Customers are the heart of any business, any smart organization looks out for strategies to improve customer relationships. This is where Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software excels as they are designed to help businesses manage customer relationships effectively.
Every organization needs a CRM software fit for their industry and target market. Finding a CRM software that fits this category can be difficult because there are many of them available, but for some reason, there is always a catch with these platforms.
In this article, we will be narrowing down the choice to Hubspot vs Salesforce.
Overview: Hubspot and Salesforce
HubSpot is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform. It helps scaling businesses grow better with sales, service, marketing, and content management software. Hubspot offers software platforms apart from its CRM – Sales, Marketing, CMS, and Service Hubs.
Salesforce is also a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform with sales, service, and marketing applications. It breaches the gap between customers and organizations.
READ MORE: Zendesk vs Salesforce Features and Pricing Review
HubSpot or Zendesk: Who Has Better User Interface/Experience?
The purpose of any CRM software is to help you manage and organize your customers’ raw data into actionable information. By definition, ease of use is crucial. Both platforms have a similar layout however there is a difference in ease of use and setup of the platforms.
Hubspot has an aesthetically appealing interface that makes it easy to set up and implement in a couple of minutes.
However, Salesforce offers more customization and menu options than Hubspot. Its drag-and-drop interface allows teams the flexibility to design apps and solutions without special codes or coding experience.
Some Salesforce users have access to a dedicated account manager and implementation specialist.
Its more robust customization options will be beneficial to complex organizations with unique pipelines. However, for smaller companies, the Salesforce process of implementation may be a bit cumbersome.
Hubspot or Salesforce: Who’s Giving More Value for Your Money?
In terms of pricing, Salesforce and Hubspot use different pricing models. Salesforce uses a conventional SaaS pricing model where there is a monthly subscription fee and the price is based on the number of users, customization, and support options.
What Can You Do with Salesforce?
Salesforce offers a free trial with no credit card information needed and four paid packages – Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, and Unlimited.
The Essentials package is $25 billed annually per user and allows a maximum of 5 users. The package comes with lead management, an email template, Web-to-lead capture, and a customizable sales process.
It also comes with account management, offline mobile functionality, and a mobile app. You also have access to customized reporting and dashboards, email and Google Apps integration, etc.
Professional costs are $75 per user billed annually with no user limit. The plan has all the features of the Essentials plan plus a custom app, campaign opportunities, customized orders, and quotes.
Also, there’s a mobile forecasting app, process flow builder, data storage, unlimited custom apps, developer’s sandbox, etc.
The Enterprise plan is Salesforce’s most popular plan with a price tag of $150 per user monthly. You have access to APIs, roles and permissions, and case management.
You can also use it for internal collaboration via messaging, advanced reporting plus all the features of a professional.
The Unlimited plan offers users a wider range of options and comes with customized profiles, a custom app builder, lead management, sales forecasting as well as all the features available in the other plans.
At $300/user/year, Unlimited is recommended for larger and more complex teams that need its advanced features.
Salesforce also comes with extended capability add-ons like CPQ and Billing, Sales Cloud Einstein, and Pardot. These add-ons are available to subscribers from the Professional plan and above. They attract a price range of $50 for Sales Cloud Einstein to $1250 for the Pardot add-on.
What Can You Do With Hubspot Plans?
Hubspot on the other hand offers a free CRM plan that gives users access to basic CRM features like contact management, company insights, integrations with Gmail Outlook and Facebook Messenger, app marketplace integrations, basic reporting, and dashboards, storage for up to 15 million overall contacts, etc.
Users interested in a more advanced Hubspot CRM package have the option of three paid plans – Starter, Professional, and Enterprise. The Starter plan costs $45 monthly and comes with all the free features the basic CRM package offers. It also comes with email marketing, chatbot, landing pages, website traffic analytics, multi-language content creation, list segmentation, shared inbox, etc.
The Professional plan costs $450 monthly and comes with smart content, reporting, dynamic personalization, e-signatures, and phone support. Subscribers can also access the features available on the Starter plan.
The Enterprise plan comes with a higher price of $1,200 each month and allows users to extend administrative controls through advanced permissions, sales analytics, playbooks, predictive lead scoring, conversation intelligence, increased support, etc. Users on all Hubspot CRM also enjoy a 10% discount on an upfront annual payment.
While HubSpot’s free CRM gets many users in the door, many of the functions that are included with a basic Salesforce subscription, like advanced reporting and dashboards, must be purchased separately. For businesses that require advanced reporting and sales process customization, HubSpot’s pricing model makes it a costly option.
Documentation and Workflows
In Salesforce, users can easily create, edit, and customize workflows for sales processes. Salesforce also doubles as storage for vital documents giving users 1 GB of storage for any company with an Essentials license and 2 GB per user license for any plan above Essentials.
While Hubspot also offers workflows, it is not as in-depth or as flexible compared to Salesforce. Hubspot offers users 250MB of storage and access to five shared documents at a time on its free CRM package. Companies that require more storage will have to purchase an upgrade.
Pipeline Management
Both platforms offer pre-configured deal stages that match the sales process of most organizations. However, when it comes to pipeline management, Salesforce is more flexible in configuring deal stages that match the sales processes of your business.
While HubSpot allows users to edit and add to their seven pre-configured sales pipeline stages (Appointment, Qualified, Presentation Scheduled, Decision Maker Brought In, Contract Sent, Closed Won/Lost) the system only allows for one pipeline per organization. Companies with unique sales processes for different products would have to purchase an add-on or subscribe to a premium plan to access multiple pipelines.
Reporting and Dashboards
Both HubSpot and Salesforce allow users to generate reports and dashboards of data like lost opportunities by geographic territory, highest sales value by customer segment, and which lead source yields the most valuable deals. However, Salesforce has a slight edge in reporting functionality due to the sheer number of options and customization available within its inbuilt report creator.
Hubspot or Salesforce: Reliable Support
With Salesforce, all customers enjoy a basic support package including access to customer success communities and the ability to lodge product support tickets online with a guaranteed two-day response time.
Also, the Salesforce premium plan (Unlimited) comes with access to 24/7 phone support, a dedicated success manager, and a guaranteed one-hour response for critical issues.
On Hubspot however, all users receive the same basic helpdesk support with HubSpot’s CRM while premium support, customer success, and technical assistance come at a substantial added cost.
Bottom Line
HubSpot doesn’t have as many advanced capabilities as Salesforce, but it’s more affordable. It is a great choice for small businesses because it pairs plenty of functionality with reasonable prices.
HubSpot’s intuitive design also makes it an attractive option as there is no learning curve or experience needed to set it up. For companies who need basic CRM and are more interested in storing customer data, Hubspot can do the trick.
However, for larger organizations with complex sales processes and a rapidly expanding customer base, Salesforce is a better option as it provides in-depth reporting and analytics, varied customization options, and custom branding.
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