As a HubSpot agency partner, we get asked the same question a lot:
“Should I use HubSpot, or Salesforce?”
There is no simple answer, to be completely honest! We’ve worked in digital marketing for decades, and having used every marketing platform under the sun, we settled on HubSpot as the best for most businesses, which is why we decided to become a partner agency back in 2012.
However, we’d never recommend HubSpot to a business that didn’t genuinely need it, which means that, on occasion, Salesforce may well be a better choice for your business.
Both HubSpot and Salesforce are popular customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, but they cater to different audiences and have distinct features.
It is worth mentioning: many businesses use both Salesforce and HubSpot. As they can easily integrate with one another, there’s nothing stopping you from choosing to use both.
However, if your budget dictates that you need to choose one or the other, we’re here to help. In this blog, we’ll run through the benefits of HubSpot vs Salesforce, and how to decide which one is right for your business.
Benefit 1: Ease of use and user-friendly interfaces
HubSpot is known for its user-friendly interface and intuitive design. It’s also built from the ground up, designed in a way that suits your business, giving you visibility of the entire customer journey and making it easier to identify your buyer personas.
The platform is also often considered easier to set up and use when compared to Salesforce, making it a great choice for small to medium-sized businesses that might not have dedicated IT resources.
However, despite this, HubSpot is notoriously massive – it’s easy to get lost in its myriad features. As a result, we highly recommend having a HubSpot agency partner by your side to help train your team and get them up to speed and ready to make the most of HubSpot, if you choose to use it.
Benefit 2: All-in-one marketing, sales and service Hubs
HubSpot offers integrated marketing, sales, and customer service tools all in one platform. This can streamline workflows and improve collaboration between departments, as everything is connected and accessible from a single dashboard.
In short, HubSpot is a good choice for smaller businesses or those primarily focused on inbound marketing, while Salesforce is better for larger enterprises who need to customise their CRM to their unique and often vast needs.
Benefit 3: Affordability for small businesses
The pricing plans that HubSpot offers are often more affordable for smaller businesses, making it an attractive option for companies with limited budgets.
HubSpot also has a ‘growth suite bundle’ which can provide cost savings when purchasing multiple HubSpot tools together.
Salesforce is more extensive and complex, which means it also has the reputation of being more expensive. It gets costly when you add more features and users, meaning we always recommend HubSpot for SMEs.
Benefit 4: Inbound marketing focus
HubSpot is built on the concept of inbound marketing, which revolves around attracting, engaging, and delighting customers through valuable content and experiences. It provides tools for content creation, social media management, and email marketing, which align well with this approach.
If you’re a smaller business looking to grow, then HubSpot’s definitely the right choice for you.
Benefit 5: Content management and blogging
HubSpot includes a content management system (CMS) that allows you to create and manage websites, landing pages, and blogs directly within the platform. This can simplify content creation and publishing processes.
While Salesforce has similar features, we’ve found that HubSpot’s CMS is far easier to use, once you’ve got it set up. Again, this is why we recommend HubSpot to SMEs, as much of your inbound marketing strategy will revolve around creating and managing quality content on your website.
Benefit 6: Lead nurturing and automation
If you’re planning on nurturing leads and automating emails, HubSpot’s workflows and automation capabilities are well-regarded. They allow you to create automated workflows for lead nurturing, email campaigns, and other marketing activities.
Again, Salesforce also offers a robust tool, but if you’re looking for an all-in-one solution and prioritise ease of use, HubSpot’s Marketing Hub will provide a user-friendly experience for email automation and lead nurturing, making it a strong choice for small to medium-sized businesses.
In our experience, Salesforce is just a little too complex for most users – great for marketing experts, perhaps a little less so for general SME use.
Benefit 7: Integrated reporting and analytics
Gaining insights into your entire customer journey is essential – from lead generation to conversion and beyond.
HubSpot’s reporting is, without doubt, fantastic; it’s highly touted among marketers and business owners alike for its clarity and ease of use (noticing a theme here?).
Salesforce, as before, offers extensive reporting options, too. However, we’ve found that they’re incredibly sophisticated, and require some expertise in building and customising reports and dashboards. If you have this internally, then you’ll probably be able to get more from Salesforce’s reporting features. If you want something that’s easy to use and your internal team will be able to get to grips with, choose HubSpot.
Benefit 8: Community and education
When looking for a digital marketing community, HubSpot is excellent. HubSpot offer a wide range of resources, including a community forum, webinars, a 24/7 support team and educational content that can help users learn and make the most of the platform.
Salesforce also has a strong, dedicated community, with lots of training resources to use, too. In this regard, we’d say that both HubSpot and Salesforce get equal marks.
Benefit 9: Scalability for growing businesses
As mentioned, HubSpot historically targeted smaller businesses, however they are expanding their offering to accommodate the needs of larger enterprises. Generally speaking, though, HubSpot is the SME’s dream.
HubSpot scales very well, meaning that you’ll be able to use it no matter the size of your organisation (once your inbound marketing strategy gets rolling, who knows the lofty heights you may ascend to!).
So, which is right for you?
As a general rule, we work with directors and owners for SMEs across the UK.
If you fit into that group, then we’ll almost always recommend HubSpot, although we’d conduct a thorough HubSpot Audit before recommending anything!
Both HubSpot and Salesforce have their strengths and weaknesses, but as a general rule, Salesforce is better suited to larger enterprises with the resources required to properly manage such a complex platform.
There you go – that’s your answer! While this is, of course, our opinion as a HubSpot agency partner, realistically, you’ll need to assess your business’ needs and priorities before choosing a CRM.
Need advice? We’re here to help.
Get in touch with our specialists today by clicking the link below. We’ll talk through your unique requirements and help you make the decision on which platform is right for you.
HubSpot or Salesforce? Get specialist advice.
We’re aware that being HubSpot agency partners, we likely have a bias, but once again – we will never recommend HubSpot to a business that does not need
