11 HubSpot Alternatives For Small Businesses and Startups

As a startup, founder, entrepreneur or small and medium business (SMB) owner, you know the value of good tools. You may know that finding the right customer relationship management (CRM) for your small business means choosing the solution that supports your growth and fits your budget — without any hidden costs.  

If you’ve used HubSpot or are considering alternatives, this guide is for you. We’ve compiled an ultimate list of CRM tools — from Salesforce to Zoho — ‌that can offer similar features at more affordable prices. Whether you need a simpler tool or a more specialised one, this comprehensive list will help you to make an informed decision. Let’s jump right ‌in. 

Why do small businesses need a CRM?

Small and growing businesses need a CRM to get a 360-degree view of their operations. A CRM serves as the central platform that connects marketing, sales, commerce, service and productivity efforts. The right CRM unifies customer data and automation, so that business runs smoothly. And, if you’re here, you know that there are many CRMs to choose from.

Why consider alternatives to HubSpot?

HubSpot’s fluctuating pricing changes can be a significant inconvenience. SMBs could be paying up to $800 per month for basic features like reporting and automation. In fact, in a Salesforce vs HubSpot comparison, customers who switch from HubSpot see over 31% ‌increased revenue and 29% ‌return on investment (ROI). HubSpot’s comprehensive suite requires investment across multiple hubs (marketing, sales and service) and their core features are locked in higher tiers.

Small teams might find HubSpot too complicated and confusing, as it requires onboarding assistance and specialised expertise to operate. And, HubSpot’s basic plans restrict key features for growing businesses like API access and automation.

Top 11 HubSpot alternatives for growing businesses

We’ve selected the top HubSpot CRM alternatives with an average star rating of 4.2 or above on the software comparison website G2. We’ve also rated each based on scalability in a 1-10 ranking, a key factor for your business’s future growth.

1. Salesforce Starter Suite

Salesforce Starter Suite is the ideal cloud-based CRM tool for small businesses and startups. It offers comprehensive business management tools without the complexity or high costs of enterprise solutions. This affordable, easy to use platform helps you to manage leads, sales and build your online store. 

Starter Suite packs features across marketing, sales, service, commerce and productivity, into a single, integrated platform. Its drag-and-drop and out-of-the-box features help you to grow without technical expertise. It’s a great starting point for any type of SMB that wants to build a sustainable business without breaking the bank.

Who it’s for: Small and growing businesses, entrepreneurs, startups and those looking to get started with CRM

What it can do:

• Sales management: Capture and organise sales leads to nurture and convert them through the sales pipeline — from initial interest to final purchase decision.
• Personalised marketing: Multiple tools and templates for email marketing and landing pages. Also, get insights on improving your marketing performance.
• 360-degree customer view: Unify your customer interactions, including case management, to offer a more personalised customer experience. 
• Commerce shop front: Launch your online store with our shop front builder that offers prebuilt templates and integrated payment and checkout solutions.
• Mobile access: Access your CRM data on the go with the Salesforce Mobile App, so you can resolve ‌issues from anywhere, enhancing overall satisfaction.
• Easy onboarding: Starter Suite’s built-in onboarding guides, video tutorials and help centre will help you whenever needed.

How it benefits SMBs: Starter Suite helps you with sales leads, audience segmentation and lead scoring to prioritise and close deals faster. Your marketing efforts improve helping you to create and optimise campaigns. Customer satisfaction rises with data-driven insights and more personalised support. Automated workflows and integrated tools like Slack simplify operations, saving you time and boosting productivity. Your data is always safe, while maintaining customer trust and cybersecurity.

How it scales business (1-10): 10

What it costs: $35 AUD per user per month and offers a free 30-day trial. 

2. Salesforce Pro Suite

SalesforcePro Suite offers all the features of Starter Suite (and more) and is a scalable CRM to support more complex business needs. In addition to marketing, sales, service and commerce support, it offers advanced customisations, integrations and automation. As your business matures, Pro Suite provides analytics tools and workflows to scale without a major upfront investment.

Who it’s for: Growing midsize businesses, startups competing with large enterprises and small businesses scaling fast

What it can do: 

• Sales and marketing automation: Manage sales opportunities effectively with built-in stages and customise pricing quotes to optimise your sales cycle and predict revenue. Manage multiple channels with prebuilt templates and automated marketing workflows.
• Omnichannel customer service: Integrated support with omnichannel service options, chatbots and customised email templates.
• Commerce automation: Shop Front website design, managed checkout and insight dashboards.
• Built-in analytics: Create customised reports and dashboards to gain deeper insights into your key performance indicators (KPIs).
• Integrations: Access Salesforce AppExchange, a marketplace for all apps and integrations to extend your CRM capabilities. 
• Dedicated CRM support: Pro Suite offers an onboarding specialist to guide you through the set-up process and to customise the suite to your needs.

