HubSpot Pricing - Calculating Your Total Cost of Ownership

by Melanie, on 1 Dec 2020

You're a savvy buyer and know that there is the cost of software, and then there is the total cost of owning the software, even when you're on a recurring contract.

When you're considering implementing HubSpot, it's quite likely that you feel in the dark about what the whole thing is going to cost. We don't like price surprises either, so in this post we're going to break down what you should expect as the total cost of ownership of HubSpot.

A few things before we dive in:

The prices quoted here are current as of Tuesday, 1 December 2020.
We have quoted list prices, published on HubSpot's website here.
Some companies and organizations may be eligible for discounts. Feel free to contact us to find out more.
Access to different levels and combinations of certain modules may require entering into different contract lengths and/or attract specific pricing discounts.

HubSpot Software

Individual Modules

Although HubSpot offers many free tools, you will notice that accessing most of the powerful functionality requires upgrading to a paid version. No great surprise there.

One key thing to understand is that HubSpot breaks its software into product groups – Marketing, Sales, and Service. These are the three core hubs (as HubSpot calls them), all built on top of HubSpot's CRM, which is always provided free with any combination of modules. HubSpot also offers a content management system (CMS), which we address separately below.

The Marketing, Sales, and Service Hubs each have three tiers to which you can upgrade: Starter, Professional, and Enterprise.

I find that companies quickly outgrow Starter. The Professional level is where you can access much of the automation functionality that makes HubSpot so powerful. You also get access to much better reporting. Pro is a great level for many growing companies.

Enterprise becomes a good option when you need advanced reporting, advanced security functionality, custom data measurement, or have a sufficiently large number of users or contact records that it ends up being cheaper to pay for this tier. You can also manage more than one domain (and separate out the data) at the Enterprise level.

*The list prices for HubSpot's Modules are as follows:

Marketing

Starter – $45/month (up to 1,000 marketing contacts included)
Professional – $800/month (up to 2,000 marketing contacts included)
Enterprise – $3,200/month (up to 10,000 marketing contacts included)

HubSpot charges $45/month for each additional 1,000 marketing contacts.

Sales

Starter – $45/month (starts at 2 paid users)
Professional – $450/month (starts at 5 paid users)
Enterprise – $1,200/month (starts at 10 paid users)

Service

Starter – $45/month (starts at 2 paid users)
Professional – $360/month (starts at 5 paid users)
Enterprise – $1,200/month (starts at 10 paid users)

You will notice that the prices for Marketing Hub are based on the number of marketing contacts you have while Sales and Service Hub pricing is based on the number of users you have accessing the system. Here are three common questions we are asked about pricing:

Do I have to Pay for users who don't need the premium features?

No, you can create users without giving them access to the Professional features, so they will not count towards your paid user accounts. For example, you may have someone on your marketing team who doesn't need access to the Professional level functionality in Sales or Service. The same would be true if you have a salesperson who needs access to Sales Pro but not Service Pro. They would count towards your paid sales users, but not service users.

What about OUR HubSpot Partner?

HubSpot Partners, like Strategic Piece, who work on your HubSpot account don't count towards your paid user count. As your partner, we will ask you to confirm with HubSpot that we are working together, so that we can access your premium features without counting as paid users.

What IF I Need more Users than HUBSPOT HAs Included in THE price?

HubSpot makes this super easy. We've heard nightmares about other software companies making people jump through hoops to add additional users, which is weird! Whenever you create an account that exceeds the pre-packaged number of users, they will immediately have access and the price difference will appear on your next bill or invoice from HubSpot.

To calculate the incremental cost, you will need to figure out how much you are paying per user. Let's say you are using Sales Pro and have allocated your 5 prepaid seats. Your sales team is growing, so you need to add a 6th person. Right now, if you're paying annually, the monthly list price is $450, which means you would be paying $90 per month per user. So, by adding a sixth person you'll pay an extra $90 per month, or $540 per month in total.

Let's say you were smart and worked with a HubSpot Partner, like Strategic Piece. We helped you negotiate a 25% discount, bringing your monthly cost down to $337.50 per month. This equates to $67.50 per month for each of your initial 5 users. When adding the sixth sales person, you still qualify for the 25% discount, meaning their seat will also cost $67.50 per month, and your total will be $405 per month.

CMS

The CMS Hub is set up slightly differently. There are currently only two levels of CMS to choose from: Professional and Enterprise. Like the other hubs, CMS Enterprise is built for companies that need high levels of security.

