HubSpot - Good or Bad?
15 February 2024
HubSpot has become a SaaS behemoth since its inception in 2006, and for many, it’s the obvious choice for a CRM system. But what are the pros and cons of HubSpot? Certainly, HubSpot is not without its share of criticisms – we will take a look at what HubSpot actually does, why it is so popular, what HubSpot’s capabilities are beyond a CRM, and what the benefits and drawbacks are of using HubSpot.
What is HubSpot?
HubSpot is a CRM (customer relationship management) system that helps organisations manage their customers. A CRM is, at its most basic level, a database of customers and sales leads. Such a database allows businesses to communicate with their audience and potential customers effectively.
Keeping all customer info and communications in one place avoids the risk of losing potential sales and leaking unsecured private data. CRMs like HubSpot collect and store detailed info on your customers, such as purchases and communications, and allow all members of a team to access customer details and history.
HubSpot is a collection of six ‘hubs’ which include:
Marketing Hub
This is a collection of marketing tools and features which include lead generation, email marketing, automation, content creation, social media management and more. This enables businesses to develop and execute their marketing strategy.
Sales Hub
HubSpot’s Sales Hub offers sales tools such as contact management, email tracking and templates, document management, sales automation, reporting, and analytics. Sales Hub is helpful for businesses that prioritise building relationships with their customers and personalising their communications.
Service Hub
Service Hub provides customer service solutions that can be implemented by a customer service team. It provides features like ticketing, a shared inbox, live chat including AI-powered chatbots, email tracking, reporting and conversation routing, which assigns incoming chats and emails to an appropriate team member. This is suitable for a business with a large customer service team who must coordinate on offering a high standard of service.
CMS Hub
The CMS Hub, or Content Management System Hub gives businesses a platform through which they can create and optimise web content including landing pages, coding for added customisation, content creation e.g. blogs, email marketing and more. This hub also includes SEO, Google Search Console integration, plus other features that make it ideal for managing a business’s web presence.
Operations Hub
This hub allows businesses to streamline their operations and add automations to save time and resources. This includes features such as data syncing, programmable automation, customised chatbots, advanced reporting, integrations with other platforms, and more. This would be helpful for businesses who wish to align their sales and marketing efforts or access more insightful reports.
Commerce Hub
HubSpot’s Commerce Hub is designed for B2B businesses and offers tools for invoicing customers, providing quotes, taking payments, managing subscriptions, automated billing, reporting and more. Commerce Hub can also be integrated with accounting software such as Quickbooks and Xero.
What Does HubSpot Actually Do?
HubSpot is primarily a CRM system as briefly described above. HubSpot differs from some competitors by offering an ‘all-in-one’ system, as it includes many tools for marketing, sales, content management and customer service, broken down into the individual ‘hubs’, but all within one main program. Their marketing software package offers social media marketing tools as well as content management, revenue forecasting, data analytics, SEO tools, custom landing pages and more. There are plenty of other similar services that offer the same solutions, so what makes HubSpot so popular?
Why Is HubSpot So Popular?
The HubSpot CRM is well-known in the industry and for many, the obvious choice due to its free plan, helpful features like marketing tools and integrations with G Suite and Microsoft Office, and the HubSpot Academy which offers free courses in all aspects of CRM and digital marketing.
A big draw of HubSpot is its centralisation of several products, which can streamline sales and marketing operations and help to ensure all teams are on the same page. When marketing campaigns are informed by CRM data, they can be more effective. The HubSpot marketing hub enables ads to be optimised more accurately, thus increasing click-throughs and conversions. This kind of informed marketing choice can boost ROI and help you get the most from your marketing budget.
HubSpot is also big on community, with over 150 HubSpot User Groups (HUGs) around the world that enable HubSpot users to connect and share information and insights. HubSpot also hosts an annual conference in Boston, MA featuring hands-on workshops, new product announcements, demos, notable keynote speakers including Barack Obama, networking and more.
HubSpot also provides several options for automation, saving valuable time, and its AI assistant can help with content generation as well as offer data-driven actionable insights for further growth. HubSpot is not shy of tooting its own horn and claims that its customers attract 114% more website traffic, acquire 129% more leads, and close 55% more deals after 1 year of using HubSpot.
