It’s the Shootout at the CRM Corral…Neo vs. Agent Smith in the Sales Matrix…the lead pipeline telling the sales team, “I am your Father…”
It’s Hubspot vs Salesforce! The showdown of the century.
If you have ever investigated CRMs for your business, the names “HubSpot” and “Salesforce” have likely come up first in your research. Salesforce has been around the longest, while HubSpot provides an entire suite of CRM services for free. Tough choices!
In the digital marketing arena, where margins are slim, and options for CRMs are plentiful, this blog will go into the details of both software and examine what they uniquely offer to small and medium-sized businesses.
Overview of CRM Plans
A robust CRM should offer solutions for effective UX, lead management, pipeline management, support and training, reporting, and an easy-to-navigate dashboard.
While on their face, both HubSpot and Salesforce offer these features and more with similar functionality, they differ in key ways regarding scalability and advanced usership.
HubSpot
HubSpot is an infinitely scalable option (unlimited number of users and up to 1,000,000 contacts) with its free package easily integrating new functions via extra subscription modules. These add-ons may be optional or mandatory for achieving your specific goals so they cannot be factored into a cost analysis broadly.
Salesforce
On the other hand, Salesforce is a much heftier investment per user up-front but offers unique and advanced features that scale reliably based on the number of users on the plan. This means a more expensive deployment but more features off-the-bat. An extensive feature list could be helpful or a financial hindrance, depending on the technological requirements of your organization.
Scalability
With reliable growth, the business you are working on today will not be your business of the future. In terms of scalability, it is crucial to understand how your CRM will grow alongside your team to deliver affordable results, especially as deployment increases.
HubSpot
This is where HubSpot’s “free” model becomes a double-edged sword. While there is still plenty of functionality in the application with no limit on users, adding additional functionality like advanced reporting or pipeline analysis, the cost per user of HubSpot can increase drastically. Add to that a growing team, and your once-free software may just become your most significant back-end expense.
Nonetheless, if a basic CRM is all you need and your client base is manageably small to migrate to a new service in the event of new technology adoption, you can’t go wrong with free.
Salesforce
As noted before, the up-front cost of Salesforce is often a deciding factor in business-wide implementation. However, if you plan on using all of the features, HubSpot simply cannot compare with the out-of-the-box functionality offered by Salesforce. For instance, Salesforce offering a large cloud storage service per-user allows for easy aggregation of repetitive tasks like invoicing and complex documentation, which adds value to the package that would otherwise be back-end labor on a basic HubSpot plan.
User Interface and Setup
Hitting the ground running is critical, especially when your business is at the level of needing a CRM. It is essential for staff to quickly learn the software and managers to immediately understand the platform functionality for optimizing results.
HubSpot
For beginners, this software is a clear winner. It’s easy-to-navigate dashboard offers everything a small-to-medium-sized company will need and supports a basic sales cycle with simple pipeline management, workflow documentation, and lead generation.
Subscriptions are available to add new functionality without training on new programs or cross-install software across your I.T. network. As you grow in various areas, HubSpot can grow with you.
Salesforce
Like a master instrument, Salesforce can feel overwhelming in new hands. But beneath the impressive list of features and customizable UI, a powerful and streamlined service exists. They have been in the game for decades, and the advanced functionality is all the proof you’ll need to see how they’ve stayed at the top.
For medium-sized businesses or small teams with complex processes, the customization of Salesforce is nearly unlimited. Extensive technical resources and support are available to help you make the most of the program based on your current subscription. In short, you get what you put in, and Salesforce certainly leaves you big shoes with even more room to grow.
There is no perfect fit for your business out of the box. Understanding your sales goals, market, and every business is critical for achieving the growth you need. While CRMs help bring into focus the everyday struggles of business management, Megan Killion Consulting offers the expertise necessary to understand the big picture of your business and reveal the next steps needed to truly forge ahead in a competitive market.
Contact me today to take a look at the big picture and to get working on your next step together.