HubSpot Ultimate Review: The Perfect CRM to Start

September 5, 2022 - E-Commerce

The functionality of many modern digital commerce businesses is expanded by using numerous third-party services or extensions. This not only helps them to improve sales and gain more client loyalty, but it also makes their everyday tasks simpler and increases productivity. One of the solutions that many firms employ is SaaS systems. Software as a service is a technique for providing applications as a service through the Internet. By just using online software access instead of installing and maintaining it, you can avoid difficult software and hardware maintenance. The supplier is in charge of managing the application’s security, accessibility, and performance. This strategy is quite useful and has many benefits for your business. There is additionally corporate flexibility. That explains why many find them enjoyable. Today, we’ll look at HubSpot, one of these systems. Let’s examine the features, costs, alternatives, and other details of the solutions.

Try HubSpot Free

HubSpot Introduction

HubSpot’s feature-rich free edition surpasses the performance of many commercial CRMs. The marketing, sales, and customer support departments can all use this modern CRM. Almost any firm wanting to enhance customer relationship management should consider it.

Companies of all sizes can track and nurture leads using HubSpot CRM, as well as evaluate company data. Any B2B or B2C business across a range of industries, including accountancy, marketing, sales, construction, retail, real estate, and more, can benefit from using HubSpot. Inbound and outbound marketing, sales automation, sales pipeline management, customer relationship management, email tracking, lead management, contact management, and other features are all included in its feature set.

HubSpot Features

HubSpot is the ideal option for companies looking for robust, simple-to-use CRM software, and the platform is accessible to smaller or more start-up companies thanks to the lightweight but very functional free-forever plan. It also has a ton of helpful features that may be used to expand your business and achieve success in this field. Through a number of free CRM, marketing, sales, and customer care tools from HubSpot, this solution offers a functional way to handle and maintain new leads. These can be accessed through a straightforward and user-friendly interface and include dashboard reporting, deal tracking, and pipeline management.

It’s crucial to note that HubSpot is a CRM platform that includes five premium products: the Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub, CMS Hub, and Operations Hub. You can access a different feature in one or more areas of the site individually through each product. But only one personal account is used to manage every feature. With HubSpot, you get things like:

Convenient data work. You acquire the capacity to gather and manage several types of data about your calls, businesses, and contacts. Additionally, you can segregate by industry, size, location, value, or any other criteria you can think of using the Activity Feed and Lists.
Automated CRM database. You can use an automated customer relationship management (CRM) database with this. When necessary, HubSpot advances customers along their customer lifecycle and updates customer profiles to track and measure each person’s interaction and customer journey. This lets your sales team know when a particular customer is ready to be addressed. This feature tightly integrates with the one before it.
Dashboards. HubSpot offers analytics dashboards and statistics that make it simple to monitor how your target audience is responding to your marketing material. Additionally, you can track every stage of the customer lifecycle, see key patterns over time in your reports, access contacts in each stage of your processes, and analyze the volume and quality of website visitors on a page-by-page basis.
Sales and Deals. HubSpot gives you the tools to import, manage, and create customized Deals.
Landing pages, web pages, and blogs. In Hubspot, you can design blogs, effective landing sites, and SEO-optimized Web pages to tell your prospects who you are and what you provide. Additionally, you may include calls to action (CTAs) on these pages to point your visitor in the direction you believe will be most beneficial or impactful.

The platform’s key features are stated at the top, and we now want to go into greater detail about each of them.

HubSpot Automated CRM database

The automated customer relationship management (CRM) database from HubSpot is at the center of everything your marketing and sales team does. When necessary, HubSpot advances customers along their customer lifecycle and updates customer profiles to track and measure each person’s interaction and customer journey. This lets your sales team know when a particular customer is ready to be addressed.

As a result, your sales and marketing teams may work together much more effectively and holistically. Everyone will have access to the same sources of information and updates, and no contacts will be missed or given the incorrect information.

HubSpot Analytics

HubSpot offers analytics dashboards and data to make it simple to monitor how your audience is responding to your emails. View an overview of email performance quickly to see which subjects attract your prospects the most and the times and days that result in the most effective interaction.

You can view a variety of engagement analytics for a specific email by clicking on it in your database. These analytics include the percentage of successful deliveries, the open rate, the click-through rate, a heatmap of the links that have been clicked, and the ratios of whether your contacts read, skimmed, or glanced the email. To keep track of the complete context of the email, you can also simply examine which workflows the email is a part of.