How it benefits SMBs: Businesses can scale effortlessly with sales productivity tools, built-in dashboards and sales forecasting. Get a clear view of your financial health and convert your prospects faster and a unified view of your marketing performance across all channels, ‌including social media promotions and omni-channel reach. With self-service and chatbots to deliver faster, more contextual customer service and integrated survey tools, you can gather customer feedback regularly and enhance your offerings. Take your ecommerce to the next level with merchandising tools and customised pricing structures. And your data is safe with multi-factor authentication (MFA) and data encryption.

How it scales business (1-10): 10 

What it costs: $140 AUD per user per month and a free 30-day trial. 

3. Slack CRM

Slack is where most small teams already communicate and now it doubles as a place to manage customers. Slack CRM adds lightweight customer management right inside your channels, so you can track leads and deals without leaving the conversations where work already happens. It’s a fit for founders who want to skip the set-up and learning curve of a stand-alone system.

Who it’s for: Startups and small businesses that already run on Slack and want simple customer management in one place

What it can do:

• Conversational customer management: Ask Slackbot, your personal AI assistant for conversational CRM, to create accounts, update records and log call notes from your messages, meeting recordings and other documents.
• Meeting prep: Slackbot generates a brief with deal status, recent activity and key talking points so you walk in ready.
• Deal tracking: Move deals forward and log what happened in seconds, with records kept current as you work.
• Faster support: Have Slackbot route customer requests and draft responses to keep answers moving.

How it benefits SMBs: Slack keeps customer data in the same workspace your team already uses, cutting the app-switching and manual entry that slow lean teams down. Slackbot handles routine updates, so you spend more time on relationships and less on admin. And because Slack CRM is built on Salesforce, your data lives there from the start.

How it scales business (1-10): 9

What it costs: Included with the Slack Business+ plan, $21 AUD per user per month.

4. ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is a cloud-based CRM tool that helps businesses manage their customer relationships across various digital channels. It offers a variety of marketing automation features that help lean teams manage their cross-channel marketing strategy.

Who it’s for: Solo founders and startups looking for a marketing-focused tool

What it can do: 

• Omni-channel marketing: Handle omni-channel marketing and interact with customers on platforms of their choice.
• Email and content marketing: Use drag-and-drop features to set up email campaigns and create content. A/B test different headlines and call-to-action (CTA) buttons to know what’s working.
• Quick automations: Simplify your marketing and sales efforts through prebuilt automation recipes and workflows.  

What are the benefits: ActiveCampaign can help you with multiple marketing activities. Segment customers at every stage of the sales funnel to help your sales team identify and pursue hot leads. Create and schedule engaging marketing content like advertisements, social media and SMS campaigns. Save time and get faster operations by automating tasks like contact tagging and drip marketing. Your operations run smoothly as ActiveCampaign integrates with key tools like Salesforce, Google Analytics and Slack. Also, get personalised support and hands-on learning through interactive webinars and learning sessions

How it scales business (1-10): 6 

What it costs: $23 AUD per user per month and it offers a free 14-day trial. 

5. EngageBay

EngageBay is a CRM that unifies marketing, sales and customer support capabilities into a single platform. It provides features like live chat and a social media suite to help with content marketing.

Who it’s for: Small businesses and digital creators

What it can do: 

• Email and lead management: Use built-in email templates to create and schedule your email marketing campaigns. Also, score lead quality and use predictive analytics to identify conversions.
• Contact segmentation: Segment your contacts by demographics, behaviour and engagement to tailor your communications.
• Page builder: Create mobile-ready landing pages and customise elements like CTA buttons, fonts and headings to match your brand guidelines.

How it benefits SMBs: EngageBay helps SMBs acquire new customers effortlessly with email tracking. This helps your sales team track and follow up on leads throughout the funnel. It offers prebuilt email templates and social media tracking to boost open rates and click-through rates (CTRs). EngageBay improves customer experience with a unified customer view, allowing service teams to offer faster support. Collaborate seamlessly with project management dashboards and file sharing within an easy to use interface.

How it scales business (1-10): 6

What it costs: $12 USD per user per month 

6. Freshsales Suite

Freshsales Suite is an AI-powered CRM with a focus on sales processes. It helps you to organise customer data and manage your pipeline, bringing sales and marketing teams together. This collaboration enables faster deal closures and uniform customer experiences.

Who it’s for: Small businesses and startups looking for a sales-focused CRM

What it can do: 

• Multichannel marketing: Deliver consistent customer experiences across email, social media, SMS and chat. 
• AI insights: AI can score and prioritise leads based on their likelihood to convert, helping you to focus on high-potential opportunities. 
• Multiple integrations: Access Freshworks Marketplace for project management, accounting and documentation apps.

