HubSpot Vs Salesforce

HubSpot Vs Salesforce – Which CRM Is BEST For You?

Read this Article with an In-depth Review of the top CRMs HubSpot Vs Salesforce & Detailed Feature-wise Comparison to Select the Best Option:

Salesforce offers enterprise-level CRM capabilities and has many competitors from the technology giants like SAP, Adobe, Microsoft, and Oracle. Salesforce is not the only CRM in the market.

In 2014 HubSpot offered a free SaaS CRM product. Yes, all free. Salesforce is nowhere close to offering anything near to this.

HubSpot Vs Salesforce Market Size

Salesforce occupies the #1 spot in the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) space. As per Forbes, Salesforce had a 19.5% CRM market share in 2018. HubSpot had a market share of 0.44%.

HubSpot may not have the grand scale of Salesforce CRM, but it does have a humble pie of 0.45% of the market. It is quite heartening to realize that HubSpot is striding forward at an exponential rate.

With the increasing popularity of HubSpot, it is imperative to compare the two CRM products as you must be pondering whether to adopt Salesforce or HubSpot for your business?

In this post, we provide insights on who will fare better as a CRM – HubSpot or Salesforce?

Important data on the two CRMs:

As per Statista, Salesforce has reached a revenue of $13.28 billion in 2019 and this amounts to a ten-fold increase to what it was ten years back.

HubSpot offers a free CRM at its core with a full stack of software for marketing, sales and customer service.

For HubSpot, 6800 companies across 100 countries are growing their business with HubSpot.

But, Salesforce has a different picture.

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As you compare between HubSpot vs Salesforce, it is better to opt for the CRM that acts in the best interest of your business. There is no one-size-fits-all solution so it becomes essential to choose the features, suitable for your business.

Comparison Of The CRMs: Salesforce Vs HubSpot

Here is a table on the comparison between Salesforce and HubSpot:

CRM	Salesforce	HubSpot
Applies Best For	Salesforce works on a multi-tenant model which serves companies of all sizes.	It is a CRM meant for small and medium businesses which does not require complex CRMs.
Ease of Use	Salesforce fares well in ease of use. (Score: 3.9/5). It creates custom tabs based on standard and custom objects.	But HubSpot fares better. (Score : 4.4/5)
Customer Support	Salesforce comes with a good customer support.	HubSpot comes with a better customer support.
Pricing Model	Salesforce comes at a monthly payment and annual subscription.	HubSpot is a free software.
Pricing	Starts from $25.	It is free.
Ease of Setup	Salesforce Essential for small businesses offers quick and in-app support.	HubSpot fares better in terms of ease of setup with a free basic version.
Sales and Pipeline Management	Salesforce is a CRM which was built with sales growth in mind. Salesforce connects with a whole new way. It has its own Artificial Intelligence platform called Einstein. Salesforce offers customization of deal stages as per the sales process. It offers personalized reporting too.	HubSpot comes with sales tools lesser in scope and offers unlimited email scheduling as an exception. HubSpot comes with seven pre-configured stages for pipeline management. Only one pipeline is allowed for a single organization and one sales process for one product.
Marketing	It offers a robust Marketing Cloud product. The Marketing team passes leads to the sales team with the marketing and automation tools. It offers seamless experience across all customer touchpoints	In HubSpot, truly personalized messages for any audience is done by marketing automation. The marketing tools of the likes of collected forms, lead flows and lead analytics create lead pipeline and move the leads towards the sales team.
Implementation	Salesforce offers a paid plan but after a 14-day trial period. Salesforce needs some external help such as inhouse expert or some other specialist.	HubSpot is a free CRM and can run in a few minutes. It allows to import all contacts as CSV.
Training	Salesforce offers content in the form of its e-learning hub called Trailhead.	HubSpot is way ahead of Salesforce in terms of free content resources and has its own, comprehensive HubSpot Academy
Integration	Salesforce offers internationally supported integrations with SAP, Google Cloud, Intuit Quick books, etc.	HubSpot offers an integration library with 270 out-of-the-box integrations. It integrates with apps like Slack, Jira and Mail Chimp, etc.
Analytics and Reporting	Salesforce incorporates powerful analytics and reports. The Einstein Analytics dashboard in Salesforce monitors key business metrics based on key dimensions like products, region and time period.	HubSpot comes with built-in analytics, reports and dashboard for smarter data-driven marketing. But due to limited data storage, HubSpot analytics is limited too.
Features	Salesforce comes with following features but not HubSpot: Internal Chat Integration Mobile Access Social Media integrations Quotes/Proposals Territory Management	HubSpot Offers Marketing Automation Integration but does not come with social media integration.

