Can I afford HubSpot marketing automation?

min read

How much does HubSpot actually cost and can you afford HubSpot for your marketing automation solution? We take a look at the various packages on offer for customers.

Can I Afford HubSpot Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation can be an interesting subject of discussion, and many times there are few things that people agree on. However, sometimes there is consensus - and one of these rare agreements happens to be on price point.

Good marketing automation isn’t cheap.

Automation can save you time, money and frustration in the long term, but the immediate investment of these resources can sometimes be substantial if you want a good solution - and HubSpot is one of the best.

But how much does HubSpot actually cost, and more importantly, can you afford HubSpot for your marketing automation solution? This blog post will go into detail regarding their pricing models and what various packages are on offer for customers.

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HubSpot Pricing Plans

Since HubSpot is one of the best marketing automation platforms on the market and it covers way more than just basic marketing automation. As such, you may assume that it’s also one of the most expensive. The good news however is that, while still providing for the larger companies, HubSpot is not entirely out of reach for smaller companies.

HubSpot delivers tools that support not only marketing automation, but also sales and services. In this post we take a look at the different marketing plans HubSpot offers and which are best for you and your needs as a company.


HubSpot Free tools & CRM

Strictly speaking, companies can gain access to HubSpot features for the lean price of absolutely $0 per month with HubSpot free tools and CRM! However, it’s important to note that HubSpot’s free package doesn’t offer the full package of features that gave HubSpot its name in the automation industry, and many of their free features include HubSpot branding.

Starting Price:
Free

Amount of Contacts Included:
Up to 1,000,000 contacts included

Features Included:

  • HubSpot CRM, Sales, Marketing and Services
  • Non-customisable forms
  • External form tracking
  • Live chat and limited conversational bots
  • Ad management (limited ad types, $1k spend limit)
  • 1 conversation inbox
  • Basic email marketing and contact segmentation
  • Email only mobile optimisation
  • User roles
  • Standard marketing reports


Ideal Company Fit:

Since this package is free, and it’s a great option for companies who are looking to test HubSpot or learn more about the general benefits of inbound sales, marketing and services. However, the free package is not really adequate for any serious digital marketer who wants to be proactive in their marketing campaigns.


Starter Package

The Starter Package is HubSpot’s cheapest paid offering. It provides the basics tools needed to get any company that is interested in marketing automation or inbound marketing started on their journey. As HubSpot puts it, it’s everything you need to capture leads and turn them into customers.

Starting Price:
$50 per month

Amount of Contacts Included:
1,000 contacts included, +$20 per additional 1,000 contacts.

Features Included:
Everything included in the free package plus:

  • Customisable pop-up forms
  • Customisable native forms
  • Standard marketing and productivity reports
  • Email marketing (5X Send limit per contact)
  • List segmentation (25 Smart Lists, 25 Static Lists)


Ideal Company Fit:

HubSpot’s Starter package is intended for companies that are looking for email marketing and digital marketing support without all the in-depth automation features. The ideal customer for this package is likely one looking to get started with marketing automation, or an organisation that wants to prove some of the benefits of the technology within a managed budget.


Professional Package

HubSpot’s middle of the range offering is their Professional package. This offers a solid set of marketing automation tools for serious digital marketers. This package is also the most competitive offering that HubSpot provides, taking on the likes of Salesforce Pardot, Marketo and Eloqua for the mid-market customer segment. The robust feature set is designed to attract those already familiar with marketing automation and those that really want to super-charge their digital marketing programmes..

Starting Price:
$800 per month

Amount of Contacts Included:
1,000 contacts included, +$50 per additional 1,000 contacts.

