HubSpot CRM Review: Does the Software Fit Your Business Requirements

Updated on :October 09, 2023
By :Paul Richards

When you search for the best CRM in any search engine, the one name that stands out is HubSpot. Going a step further, when you read the reviews of HubSpot, you can see customers mentioning the software as easy to navigate, user-friendly, great for smaller businesses, highly intuitive, logical interface, facility to customize properties, and so on. HubSpot, too, claims that the platform acts as a single powerful suite where marketing, sales, service, and operations teams collaborate in real-time for every buyer's journey. The company is happy to claim that its CRM product is a perfect platform to attract, delight, and engage customers.  Few reviews that go against HubSpot slam that the software is expensive, contracts are not flexible, difficult to understand modules, templates are tough to customize, additional technical support required, and cheaper alternatives offer similar features. So, what are the good and bad – the pros and cons of this HubSpot CRM? Does the software fit your business requirements?

GoodFirms has come up with this initiative to review all popular software mindfully and give the readers a chance to know the product without any biased promotional highlights. 

GoodFirms' HubSpot CRM review aims to educate customers and prospective buyers about the actual design and functionality of the product, the drawbacks, the alternatives, market share, and the future take of this product.

This review is the result of GoodFirms' review teams’ formal processes and effective strategies in knowing the in and out of the product. 

Here we go with our true assessment of HubSpot CRM

HubSpot, the brand:

HubSpot, a US-based company, was founded in 2006 by Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan to transform the inbound marketing approach and empower businesses to boost customer relationships and experiences.  

Eight years later, in 2014, HubSpot introduced CRM software to manage and digitize customer interactions powered by next-generation technologies efficiently. 

HubSpot CRM is a cloud-powered and leading inbound marketing software providing an array of robust tools to streamline business processes, digitize marketing prospects, campaigns, and take customer interaction to the next level. The best-in-class customer relationship management solution also serves as a competent sales automation tool,  user-friendly content management system, a handy customer services application, and a premier operations platform. 

HubSpot CRM offers a free version of the software with a host of unique features, such as pipeline management, deal tracking, an intuitive reporting dashboard, live chat, prospect tracking, email marketing, and many more. The customers can also unleash free features while using the sales and service hubs. Each of the hubs has three different plans; Starter, Professional, and Enterprise. 

The Starter plan contains all free and some basic features. The Professional Plan has more advanced features with improved support. The Enterprise plan allows you to unleash all the modern features with the added advantage of digital technologies like artificial intelligence and predictive analytics. 

The Core Features of HubSpot CRM that Stands Out

HubSpot CRM has redefined the concept of inbound marketing with the focus of improving and escalating long-term customer relationships. The CRM software provides a host of striking features that help businesses strive towards growth and accomplish their goals. HubSpot also aims to optimize the end-to-end customer journey with next-generation marketing, sales, service, CMS, and operations tools. 

For instance, the marketing application helps generate and nurture qualified leads, optimize content, manage social media, and automate repetitive marketing processes. The sales tool stands out in converting the leads into prospective customers, increasing the retention rate, improving engagement,  and demystifying the value of your product. The services application centers around resolving the customer query in the best possible way and providing them an optimal experience, thus converting them into product promoters. Similarly, operations connect the different applications, automate the various processes, and establish a powerful collaboration between teams. 

HubSpot Marketing Features - (The most promising ones)

HubSpot Marketing Software is a handy and modern tool that enables businesses to get more customers on board and convert online visitors into potential buyers. HubSpot Marketing Hub provides all critical data and advanced solutions in one place. Marketers can offer a personalized customer experience.    

# Lead Generation

HubSpot Lead Generation

HubSpot CRM is a proactive free lead generation and management tool that helps you create customer-focused marketing campaigns to upsurge end-to-end customer experience. The inbound marketing strategy helps convert website visitors into prospective leads through various channels, such as blogs, social media posts, emails, content, call-to-actions, referral marketing, product trials, and many more.

# Marketing Automation

Marketing Automation

HubSpot is a next-generation CRM tool with marketing automation and advanced workflow capabilities. This feature plays a crucial role in upscaling the business process and automating the repetitive tasks to save time and money. You can even customize the workflows and auto-create lead nurturing emails.

# Analytics

HubSpot Analytics

Hubspots’ marketing analytics and dashboard application help you track and measure the actual performance of your marketing campaigns in one place. You also get additional support from built-in analytics, real-time insights, reports, metrics, intuitive dashboards, etc. All these help you derive meaningful data and drive better decisions. 

HubSpot Sales Feature - (The most promising ones)

HubSpot Sales tools are ideal solutions that help sales reps and teams crack the best deal to generate more revenue. The software plays a crucial role in efficiently managing the sales pipelines and improving the relationship with prospects. 