How it benefits SMBs: Freshsales Suite brings your customer interactions in one place and simplifies your sales processes. It helps increase your average order value (AOV) and revenue through insights into cross-selling and upselling opportunities. Improve lead nurturing and customer acquisition with AI-driven insights.

How it scales business (1-10): 6 

What it costs: $15 AUD per user per month and  a free 21-day trial.

7. Keap

Keap is a marketing and sales CRM platform and calls itself the “#1 HubSpot alternative.” Like Starter Suite, Keap provides a 360-degree view of customer interactions and business performance. It offers various marketing automation features and helps with client management and sales workflows. 

Who it’s for: Entrepreneurs and small businesses

What it can do: 

• Personalised marketing and sales: Prebuilt workflows and automation for follow-ups and lead nurturing speed up your sales cycle.
• Automated customer management: It centralises all customer and lead information for a complete overview. Automatically captures leads from websites and social media while handling follow-up communications.
• Reporting and analytics: Set up reporting dashboards to monitor sales and marketing performance to improve your SMB sales strategy.

How it benefits SMBs: Keap unifies sales and payment processing on a single platform as it comes with built-in marketing automation and post-purchase communications. Save time by automating repetitive tasks like contact categorisation and follow-ups. This lets you focus on strategic growth. Deliver continuous customer engagement through the mobile app and by setting up automatic replies for faster issue resolution. Also, Keap integrates with apps for project management, data storage and ecommerce to create a cohesive relationship between all your tools. 

How it scales business (1-10): 5 

What it costs: Minimum of $299 USD for two users per month and a free 14-day trial.

8. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a simple, sales-focused AI CRM with features for managing sales pipelines and deal closures. It allows you to manage your communications, reports and analytics all in one place. Pipedrive comes with chatbot support to answer your questions and provide any assistance.

Who it’s for: Small businesses

What it can do: 

• Optimised email marketing: Track key marketing metrics like bounce rate, open rates and customer engagement. 
• Efficient lead management: Pipeline’s visual interface simplifies lead management. It allows you to capture, qualify and prioritise leads while easily moving deals through the deal stages.
• AI analytics: Reporting and analytics dashboards track your sales and business performance. AI recommends tools and actions to enhance your business operations.

How it benefits SMBs: Close deals faster with visual dashboards that track sales cycles and improve revenue forecasting. Use prebuilt templates and email marketing automations to send, monitor and optimise your strategy. Customise your pipelines and workflows to fit your needs, while AI provides insights to improve customer interactions. Simplify your operations with AI assistants that write emails, track interactions and predict revenue. Also, stay productive with timely team reminders via email, in-app or push notifications directly within your CRM.

How it scales business (1-10): 7

What it costs: $19 AUD per user per month and a free 14-day trial

9. Streak CRM

Streak CRM is a CRM platform specifically integrated with Gmail. It offers core elements like contact management and link tracking to analyse customer behaviour and brings your team together with shared pipelines.

Who it’s for: Freelancers and small businesses

What it can do:

• Monitor sales activities: Track all sales activities — emails, calls and meetings — to identify bottlenecks and improvement opportunities.
• Collaboration tools: Share pipelines, contacts and notes to make sure your team can seamlessly collaborate on deals or projects. 
• Data management: Streak can capture contact information from emails and public sources — wherever your target audience engages with you.

How it benefits SMBs: Streak CRM helps you to run your business without leaving your Gmail account. It helps you to prioritise high-value leads through personalised pipelines that highlight hot prospects by deal size and due date. Streak automatically collects contact details from emails and improves conversions with personalised sequences and engagement tracking. Bring your team together with shared pipelines, call logs and voice notes that integrate with Slack and Calendly. Ultimately, you become more efficient by syncing tasks and to-do lists seamlessly with Google Calendar.

How it scales business (1-10): 5 

What it costs: $49 USD per user per month

10. Zendesk

Zendesk is a comprehensive, AI-enabled customer service and sales platform. It’s known for its human resource capabilities, but it’s like having one big inbox for all your customer questions — whether by phone, email, chat or social media.

Who it’s for: Startups and small businesses 

What it can do: 

• Omni-channel service: Zendesk centralises customer interactions from various channels, including email, live chat, social media and messaging apps for an omni-channel service strategy. 
• Quality assurance: Zendesk helps you monitor and improve the quality of customer interactions for peak efficiency.
• Ticketing system: Organises customer enquiries into “tickets,” ensuring no issue is overlooked.

