HubSpot is a popular inbound marketing solution designed to help businesses leverage their outreach efforts and increase leads, engagement, and conversions. It offers an all-in-one solution that empowers the sales, marketing, and customer service functions, providing teams with all the necessary tools to manage their activities.
From aiding with content creation to firing up SEO efforts, tracking leads and conversions, powering easy integrations with third-party solutions, offering a range of support tools, and much more, we could say HubSpot is that single solution every marketer needs to do their job.
With all these amazing features, maybe your biggest question right now is how much the solution costs. Interestingly, you can start using HubSpot at no cost at all. Yes, indeed. HubSpot offers a range of free marketing, sales, customer service, and operations tools. Examples include;
- Marketing tools – Ad management, landing pages, email marketing, mobile optimisation, forms, list segmentation, live chat, email reply tracking, basic bots, ad retargeting, and more
- Sales tools – Email scheduling, team email, quotes, Facebook Messenger integration, HubSpot mobile, slack integration, meeting scheduling, among others
- Service tools – Basic bots, email templates, ticketing, live chat, documents, email tracking & notifications, user management, email reply tracking, live chat, ticketing, etc.
- Operations tools – Data sync, app marketplace integrations, deals, contact management, company insights, email health reporting, custom user permissions, ticketing, and more
Generally, getting the free solution comes with lots of other perks. For instance, your entire team can collaborate on the platform, and you can store unlimited contacts. Unlike the 14-day free trials that come with the premium solutions, the non-paid free access does not expire.
However, as much as the free access grants your team an opportunity to start inbound marketing, soon you start seeing all the missed opportunities due to limited features. To realise the full benefits of HubSpot's inbound marketing capabilities, upgrading to the premium service is always worthwhile.
Overview of Hubs and Tiers
Ideally, HubSpot has five hubs that are purchased individually. These are marketing, sales, customer service, CMS (content management system), and operations hub. Each hub has a four-tiered pricing model (free, starter, professional, and enterprise) based on features and benefits. This provides flexibility to select a plan that suits your business and scale on a need-basis.
Let's quickly take an overview of the various hubs;
- Marketing hub – This provides all the tools you need to launch effective campaigns, generate leads and nurture them to conversion
- Sales hub – Empowers you with the tools for organising your data in one place for faster closing of deals
- Service hub – A scalable solution that enables you to provide efficient and better service to customers
- CMS – HubSpot's content management system is also a scalable solution that allows you to build a data-driven website
- Operations – Ops hub enables you to automate your businesses processes by connecting apps, syncing customer data, and more
You can start with the free solution or the starter package and upgrade as your business needs call for it. Or, if you want to go all-in and leverage your inbound marketing strategy, you may choose higher tiers as your budget allows.
Note that you can combine different hubs and tiers as you desire. If you're unsure how to do this best, you can always start with HubSpot's recommended bundles, such as the Starter CRM Suite.
Overview of the Free CRM
HubSpot offers free customer relationship management (CRM) tools that enable you to create positive customer experiences. Ideally, it allows you to store an unlimited number of contacts. However, once you upgrade to the paid marketing hub, you start paying for marketing contacts (customers you are actively marketing to through emails and ad campaigns). But you can store unlimited non-marketing contacts (up to 15 million).
Examples of free CRM tools include contact management, company insights, custom support form fields, app marketplace integrations, ad management, email tracking and notifications, ticketing, email templates, Facebook messenger integration, etc.
Marketing Hub
The paid marketing hub comes in three tiers – starter, professional, and enterprise. Each tier is an upgrade of the lower plan and provides the features of the preceding tier plus additional benefits. Also, each plan comes with a standard number of marketing contacts, and after that, you buy additional ones in increments of 1000, 5000, or 10,000, depending on the plan.
For the starter and professional plans, you can either decide to pay monthly or commit annually and pay upfront to enjoy a 10% discount. The cost for each of the three plans is as follows.
Marketing Starter Pricing
The package has two pricing models.
