Best HubSpot Alternatives 2026

HubSpot built its reputation on a generous free CRM and a well-designed interface. But as companies grow, the bill grows faster. Marketing Hub Professional starts at $800/month, and once you add Sales Hub and Service Hub seats at the tiers you actually need, many teams find themselves spending $2,000–$5,000/month before they’ve fully adopted the platform. That’s a real number that makes people look around.

Why Look for HubSpot Alternatives?

Pricing that scales aggressively. HubSpot’s contact-based marketing pricing is the most common reason teams start exploring alternatives. A 10,000-contact database on Marketing Hub Professional runs $800/month. Hit 50,000 contacts and you’re looking at $1,500+/month — and that’s before you add the Sales or Service Hubs. The free-to-paid jump is one of the steepest in the CRM world.

Hub fragmentation drives up costs. HubSpot splits its platform into Marketing, Sales, Service, CMS, and Operations Hubs. Each one has its own pricing tiers. Need professional-grade marketing automation and sales sequences? That’s two separate subscriptions. A mid-market team of 15 reps with a 25,000-contact marketing database can easily hit $3,500/month across just two hubs.

Feature gating at lower tiers. Some genuinely essential features — custom reporting dashboards, calculated properties, predictive lead scoring — are locked behind Enterprise tiers at $3,600/month per hub. Teams on Starter or Professional often feel like they’re renting a house where half the rooms are padlocked.

Complexity creep. HubSpot has added so many features over the past few years that the platform can feel overwhelming. Workflows, sequences, playbooks, custom objects, custom behavioral events — the feature surface area has expanded dramatically. Smaller teams often end up paying for capability they’ll never configure.

Limited customization for complex sales processes. If your sales cycle involves multiple related objects, approval workflows, or territory management, HubSpot’s customization tools — while improved — still trail behind platforms like Salesforce. You hit walls faster than you’d expect.

Salesforce

Best for: Enterprise teams needing deep customization and reporting

Salesforce is the CRM that HubSpot originally positioned itself against, and there are good reasons it still dominates enterprise adoption. If your team has outgrown HubSpot’s custom objects and reporting limitations, Salesforce’s data model gives you virtually unlimited flexibility. You can create custom objects, define complex relationships between them, and build reports that slice data across any dimension you need.

The AppExchange ecosystem is genuinely massive — over 4,000 integrations and add-ons. Where HubSpot’s marketplace has grown to maybe 1,500 apps, Salesforce covers niche industry verticals, CPQ tools, advanced analytics platforms, and practically anything else you might need. If you’re in manufacturing, healthcare, or financial services, you’ll find purpose-built solutions that don’t exist in HubSpot’s ecosystem.

The honest downside: Salesforce is not a weekend project. Most implementations take 4–12 weeks with a consultant, and you’ll likely need an admin (part-time or full-time) to maintain the system. The UI has improved with Lightning, but it’s still not as clean or intuitive as HubSpot’s interface. New reps take longer to ramp. And pricing adds up quickly — Enterprise at $165/user/month plus platform fees, add-ons, and implementation costs means your first-year spend can be 2–3x what it looks like on the pricing page.

For teams of 50+ with complex sales processes, Salesforce is hard to beat. For teams under 20, the overhead usually isn’t worth it.

See our HubSpot vs Salesforce comparison

Read our full Salesforce review

ActiveCampaign

Best for: Email-first marketing teams who want powerful automation at a lower price

ActiveCampaign is the alternative I recommend most often to HubSpot Marketing Hub users who’ve hit the pricing wall. The math is simple: 10,000 contacts on ActiveCampaign’s Plus plan costs about $149/month. The same contact list on HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional costs $800/month. That’s not a rounding error — it’s a $7,800/year difference for roughly comparable marketing automation.

The visual automation builder is genuinely excellent. You can create conditional splits, wait steps, goal tracking, and multi-channel triggers (email, SMS, site tracking, form submissions) in a drag-and-drop interface that’s easier to work with than HubSpot’s workflow tool. ActiveCampaign also includes a built-in CRM at every paid tier, so you get deal pipelines, task management, and basic sales automation without buying a separate product.

Where ActiveCampaign falls short is on the CRM side. It’s a marketing-first platform that added sales features — not the other way around. Deal forecasting is basic. Pipeline reporting doesn’t match HubSpot Sales Hub Professional. And if you need service/support ticketing, you’ll need a separate tool entirely. The landing page builder also isn’t as polished as HubSpot’s CMS tools.

If your primary use case is email marketing and lead nurture automation with light CRM needs, ActiveCampaign delivers 80% of HubSpot’s marketing capability at 20% of the cost. That’s a compelling ratio.