# Advanced CRM

Advanced CRM

Access complete visibility into your sales pipeline instantly with HubSpot’s advanced CRM facilities. You can upgrade your reports automatically, getting an insight into sales activity, individual performance, and overall productivity; HubSpot also offers about 1 million contracts, limitless time, and unlimited user data to all sales teams.

# Meeting Scheduling

Meeting Scheduling

This is a free feature that enables you to book and schedule meetings without any hassles automatically. You can add a calendar to the website and share the meeting URL with all attendees. You can also organize events and help clients and customers select a preferred time for the meeting. 

# Quotes

Quotes HubSpot

HubSpot CRM also serves as a quote software. The tool helps you create and send sales quotes in real-time. You can unleash the benefit of digital payments and electronic signatures from any location to manage deals. You can align your quota software with the Stripe tool to send or receive payments. 

HubSpot Service Features - (The most promising ones)

HubSpot Service Hub specializes in optimizing customer support and streamlining the onboarding process. The application is designed to offer optimum end-to-end customer service, enhance scalability to improve retention rate, and make the customer journey frictionless.

# Knowledge Base

HubSpot Knowledge Base

It is a feature from HubSpot CRM, which provides adequate replies to all common questions asked by customers, allowing sales reps to spend less time answering the same repetitive questions. 

# Customer  Feedback

HubSpot Customer FeedBack

The customer feedback tool provides you with a viable and optimum opportunity to understand your potential customers’ requirements and provide them with personalized solutions to enhance their experience and make them happier. You can use this HubSpot module to improve relationships and increase the customer retention rate. You can send them customized surveys through links and request them to send their valuable feedback. 

# Tickets

HubSpot Ticketing System

The ticketing system from HubSpot enables you to view all customer interactions and details from one single page and prioritize the most crucial customer query or issue to resolve it quickly. Automating the ticket allocation, tagging, and escalation to nullify all human errors saves valuable time.

HubSpot CMS Features - (The most promising ones)

HubSpots’Content Management System is a comprehensive solution that allows you to design attractive and responsive websites with flexible themes and a seamless viewing experience. You can even use SEO tools to optimize your website and create engaging content with ease. 

# Drag and Drop Editor

HubSpot Drag and Drop Editor

You can use the drag and drop editor feature to design a simple and responsive website without technical aspects. The feature takes support from a visual template builder generating HTML+ HubL under the hood. The feature can customize the different sections of the page with the help of starter templates, theme templates, and coded templates.

# SEO Recommendations

HubSpot SEO Recommendations

HubSpot CRM provides SEO recommendations feature to improve the organic traffic of a website. It acts as an SEO tool that scans the page’s content, enabling you to optimize the website from one location. The tool also provides different indicators as low, medium, and high, allowing you to take a particular action, impacting the site’s performance. 

# Website Themes

HubSpot Themes

Themes comprise templates, modules, and other creative elements to design a website or any page. It is worth noting that HubSpot offers about 15 free website themes and 50 paid themes that you can select to design an attractive website based on your specific needs and budget estimate. You can also use the themes to create beautiful landing pages.

HubSpot Operations Features - (The most promising ones)

HubSpot introduced the Operations system recently to automate the business operations and effectively sync the customer data with ease. The software helps to establish enhanced team collaboration where every member stays aligned to adapt to the changing customer needs. 

# Programmable Automation

Hubspot Programmable Automation

Automate every business process function from managing territory, lead rotations, renewals, etc., by executing the codes directly with the software’s programmable engine. The feature boosts scalability, flexibility and improves automation. 

# Data Quality Automation

Data Quality Automation

This feature removes all the unwanted data automatically to save much of your time and energy. You have to schedule a date for the data cleanup. You can even format the names.

New HubSpot CRM Features Added in 2021

It is crucial to note that HubSpot CRM has recently added more new features in May 2021 to improve the efficiency of the product and offer better-streamlined customer solutions. The additional features include-

  • The File Recycle Bin feature allows you to restore and get back the critical files or documents that were accidentally deleted. But remember, you need to use this feature within 90 days of file deletion.
  • Now, you can target the cookie banner policy based on your preferred geographical location. It means that the policy will appear only in those selected countries where you want to. 
  • Another unique CMS tool feature is Smart Content on Pages, which controls audience and content. It means you can define which customer will see what content on a particular page. Also, there is an addition of the Ad Source Rule. You can create smart content rules based on the clicked ads. 
  • The Call Navigation feature enables sales reps to navigate through the contact list while using the drag and drop editor feature while attending a live call. 
  • The marketing professionals can create customized reports using sequence data and campaigns. It gets easier to evaluate a more in-depth analysis of performance based on the metrics. The custom report builder and sequence data also serve as a handy for the sales reps to build custom reports. 
  • CRM Card Customization, Setting Deal Priority, a much improved CRM Record Dashboard, Email Reply Trackinghavetheir these are a few other newly added features by HubSpot in 2021.

