Our Verdict
What is HubSpot
HubSpot is an all-in-one customer platform that combines CRM, marketing automation, sales tools, customer service software, and content management in a single ecosystem. It is designed to help businesses attract leads, convert customers, and manage long-term customer relationships without needing multiple separate tools.
HubSpot’s unified platform allows teams to streamline workflows, automate communication, track customer behavior, and measure performance across the entire customer journey.
Is HubSpot worth registering and paying for
HubSpot is worth paying for if you’re looking for a unified platform to manage your marketing, sales, and customer service efforts without juggling multiple tools. The free CRM is already very powerful and gives small businesses a strong foundation. As your business grows, HubSpot’s paid hubs offer advanced automation, reporting, and team collaboration features that can significantly improve lead nurturing and customer management. However, if you need highly customized workflows or have very deep enterprise-level requirements, the cost may escalate quickly and other specialized tools might be a better fit.
Our experience
I run marketing and RevOps for a B2B SaaS company doing about $22M ARR. Three years ago we were the classic Frankenstein stack: Marketo for email, Salesforce for CRM, Intercom for support, WordPress for the blog, and a prayer circle every time something broke. Then our new CRO said, “We’re moving everything to HubSpot or I walk.” I thought he was insane. Turns out he was right, and I still kinda hate admitting it.
Year one was pure pain. Migrating 80k contacts from Salesforce was a nightmare—duplicate hell, custom fields that didn’t map, and HubSpot’s support kept saying “that’s a known limitation.” Blog migration from WordPress took three months and two external devs. I aged 10 years.
Then one morning everything just… worked.
Suddenly I could see a lead come in from a LinkedIn ad, watch them read three blog posts, book a demo, get handed to sales, and close—all in one timeline. No more “wait, which system is the source of truth?” Sales stopped yelling at marketing because they could actually see which campaigns were producing pipeline. Support could see every email and meeting note without leaving their tickets.
The automation is stupidly good. We built a nurture that re-engages lost deals after 90 days—literally “set it and forget it.” It’s brought back $1.8M in closed-won revenue with zero human touches. The free CRM is legitimately the best I’ve ever used, and I’ve used Salesforce, Pipedrive, and Close.
The all-in-one thing actually saves your sanity. Landing pages, emails, and forms live in the same place. No more copying UTM parameters like a caveman. Reporting finally stopped being a 6-hour Excel nightmare—drag-and-drop dashboards that actually update in real time.
Real numbers from our instance:
- Marketing-sourced pipeline: 28% → 64%
- Sales cycle: 84 days → 51 days
- Tooling costs: went from $19k/month across 7 tools to $11k/month on HubSpot (and climbing as we add seats)
- My personal stress level: went from “daily heart palpitations” to “I actually take weekends now”
The ugly truth:
- It gets EXPENSIVE fast. We started on Marketing Hub Pro, added Sales Hub, Service Hub, and now we’re deep into Enterprise territory. Current bill is north of $120k/year and climbing.
- The blog tool is still second-rate compared to WordPress if you’re a content-heavy brand.
- Some “Enterprise” features feel like they’re still in beta.
- Their support lottery is real—sometimes you get a rockstar, sometimes you get ghosted for days.
But here’s the kicker: we hit $22M ARR with a marketing team of four people. Four. My old company needed 12 to do half the revenue. My CEO now thinks I’m a wizard, and I just smile and say “good tooling.”
If you’re a growing B2B company and you’re tired of paying for six different tools that hate each other, HubSpot is worth the sticker shock. If you’re a scrappy startup still figuring out product-market fit, stick to the free CRM and cheap tools until you’re ready to go all-in.
For everyone else? It’s the closest thing to a “just works” growth platform I’ve ever seen. I still complain about the price daily, but I’ll never leave.