How it benefits SMBs: Zendesk offers multiple features to improve your omni-channel support. Its centralised dashboard makes sure all team members have the latest information to make data-driven decisions. Also, in-app and website messaging makes it convenient for customers to reach you from wherever they are. Improve your team’s productivity as Zendesk integrates with apps like Salesforce, Google Play and Slack. Don’t forget to take advantage of Zendesk’s Startup Community, which offers SMBs with funding free access to its Slack community and product updates.

How it scales business (1-10): 6 

What it costs: Starts from $19 USD per user per month

11. Zoho

Zoho is a CRM platform with different suites for sales, commerce, marketing and customer service. It comes with no-code tools and intuitive workflows to help businesses quickly set up operations. Zoho also offers a comprehensive view of your customer interactions to help you to deliver consistent services. 

Who it’s for: Growing businesses and startups

What it can do: 

• Unified marketing dashboard: Marketing campaigns are more organised with all interactions and engagement data in one place. Zoho captures leads from web forms and converts visitors into contacts.
• Activity management: Collaborate on tasks, meetings and calls through Zoho’s shared calendar. Customise this dashboard with fields and reports for your business needs.
• Reporting and analytics: Prebuilt and customisable dashboards are available to track key sales metrics and analyse your overall sales performance.

How it benefits SMBs: Zoho helps SMBs move beyond spreadsheets with improved sales tracking through visual dashboards that unify sales and marketing performance. Achieve higher marketing ROI by tracking campaign stages — from content creation to performance. Deliver consistent and uniform customer service as a single dashboard provides a complete view of customer behaviour and preferences. 

How it scales business (1-10): 9 

What it costs: $7 USD per user per month and a forever-free trial. 

CRM resources to help you to make a decision

Making the right CRM choice is important. So, we’ve compiled valuable resources fortified by Salesforce research, to guide your decision:

The State of CRM Report

A CRM for startups boosts productivity and communication, while tapping into opportunities for sustainable growth. With this free report, learn about the challenges global businesses face and how CRMs can address them.

Salesforce AI Research

AI is crucial for the growth of any modern business, small or large. Salesforce’s AI Research helps our customers constantly innovate and prepare for the future. We follow ethical AI guidelines and develop AI tools with immense responsibility. Get all the latest information on our research and developments like agentic AI or Agentforce 360 — and how we bring these to our CRM.

Trailblazer Community

Salesforce’s Trailblazer Community is a global network of Salesforce users, entrepreneurs and enthusiasts. It’s a vibrant platform where individuals can ask questions or seek mentorship and collaboration — all while staying updated with the latest technologies and trends. 

You can also attend virtual community events by joining different groups. The goal is to network, learn and help each other succeed no matter where you are. SMB owners can connect with like-minded entrepreneurs on Salesforce Small and Medium Business Hub or on the Salesforce Partners page.

That’s a wrap! Here’s the quick-hit list of CRM alternatives:

Tool	Target Audience	Benefits	Scalability Rating	Starting Price
Salesforce Starter Suite	SMBs, entrepreneurs, startups	All-in-one CRM; marketing, sales, service and commerce	10	$35 AUD per user/month
Salesforce Pro Suite	Midsize businesses, fast-scaling startups	Advanced customisation, automation and analytics	10	$14 AUD per user/month
Slack CRM	Startups and teams already using Slack	Conversational CRM; manage leads inside Slack channels	9	$21 AUD per user/month
ActiveCampaign	Solo founders, marketing-focused startups	Marketing automation and cross-channel strategy	6	$23 AUD per user/month
EngageBay	Small businesses, digital creators	Unified marketing, sales and support with live chat	6	$12 USD per user/month
Freshsales Suite	Sales-focused small businesses and startups	AI-powered sales processes and pipeline management	6	$15 AUD per user/month
Keap	Entrepreneurs and small businesses	Automated customer management and follow-ups	5	$299 USD per two users/month
Pipedrive	Small businesses	Visual sales pipelines and deal closure tracking	7	$19 AUD per user/month
Streak CRM	Freelancers and small businesses	CRM integrated directly within Gmail	5	$49 USD per user/month
Zendesk	Startups and small businesses	Omnichannel customer service and ticketing	6	$19 USD per user/month
Zoho	Growing businesses and startups	No-code tools and unified marketing dashboards	9	$7 USD per user/month

The best HubSpot alternative for small business? We vote for Salesforce

A CRM is your business partner, helping you to cross significant milestones on your journey. Whether you’re looking to start out or for more automation or features, there are many alternatives to HubSpot. Salesforce is built to meet all your evolving needs. No matter where you’re on your journey as a small business owner, you can get started with Starter Suite — the all-in-one AI CRM your SMB needs. 

Looking for more customisation? Explore Pro Suite. Already a Salesforce customer? Activate Foundations and try out Agentforce 360 today.

AI supported the writers and editors who created this article.

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