Salesforce is regarded as one of the best customer relationship management (CRM) solutions for large-scale enterprises, with its Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional tool earning our Editors' Choice award. However, that enterprise-grade CRM is too complex and costly for smaller businesses. On the other end, the company's entry-level Salesforce Essentials offered limited features at a steeper price than its competitors in the small to medium size business (SMB) space. That brings us to Salesforce Starter, a streamlined version of the award-winning platform designed to replace Essentials on Salesforce's menu of CRM options. Starter is specifically targeted toward SMBs, giving Salesforce a seat at the table with HubSpot CRM, Freshsales, and Zoho CRM (our Editors' Choice pick that features deep third-party integrations).

How Much Does Salesforce Starter Cost?

Like its predecessor, Salesforce Essentials, Salesforce Starter costs $25 per user per month, billed annually. That's on the higher end of the affordability scale. Still, Starter does a better job than its predecessor of merging usability and scalability with a comprehensive set of sales, marketing, and service tools that won't overwhelm new CRM users.

The most notable bone that Salesforce has thrown to its SMB customers is that you can onboard up to 325 users on Starter, compared with Essentials' 10-user limit. Salesforce aims to make Starter flexible enough to grow with small to medium businesses, so you won't need to jump to a pricier, more complex solution before you're ready.

As with many of its competitors, you can test drive Salesforce Starter for 30 days without a credit card before diving into a yearlong commitment.

If you need more advanced features, Salesforce Professional is the next tier at $80 per user per month, billed annually. This plan adds tools like sales forecasting, quotes and contracts, and third-party API access. Then there are Salesforce's Enterprise tiers that range in cost from $165 to $500 per user per month, billed annually. These include the sophisticated features, high-level customization, and robust library of add-ons that make Salesforce one of the top CRMs.

How does Salesforce Starter fare against its rivals? Let's take Zoho CRM, for example. Zoho's Standard plan costs $14 per user per month, billed annually, making it notably more affordable than Salesforce Starter. Although it lacks the case management and artificial intelligence-optimized tools found in Salesforce Starter, Zoho compensates by offering lead scoring and sales forecasting. Both platforms are evenly matched when it comes to customization, reporting, and ease of use. Ultimately, your choice boils down to your budget and business needs.

How to Set Up Salesforce Starter

Salesforce Starter's setup process is one of its most impressive features. In contrast to earlier Salesforce products, Starter practically holds your hand (in a good way) through onboarding. There's still a noticeable learning curve, but you won't need to outsource onboarding to a Salesforce expert. This will save your business money.

To begin, you fill out a brief form and take a short survey regarding your business goals, which will then bring you to a two-minute video. (The video is merely a Salesforce commercial, so you won't lose much by skipping it.). When you're ready to purchase a plan, click the "Buy Now" button in the application's top-right corner to begin the three-step checkout process.

Then you'll see a homepage split into two main areas. The top section, Quick Look, features shortcuts to essential sales, marketing, and service tools. Click on these for a guided walkthrough of those elements, complete with on-page prompts and a sidebar checklist you can either move, minimize, or snooze as needed. The homepage's bottom half highlights your exact sales activities and suggests the next steps based on those metrics.

The top tabs highlight the Accounts, Contacts, Sales, Service, Marketing, Calendar, Dashboard, and Reports sections. Above these tabs are a universal search bar and a notifications button. Guidance Center and Quick Settings offer setup checklists and admin tools, such as adding users or managing your Salesforce subscription.

These are all welcome features, and they make it clear that Salesforce Starter aims to provide SMBs with a turnkey CRM. Starter doesn't support what Salesforce calls "custom objects," which let third-party vendors integrate their software with the platform. That's in contrast to Saleforce's earlier Essentials product, but the benefit here is a less time-intensive setup. This is ideal for companies new to CRMs or smaller teams that lack the resources to allocate for a lengthy onboarding process.

