Features, Pricing and Plans Compared

Salesforce’s Small Business Suite vs HubSpot’s free plan

Salesforce used to have an “essentials” plan for small businesses starting at $25 per user, per month,  but this has been replaced with two plans for small businesses: The Starter Suite and Pro Suite.

The Starter plan ($25 per user, per month) is a basic CRM suite with marketing, sales, service, and commerce features. You’ll be able to manage a basic sales pipeline, utilize prebuilt reports, and use the platform’s email marketing tools.

In this sense, it’s similar to HubSpot’s free plan (aside from the price, of course). This will be great for small businesses just getting started with CRM software, but companies looking to truly upscale their marketing operations will be better off with an industry-specific plan from Salesforce.

The Pro Suite costs $100 per user, per month and adds in additional customization and automation options, as well as sales quoting and forecasting tools and real-time live chat. However, if you have a budget of 100 dollars per user at your business, we’d suggest a HubSpot Professional package, as they have more features and HubSpot has a cleaner interface.

That being said, the most comparable plan from HubSpot is its free plan. It’s also a multi-purpose CRM tool with a mixture of marketing, sales, and service features rolled into one package. However, it’s much easier to set up and use and you’ll be able to get going quicker than you will with Salesforce’s small business plans.

That being said, there aren’t nearly as many features available – which isn’t surprising considering HubSpot’s plan is free. For example, Salesforce provides extensive sales forecasting features on all of its plans, whereas you’ll need a paid HubSpot plan for this sort of feature.