Note: The measurement is totally subjective since the review on Salesforce is based on a higher number of reviews.

Feature-wise Comparison Of Salesforce Vs HubSpot

We have chosen some parameters to differentiate between the two CRMs.

These are:

1. User Interface and Set up
2. Ease of Use
3. Pricing
4. Sales and Pipeline Management
5. Marketing
6. Analytics and Reporting
7. Implementation and Support
8. Integration

The detailed comparison of the two CRMs for the features listed above:

#1) User Interface And Set up

The main purpose of any CRM is the facilitation and management of any or all of the client-centric data. In HubSpot, you can import files to create or update contacts, deals, companies or products.

On the other hand, in Salesforce we have objects, standard, and custom that includes contacts, leads, accounts, opportunity, and others.

Your sales team will always yearn for deals in the pipeline and the contacts to get connected when it is time to close the deals. Both the CRMs streamlines these kinds of data. Ease of use is also a critical aspect to consider.

See the screenshot of the dashboards for Salesforce below:

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Both the CRMs have a structure with a top menu bar that allows the user to navigate easily to the various objects such as contacts, leads, accounts, deals, reports and many more. However, the HubSpot Software rates better in terms of ease of use and ease of set up when compared with Salesforce.

We know that Salesforce CRM has standard and custom objects. It creates custom tabs say on files, tasks, engagements, etc. on its custom objects.

The below image explains how a custom tab is created on an Engagement object:

Custom tabs provide the user with unique user experience. A Salesforce user gets an Account Manager and an implementation expert for optimized user experience – to meet the client requirements.

On the other hand, HubSpot provides a free basic version that is set up within a short time. However, Salesforce Essential for small business also offers quick set up and in-app support.

Recommended Reading=> Salesforce Essential

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#2) Ease Of Use

Salesforce fares well in ease of use with a score of 3.9/5. It creates custom tabs based on standard and custom objects. But, HubSpot fares better than Salesforce and has a score of 4.4/5.

Hubspot is suitable for small and medium-sized businesses with 10-200 employees that do not need advance features of a complex CRM. While Salesforce can serve businesses of all sizes. It offers advance features such as a multi-tenant cloud computing model.

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#3) Pricing

Salesforce is a CRM suitable for larger enterprises – ready to invest in feature-rich CRMs. HubSpot serves smaller businesses. Salesforce CRM has a price whereas HubSpot comes absolutely free.

Let us compare the pricing for Salesforce with HubSpot.

(i) Salesforce Price

Salesforce pricing gets offered based on various clouds. Let us find some details on the sales cloud, marketing cloud, service, and commerce cloud. The price depends on the number of users and on a monthly basis.

It comes to $25 per user per month and goes over $300. The monthly fees are dependent on the needs and scale of each business.

Here are the prices of Salesforce for Sales Cloud based on various editions of the software:

Moreover, Salesforce extends capabilities with addons as explained in the below screenshot:

Next, we come to HubSpot price.

(ii) HubSpot Price

The HubSpot software comes in three forms as follows:

The HubSpot software for Marketing Hub starts from free and goes up to $800/month.

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The Sales hub starts at zero for a single salesperson and goes up to $800/month for the entire team.

Please explore this link for further information on prices for Sales and Service Hub.

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#4) Sales And Pipeline Management

Sales are the most critical function of modern-day business. Salesforce transforms your sales from lead to cash. The sales process often exists in silos- order management, marketing automation, etc.

(i) Salesforce

It was built as a CRM to drive sales growth. So, most organizations start using CRM for building their sales team. The software comes with built-in leads, contacts and other tools.

It allows the SMBs to use Sales Cloud Lightning Essential Plans for custom contact, lead flows and account management.

The below image shows the opportunity object with the sales stages:

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Salesforce unifies the entire sales process and connects with the customer in a whole new way. It also introduced Einstein – its own Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform. The Sales Cloud offers add-ons to enable you to encash on Einstein tools or Pardot B2B marketing automation.

Salesforce carries the following activities:

• Work smarter with Einstein
• Work faster with Lightning
• Sell as per Expectations

a) Work smarter with Einstein: Here, Amazon web services come into the picture. Salesforce predicts customer behavior in a proactive way. It helps the sales reps to build a meaningful dialog with the customer. Salesforce acts as an enabler at scale.