See our HubSpot vs ActiveCampaign comparison

Read our full ActiveCampaign review

Pipedrive

Best for: Sales-focused teams that want a simple, visual pipeline CRM

Pipedrive was built by salespeople, and it shows. The core interface is a Kanban-style pipeline view where you drag deals between stages. That’s it. There’s no overwhelming feature menu, no 47-tab navigation. You open Pipedrive and you see your deals. For teams that just need to track opportunities, manage follow-ups, and close business, it’s refreshingly focused.

Setup takes hours, not weeks. I’ve helped teams migrate from HubSpot to Pipedrive in a single afternoon, including data import and pipeline configuration. The activity-based selling approach — where Pipedrive prompts you to schedule the next action for every deal — creates a discipline that many teams find more effective than HubSpot’s broader but shallower approach.

At $14/user/month for Essential and $49/user/month for Power, Pipedrive is dramatically cheaper than HubSpot Sales Hub for pure CRM use. A 10-person sales team on Pipedrive Power costs $490/month. The same team on HubSpot Sales Hub Professional costs $900/month ($90/seat), and that’s before you add Marketing Hub.

The limitation is real though: Pipedrive does not do marketing. No email campaigns, no landing pages, no lead scoring based on behavioral data. You’ll need to pair it with a marketing tool like Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, or Brevo. If you need a unified marketing-and-sales platform, Pipedrive alone won’t cover it.

See our HubSpot vs Pipedrive comparison

Read our full Pipedrive review

Zoho CRM

Best for: Budget-conscious teams that want an all-in-one business suite

Zoho is the Swiss Army knife play. Through Zoho One ($45/user/month), you get access to 45+ applications — CRM, email hosting, project management, invoicing, helpdesk, HR tools, and more. For small businesses that are also paying separately for Google Workspace, QuickBooks, Zendesk, and Asana on top of HubSpot, consolidating into Zoho can cut total software spend by 40–60%.

The CRM itself has matured significantly. Canvas lets you design completely custom CRM layouts without code — something HubSpot doesn’t offer at any tier. Zia, Zoho’s AI assistant, provides lead scoring, anomaly detection, and workflow suggestions. The automation builder handles multi-step workflows with conditional logic that rivals HubSpot’s Professional tier.

The free tier supports 3 users with contact management, deal tracking, and basic reporting. That’s genuinely useful for very early-stage companies. Standard at $14/user/month adds workflow rules, scoring, and dashboards.

The tradeoff: Zoho’s individual apps don’t always feel like they were designed by the same team. The UX can be inconsistent — CRM looks modern, but some older apps in the suite feel dated. Third-party integrations outside the Zoho ecosystem sometimes require Zoho Flow (their automation connector) or custom API work. And customer support, while improved, doesn’t match HubSpot’s responsiveness at lower tiers.

See our HubSpot vs Zoho CRM comparison

Read our full Zoho CRM review

GoHighLevel

Best for: Agencies managing multiple client accounts from one platform

GoHighLevel is the tool that marketing agencies keep talking about in private Slack groups. The value proposition is specific: if you manage CRM, funnels, email, SMS, and reputation management for multiple clients, GoHighLevel lets you do all of that from a single platform with unlimited sub-accounts on the $297/month Agency Unlimited plan.

Compare that to HubSpot’s partner program, where each client needs their own HubSpot subscription. An agency managing 20 clients on HubSpot Starter ($20/month each) pays $400/month just for the CRM layer — and that’s the most basic tier. GoHighLevel’s flat-rate pricing means your margins don’t erode as you add clients. The white-label option lets you rebrand the platform entirely, which some agencies use to create their own “proprietary” software offering.

Built-in features include a funnel/landing page builder, appointment booking, two-way SMS, review request automation, and a membership/course platform. It’s a lot. Almost too much, honestly.

And that’s the main criticism: GoHighLevel tries to do everything, and some features feel half-baked compared to dedicated tools. The email builder isn’t as refined as HubSpot’s or ActiveCampaign’s. The reporting dashboard is functional but not deep. Documentation has gaps, and the learning curve is steeper than the marketing suggests. It’s also not a great fit for non-agency businesses — the platform architecture is designed around the agency-client model.

See our HubSpot vs GoHighLevel comparison

Read our full GoHighLevel review

Freshsales

Best for: Mid-market teams wanting AI-powered lead scoring without enterprise pricing

Freshsales (part of the Freshworks suite) is an underrated HubSpot alternative that punches above its weight on AI features. Freddy AI — available from the Pro tier at $39/user/month — provides predictive lead scoring, deal insights, and next-best-action recommendations. On HubSpot, predictive lead scoring is locked behind Enterprise at $150/user/month. That’s a significant gap for teams that want data-driven prioritization without enterprise budgets.