HubSpot Social Media Management

HubSpot interacts with a variety of social media networks, making it simple for users to link numerous accounts, draft, schedule, publish, and track engagement on posts all from the same location. Another helpful aspect of the platform’s “all-in-one” nature is that it allows marketers to easily keep track of the effectiveness of all aspects of their marketing campaigns, compare and contrast data analytics, and conduct market research. This allows them to understand in real-time what content people are engaging with and gain insight into the best times and days to post.

HubSpot Dashboards

Become a data-driven marketer by tracking the performance of each element of your marketing initiatives in one location. HubSpot offers analytics dashboards and statistics that make it simple to monitor how your target audience is responding to your marketing material. Additionally, you can track every stage of the customer lifecycle, see key patterns over time in your reports, access contacts in each stage of your processes, and analyze the volume and quality of website visitors on a page-by-page basis.

With the use of dashboards, your marketing and sales teams can collaborate more effectively and use a single set of data analytics and reports to guide decisions and track progress.

HubSpot Advantages and Disadvantages

One of the top free CRM recommendations is HubSpot. Most firms searching for a better way to handle client connections will find it useful. But it isn’t always faultless and has its share of shortcomings.

Advantages

Free Comprehensive Plan. Out of the numerous CRMs we have personally used and reviewed, HubSpot is the most feature-rich free plan we have encountered. On paper, the majority of free programs seem fantastic, but they rarely offer the features you require to genuinely enhance client relations. HubSpot, however, operates differently and goes above and beyond with its free plan.
Flexible Pricing. HubSpot’s subscription plans might be quite pricey, but there are many ways to combine services to obtain what you want for a fair price. You have the option of upgrading several hubs at a discounted price or buying individual hubs. If none of the pre-packaged bundles work for your organization, another choice is a completely unique CRM solution with just the features you require.
A Modular and Scalable Approach. Since HubSpot’s products are all modular, the platform expands along with your company as it grows and needs more sophisticated CRM functionality for other departments. It is a genuinely adaptable and scalable CRM system made to support growth and advance your company because you may combine and match solutions and payment options for any module.
Simply to Use. The HubSpot platform itself is simple to use and intuitive despite its complicated price structure and extensibility. Even though there are hundreds of functions available, the creators do an excellent job of making everything simple to access. You won’t have any trouble navigating even on the free plan. Many CRMs find it difficult to strike a balance between strength, automation, and usability. The good news is that HubSpot does not compromise usability for strength.
Strong Customer Support. HubSpot is well known for having a top-notch customer service staff. You have the option of contacting the support staff by phone, email or live chat depending on the plan you’re on. Support is even accessible through Twitter.

Disadvantages

No customer service for the free plan. Although users of the free edition have access to the HubSpot community and online knowledge library to help with troubleshooting, there are times when you just want to speak to a live person. It’s unfortunate that HubSpot doesn’t at least offer live chat to users of the free plan, just to make sure they are accurately displaying their renowned customer service skills.
You can feel the lack of the free version. You must take into account the free plan’s restrictions in comparison to the higher-tier options. For instance, the Starter plan offers unlimited email tracking notifications, whereas the Free plan only allows for 200 per month. You might not care about some of the restrictions, while others might be a deal-breaker for you.

HubSpot Pricing and Options

As we’ve already seen, HubSpot provides a sizable selection of free tools across all of its product lines. That includes free marketing, sales, and customer support tools as well as free CRM tools. You can upgrade to the premium versions if your company expands to the point where these free tools are no longer sufficient.

However, upgrading to the commercial editions of HubSpot can be difficult to understand due to its convoluted system. You know, it’s a little complicated because there are so many various packages and price tiers offered.

The platform offers three Growth Bundles with a range of prices and choices. Starter Growth Suite bundle for $50 per month which is not bad at all. The Professional or Enterprise Growth Suite is not so clear-cut. The monthly cost for each increased to $1,343 and $4,200, respectively.

Additionally, HubSpot offers standalone plans with a range of features. In order to fully appreciate the differences between the solo plans and the bundle, we think it’s important to delve further into the price structures. So, let’s do it.

HubSpot Marketing Hub

The marketing software from HubSpot is made to aid in attracting and converting customers. In other words, conduct successful inbound marketing campaigns without breaking a sweat by attracting the correct audience, turning those visitors into buyers, and converting those consumers. You’ll have all of your marketing resources and information in one place. You can create a fantastic landing page, post blogs, increase your search authority, track and manage ads, manage your social media channels, and monitor and report on your success. In short, HubSpot’s Marketing Hub is a superb marketing solution created to expand together with your company.

