What is a CRM?
To compare advanced software solutions like Salesforce and HubSpot, we need to look at What a CRM really is. This will help readers better understand what to look for when comparing HubSpot and Salesforce.
Simply put, a CRM suite represents software tools that help a company's sales teams organize, manage, and use customer information. CRM tools also help manage customer information and better develop relationships with current and potential customers.
Thanks to CRMs, you can create and maintain a solid relationship with all your business contacts. These tools help your business find and group contacts, track critical messages, and keep track of customer touchpoints.
Any well-structured CRM solution should:
- Contribute to the development of transfer procedures between sales and service.
- Automate the sales lifecycle.
- Helps provide an overview of your customer database
- Improve functionality and information sharing between teams
Given the above, it's time to dive into the HubSpot vs Salesforce comparison.
Overview: HubSpot vs. Salesforce
HubSpot CRM is a product developed and distributed by the company of the same name. HubSpot offers several products outside of CRM, like content management and marketing automation systems.
The CRM HubSpot was launched in 2014, and in the short span of six years, it has earned its place among the best CRM solutions on the market. Whether it's managing contacts, emails, leads, or visualizing sales pyramid data, HubSpot lets you do it all.
The software comes with a free version that is more than capable of meeting the CRM needs of small and medium-sized businesses. As your business grows, you can upgrade to the full HubSpot marketing suite, which offers a Business CRM to get actionable insights and grow your business.
Salesforce, on the other hand, is a much older piece of software; it started its activities in 1999 and has since consolidated its place in the CRM sector. Historically, Salesforce is considered to be one of the first companies to adopt the SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) model.
In addition, it is also the first company that popularized the concept of customer relationship management. Over time, the software has continued to modernize and has been able to adapt to the current world order.
Salesforce offers several marketing automation tools, powered by artificial intelligence-based information and detailed personalization. All of these qualities have succeeded in making Salesforce one of HubSpot's notable competitors.
The main difference between the two is that while HubSpot is more intuitive and aimed at businesses of all sizes, Salesforce is more suited to businesses. However, this is not the only point on which the two can be compared, and in the next section, I'm going to break things down.
HubSpot CRM or Salesforce: What is the best CRM?
Now that you have a brief overview of HubSpot CRM and Salesforce, it's time to analyze the characteristics of each one and compare them. To do this, I will compare the capabilities of the two solutions based on several key factors.
1. Ease of use
When comparing Salesforce and HubSpot, the most important factor is ease of use. After all, there's no point in having a customer relationship management (CRM) solution that's complete with all the bells and whistles, only to have your employees avoid using it because of the steep learning curve.
There's no denying that Salesforce is the industry standard when it comes to CRM software. However, despite its sophistication, it is a bit too technical for the average sales rep. In fact, taking advantage of all of the platform's features requires someone with deep technical knowledge.
HubSpot, on the other hand, deserves the crown for intuitive CRM software. Designed for salespeople, HubSpot makes it easy to optimize the workflow, while providing smooth navigation. Even if you're using HubSpot CRM for the first time, you'll easily be able to understand how to automate tasks, engage with prospects and customers, and visualize the entire pipeline.
🏆 Winner: HubSpot
With its simple and intuitive interface, HubSpot scores better than Salesforce on the usability index.
However, if you have a full-fledged IT team that needs to be involved in complex sales processes, Salesforce may have an advantage.
Discover for free Hubspot CRM ->
2. Third-party integrations
All modern businesses today use third-party integrations as a way to increase productivity and efficiency. These integrations allow a CRM to connect directly to third-party software and exchange data with them, which facilitates the flow of operations.
Because it's been around longer, it's easy to integrate Salesforce with more third-party add-ons. Salesforce data exchange functions are provided as standard with numerous HR, ERP, and SCM software such as SAP.
What's more, Salesforce even has its own dedicated AppExchange that provides access to thousands of integrations. AppExchange is considered to be one of the largest (if not the largest) business application markets on the Internet.
However, when it comes to sales-focused integrations, HubSpot CRM does a lot better than Salesforce. Sales teams generally need to focus on marketing data, and HubSpot acts as the central database for all sales and marketing processes.
Since launching in 2014, HubSpot has continued to increase the number of integrations it offers. Currently, CRM offers more than 200 integrations and continues to expand. Additionally, businesses can also use OpenAPI to create custom integrations.
🏆 Winner: SalesForce
With AppExchange in their directory, Salesforce is clearly in the lead when it comes to the number of integrations offered.
But HubSpot is no slouch and offers integrations with many popular apps like Jira, MailChimp, and Slack.
Discover for free Salesforce ->
3. User interface
When it comes to features, HubSpot and Salesforce both have their strengths. As I mentioned before, Salesforce is technically more feature-rich. However, this may prove to be its weakness when it comes to navigating the user interface.
