HubSpot Review

HubSpot Review
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4.3 of 5 stars 1 review
  • Pricing
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  • Features
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Summary

This all-in-one tool is a good fit for all kinds of companies, from micro-businesses to SMBs and enterprise-level corporations. Businesses with tight purse strings can take advantage of HubSpot’s freemium plan.

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Pros

  • Forever free CRM module
  • Powerful automation tools
  • End-to-end customer management features
  • Highly customizable
  • Plenty of integrations
  • Robust mobile app
  • User-friendly interface

Cons

  • The price ramps up exponentially for the Professional and Enterprise plans
  • The free plan has only 15 minutes of calling per month

ABOUT

The chances are that even if you are an absolute greenhorn in the marketing game, you have heard of HubSpot. So pervasive is the software’s clout and popularity. Founded and launched in 2005 by two MIT students, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, the company not only coined and popularized the term ‘inbound marketing’ but have since taken the marketing automation world by storm. Today they have more than 70,000 customers in over 120 countries worldwide.

HubSpot started as a marketing software. In 2014, the company added sales and service modules or ‘hubs’ to their repertoire, making it a complete customer relationship management tool. HubSpot’s USP lies in its robust free plans that are forever free and allows you to add a whopping 1,000,000 contacts and unlimited users. It also doesn’t hurt that the software has an extensive set of features.

Who is HubSpot For?

This all-in-one tool is a good fit for all kinds of companies, from micro-businesses to SMBs and enterprise-level corporations. Businesses with tight purse strings can take advantage of HubSpot’s freemium plan. It gives them access to all the software’s basic marketing, sales, and service features. Another tick in its favor here is that if you want more advanced features in one area, you need to purchase only the module your business requires. Feature-wise, the platform has plenty to offer, from basic marketing automation to the more advanced features that enterprise corporations look for, such as webhooks, revenue tracking, and adaptive testing.

PRICING

At first glance, HubSpot’s pricing can seem confusing. There are a plethora of plans and bundles. However, a closer look will show you that the company has product-based pricing plans. Apart from a free CRM hub, it offers four plans for each of its other modules. The free CRM features are included in all the modules. All plans can be billed monthly or annually. Besides, the software offers discounts of 50% to 90% for startups.

Here is a breakdown of HubSpot’s module-based pricing:

Free CRM Hub

  • Free forever
  • Unlimited Users
  • Contact Management
  • Ticketing
  • Tasks & activities
  • Deals
  • Scheduling
  • Calling
  • Live chat
  • Online forms
  • Conversational bots
  • Ticketing

Marketing Hub Pricing

Plans Free Starter Professional Enterprise
Price $0 $35 $560 $2240
Contact Management Yes Yes Yes Yes
Forms Yes Yes Yes Yes
List Segmentation 5 Smart Lists + 25 Static Lists 25 Smart Lists +25 Static Lists 1000 Smart Lists + 1000 Static Lists 1500 Smart Lists + 1500 Static Lists
Live Chat Yes Yes Yes Yes
Team Email Yes Yes Yes Yes
Email Marketing Yes Yes Yes Yes
Conversational Bots Limited Features Limited Features Advanced Features Advanced Features
Custom Properties 10 1000 1000 1000
Landing Pages Limited Features Advanced Features Advanced Features
Multiple Currencies 5 30 200
SEO & Content Strategy Yes Yes
Calls To Action Yes Yes
Marketing Automations 300 Workflows 1000 Workflows
A/B Testing Yes Yes
Social Media Management Yes Yes
Custom Reports 20 500
Adaptive Testing Yes
User Roles Yes

Sales Hub Pricing

Plan Free Starter Professional Enterprise
Price $0 $35 $350 $840
Users 1 2 5 10
Calling 15 Minutes/Month 8 Hours/Month 16 Hours/Month 33 Hours/Month
Email Tracking Yes Yes Yes Yes
Email Notifications 200 Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
Email Templates 5 1000 1000 1000
Documents 5 1000 1000 1000
Canned Snippets 5 1000 1000 1000
Meeting Scheduling 1 Personal Link 1000 Personal & Team Links 1000 Personal & Team Links 1000 Personal & Team Links
Deal Pipeline 1 2 15 50
Goals Limited Features Limited Features Advanced Features
Email Sequences 500 Emails/User /Day 1000 Emails/User /Day
E-Signatures 10 30
Webhooks Yes
Call Transcripts Yes
Hierarchical Teams Yes