The Marketing Hub plans are priced as follows:

Free
Starter: $45/month
Professional: $800/month
Enterprise: $3,200/month

HubSpot Sales Hub

The sales software from HubSpot is a CRM behemoth. Your teams will benefit from being able to manage their pipeline more effectively and efficiently, close more business, forge deeper bonds, and prevent any opportunities from falling through the cracks. By ensuring that your team is consistently providing the same, helpful message, you’ll have the chance to forge better connections with your clients using technologies like email templates, email monitoring, and call recording.

The sales software tiered pricing is described below:

Free
Starter: $45/month
Professional: $450/month
Enterprise: $1,200/month

HubSpot Service Hub

Using Service Hub, you can:

Establish robust ticket automation and support desk system.
Create a comprehensive online knowledge base that clients may use to troubleshoot their problems.
Engage an intelligent live chat to send your customers in the appropriate direction.
For total visibility into the communication process, combine your team’s emails, live chats, Facebook Messenger, and other communication channels into a single global inbox.

The Free, Starter, and Enterprise rates for the Service Hub stay the same as those provided for the Sales Hub. However, the Professional price package costs $360 a month.

HubSpot CMS Hub

With HubSpot’s CMS hub, you won’t have to wait for developers to complete every task because you can design and manage website pages with a straightforward drag-and-drop editor. You receive such features as

SEO suggestions to ensure that you’re putting yourself on the map
Easy customization using pre-built website themes
Creating material in multiple languages
Use contact attribution information to evaluate the effects of your website – Constant security monitoring and threat identification

For CMS Hub, there is no free or starter plan available. However, these are the possible price tiers:

Professional: $270/month
Enterprise: $900/month

We discussed all of the plans and their pricing structures in length, so you should now be able to determine what you need at least in part for yourself. Try HubSpot.

HubSpot Alternatives

Although there are other platforms available, HubSpot is a fantastic one. There are numerous possibilities and numerous rivals. We have a short list of options to assist you accomplish your objectives if HubSpot is not the right choice for you.

Better for automations and reporting is ActiveCampaign
Affordable CRM software is available from Freshsales.
EngageBay: The most complete selection
Good all-arounder: Zoho CRM
Landing pages and the Autofunnel feature from GetResponse
Easy-to-use and inexpensive CRM software is Pipedrive.
Sendinblue: An affordable option with lots of features
Drip: Automating e-commerce
Personalize buyer experiences with Ontraport’s funnels
Wishpond: Contemporary templates
Without the exorbitant price, use the Aritic PinPoint – Stack pricing model

HubSpot Integration

Integrations constantly strengthen your company and make your daily tasks easier. Let’s look at a few of HubSpot’s platform connectors and their benefits.

SalesForce Integration

Salesforce CRM is a customer connection management platform that works in the cloud to strengthen client relationships. Your marketing database and your sales database may communicate with each other easily thanks to the interface between HubSpot and Salesforce. Your sales team will consistently have the most recent leads from your marketing team thanks to the HubSpot Salesforce interface. The most recent details on those opportunities will be available to your marketing team.

Zapier Integration

With the help of the online automation platform Zapier, you can link with over 1,000 more popular apps in addition to Gmail, Slack, and MailChimp. Without writing any code or relying on developers to create the integration, you can integrate two or more apps to automate tedious operations. Users of HubSpot CRM may exchange data easily between the sales tool and more than 750 other applications thanks to the workflow automation platform Zapier.

Your email list is updated, spotless, and precise in real-time if you are creating contacts in another app because it will automatically submit them to HubSpot.

Drift Integration

It enables on-site real-time communication with your clients and potential customers. Leads may be easily live in two distinct systems by integrating Drift. Your CRM is automatically filled with the information from forms and chats so that representatives can refer to it later.

Drift is permanently installed on your website and seamlessly integrates with HubSpot. You may greatly increase your leads by using Drift.

Facebook Ads Integration

B2B lead generating is offered. Without login into Facebook, you can quickly and simply find the total ad expenditure and the CTR rates here. You may link leads to the same Facebook campaign ad set and ad creative using the HubSpot Ads add-on.

Conclusions

In conclusion, HubSpot is a solid platform. Hubspot is one of the better options thanks to one distinctive feature that sets it unique. It excels with medium-sized businesses that need to get going rapidly. With regards to building up a large user base and importing significant datasets, assistance is generally necessary. In addition, your users will want some basic training to comprehend how data is transferred around the system. We advise you to check out HubSpot in order to get an opinion.