Data Transfer and Syncing Options With Salesforce Starter

There are two ways to sign in to Salesforce Starter: the usual email-and-password method or syncing to your Google or Microsoft account. The latter method streamlines the login process and lets you directly upload contacts, emails, and calendar events to the CRM. Salesforce's Einstein Activity Capture automatically links synced data to appropriate deals, granting you more time to focus on revenue-generating tasks. ("Einstein" is Salesforce's catch-all branding for any feature it claims is powered by AI.)

To import sales data, leads, or opportunities, you must upload a CSV file. You can opt to populate your contacts that way, as well.

Salesforce Starter's Pillars of Sales Success

The Guidance Center focuses on three main pillars for selling on the platform: Accounts, Contacts, and Opportunities. These serve as the backbone of your Starter sales operations, housing all the essential information and functions you'll need to initiate and advance deals.

An unobtrusive pop-up walks you through manually entering data for each section. After saving the data, you're taken to an overview page divided into three parts: personal details, exact activities, and other related CRM data such as Cases and Files. This hub streamlines vital sales activities like sending emails, scheduling meetings, and logging calls, eliminating the need to toggle tabs or swap screens.

You can filter Accounts, Contacts, and Opportunities with preset or custom list views. Tailor these lists for targeted marketing campaigns or generate quick sidebar charts to track specific metrics on the fly. You also can switch between table, Kanban, and split view formats, whichever suits your workflow best.

Maximizing Lead Generation in Salesforce Starter

Although Salesforce Starter's target audience is SMBs, many of which will have little or no experience with CRM software, it offers many features that aid growing companies in executing an efficient lead generation strategy without devoting too much time to grunt work (read: data entry). These tools are found in the Marketing hub. They don't rival what's available from standalone email marketing and marketing automation products, but they'll be a boon to smaller companies that don't want to navigate learning multiple applications for their sales functions.

Cadences, a feature also present in Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional, guides you through the prospecting process by mapping out activity sequences. These sync up with Tasks, which automatically update as leads progress through the pipeline.

Sorting leads and automating tasks is seamless, thanks to Segments and Flows. These sections have a visual interface with drag-and-drop elements and dropdown menus, leveling the playing field for people new to CRMs who don't want to be inundated with lines of unfamiliar, confusing code.

The Campaigns tab has an email builder with customizable templates and myriad components for businesses wanting to level up their outreach. Whether you're sending one email or preparing an email blast, the Einstein Send Time Optimization suggests the best times to hit send (you can disable this if you prefer manual timing).

The Performance tab offers a comprehensive view of your ongoing email campaigns so you'll know what's working and what's not. Notably, this component was often the slowest to load during our tests. (For context, we tested the software against the latest version of Chrome on a 2019 Intel-based MacBook Air.)

Salesforce Starter lets you send up to 2,000 emails per month, which should suffice for most small businesses. However, if you need to up that allowance, you can pay an extra $10 per month for another 1,000 sends.

Advanced options, such as lead scoring and sales forecasting, aren't part of the package, which is expected given Salesforce Starter's focus on user-friendliness for smaller businesses. Nor is there any integration with social media networks, which is something to keep in mind if you promote heavily on such platforms. However, Zoho CRM is worth investigating if you're looking for such features at a fair price.

Keeping Clients Happy With Salesforce Starter

In addition to its Sales and Marketing tools, Salesforce Starter also has a Service hub to help manage customer queries. The central feature here is Cases, where you log and view every interaction that a customer had with your company about a given issue. This way, any team member can easily step in and pick up where someone else left off for a smoother transition. (Once again, you can think of this as a subset of what you'd get from a standalone help desk product.)

There's also the Knowledge tab, where you write and publish articles about common customer problems and their solutions, all within the CRM. These articles are searchable and accessible right within each customer case, so you can resolve things quickly and keep things moving.

The last Service feature is Quick Text, designed to speed up outreach by letting you create preset email messages for occasions like birthdays or special promotions. We couldn't fully test this due to a minor bug. Still, it's worth noting that at the time of our test, Salesforce Starter was a just-launched product. As of this writing, it's still only available in a limited number of geographic regions, mainly owing to language localization issues.