When you open the Salesforce interface, you're immediately presented with over 15 tabs. Among these, you'll find options for managing leads, exploring opportunities, and dealing with files, contacts, and campaigns. Then, each tab is divided into multiple sub-menus, with more options to consider. Newbies may be somewhat overwhelmed by the situation.
Compare that to HubSpot's intuitive user interface, which only shows the most essential features and options. These allow you to focus on what's needed and provide a comprehensive view of your CRM system.
Another area that HubSpot excels at compared to Salesforce is focus. Salesforce dashboards typically provide a bird's-eye view of the data, which isn't right for the average salesperson. In contrast, HubSpot allows reps to stay focused on their pipeline, allowing them to get their work done smoothly.
Of course, that doesn't mean that HubSpot can't offer a comprehensive view of your business. He can; the only difference is that he's more inclined to streamline sales workflows. And no one can deny that that's exactly what representatives need to succeed.
🏆 Winner: HubSpot
With its focused approach and streamlined features, HubSpot trumps Salesforce when it comes to user interface usability. That said, if you need a more feature-rich application, whether you use it or not, Salesforce is the way to go.
Discover for free Hubspot CRM ->
4. Set of tools
Now let's compare HubSpot and Salesforce in terms of the tools they offer. Here, Salesforce often wins various surveys, only because of the richness of its functionalities.
Salesforce has numerous tools such as Marketing Cloud, Social Studio, and Mobile Studio, which come with a comprehensive set of features and varying prices. Used together, all of these tools allow the marketing team to support the sales team with qualified leads. But that doesn't have to be the only reason you're using it.
It's true that Salesforce has a better set of tools and offers greater customization, but it's mostly suited to businesses that have the staff to make it work. As we've already seen, HubSpot focuses more on usability and can be used by businesses of all sizes.
With HubSpot, your business can personalize messages for every level of your audience. The software offers a number of marketing automation tools, such as lead flows and collection forms, that keep the sales pipeline active.
At the same time, HubSpot's marketing automation tools help streamline audiences and enable contact segmentation. HubSpot's Marketing Hub also includes tools for content strategy, split testing, and even integrates with Google Search Console.
🏆 Winner: HubSpot
While Salesforce has a more comprehensive set of tools, HubSpot's selection of marketing and sales tools is more convenient and easier to use. Thanks to the ease of use that HubSpot offers, every business, from large companies to SMEs, can put their CRM strategy on track.
Discover for free Hubspot CRM ->
5. Analysis and reporting functions
In an age of data-driven business strategies, you can't afford to ignore analytics and reporting. In this respect, Salesforce is extremely powerful and has robust analytics capabilities that offer a high degree of customization.
All Salesforce tools include analytics capabilities. For example, Einstein's analytics dashboard allows you to monitor key business metrics. It even offers highly interactive graphs and charts, which make it easy to data visualization.
HubSpot also integrates analysis and reporting functions, but they are fewer and less efficient than those offered by Salesforce. This is mainly due to HubSpot's limited data storage capabilities.
However, thanks to recent improvements, the developers of HubSpot have succeeded in taking its analysis capabilities up several notches. At the same time, HubSpot's reporting system is more intuitive and offers quick features as well as drag-and-drop functions.
🏆 Winner: Salesforce
Judging by the current state of affairs, Salesforce is clearly winning the pack when it comes to analytics and reporting capabilities. However, HubSpot is quickly catching up and could soon overtake the leader in this aspect of CRM.
Discover for free Salesforce ->
6. Boarding
Acquiring great CRM software won't be of any use to your business if you're not able to get it up and running. In this respect, learning and welcoming processes play an important role and depend on many factors.
Take Salesforce, for example. Simply installing the software can be quite expensive, which is even more true if your business moves from one CRM to another. Such a change can lead to additional tasks, like cleaning data or customizing integrations.
In short, Salesforce hardly offers usability out of the box. For larger businesses, the integration process itself can take months. Compared to that, HubSpot is much easier to set up and implement.
This does not mean, of course, that there is no work to be done. You may still need significant data cleaning work and need to create custom integrations. Additionally, your team members will need to be trained in the intricacies of the new system.
However, you won't have to spend extra money to hire someone for onboarding with HubSpot. The HubSpot installation process is more or less self-explanatory, and you can get up and running with a bit of effort.
🏆 Winner: HubSpot
Because of its ease of use, all-in-one marketing capabilities, and exceptional user experience, HubSpot is at the top when it comes to ease of integration. Unless you're a big business with lots of moving parts, setting up HubSpot shouldn't be a very complicated process.
Discover for free Hubspot CRM ->
7. Level of personalization
It's easy to understand that of the two CRMs we're comparing, Salesforce is more customizable. It provides greater control when customizing business pipelines and process flows, and offers more customization options.
Salesforce users have the ability to customize workflows and processes without having to hire specialized developers. While this may take longer due to the sheer number of features it offers, the task is not unfeasible.