- Monthly commitment – AU$75/mo billed monthly
- Annual commitment – AU$68/mo paid upfront and billed at AU$810/yr
In addition, you get 1,000 standard marketing contacts with the plan. Once you exceed the threshold, you purchase additional ones in increments of 1,000 at AU$75.00/month and AU$67.50/month for monthly and annual billing, respectively.
Purchasing the starter pack grants you access to the free tools, though they come with increased limits. If you upgrade from the free plan, it removes all the HubSpot branding from your assets (forms, landing pages, email marketing, and live chat). Again, this allows you access to fast support via email and in-app chat.
Marketing Professional Pricing
The professional plan also has two pricing models.
- Monthly commitment – AU$1,279/mo billed monthly
- Annual commitment – AU$1,150/mo paid upfront and billed at AU$13,800/yr
This tier has standard 2,000 marketing contacts, but you can store more by purchasing in increments of 5,000 at AU$375.00/month and AU$337.08/month for monthly and annual billing, respectively.
In addition to the starter package features, you get automation and personalisation tools such as omni channel marketing automation, dynamic personalisation, video hosting & management, multi-language content, and more.
You gain access to tools that enable you to orchestrate efficient campaigns and optimize campaign conversions (e.g., campaign management and collaboration tools, ads optimisation, and A/B testing), build custom reports (website traffic analytics, campaign reporting, etc.), and access phone support.
Marketing Enterprise Pricing
The enterprise is the most advanced tier going for AU$4,610/mo billed at AU$55,320/yr. It comes with standard 10,000 marketing contacts. After you exceed the limit, you can purchase additional contacts in increments of 10,000 at AU$150.00/month.
The package gives you professional features plus team and brand management tools, platform extension capabilities, and advanced reporting. Examples of the advanced features include permission sets, field-level permissions, single sign-on, adaptive testing, custom objects, predictive lead scoring, and more.
Sales Hub
If you want to supercharge your sales strategy and get to close more deals faster, than a paid plan offers more powerful tools. One special feature about this hub is that you pay per the number of users accessing the paid tools. Ideally, the sales hub tiers come with a standard number of users then you pay for every additional user you grant platform access.
HubSpot charges its three sales hub packages as follows.
Sales Starter Pricing
The starter package has monthly and annual billing.
- Monthly commitment – AU$76/mo billed monthly
- Annual commitment – AU$68/mo paid upfront and billed at AU$810/yr
This package comes with two standard users, but you can purchase additional slots at AU$38/month per user and AU$34/month per user for monthly and annual billing, respectively.
In addition to increased free tools limits, starter sign-up removes HubSpot branding from live chat, documents, meeting scheduling, and 1-to-1 email. You also get tools to organise your sales process (such as conversation routing, stripe integration, multiple currencies, repeating tasks and task queues), access fast support over email and in-app, and more.
Sales Professional Pricing
The professional plan also provides monthly and annual billing options.
- Monthly commitment – AU$720/mo billed monthly
- Annual commitment – AU$648/mo paid upfront and billed at AU$7,776/yr
This plan includes five paid users, and you can buy additional slots at AU$140/month per user and AU$126/month per user for monthly and annual billing, respectively.
In addition to starter benefits, it allows you to manage your team, personalise your outreach, and more. Examples of tools you gain access to include sales automation, custom reporting, sales analytics, forecasting, smart send times, 1:1 video messaging, eSignature, etc.
Sales Enterprise Pricing
The enterprise package goes for AU$1,730/mo billed at AU$20,760/yr and comes with ten standard paid users. For additional user slots, you can purchase them at AU$170/month per user.
Enterprise tier includes all the professional plan features plus additional tools such as hierarchal teams, playbooks, conversation intelligence, predictive lead scoring, and more. These allow you to customise the solution to your business, coach at scale, etc.
Service Hub
Efficient customer service helps create excellent customer experiences and consequently build loyalty. HubSpot service hub solution fuels your customer experience with tools that empower you to streamline the service. Like the sales hub paid packages, it includes a standard number of users, but you can purchase additional slots.