Measuring Success With Dashboards and Reporting

Salesforce Starter has the weakest reporting capabilities among the full family of Salesforce Sales products. However, compared with most CRM competitors in the small business space (like Freshsales or HubSpot CRM), it's robust without the overkill of advanced features better suited for large enterprises.

Salesforce Starter comes with over 60 customizable report types across 11 categories, such as sales, marketing, service, and admin. You'll also have a range of nearly a dozen chart types, giving you the flexibility to present your data in the most meaningful way. You can organize dashboards according to report types and tailor the formatting to your liking.

You can make reports and dashboards public, private, or limited to specific users. With the Subscribe feature, you can opt to receive notifications for report or dashboard updates in real-time or at scheduled intervals.

Is Salesforce Starter Easy to Use?

Salesforce Starter aims to be accessible for newcomers to the Salesforce ecosystem or CRMs in general. While the platform is feature-rich, which could potentially steepen the learning curve, the on-page guidance and easy access to the Guidance Center are a boon for smaller teams that may not have the means to bring in a Salesforce expert to train them. There's also the Trailblazer Community, where you can find resources and answers to any questions you may have.

Salesforce is known for its high level of customization, and Salesforce Starter also delivers on that front. You can tweak the interface to your liking, which could range from something as basic as choosing between a wide-spaced or compact layout, or going all-in and incorporating the colors and logo of your company for a personal touch.

On the other hand, unlike its predecessor, Salesforce Essentials, Salesforce Starter doesn't support the platform's custom objects. As mentioned above, this restricts the range of third-party app integrations that are available. But once again, this is likely intentional given the platform's focus on simplicity for small businesses. If building a tech stack is necessary for your small business, look at HubSpot CRM instead.

Salesforce Starter syncs with the Salesforce mobile app, which is free to get on Android and iOS. While it lacks access to the advanced remote features available in Salesforce's Enterprise tiers, the core functionality should meet the needs of most small to medium businesses.

A User-Friendly Gateway to the Salesforce Platform

Salesforce bills Salesforce Starter as a platform for small- to medium-size businesses seeking a turnkey CRM. It succeeds in that regard, thanks to a straightforward setup process and a focus on core sales, marketing, and service tools. Its scalability and ease of use make it a suitable choice for companies that want to streamline their operations, minus the burden that often accompanies the introduction of new technology. For most SMBs, Salesforce Starter is a fine introduction to the Salesforce ecosystem (or CRMs in general).

There are concessions you must make if you opt for Salesforce Starter. Notably, a lack of support for third-party objects and fewer AI-powered tools than other Salesforce products. The trade-off is a CRM that's essentially ready to use out of the box, barring any tweaks you'll want to make to the interface. Editors' Choice winner Zoho CRM is a better value for your money, but the entry-level Starter is an excellent gateway into the broader Salesforce platform that offers room to grow.

Following months of first-hand user testing, we think HubSpot is the better CRM option for SMEs over Salesforce. Our analysts gave HubSpot an overall score of 4.2 out of 5, while Salesforce CRM gets 3.8 out of 5.

Crucially in today's continuing cost of living crisis, HubSpot comes out on top for pricing. Its generous free plan is a godsend for cash-strapped SMEs, capable of delivering a premium CRM service for zero charge.




Price per month (billed annually):	Price per month (billed annually):
Automatic data capture Mobile access and administration Salesforce Inbox 10 user limit	Send 2,000 emails per month 5 active contact lists for outreach Thorough 12-step onboarding process Chatbots, campaigns, and webforms

Finding the right CRM brand for your organisation means researching one of the most competitive industries in the world – a frustrating task for busy small business owners. That's where we come in.

We’ve carried out in-depth research into both platforms over the past half decade. Below, you’ll find everything we’ve learnt in our expert guide to HubSpot CRM vs Salesforce for small business.

In a hurry? For speedier advice on which platform you should purchase, we’ve also designed a specialist online comparison tool. It gives you free quotes from the top CRM providers in the UK, tailored to your specific needs.