Service Hub Pricing

Plan Free Starter Professional Enterprise
Price $0 $35 $280 $840
Users 1 2 5 10
Ticketing Yes Yes Yes Yes
Tickets Closed Reports 1 Customer Service Dashboard 1 Customer Service + Productivity Dashboard 1 Customer Service + 1 Custom Dashboard 1 Customer Service + 25 Custom Dashboard
Conversation Routing Yes Yes Yes
Ticket Pipeline 2 15 50
Knowledge Base Yes Yes
Video Creation Yes Yes
Customer Feedback Yes Yes
Call Transcription Yes

HubSpot Bundles

  • Starter growth suite bundle – Contains features of all three starter plans – $112/month
  • Professional growth suite bundle – Contains features of all three professional plans – $1275/month
  • Enterprise growth suite bundle – Contains features of all three enterprise plans – $4200/month

FEATURES​

  1. Marketing Hub Features
  2. Sales Hub Features
  3. Service Hub Features

1. Marketing Hub Features

1.1 Lead Management

The software stores leads collected from multiple platforms in one central database, so you don’t have to go through numerous tabs to get a 360-degree overview of your customer. The app’s Leads Dashboard gives you details such as customer emails, the platform of their conversion, conversion date, and lead score or grade.

HubSpot provides you exhaustive details on every lead, such as their contact information and a summary of their activity on your website, including any forms submitted by them. This detailing gives your sales team the necessary information needed to avoid interacting with leads cold.

Also, you can use the software’s predictive lead scoring system, which automatically scores and prioritizes leads for you. Alternatively, you can create custom lead scoring rules to assign positive or negative marks to a potential customer based on data such as online behavior, social media mentions, email engagement, and their company or demographic information.

1.2 Web Engagement Tools

With over 100 free templates, HubSpot gives you plenty of choices to create a landing page quickly and easily. Importantly, the app’s landing page builder lets you change the pre-designed templates with the click of a button. Customization options abound with HubSpot. You can change everything from the header, footer, in-line style, and column size to the text’s font or color. Additionally, you can add or delete modules, group modules together, and even slit modules horizontally if you want to.

Another helpful tool here is the ‘Convert To Global Module’ feature, which lets you save an entire module for reuse in another template. Furthermore, you can add what HubSpot calls, ‘smart content’ to your landing pages. This feature will display dynamically different content to customers based on criteria such as their location, device type, preferred language, or what stage of the sales pipeline they are in. This feature, however, is available only for Professional Enterprise plan users.

The app’s online form and pop-up builders are similarly easy to use. You can choose from several pre-made form templates and types of pop-ups, including slide-in boxes and drop-down banners. The drag-and-drop builder allows you to add up to 1000 form fields into one webform easily. You also have several different field types to select from, such as text fields, drop-downs, checkboxes, or radio select buttons.

1.3 Email Marketing

All paid subscribers get 1000 free pre-designed email templates in various categories with which they can design professional looking and responsive, custom HTML marketing emails. Like the landing pages, you can add smart content to your emails that change the content of your email, according to the subscriber. The software also allows you to optimize your content to ensure you are engaging your customers through A/B testing. Additionally, HubSpot gives you detailed email analytics that helps you understand how and when customers engage with your email content with metrics such as open rates, click rates, spam reports, click maps, and top clicked links.

1.4 Content Management

HubSpot has several tools that can help you develop an optimal content strategy. First, its blog, landing page, and website builders all come inbuilt with SEO optimization tools that help you create content that will show up prominently in search results. Second, you can schedule blog and social media posts in advance to ensure that you are putting content out regularly. In fact, on the Professional and Enterprise plans, you can schedule posts up to 3 years in advance.

Third, HubSpot’s video feature allows you to edit and upload videos across your sites and social media platforms with ease. Using this tool, you can even add CTAs and forms to your videos. Finally, the software measures the performance of your websites and blog pages, giving you valuable information such as page views, video views, and ROIs. It also monitors social media for hashtags and critical trends, so you always stay on top of things.

1.5 Marketing Automations

The software is a market leader in this category. So, it has robust marketing automation tools. HubSpot streamlines the creation of targeted email nurturing campaigns with its easy-to-use workflow builder. You can choose to manually enroll contacts into a campaign or set the software to automatically do it for you when they perform actions such as submit a form. Professional and Enterprise subscribers can even set workflows to trigger when a lead visits a web page or completes an event. You can create workflow lists based on multiple criteria such as lifecycle stage, lead score, or contact age and location.