CMS Hub Professional list price is $300/month
CMS Hub Enterprise list price is $900/month

We chose HubSpot CMS for the Strategic Piece website. Although WordPress might seem cheaper at face value, by the time you purchase a WordPress template and pay for both plugins and hosting, the price difference is negligible. This is especially true if you use a specialty hosting provider, which we strongly recommend because WordPress is notorious for its security risks.

We also see significant upside to having our website data within the same platform as the rest of our marketing and sales data.

Website templates can also be purchased for HubSpot CMS, many of which include several different page types – from home pages to a pricing page, blog template, and a customizable 404 page.

We recommend you budget $500 – $1,200 for your website templates.

Bundles

While you can license HubSpot modules on an a la carte basis, the most cost effective way to get the most software is usually through bundling.

If you are ready to deploy the same tier for each of the three hubs (Marketing, Sales, and Service) and are willing to make a 12-month commitment, HubSpot will automatically offer a 25% discount. HubSpot calls these Growth Suite bundles.

*The list prices for HubSpot's Growth Suites are as follows:

Starter Growth Suite: $50/month
Professional Growth Suite: $1,343/month
Enterprise Growth Suite: $4,200/month

You can also mix-and-match tier levels to create a custom software bundle. To get an accurate price quote, we recommend that you reach out to a HubSpot Partner who can help you evaluate different bundling strategies.

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Implementation & Onboarding SERVICEs

It's important to hire someone with appropriate experience to manage your HubSpot implementation and help onboard your users.

However, HubSpot will charge you for this if you are installing Professional or Enterprise level modules - unless you work with a HubSpot Partner (like us!), in which case HubSpot will waive the onboarding fees.

HubSpot's in-house implementation and onboarding services are mainly about their staff guiding you and your team through the steps, whereas an implementation partner will manage the project and actually complete much of the implementation for you.

A wide range of people and companies offer HubSpot implementation services – at a variety of price points. You might find a great up-and-coming resource that is cost-effective but in general, you get what you pay for. You should want an expert implementation partner because it is important that you get this right! So, expect to compensate them fairly for their years of training and experience - not just in sales or marketing generally, but with HubSpot in particular.

The main levers that will determine the cost of this phase include:

The number of HubSpot modules you are setting up
The number of contacts to import
The number of databases (and other sources) currently housing the data that will be migrated into HubSpot
The cleanliness of your data
The number of assets you are moving (e.g. automated workflows, emails, and files)
The complexity of your reporting needs
How many integrations you need to set up – and whether there is a native integration within HubSpot or if it will require a third-party integrator like PieSync
How many individual users and teams will be trained

We recommend that you estimate about $3,000 to implement HubSpot Marketing Pro, Sales Pro, and CRM with up to 2,000 contacts and up to 10 users. Increase this amount for additional modules, greater numbers of contacts, number of HubSpot users, and complexity of your data.

Note that this figure does not include any pre-work to determine which modules you will require, the creation of any customized workflows, objects, or dashboards within HubSpot, or any longer-term user support .

Additional Apps

HubSpot offers integrations with hundreds of external apps. Some of these you may require immediately, such as a connection to your accounting software or ERP system. However, some might be less obvious but still beneficial to getting your HubSpot instance really working for your company.

Here are a couple of examples that we recommend and how much to budget when considering them:

Insycle – provides a range of database management functionality that helps your database stay cleaner and more consistent. Starts at $39/month.
PieSync – recently acquired by HubSpot, providing third-party integration services, which we recommend for connecting with anything tool that doesn't offer a native HubSpot integration (e.g. connecting to NetSuite ERP). $49/month.

Total Cost of Ownership

Because of the number of possible permutations described above, we can't just add a simple number at the end of this and say, "boom... here is your total cost of ownership." But, hopefully you feel better informed about how to calculate it for your company, knowing that you need to take the following into consideration:

Your desired modules and tiers of those modules
Size of your database (by number of marketing contacts)
Number of your HubSpot users who need access to paid tiers of Sales and/or Service Hubs
Implementation and onboarding services and support
Additional apps and integrations

not sure what you need?

If you're not quite sure which software levels or bundle would work best for your company, feel free to book a complementary consultation with us and we'll be happy to advise. Once we know more about your business situation, we will point you in the right direction.

Photo Credits

Photo by John Barkiple on Unsplash