HubSpot CRM pricing and plan limits

HubSpot’s CRM is free for 2 users and up to 1,000 contacts, and for one or two people that’s often all you need. The first paid plan is Starter, at $20 a month at the regular price ($10 a month for new customers, for a limited time) per seat. Budget on the regular figure, since HubSpot gives no end date for the lower one. Professional, at $100 a month per seat, adds sequences and forecasting, but it carries a year’s commitment and a required onboarding fee. Most teams of three to five belong on Starter, and only a team with someone managing other sellers needs Professional.

Which plan should a one to five person business pick?

The free plan, for as long as it fits. It gives two people a shared pipeline, contacts, and one-to-one email, and HubSpot says it doesn’t expire. What it doesn’t give you is room for saved emails: you can keep email templates, up to 3 per account, and canned snippets, up to 3. Your one-to-one emails also carry HubSpot branding.

Starter is where three to five people land: $60 a month at the regular price ($30 a month for new customers, for a limited time) for three seats, or $100 a month at the regular price ($50 a month for new customers, for a limited time) for five. The branding comes off, and you can save email templates, up to 10,000 per account. You also get calling, task queues, a limited set of sales workflows, and HubSpot’s AI agents.

Professional is for a different kind of team. It adds sequences (follow-up emails that send on a schedule), forecasting, deal plans, and full automation, which are tools for someone running other sellers. Three seats are $300 a month before the onboarding fee. A team of three that wants more templates doesn’t need any of that; Starter already lifts the cap.

Say you run a four-person event-planning company. You and two planners sell, and a coordinator handles vendors and the day itself. You have about eight hundred past couples and corporate clients in a spreadsheet, and you’d like to send them a seasonal note about next year’s dates.

Four logins is past the free plan’s two, so the real question is Starter, and how many seats. The coordinator works from the event file, not the pipeline, so give them a weekly summary instead of a login: three seats are $60 a month at the regular price ($30 a month for new customers, for a limited time), against $80 a month at the regular price ($40 a month for new customers, for a limited time) for four. The seasonal note is where HubSpot’s bundle earns its keep for you. Starter includes email marketing, and its 1,000 marketing contacts are the people you can send it to, so your eight hundred past clients fit.

Don’t read that as a storage limit, though. Marketing contacts count who gets your newsletter, not how many people you can keep in the CRM, and HubSpot’s pages don’t give Starter a stored-contact number at all. If your full list will keep growing, confirm the figure with HubSpot before you import. Professional would add sequences to chase proposals, but your planners chase proposals by phone, and for a wedding or a company party that personal call is the one that books. Skip it.

What moves you up a plan?

From free to Starter, it’s whichever cap you meet first: a third person who needs to log in, more contacts than the free plan’s 1,000 contacts, a fourth template or snippet, or wanting the branding off. When HubSpot’s free CRM stops being enough walks through each one and when leaving beats upgrading.

From Starter to Professional, it’s automation. Starter’s workflows are limited, with restricted triggers and actions. The day you want follow-ups to go out on a schedule without anyone pressing send, or a forecast your team reviews every week, you’re looking at Professional. If neither describes how you sell, stay on Starter.

One cost can rise without a plan change: marketing contacts. If your newsletter list grows past what Starter includes, HubSpot sells more, so price that before you import a big list as marketing contacts.

Skip HubSpot if

• You want one price with nothing to decode. Starter shows two prices with terms attached, and Professional adds a fee and a commitment. A CRM with one plan and one price skips all of that.
• You’ll need lots of saved emails and want to stay free. The free plan’s template and snippet caps are tight. HubSpot free or Zoho free compares it with a free plan that holds more templates.
• You’re three people and don’t want to pay yet. HubSpot’s free plan ends at a third user, and other free plans in this guide fit three. When a free CRM plan is enough shows which.
• You want the lowest bill at five. The lowest paid bill for five people in this guide is Bigin Express (by Zoho) at $45 a month; cost by team size puts every tool side by side.

Plans and prices

Every paid plan is priced per seat. Starter’s marketing contacts are the people you can send marketing email to, not a limit on how many contacts you store.

Costs that are easy to miss

• Starter’s lower price can stop. HubSpot’s Starter page calls it an offer for new customers, available for a limited time, and gives no end date. It also doesn’t say whether an account already on the free plan counts as a new customer, so check the price at checkout before you count on it.
• Professional’s onboarding fee. It’s required, it’s one-time, and the per-seat price leaves it out. Here’s what three seats come to over a first year:

• Professional’s commitment. Monthly billing on Professional is marked “Commit annually”, so paying monthly doesn’t shorten the commitment; it only spreads the payments.
• You’re buying a bundle. The Starter on HubSpot’s Sales pricing page is its marketing, sales, service, content, and data Starter tools together, priced per seat. That’s good value if you’ll use the email marketing or the service tools, and money spent on features you won’t open if you won’t.
• Every login is a seat. The person who checks the pipeline on Fridays costs the same as the person who lives in it.

Want to try before you pay? HubSpot’s Sales page offers a 14-day free trial, started from your account under the subscription you want to trial. You aren’t charged when it ends, and the account goes back to the plan you had. The pages we read don’t say which Sales Hub plan it covers, so check what the trial button sits under.

Using HubSpot in Spanish

HubSpot lists Spanish for its sales and CRM software, and for support.

Our view

HubSpot is a strong free start for one or two people, and Starter is a fair next step for a small team that will use more of the bundle than the pipeline: email marketing, more templates, calling. Our position: start free, move to Starter on monthly billing when a cap stops you, budget on the regular price, and leave Professional alone until someone on your team is managing other sellers. What you give up with HubSpot is simplicity. You’re decoding two Starter prices, a bundle you pay for whole, and a fee and a commitment the day you go to Professional. If you only want a pipeline and reminders for three people, two free plans elsewhere in this guide still fit you, and the lowest paid bill for three is Bigin Express (by Zoho) at $27 a month.

Your next step

If you’re one or two people, open HubSpot’s free CRM this week and import your list the same evening: start HubSpot’s free CRM. Before you do, count two things: your contacts against the free plan’s 1,000 contacts, and the emails you send from saved drafts. If you’re already three or more and you’d use the email marketing, price Starter for the people who’ll actually log in, and buy it on monthly billing. If you wouldn’t, read when a free CRM plan is enough before you pay for seats.