Predictive Lead Scoring empowers the sales reps to prioritize the best leads. It finds which leads have the propensity to move forward. It operates at the deal level, where to pull back – trends down and up. Salesforce makes faster decisions with Actionable Analytics. Wave collects metrics in one place and takes immediate action. It impacts B2B marketing for aligning with marketing for improved campaign ROI.

b) Work faster with Lightning: Lightning takes Salesforce to a new level. Lightning Invoice helps reps not to forget about customer conversation. It allows the reps to work from anywhere. Salesforce1 and other mobile applications help the reps to sell the way they like to.

c) Sell as per Expectations: App Builder streamlines the flow and redesigns the experience. The reps get faster quotes and orders. Lightning Bolt provides templates and blueprints with UI. It builds an ecosystem of apps. Salesforce is easy to customize.

(ii) HubSpot

On the other hand, HubSpot comes with sales tools but with lesser scope – with the exception of unlimited email scheduling. It offers a single schedule meeting link – for just one rep for the free version. You can embed the link on the website for the visitors to schedule meetings. It saves time at every stage of the funnel.

The following activities are done by HubSpot:

• Automate Outreach without being Impersonal
• Create/Share Email Templates
• Follow-up without flaws
• More Meeting
• Make Deals
• Track your entire pipeline.

Salesforce offers customization of deal stages as per your sales process. It creates personalized reporting too. You can add this at a later stage of the pipeline.

HubSpot comes with seven pre-configured stages for pipeline management. Only one pipeline is allowed for a single organization and one sales process for one product.

Pipeline management in Salesforce:

Pipeline Management in HubSpot is not at all a match with what is offered in Salesforce. Tasks for each deal stage, automated tasks for deals moving forward and unlimited products/deal. HubSpot automates only certain tasks and cannot integrate applications like inventory, accounting into the system.

Sales pipeline with HubSpot:

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Sales dashboard to track the progress and health of your sales pipeline:

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#5) Marketing

(i) Salesforce

Salesforce offers a robust Marketing Cloud product. It comes in bundles with a wide range of features and pricing.

The Marketing team passes leads to the sales team with the marketing and automation tools. The tools create a seamless experience across all customer touchpoints.

If you want further details on the tools, say Mobile Studio, Social Studio, etc please refer to the link.

Marketing Cloud:

[image source]

Salesforce offers personalized services for building loyalty and relationship with customers. It makes customer interactions as the reason for which you earn the admiration of the client.

It helps marketing in the following ways:

• Put Customers at Centre of Interactions: Salesforce enables to put the customers at the center of every interaction. It reconciles data both from known and unknown individuals. It connects data sources across channels and devices.
• Automate Customer Engagement: It builds connected journeys based on customer actions, right at that moment. You can plan and optimize every interaction with AI. It uses cross-channel data for building new segments.
• Build Marketing Strategy Around Customer Journey: It engages across all touchpoints and connects with customers at the right time with the right message. It tracks and analyses the results to optimize every experience all over the customer lifecycle.

Please watch the video for further details on the impact of Salesforce on Marketing.

(ii) HubSpot

In the case of HubSpot, you can truly personalize your messages for any audience. And all this is done by using marketing automation for nurturing your audience. It comes with marketing tools of the likes of collected forms, lead flows, and lead analytics.

The tools create a lead pipeline and move the leads towards the sales team. Since HubSpot was first a marketing automation tools so it offers easy to use and powerful capabilities. It is meant for the SMBs.

HubSpot helps marketing in the following ways:

• Personalize Marketing: It allows automation of email campaigns as in Salesforce but goes beyond that in the form of social automation for automatically sharing every blog post – across all channels. Marketing Automation in HubSpot streamlines ads audience creation to contact segmentation.
• Optimize for Conversion: Marketing Hub in Salesforce has all the tools to establish your authority. It has a content strategy tool unlike Salesforce for structuring the site for organic reach. It integrates with Google Search Console for creating a tactical plan for improving your ranking. It can run A/B tests on the landing page, site page or email.
• Measure ROI: Measure the ROI with the creation of great content. It enables to understand the pages, channels, and campaigns for driving traffic and conversions. You can easily attribute contacts, deals, and revenue to marketing efforts with campaign reporting as well as create a custom report across a set of data points.