The app also has a library of pre-designed workflows called recipes. The workflow recipes are available for a variety of campaigns, from lead nurturing to sales notifications and product launches. Each recipe contains a starting list, sample emails, and end goals, along with a workflow that connects them. When you select a recipe, the software automatically populates all the necessary fields to get the campaign going. Once a lead reaches the end goal, the app automatically stops the campaign for them.

Apart from email campaigns, you can use the workflow builder to automate time-consuming and repetitive tasks such as updating contact information, scoring leads, and assigning contacts to sales reps.

2. Sales Hub Features

2.1 Telephony

After you register your phone number with the software, you can make outbound calls from your browser using HubSpot’s telephony system. Importantly, while on a call, you can make call notes in the pop-up window to record any pertinent information. All logged calls and call notes will appear on a contact’s dashboard. The software also automatically records all your calls if you are calling from a one-party consent state. Enterprise plan users get an additional call transcription feature that transcribes recorded calls and attaches it to a contact’s timeline.

2.2 Appointment Scheduling

The software’s calendar syncs with Google Calendar and Office 365 Calendar to show your real-time availability to your customers. You can create and send individual, and group meeting links to your customers via email or embed them on your website, blogs, and social media sites. The platform allows you to set the date, duration, and location of an appointment as well as add files, videoconferencing links, and custom forms to them. Importantly, if you have multiple appointments in a day, you can set buffer times between them, so you have time to prepare. You can also select a minimum notice time to prevent someone from making a last-minute booking.

2.3 Document Management

HubSpot’s document manager stores all your essential documents such as contracts, quotes, and sales or purchase orders in one central database, so you have easy access to it. Subscribers of the paid plans can store up to 1000 documents, with each document having a size limit of 250 MB. The app supports document uploads in a variety of file formats, including PDF, PPTX, CSV, DOCX, and XLSX. You can share documents with your contacts either by attaching it to your email or by creating and inserting a shareable link within the email. The software automatically tracks any document you send out and alerts you when a contact views it.

2.4 Live Chat

Using HubSpot’s messages tool, you can set up live chat boxes for as many pages as you want on your website. The chatbox builder lets you change the color of your live chat window to match that of your brand. A nice feature here is that if you sync the chatbox with your calendar, the software automatically shows you as online or offline according to your availability.

Additionally, you can decide who sees your chat box and who doesn’t. The choices range from showing it to all visitors, only to known visitors, or only to first-time visitors. Helpfully, if you are busy and are offline, you can set the software to route incoming chats to an available team member. Furthermore, if your website visitor has already interacted with a sales rep before, you can route their conversations to the same sales rep to maintain a sense of continuity.

3. Service Hub Features

3.1 Ticketing

The software’s helpdesk feature pools customer issues from multiple platforms such as chat, email, phone, or web forms into one dashboard. This central dashboard is accessible to your entire customer service team, giving them a priority-based overview of the day’s work. You can manually create tickets using the service hub dashboard or, as with HubSpot’s other features, you can automate the system, so it does just that for you.

The service hub automation allows you to set trigger actions that automatically take care of tasks such as creating a new ticket, routing tickets to agents, and changing a ticket’s status. Importantly, reps assigned to a ticket get, not only the customer’s issue, but also pertinent information such as the customer’s interaction history as well as product details and service issues so that they can personalize their responses to each customer.

3.2 Knowledge Base

No customer service would be complete without a knowledge base. HubSpot has the tools to help you set up a custom knowledge base, so your customers have the resources they need at their fingertips. This feature is available for all the professional and enterprise service hub subscribers in 6 languages. These are English, German, French, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish. The software has several template options that allow you to create a knowledge base without any technical knowledge.

Once again, there are plenty of customization options that help you tie it in with your brand. You can add images, logos, and descriptions to categories, and change the font or color of the text. Also, you can customize the configuration of each section, such as the navigation bar, header, or footer. What’s more, the software helps you analyze the efficacy of your knowledge base with metrics such as article views and most searched topics.

