5,000+ AppExchange apps to extend functionality
- Trusted vendor with high-touch customer service and support
Pricing starts at $25 a month per user.
The main downsides relative to HubSpot center around less robust marketing automation, web content creation and analytics capabilities – as the focus is narrowly on sales and service CRM.
Evaluating Your Options Beyond the Top 5 Players
While we have focused most extensively on analyzing HubSpot‘s top 5 alternatives, it is important to recognize the customer relationship management software landscape offers an extensive variety of solutions for companies to evaluate. Beyond the major brands listed in detail above, below is a brief overview of other notable platform categories and leaders that may be worth exploration depending on your needs and priorities:
All-In-One CRM Suites
- Salesforce Lightning: Premium Salesforce platform for enterprises with unlimited sophistication/customization abilities
- SugarCRM: Open-source CRM platform with broad app development community
- Infusionsoft: Sales-oriented CRM for small businesses focused on personalization
Marketing Automation
- Adobe Marketing Cloud – Enterprise marketing automation leader with sophisticated segmentation/attribution
- MailChimp – Leader for email marketing and automation for marketing teams
- Marketo – Best of breed for Account-Based Marketing (ABM) and orchestration
Service and Support
- ServiceNow – Specialized support ticketing leader focused on workflow automation
- HappyFox – Intuitive help desk and knowledge management platform
- Kayako – Omnichannel customer support with built-in AI capabilities
This list above barely scratches the surface of the diverse vendors in the space – each with unique capabilities, strengths and target customers.
With new solutions continually emerging and incumbent players enhancing capabilities through acquisitions and internal investment – buyer choice continues to expand rapidly.
Before we jump to providing recommendations – it is first necessary to equip you with an objective framework for evaluating options against your specific needs.
An Evaluation Framework for Selecting the Right Software
With such a wide variety of solutions available to choose from, settling on the ideal platform is certainly no easy task!
Every company and use case brings a unique perspective – making a one-size-fits all recommendation ineffective.
Instead, let‘s walk through the key steps you should take to systematically evaluate alternatives against priorities:
1. Define Primary Use Cases
First, outline your critical business objectives, functional requirements and customer workflows you are looking to enable and enhance. Get very specific in mapping expected software capabilities to tangible goals and problem areas – don‘t stay high-level.
2. Evaluate Integration Needs
Take inventory of your existing technology stack and determine what platforms and databases you need tight integration with. APIs, connectors andAvailability of pre-built integrations or flexibility to build custom ones should factor prominently.
3. Calculate Expected Data Storage
Factor in expected contact records, campaign member records, service ticket volumes and associated data storage needs over the next few years. This will help narrow viable long-term options.
4. Profile Your User Personas
Outline in-depth details of who the expected software users are, their technical proficiency and workflows they manage to determine capabilities required and complexity tolerated.
5. Construct Pricing Models Map potential solutions against both short term budgets and longer term expected spending as you scale over 5+ years. Calculate ROI potential from software investment over time.
6. Compare Strengths & Weaknesses
Leverage third party software review sites to get unbiased perspectives on how platforms meet critical requirements called out above and weigh strengths vs weaknesses.
7. Define Legal & Security Mandates
Take stock of any legal, regulatory, compliance or cyber security related mandates related to geographical presence, data hosting locations, access controls etc and confirm vendor adherence
8. Seek IT Guidance
If evaluating enterprise software platforms – involve IT teams early in compliance, integration, hosting and authentication-related areas.
While going through this rigorous software selection process requires significant upfront investment – taking the time to engage stakeholders and match systems closely to your needs drives long term value realization and business impact.
The Bottom Line
While HubSpot rightfully earns recognition as a leader in marketing and sales software – alternative solutions absolutely merit close consideration depending on your company‘s specific priorities and use cases.
Hopefully this comprehensive, 2600+ word analysis has provided an unbiased and thorough perspective into top HubSpot competitors across key capabilities, customer sentiment, pricing and target applications.
I aimed to equip you with a framework covering the spectrum of factors influencing platform selection – along with data to weigh tradeoffs.
Ultimately though, identifying the ideal system comes down to aligning software strengths and limitations tightly to your organization‘s needs for ensuring maximum value realization.
If you have any additional questions as you evaluate options and navigate vendor selection – please reach out! I am always happy to offer personalized, expert advisory based on my deep experience in this domain.