Please refer to the link for further details

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#6) Analytics & Reporting

(i) Salesforce

Salesforce incorporates analytics in all of its tools. Contacts and account settings are all customized with custom objects. The Einstein Analytics dashboard in Salesforce monitors key business metrics based on key dimensions like products, region and time period.

It uses interactive charts for easy-to-read format. You can add tables for record-level details and filters for change in focus. It helps to increase the overall efficiency of the business analytics by easy visualization of data at a glance.

It has a web analytics dashboard that quantifies the information on the web presence of the organization. The analytics dashboard provides real-time reporting in a digestible manner.

The activities performed by Salesforce analytics are:

• Visualize Data for enhanced understanding
• Customized Dashboards as per needs
• Reporting, analyzing and real-time presentation of data
• Cloud-based Analytics for faster deployment

Please refer to the link for further details.

(ii) HubSpot

HubSpot comes with built-in analytics, reports, and dashboard for smarter data-driven marketing. But due to limited data storage of HubSpot, the analytics is limited too.

Here are the reports:

a) Track Complete Customer Lifecycle

Track the entire journey from a visitor to a loyal customer. It discovers trends for data over time. Generates a report based on contact, company-level details. It uses multi-touch revenue attribution to close the loop of marketing efforts.

Tracking customer lifecycle:

b) Analyze Site Performance with Key Website Metrics

HubSpot also has a web-analytics dashboard with a set of metrics for website effectiveness. Some of these metrics are time-on-site, bounce rate, new vs returning visitors, etc. This is how a web-analytics dashboard looks like in HubSpot.

Website metrics:

Some of the reports available with this web-based dashboard are:

• Traffic Metrics
• Engagement Metrics
• Bounce Rate by Source
• Sessions by Device type

Please refer this link for further details.

c) Detail Reports on each of the Marketing Channels

Generate detailed reports on all your marketing assets – emails, landing pages, social media, etc. Track the critical metrics in one place and share insights with your team.

Reports on each marketing channels:

Please refer to this link for further details.

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#7) Implementation And Training

(i) Salesforce

It offers a paid plan but after a 14-day trial period. With Salesforce, you always need some external help such as inhouse experts or some other specialist.

The Salesforce plans all come with a standard support package and comes with a 2-day response window for your queries. If you require to reach your goals faster, then you must shell out extra money with a premier or premier plus plan.

These premier plans offer one-to-one coaching, 24 x 7 support, and expert guidance.

Recommended Reading=> Success plan details and pricing

(ii) HubSpot

It is a free CRM and can be up and running in a few minutes. The CRM allows you to import all your contacts as CSV. It matches the existing fields with the standard, existing HubSpot properties such as lifecycle stage, renewal date, deal won date, etc.

Salesforce offers content in the form of its e-learning hub called Trailhead. But HubSpot is way ahead of Salesforce in terms of free content resources and has its own, comprehensive HubSpot Academy.

The HubSpot Academy guides you on acquiring skills and certifications on HubSpot. Salesforce offers a range of powerful certifications as you thrive for different roles.

As a paid client for HubSpot you have 24 X 7 support over the phone and support ticket for email responses. It offers live chat services too.

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#8) Integrations

Most of the modern businesses are using integrations as a means to avoid scattered day and loss in productivity. Salesforce has a clear advantage so far as integration is concerned. It enables companies with access to Developers to build their own integrations – with open API.

Salesforce integrates with other tools to run your business better. Salesforce Ecosystem has a highly advanced environment for products and integrations termed as App Exchange. It offers internationally supported integrations with SAP, Google Cloud, Intuit Quick books, Mail Chimp, Zen Desk, and many more applications.

It connects with other on-premises legacy systems and SaaS platforms. It has also recently acquired MuleSoft.

HubSpot has an integration library with 270 out-of-the-box integrations that are simple to set up. It integrates with apps like Slack, Jira and Mail Chimp.

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Conclusion

We have found that both the CRMs have their own advantages and disadvantages. Before deciding on any one of the CRMs, you must be absolutely clear on what all are the needs of the organization. Salesforce has an average customer satisfaction score of 4.4/5 and HubSpot has 4.5/5.

If your organization has a budget constraint then it is better to choose HubSpot, with its lightweight framework – considering a whole lot of features offered by this free CRM as well as integrations. HubSpot is more for the small businesses that want to scale at a later stage.

However, if your organization has a larger community to serve and enhanced functionalities, then Salesforce is the right choice within the constraints of needs, structure, and goals. Many organizations opt for both CRMs serving different and complementary purposes.