Features Included:
Everything included in the Starter package plus:

  • Ad management (All ad types, $10k spend limit)
  • 100 Conversation inboxes
  • Full-featured conversational bots
  • Complete mobile optimisation
  • Customisable marketing and productivity reports
  • Customisable dashboard
  • Email marketing (10X send limit per contact, per month)
  • List segmentation (1,000 smart lists, 1,000 static lists)
  • Phone support
  • Blog creation tools
  • SEO and content strategy
  • Social media
  • Calls to action
  • Landing pages
  • Standard SSL certificate
  • Competitor tracking (up to 10)
  • 1 Subdomain
  • Marketing automation (300 Workflows)
  • Salesforce Integration
  • Smart content
  • Attribution modelling
  • A/B testing
  • Video hosting and management
  • Internal team organisation (25 teams)
  • Contact scoring (1 property / condition)
  • Ad Retargeting
  • Campaign reporting

Ideal Company Fit:
As you can most likely tell, the HubSpot Professional package offers users a complete solution for inbound marketing, and thus is ideal for companies that understand and and want to take advantage of these features. The ideal company for this package is one who has a dedicated marketing support function with experience in marketing automation, knows what they want out of the solution, and how to get it.


Enterprise Package

HubSpot’s ultimate offering is their Enterprise package. This offers everything a company could ever need in relation to marketing automation and inbound marketing.

Starting Price:
$3,200 per month.

Amount of Contacts Included:
10,000 contacts included, +$10 per month for every additional 1,000 contacts.

Features Included:
Everything in the Professional package plus:

  • Ad management (30k spend limit, 15 audiences)
  • Reporting dashboards (25 customisable dashboards)
  • List segmentation (1,500 smart and static lists)
  • Unlimited subdomains
  • Marketing automation (500 workflows)
  • Attribution reporting (5 attribution models)
  • Internal teams (200 teams)
  • Contact scoring (25 conditions/properties)
  • Custom event reporting
  • Custom event triggers
  • Predictive lead scoring
  • Event-based segmentation
  • Single sign-on
  • Content partitioning
  • CMS membership
  • YouTube integration
  • Social permissions
  • Additional domains
  • Custom events and funnels
  • Analytics API
  • Website traffic analysis


Ideal Company Fit:

HubSpot’s ultimate offering includes a tonne of features that none but the largest marketing organisations will use. For this reason, the Enterprise package is most suited to companies who rely on marketing as a primary tenet of their business, or a large multi-national company that executes deep and complex marketing programmes.

Bells and Whistles

In addition to the plans above, users who would like to sign-up with HubSpot have the choice of a number of extensions that they can include to add to their service.

HubSpot CMS - $300 per month
We’ve looked in more detail at the HubSpot CMS before. This add-on gives you access to HubSpot’s premium CMS service that will help you build and maintain your website.

Reporting - $200 per month
The Reporting Add-on allows users to create unlimited customised reports and dashboards based on anything in HubSpot or HubSpot CRM.

Ads - $100 per month
This option increases the selected plan’s ad spending limit by $50k and allows the user to create an additional 50 audiences.

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As you can tell, HubSpot can be an expensive or as inexpensive as your needs dictate. You never have to pay for features you don’t use, and nor should you. Thus, it is important to select the right plan for you.

However, there is one final cost that every company has to factor in when considering HubSpot.

After you have customised your plan and decided to make the plunge, HubSpot also provides a one-off on-boarding fee of anywhere between $600 and $5,000. If you sign-up through an official certified HubSpot partner, like Demodia, this fee can be waived and is often replaced by a more comprehensive deployment and training programme.

The Final Answer - Can I Afford HubSpot?

The great thing about HubSpot is that it is designed to scale with your business and your budget. When you’re a start-up with limited marketing experience and a small budget, or a multi-million enterprise with marketing teams around the globe, HubSport offers a package to suit. If you want help to find the one that is right for your business, reach out to the team at Demodia today and we will guide you to the option that is most suitable for your business.

Demodia is a certified HubSpot automation professional and consultant. We have helped numerous companies just like yours to get acquainted with and get the most out of their marketing automation platform, whether it be HubSpot or any of the alternatives out there.

Get in contact with Demodia today, and find the best solution for you.