Such claims sound almost too good to be true – surely there must be some drawbacks to using HubSpot? Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of HubSpot.
What Are The Pros And Cons Of HubSpot?
Pro: Free Plan
This is a big one. HubSpot offers one of the most comprehensive free plans for CRM solutions, and many features are included in this free package. A million contacts can be added to the HubSpot free plan which is pretty generous when compared to other similar offerings. The free version is often a stepping stone to a paid HubSpot plan, as it allows potential paid customers to try out the CRM and other features before committing to a paid plan.
Con: No Customer Support on Free Plan
While paid HubSpot plans offer customer service, the free version does not. Users are directed to the HubSpot community or their collection of articles and guides in place of customer service, which can be off-putting for some. Their database of articles and community forums is comprehensive, but sometimes it’s necessary to have a conversation with an expert about a specific issue.
Pro: Conveniently Priced Bundles
It is possible to bundle HubSpot’s services to make them more affordable. Each ‘hub’ can be purchased individually or together at a discounted rate. The CRM Suite Starter includes the Marketing Hub Starter, Sales Hub Starter, Service Hub Starter, and others, and starts at a convenient £18 per month (billed annually). HubSpot’s built-in scalability means that its packages can grow alongside the business, and users can add extra features and functionality as they require them.
Con: Complicated Pricing Structure
Once we advance past the free and basic HubSpot packages, it does start to get expensive and complicated pretty fast. The free version has limited functionality, but so do the paid plans too. That generous-sounding million contacts sounds good until it becomes apparent that to include those contacts in an email marketing campaign, there is an extra cost. The Starter plan only includes 1000 marketing contacts, which a lot of businesses will burn through quickly. Having 10,000 marketing contacts requires a hefty investment in the Enterprise plan which starts at £3000 per month – ouch!
Businesses that begin with a Starter plan may find themselves having to upgrade not long after, and there is a significant price jump from £17 per month to an astounding £702 per month. There are other costs too – the Professional plan includes a ‘required, one-time Professional Onboarding for a fee of £2,600 which many customers would understandably baulk at.
Pro: Easy To Use, Intuitive Platform
Many HubSpot customers sing the praises of the sleek, visually appealing interface and intuitive way of working. Less training is usually needed with HubSpot when compared to other CRMs. The drag-and-drop format of content creation tools like landing pages and emails makes life easy, and every activity is logged automatically. Being able to have multiple windows of HubSpot open at once, as well as easy filter and search functions make for a very convenient piece of kit indeed.
Con: Poor Mobile App
While having a mobile version of HubSpot is useful, their app leaves a lot to be desired, with many reporting frequent crashes, incoming calls automatically ending a current call, and overall limited functionality. With the need for many businesses to operate on the go and away from the desk, having a decent mobile app is essential for their needs, meaning that HubSpot may not be the best choice.
Pro: Free Tools
Another feature that HubSpot fans rave about is the huge amount of cool, free features and tools that it offers. Things like blog idea generation, templates for all kinds of content, browser extensions and an email tracker make using HubSpot fun and add to the overall value of the software.
Con: Lots of Paid Add-Ons
HubSpot’s free tools are great, but are they only providing fluff without actual functionality? Some features and functionalities are only available in the paid tiers, which many may find frustrating. Any business that wants to use HubSpot for its marketing capabilities may end up quickly spending a small fortune or turning to other platforms to fulfil its marketing needs, which may defeat the purpose of an integrated CRM platform.
HubSpot is certainly popular and boasts a customer base of more than 194,000 businesses. It can be a hugely beneficial way of connecting all your marketing and sales activity together with end to end data and simple website setup. For B2B it is a strong play and more cost effective than some other leading marketing automation platforms. It isn’t as complete or sophisticated as Salesforce and it does have its weaknesses but overall it is a strong choice for B2B businesses in the SME space.
If you need support with HubSpot integration, setup or management, my agency, SK, has a team of experts that can help you to get the most from the platform. Get in touch to find out more here.