The Pricing Model 

HubSpot offers different pricing plans for different software tools. 

For instance, a free plan is available for Marketing Hub, Sales, Hub, Service Hub, and Operations Hub. HubSpot provides a 14-day free trial period for those selecting its content management system. However, you must note that this free trial period is only applicable for the Professional and Enterprise Plan. 

The free version contains mainly the basic features that will help you understand how the software works. You can subscribe to the starter version to upgrade some of the existing basic features and increase the limits. The Professional and Enterprise Plans have the most advanced features that help escalate your business process and boost revenue. 

HubSpot CRM pricing model has been categorized into a tabular format below:

The Marketing Hub

Marketing Hub Pricing

The Sales Hub

HubSpot Sales Hub Pricing

The Customer Service Hub

HubSpot Service Hub Pricing

The CMS Hub

HubSpot CMS Pricing Hub

The Operations Hub

HubSpot Operations Pricing Hub

Note: If you notice the price slab of every module discussed here - the cost gets higher and higher drastically as you move from free to the premium plan. This quick jump in price is a notable disadvantage of this tool.

Strengths and Weakness of HubSpot CRM as per GoodFirms

Undoubtedly, HubSpot CRM is one of the leading and extensively used customer relationship management software amongst various options available. Like any other application tool, it also has its pros and cons and becomes a critical parameter for selecting and reviewing software. 

It is better yet again to categorize HubSpot based on its software tools to highlight its main benefits and drawbacks. 

So, let’s begin with the HubSpot Marketing Software Hub

The Strength and Weakness of HubSpot Marketing Hub

HubSpot Marketing Pros and Cons

The Strength and Weakness of HubSpot Sales Hub

HubSpot Sales Pros and Cons

The Strength and Weakness of HubSpot Service Hub

HubSpot Service Pros and Cons

The Strength and Weakness of HubSpot CMS Hub

HubSpot CMS Pros and Cons

The Strength and Weakness of HubSpot Operations Hub

HubSpot Operations Pros and Cons

Now, considering the few notable weaknesses of HubSpot CRM software, are there any alternatives that can match the strength of HubSpot? GoodFirms has picked a few HubSpot alternatives here;

HubSpot Alternate Options

GoodFirms’ Outlook: Areas Where HubSpot Needs Improvement 

HubSpot CRM has been incredibly successful in offering optimal experiences to most of its users. It is the reason why this software has been getting positive reviews from the majority of the customers. But there are a few areas where this CRM tool is lagging and needs improvement. 

For instance, users point out that it tends to become slow and glitchy, which delays their task completion. A few other reviews suggest that the search functionality can improve and become better. The HubSpot development team also needs to work on improving the integration process. 

The users have also complained about rectifying the issue of double entry of contracts. The tool does not provide the autosave feature, which means you have to save your changes manually. HubSpot can also simplify the search and navigability of help features. 

Users find it challenging to modify or bring any change in the templates. This feature also needs to be user-friendlier when creating or editing the email templates. Also, to carry out the A/B testing or split testing to evaluate the software performance, you need to buy a professional plan, which means bearing an additional cost.

A Few Original Reviews Gathered by GoodFirms 

CEOs and CRM managers of different companies have shared their own experiences and reviews about implementing and using the HubSpot CRM. A few of these have been listed below-

First Customer Review

Second Customer Review

Third Customer Review

Fourth Customer Review

Fifth Customer Review

GoodFirms’ Final Verdict on HubSpot CRM

HubSpot Customer Relationship Management tool is undoubtedly one of the best SaaS and cloud-based software solutions that looks impressive on many fronts. Marketing automation allows you to easily gain audiences’ attention through blogs, SEO, social media, and ad campaigns. The tool also offers a broad spectrum of free features, making it ideal for startups, mid-sized companies, and large corporations. And, if you are running an already well-established business with a bigger focus on sales, marketing processes, then many of the free features offered by Hubspot are available as premium, enterprise versions too. Suggest, you go for this version rather than the free version.  

Yes, HubSpot not offering a flexible contract is a point to worry about. The enterprise version can be a hit to your budget too. The free-forever plan, simple-to-use and understand features, facility of third-party app integrations, etc., are a few points that stand out when it comes to this CRM solution. Expensive premium plans, no telephonic support for the free plan are some of the looking forward enhancements that HubSpot can think over.

But, strong features and functionality make this software stand out from the rest.

We hope this review on HubSpot CRM has brought clarity. If you use this CRM software, feel free to give your valuable feedback as well. You can also share your reviews about other CRM tools with us. We would love to hear from you. 

Paul Richards
Paul Richards

Paul Richards is a content writer at GoodFirms, a pioneering research and review firm for software development companies. Paul has over 3 years of experience in content writing and marketing and has made a name for himself in the IT research sector.

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