3.3 Customer Feedback

You can create three types of surveys with HubSpot’s feedback tool. They are customer loyalty surveys using NPS (Net Promoter Score) scores, customer support surveys using CES (customer effort score) scores, and customer satisfaction surveys using C-SAT (customer satisfaction) scores. Unlike its other features, you cannot customize the survey questions available with each. You can, however, change the color and font of your survey forms, as well as add images to them. Also, you can create a custom thank-you message that changes according to your customer’s feedback.

INTEGRATIONS

When it comes to integrations, it is safe to say that HubSpot covers a lot of ground. The software boasts of over 400 third-party integrations. These come in categories ranging from advertising to payroll apps with a whole lot in between. It also has a repertoire of over 80 free apps. Given its vast range of app integrations, the chances are that you will find one that’s suited to your business needs.

Here are some of HubSpot’s important integrations:

  • Gmail
  • Outlook
  • Zapier
  • MailChimp
  • WordPress
  • Slack
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Eventbrite
  • Stripe
  • Zoho CRM
  • Xero
  • Salesforce

More About HubSpot

Set Up And Ease Of Use

HubSpot has a smooth, onboarding process. It involves signing up and verifying your credentials, providing your business details, and syncing necessary data. The software, helpfully, has a setup progress bar that shows you all the steps needed to complete your onboarding. To speed up the process, HubSpot allows you to import information such as contacts, deals, companies, products, and tickets from spreadsheets or any third-party app you were previously using. It supports imports in CSV, XLSX, and XLS file formats. The software automatically matches the columns in your spreadsheet to that of its own.

Known for its user-friendliness, HubSpot’s interface sports a clean look with its trademark orange and grey colors. A horizontal bar across the top hosts the app’s three main modules, along with essential features such as contacts, conversations, automation, and reports. Each module and function has a drop-down menu that allows you to find all its associated tools. Given its bountiful feature set, it takes a little time to pin down all HubSpot’s tools. Thankfully, there are a plethora of tutorials and video walk-throughs out there that can help you navigate the software more efficiently, another advantage of its popularity.

Device Compatibility

Desktop Browser App Android App iOS App Windows Phone App Apple Watch App
X X

With a similar user-friendly interface, HubSpot’s mobile apps have the same robust functionality as their desktop version does. With it, you can add and filter contacts, monitor deals, and converse with leads on the go. Additionally, with its business card scanner, you can create contacts directly by scanning a business card. The software automatically maps out the details of the card into the right slots on your contacts page. iOS apps have an additional feature called the ‘Digest’ screen, which gives you an overview of the health of your business with important analytics such as email marketing performance, the number of deals closed, and employee leaderboards.

Customer Service

HubSpot offers in-app, email, and phone support only to its professional and enterprise plan customers. Its free and starter plan users will need to make do with the software’s knowledge base. Fortunately, this is a robust one with plenty of getting-started guides, FAQs, and articles that cover everything the software offers and then some. HubSpot also hosts an active community forum where you can reach out to other users with your problems. Besides, the company has an active social media presence, and you can interact with their reps on the Twitter platform.

Online Security

In this day and age, you cannot be a popular and reputed cloud-based software provider without having proper online security measures in place. So, it comes as no surprise that HubSpot has an established high-grade security system that ensures their customer’s data stays private and protected. These measures include:

  • 24/7/365 monitoring of software and application behavior
  • In-transit data encryption with advanced TLS protocols and 2048 bit keys
  • A DDoS prevention defense system
  • ISO 27001 and SOC Type II certified data centers
  • A Robust incident response program
  • External audit trails
  • Regular data back-ups

PROS AND CONS

PROS

  • Forever free CRM module
  • Powerful automation tools
  • End-to-end customer management features
  • Highly customizable
  • Plenty of integrations
  • Robust mobile app
  • User-friendly interface

CONS

  • The price ramps up exponentially for the Professional and Enterprise plans
  • The free plan has only 15 minutes of calling per month

CONCLUSION

With industry-leading marketing automation tools along with robust sales and service management features, HubSpot is one of the most advanced and powerful CRM apps on the market today. What’s more, the company’s generous free-forever plan ensures that not only enterprise-grade companies get to use their features but also small to medium-sized businesses. Another great thing about this software is that you can scale up feature-wise as your company’s CRM needs to grow. But, beware: If you want all modules running at full capacity, the prices add up quickly to make it an expensive software. Fortunately, you can use the free plan to see if the features provided with each module are worth it or not.

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