The built-in phone system is another standout. You get click-to-call, call recording, and voicemail drops included in your CRM subscription — no separate dialer integration needed. HubSpot offers calling through its Sales Hub, but with minute limits at lower tiers and per-seat costs that add up. Freshsales also includes live chat and basic chatbot functionality at the Growth tier.

The interface is clean and modern. New reps typically ramp faster on Freshsales than on HubSpot because there’s less surface area to navigate. Kanban pipeline views, activity timelines, and contact 360-degree views are all well-designed.

The gap shows up on the marketing side. Freshmarketer (the marketing automation product) is a separate subscription, and it doesn’t match HubSpot Marketing Hub’s depth in content management, SEO tools, or social media scheduling. If you need tight marketing-sales alignment in a single platform, Freshsales alone won’t deliver that. The integration between Freshsales and Freshmarketer works, but it’s not as unified as HubSpot’s hub-to-hub data flow.

The free plan supports up to 3 users with basic contact and deal management — enough to evaluate whether the platform fits your workflow before committing.

See our HubSpot vs Freshsales comparison

Read our full Freshsales review

Quick Comparison Table

Tool	Best For	Starting Price	Free Plan
Salesforce	Enterprise customization & reporting	$25/user/month	No (30-day trial)
ActiveCampaign	Marketing automation on a budget	$15/month (1,000 contacts)	No (14-day trial)
Pipedrive	Simple, visual sales pipeline management	$14/user/month	No (14-day trial)
Zoho CRM	All-in-one business suite at low cost	$14/user/month	Yes (3 users)
GoHighLevel	Agency multi-client management	$97/month	No (14-day trial)
Freshsales	AI lead scoring without enterprise pricing	$9/user/month	Yes (3 users)

How to Choose

If marketing automation is your primary need and budget matters most, go with ActiveCampaign. The per-contact savings over HubSpot Marketing Hub are substantial, and the automation builder is arguably better.

If you’re a sales-driven team that doesn’t need marketing tools, Pipedrive gives you the cleanest, fastest CRM experience at the lowest per-seat cost. Pair it with a standalone email tool and you’re set.

If you’ve outgrown HubSpot’s customization and reporting limits, Salesforce is the natural next step — but budget for implementation help and ongoing admin costs. Don’t try to DIY an enterprise Salesforce deployment.

If you want to consolidate multiple software subscriptions into one bill, Zoho One’s breadth is unmatched at the price point. Just be prepared for some UX inconsistency across apps.

If you’re an agency managing 5+ client accounts, GoHighLevel’s flat-rate unlimited model will save you money compared to per-client HubSpot subscriptions. The white-label capability is a real differentiator.

If you want AI-assisted selling at a mid-market budget, Freshsales gives you predictive scoring and intelligent deal insights at a fraction of HubSpot Enterprise’s cost.

Switching Tips

Export your data before you cancel. HubSpot lets you export contacts, companies, deals, and tickets as CSV files. Do this before your subscription ends — some export features are tier-dependent. Download your email templates, workflow documentation (screenshots help), and any custom reports you want to recreate.

Map your properties first. HubSpot uses custom properties extensively. Before importing into a new platform, create a spreadsheet mapping every HubSpot property to its equivalent field in the new CRM. This step takes 2–3 hours and saves 2–3 weeks of cleanup later.

Plan for a 2–4 week overlap. Run both systems simultaneously during the transition. Reps should log activity in both platforms for at least one full sales cycle. Yes, it’s tedious. It also catches data gaps before they become permanent problems.

Don’t try to replicate everything. The most common migration mistake is attempting to rebuild every HubSpot workflow, email template, and report in the new system. Use the switch as an opportunity to audit what you actually use. Most teams discover that 30–40% of their HubSpot automation was set up once, never optimized, and isn’t worth recreating.

Watch for integration dependencies. Check every third-party tool connected to HubSpot — your website forms, Zapier workflows, Slack notifications, ad platforms. Each one needs to be reconnected to the new CRM. Make a complete list before you start, not after.

Timeline expectation: be realistic. A Pipedrive migration might take a weekend. A Salesforce migration takes 6–12 weeks if done properly. ActiveCampaign falls somewhere in between at 2–4 weeks. Match your migration timeline to the platform complexity, and don’t let anyone tell you it’ll be done by Friday if you’re moving 50,000 contacts with years of activity history.

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