Our research methodology

Since 2017, our experts (alongside a specialist independent researcher) have been working on a rigorous and up-to-date list of the top CRM brands for UK SMEs.

The need for affordable CRM software has skyrocketed as the cost of living crisis continues to bite. Our most exact round of intensive research took place over a two-month period. We analysed 11 competitors, judging them on five specific categories that our small business readers told us were important for CRM software and managing their sales teams:

Usability: (user limitations, feature limitations, etc.)
Customisation: (can you tailor your pricing plan and features to your business requirements)
Customer service: (what help and support options are available?)
Functionality: (depth of features and software specialism)
Pricing: (including initial setup costs, any equipment costs, and ongoing service fees)

HubSpot vs. Salesforce: at-a-glance

Once we had assessed the platform on these five metrics, we were able to award scores based on how well they performed in each area. For a quick overview of where HubSpot and Salesforce excelled, you can see their scorecards below.

Usability
Customisation
Functionality
Pricing
Help and Support

Usability
Customisation
Functionality
Pricing
Help and Support

This guide will bring you the results of our testing in an in-depth analysis into how HubSpot CRM compares to Salesforce CRM. But remember – there are plenty more fish in the sea when it comes to CRM software. If you want a wider range of options to choose from, get quotes from the top providers on the market.

HubSpot vs. Salesforce: which is best for my business?

Here's a quick overview of where Salesforce and HubSpot excel – and what type of business they are best suited for.

Who is Salesforce CRM best for?

Large teams: Salesforce's managerial features makes it best for organising teams with 10+ employees
Retail chains: Salesforce is excellent for analytics and data storage, two key benefits for large retailers
Technology, insurance, and banking SMEs: Salesforce is better at customisation, making it a good choice for industries with complex sales needs

Who is HubSpot CRM best for?

Businesses on a budget: Salesforce is more expensive than HubSpot, which boasts a generous free plan
Startups: Salesforce is good for large or growing organisations. HubSpot is best for getting up and running
Marketing SMEs: HubSpot is better-equipped for email outreach and campaigning than Salesforce

HubSpot vs. Salesforce: Pricing

Key takeaway: our research found HubSpot is the best CRM for affordability. It beats Salesforce in this category thanks to its generous, small business-friendly free plan.

Both HubSpot and Salesforce suffer from complicated product lists. There are lots of different CRM ‘editions’ to choose from – all of which have different costs attached depending on your size and billing cycle. Still, in terms of real expense, Salesforce and HubSpot CRM stand at either end of the spectrum.

Salesforce’s extensive feature list and impressive customisation tools are balanced by a £20 per user, per month price tag, whereas HubSpot is famously affordable and well known for its freemium plan. In fact, it’s our top-rated free CRM for small businesses, and is one of the only providers to offer an in-built email campaign feature.

Save Money on CRM Software

We know that cost is a big concern for small business owners. You might be looking at the perfect CRM product, but if it’s out of budget, it’s a definite no. That’s why the Startups team has designed a simple CRM comparison tool to find you the best quotes from the top providers.

HubSpot vs. Salesforce: plan comparison

HubSpot CRM products	HubSpot CRM products	Salesforce CRM products
Sales	HubSpot Sales	Salesforce Sales Cloud
Marketing	HubSpot Marketing	Salesforce Pardot
Helpdesk	HubSpot Services	Salesforce Service Desk
Sales, marketing, and helpdesk combined	HubSpot CRM Suite	Salesforce Essentials

HubSpot vs. Salesforce: price comparison


HubSpot Marketing Hub (Starter plan)	HubSpot Sales Hub (Starter plan)	HubSpot Service Hub (Starter plan)
Price per month (billed annually)	Price per month (billed annually)	Price per month (billed annually)

Whether you’re buying HubSpot Marketing, Sales, or Service, you’ll pay £18 upfront per month, billed annually for the Starter plan.

The bad news is that HubSpot CRM is not a very scalable option for long-term growth. With the next tier up, HubSpot Professional, you’ll pay at least £702 extra per month – a considerable and unaffordable jump. It’s also unnecessary, as the freemium and Starter plans are outstanding to begin with.