Now let's take a look at HubSpot, which also offers a good degree of personalization, but not at the Salesforce level. The number of customization options you have with HubSpot increases when you opt for the paid plans, but even then, it leaves a lot to be desired.
That said, HubSpot recently added the custom object option, which further increases its ability to personalize. Even if the user has limited technical knowledge, they can modify pipelines, transaction stages, and views to suit their needs.
🏆 Winner: HubSpot CRM and Salesforce
Here, it is more a question of requirement than of the availability of features. If you're looking for a quick, simple, and easy solution that can be customized to fit your business processes, HubSpot is the best option. On the other hand, if you're looking for intense customizations that offer a greater degree of business flexibility, Salesforce is the ideal solution.
8. Market share
Ask any sales professional which customer relationship management software is the market leader, and they'll no doubt answer Salesforce. And if we consider that Salesforce has about 20% of the market, he is right to answer that way.
But that doesn't mean HubSpot is out of the game, far from it. Since its release in 2014, HubSpot's market share has continued to increase. And while it currently only represents around 3.4% of the CRM ecosystem, it's definitely a CRM platform to be reckoned with.
Another factor that works in HubSpot's favor is its freemium pricing model, which helps many businesses make the initial transition to the platform. This freemium model gives it a definite advantage over Salesforce, which is anything but free. So the HubSpot vs Salesforce battle is far from over.
🏆 Winner: Salesforce
There's no denying the fact that Salesforce is the current market leader. But HubSpot, which is the latest, is rapidly gaining popularity. One day we may find it among the marketing tools with the largest market share.
Discover for free Salesforce ->
9. Support
When it comes to customer support, HubSpot is way ahead of Salesforce. Even without a paid plan, you have access to HubSpot's rich library of online content. The company also offers numerous courses on HubSpot Academy, its own online training center, where you can get familiar with HubSpot tools.
If you decide to become a paying customer, HubSpot also gives you access to 24-hour telephone support. You even have the option of contacting customer service via email and taking advantage of the live chat function.
However, with Salesforce, you'll need to sign up for a paid plan to get access to any form of customer service. With a low-level license, your support is somewhat limited; once you reach the enterprise level, you'll have access to all Salesforce resources on the Trailhead hub.
🏆 Winner: HubSpot CRM and Salesforce
There's no denying that HubSpot is the undisputed winner when it comes to customer support. Its inbound marketing expertise, rich content library, and 24/7 customer support are at the top of the list.
10. Pricing
Finally, let's compare the prices of each one. HubSpot CRM is available for free and offers useful sales, marketing, and customer service tools. Thanks to this customer relationship management system, your business can have an unlimited number of users and store around one million contacts for free.
If you are an SME, the free CRM functions are sufficient. However, for larger businesses, you can upgrade to the paid version of HubSpot's CRM. HubSpot Sales Hub offers several paid plans that you can opt for, as listed below:
- Starter, at $45/month
- Professional, at $450/month
- Business, at $1200/month
Now let's explore Salesforce, which is a fully paid CRM solution. To start your Salesforce journey, you can opt for one of the following paid license plans:
- Essential, at $25/month
- Professional, at $75/month
- Business, at $150/month
- Unlimited, at $300/month
🏆 Winner: HubSpot CRM and Salesforce
When it comes to cost, Salesforce's paid plans are more affordable than HubSpot's. However, since HubSpot can be used for free, it's ultimately not a question of money but rather of the plan that best fits your business needs.
HubSpot vs. Salesforce: Highlights
That's it, that's it for the two main CRM competitors on the market. However, before making your final decision, there are a number of things to keep in mind. That's why I decided to gather all the pros and cons of HubSpot compared to Salesforce, so you can make a more informed decision.
HubSpot CRM benefits:
- Freemium payment model
- Simple and easy to use interface
- Appropriate customer support
- Easy to use tools
- Great for marketers and salespeople
Disadvantages of Hubspot CRM:
- Reduction in the number of integrations
- Decrease in market share (current)
SalesForce benefits:
- Advanced sales and pipeline management
- Pardot facilitates the functionalities of Marketing automation
- A large number of integrations with Microsoft, Oracle, and Adobe
- More features
Disadvantages of SalesForce:
- A complicated integration process
- User interface difficult to navigate
Summary
So that's pretty much all I have to say about the HubSpot vs Salesforce debate. While both are great choices, I think the final decision depends on the needs of your business and the level of functionality you require.
All things considered, CRMs should help reduce your company's workload, not increase it. So if you're a small or medium-sized business and need faster CRM solutions, HubSpot is the solution for you.
However, for larger businesses with greater customization needs, Salesforce is the right choice. It is also necessary to take into account the cost, the user-friendliness and the integration time. Some organizations may even decide to integrate the two solutions and take advantage of the best of both worlds.
