Key Questions to Understand How HubSpot Pricing Works

Which HubSpot plan do you need? Take a closer look at the various pricing plans and features available, to help you decide which is right for your business.

Can I use only one Hub?

HubSpot is a great tool for Marketing, Sales and Service teams. There is a hub designed for each team, which includes a range of tools and features to help you manage different aspects of your business. HubSpot allows you to tailor the CRM to YOUR needs so you can choose whether to use all hubs or just some and you can even choose the plan to pay for each hub! 

Now what about PRICING? HubSpot has 5 products or “Hubs”: Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, CMS and Operations hub. The free version offers some of the features of each hub. If you want something more complete, you can choose between the options: Starter, Professional and Enterprise.  

In addition to these plans, HubSpot also offers a range of add-on tools and integrations that can be purchased separately to customize the platform to meet specific needs, and that will slightly impact on the final price. 

Fear not if you don’t know which features best fit your needs. The good news is that you can easily upgrade your plan as your needs change and even purchase additional features or integrations as needed.

Now we are going to address the four most frequently asked questions regarding HubSpot and its several plans. These are: 

  • What is the main difference between starter, pro and enterprise?
  • How many paid seats do you need?
  • If you need space for a lot of Marketing Contacts, must you buy Enterprise?
  • and Can you use higher tier hub’s tools for other lower tier hubs?

How do these plans differ from each other?

The main difference between the Starter, Pro, and Enterprise plans in HubSpot is the level of access and functionality that each plan provides within each Hub.

You can always check updated information on what each plan includes on the HubSpot pricing page

But the real game changer is the level of automation. For example, unlike the Marketing Starter Hub, the Marketing Professional Hub includes omni-channel marketing automation, a highly sought-after tool for its ability to create workflows and automated campaigns across email, social media, ads, your website and chat.

The Sales Professional Hub incorporates tools such as Sales Sequences, which allow sales teams to automate outreach, follow-up, and other time-consuming tasks. 

And the Service Professional brings on useful customer service functionalities like automated customer feedback surveys to constantly monitor and improve your team’s outcomes.

In general, the main difference between the three plans in terms of automation is the depth of complexity and customization.

How many paid seats do you need?

You might wonder what "seat" stands for: when you allow a user access within a paid plan, you may also choose to assign them a paid seat. If users in accounts with paid Sales Hub or Service Hub subscriptions do not have a seat assigned to them, they will not be able to use some of the features included in your paid subscription.

So, do you need paid seats for all members of your company? The answer is: not necessarily.

You can take advantage of many tools just by being a free user. There are several options for these users, the most important of which are: access your database, view reports, set up tools, connect inbox and calendar, use tasks, and more.

For example: you can invest in around 5 seats for your sales or service team leaders, whom will be able to work with productivity tools (like email sequences) while more junior resources who only manage basic tasks can continue to function in the same CRM, focusing on administrative tasks, for no extra money.

If you need space for a lot of Marketing Contacts, must you buy the Enterprise plan?

If the features of your chosen plan are sufficient, you don't need to upgrade to the next plan just for the marketing contacts. With the Starter plan you have a minimum of 1000, Pro 2000 and Enterprise 10,000 contacts.

However, you will be able to customize your plan by adding new marketing contacts, which you can buy in minimum quantities. 

Marketing Contacts are those contacts within the CRM you’ll engage with through HubSpot’s marketing tools each month (e.g., marketing emails, ads), so they will affect the cost of your subscription. Non-marketing contacts, on the other hand, won’t count towards your contact tier, and you won’t be charged for them.

So it is quite logical to assume  that because you have a large company with many leads you need an Enterprise plan with more marketing contacts. However this is not always the case. 

Our recommendation is to simply use HubSpot's quoting tool, as you add the amount of marketing contacts needed, the same tool will let you know if the next plan will make more economic sense for your business.

For example, when you reach 87.000 marketing contacts with the Marketing Hub, pricing-wise, it would make more sense to move from Professional to Enterprise, even if you are happy with your current pro tools.

Can you use higher tier Hub’s tools for lower tier Hubs?

It's important to note that these numbers are just starting points, and as we said earlier, you can increase the number of Marketing Contacts in your account.

So even if you feel uneasy about your choice, know that you can add additional Marketing Contacts at any time.

It’s important to know there are tools that you will be able to access across Hubs. For example, you could use some Sales pro functionalities for your Service Free or Starter Hub .

That's why it's not always necessary to move in bulk with the complete tier suite. It may be that if you need functionality from a higher tier, you can choose only one of these licenses (the one that makes the most sense for you and your company) and leave the other licenses at a lower tier. A good example of this is Custom Objects - they are a property that you find only in the Enterprise plan, but, you could purchase only one of the Enterprise licenses within a Hub and it would apply to the other Hubs.

 

Before making a decision on which HubSpot plan to sign up for, check what features each plan comes with and if there’s any unnecessary overlapping.

 

We hope the questions we addressed were helpful and that they have brought you closer to making the right choice when selecting your HubSpot plan.

If you still have doubts you can contact us and we will be delighted to guide you through your specific issues.