A LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH HUBSPOT

Allow me to romanticize to start: I was introduced to Hubspot 8+ years ago at a tiny startup. It’s where I learned and FELL IN LOVE with marketing automation and customer relationship management. It turned me from a career marketing generalist to a girl who found her niche and eventually built my own dream job and business here at REPLY-ALL. I will still say there is no better system for orgs to bring marketing and sales teams together in one tool, working on complex customer journeys. And I constantly refer junior marketers to HubSpot Academy for the best courses and certifications for newbies.

If you are a fast-growing organization with, let’s say, 5+ staff on both marketing and sales sides of the organization, you can stop reading here because HubSpot might actually be for you.

HOWMEVER: From someone who spends all her days studying and comparing small business software…

For them to claim they are made for small businesses is a lie.

It’s a lie they get away with because by definition, “small business” can mean anywhere from 0-100 (Canadian definition) or 0-500 (US definition).

Their $0-20/month subscriptions are almost useless.

You can’t automate anything and are gatekept out of / teased by all the features you could have access to, marketing with a tiny 🔒 icon as a constant reminder of what you’re missing.

These just a way to get you into their funnel until you quickly outgrow those plans and then realize the next level? Oh that’ll be a jump to $800+/month per user.

So let me be clear: In my opinion and years of experience, small businesses with less than 10 employees shouldn’t be on HubSpot. Or if you have more than 10 employees but only 1-2 marketing and 1-2 sales people.

To me, my small business clients are actually small, with fewer than 10 employees. Their other softwares cost them on average $50-100/month. They cannot and will not pay the $800 USD/month to upgrade Hubspot, so they come to me to switch to an alternative.