The packages are as follows;
Service Starter Pricing
The starter package has two pricing models.
- Monthly commitment – AU$38/mo billed monthly
- Annual commitment – AU$34mo paid upfront and billed at AU$821/yr
The starter pack includes two paid users, but you can purchase additional slots at AU$38/month per user or 34/month per user for monthly and annual billing, respectively. The plan comes with increased limits for free tools, removed branding on assets, tools for streamlining customer communications, fast support, and more.
Service Professional Pricing
The professional tier also has monthly and annual billing options.
- Monthly commitment – AU$575/mo billed monthly
- Annual commitment – AU$518/mo paid upfront and billed at AU$6,210/yr
This package includes five paid users, but you can purchase additional slots at AU$120/month per user and AU$108/month per user for monthly and annual billing, respectively.
In addition to the starter features, it bears tools for seamless onboarding, automation capabilities, and advanced support.
Service Enterprise Pricing
The enterprise package costs AU$1,730/mo billed at AU$20,760/yr. It comes with ten paid users, but you can buy additional slots at AU$170/month per user.
In addition to professional features, the tier grants you access to team management, process customisation, and performance optimization tools.
Content Management System (CMS) Hub
In addition to other inbound marketing tools, HubSpot allows you to host your entire website on the platform through their CMS hub. With this solution, you can also pay for starter, professional, or enterprise tools.
CMS Starter Pricing
The solution has a monthly payment plan billed at AU$38/mo or AU$34/mo billed at AU$410/yr. In addition to the free tools, it includes website hosting and building tools, including premium hosting, standard SSL certificate, website themes, local website development, and live chat.
CMS Professional Pricing
The professional plan costs AU$575/mo billed monthly, or AU$518/mo billed at AU$6,210/yr. In addition to the starter tools, it provides customer experience personalisation, website optimization, and content strategy features.
CMS Enterprise Pricing
The enterprise package is the most advanced CMS tier that goes for AU$1,730/mo and is billed at AU$20,760/yr. It comes with professional features plus a handful of other powerful tools such as hierarchal teams, code alerts, single sign-on, adaptive testing, additional root domains, 1:1 technical support, site performance monitoring, web apps, and more.
Operations Hub
The operations hub has all the tools you need to automate your business processes. In addition to the free plan, it has a three-tier pricing model, which you can opt for depending on your operations and scaling needs.
Operations Starter Pricing
This is the most basic paid version that starts at AU$72/mo billed monthly or AU$65/mo billed at AU$778/yr and paid upfront. It offers increased limits of the free tools in addition to customer data syncing and operations organisation tools. In addition, you gain access to faster help through email and in-app chat support.
Operations Professional Pricing
The pro package goes for AU$1,152/mo billed monthly, or AU$1,037/mo billed at AU$12,442/yr and paid upfront. It has all the starter package tools plus automation, customer data clean-up, and reporting tools. Examples of features include list segmentation, duplicate management, custom reporting, webhooks, programmable automation, and more.
Operations Enterprise Pricing
The enterprise package is the highest tier going for AU$2,880/mo billed at AU$34,560/yr. In addition to all the tools in the lower plans, you get customisation features plus data management and curation tools such as datasets, custom objects, advanced data calculations and prep, and more.
Both the professional and enterprise plans come with a 14-day free trial.
Which Plan Would You Like to Try?
The good thing with HubSpot is that they have zero barriers to their platform. With several free-forever solutions, you have the opportunity to try the platform and test the products without the pressure of trial expiry. Then once you find tools that are working for your business and would like to upgrade for added benefits, you can always do so within your budget and timeline.
Having gone through the cost of the various hubs and tiers, we hope you have a better understanding of how much investing in paid HubSpot would cost you.
Not sure which option is best for you yet? Remember, you can always rely on us to guide you through any stage of your buying journey. At DigiKat Marketing, we are all about providing the information and tools your business needs to garner more engagement, leads, plus sales and grow. Get in touch, and let's chat.