However, HubSpot does also have a HubSpot CRM Suite which combines marketing, sales, and helpdesk features for just £27 per month (or also available with a free plan).



Price per month (billed annually)	Price per month (billed annually)	Price per month (billed annually)	Price per month (billed annually)

Like HubSpot, Salesforce's prices are kept fairly consistent across each package. The Starter plan (Salesforce's lowest-tiered plan) costs £20 per user, per month, while Professional costs £64 per user, per month.

These are both very expensive price tags for SMEs. Because of this, we awarded Salesforce a full five marks less than HubSpot, with an overall score of just 5 out of 10 for value for money.

Salesforce's version of the HubSpot CRM Suite is Salesforce Essentials. This costs £20 per user, per month, making it a cheaper alternative for SMEs wanting access to the full arsenal of marketing, sales, and helpdesk features.

HubSpot vs. Salesforce for free plan

This is an easy win for HubSpot, as Salesforce does not have a freemium tier for SMEs. We gave HubSpot 10/10 for pricing, largely due to its generous free plan.

While you will have to put up with lots of HubSpot branding, it’s a great way for very early-stage firms to begin customer outreach without spending a penny. Businesses will also be able to trial the CRM software free of charge, giving excellent value for money.

HubSpot vs. Salesforce for value for money

Overall, we found HubSpot to be the best CRM in terms of value for money. Considering it is free to get started, SME users benefit from a long list of features that are ideal for marketing and scale-up.

Despite costing £30 less per month than Salesforce, on average, HubSpot has 22 features in total, which is one more than Salesforce. HubSpot also has a free plan, whereas Salesforce only offers a 14-day trial.

HubSpot vs. Salesforce: Usability

Key takeaway: HubSpot and Salesforce CRM earn near identical high scores of 3.8 and 3.9 out of 5 for usability, due to their similarly smart interfaces and user-focused designs.

Many of Salesforce’s features are preset, which can make them inflexible
Importing data is easier with Salesforce than with HubSpot
HubSpot’s tidy user interface makes for an attractive contact database

The Salesforce call log makes it simple to personalise each customer profile

To reach these results, we asked our testers to carry out basic CRM tasks to see how each brand performed – take a look at how we ranked the top CRM platforms for small businesses.

During testing, we found that HubSpot had a quick and easy setup process that’s guided by helpful support boxes – although the data import process left something to be desired. It took us around 17 minutes to import our contacts, as the system couldn’t interpret each contact's email addresses. That took a lot of manual work to fix.

In comparison, Salesforce CRM had a slightly clunkier interface that made onboarding difficult. Data importing took even longer with Salesforce (20 minutes). However, once we were set up, we found the platform's interface straightforward and neatly laid out, making it intuitive to use and navigate. Our researchers found that Salesforce has an in-depth chart and visualisation builder, which lets users link up all the separate data points to generate powerful insights.

We were able to create different ‘views’ of our HubSpot contact list in order to segment them by certain characteristics.

In July 2023, HubSpot introduced ten new template campaigns that small business users can easily set up in their CRM. These include an abandon cart template, so that online sellers can automatically send an email to chase customers who don't checkout their items.

HubSpot vs. Salesforce: Customisation

Key takeaway: Most of the HubSpot Free features are branded, which is why Salesforce earns the top spot here. But HubSpot still had lots of nifty customisable tools in the back-end.

Every business has a unique sales strategy. Rather than spending months overhauling yours, it makes sense to find a CRM that can work with your plans.

Pretty much every one of Salesforce’s tools was customisable. This is particularly true for reporting – we were able to use number and speedometer widgets or select chart options such as donut, funnel, line, bar, or dot charts to generate powerful sales insights.

Because HubSpot is a less-powerful system than Salesforce CRM, we were more limited when it came to customisation. While Salesforce came preloaded with lots of different options for displaying data, we had to use workarounds to design our own version of these for HubSpot.

For example, we weren't able to upload a spreadsheet with more than one tab, so we were forced to integrate the platform with Google Excel instead.

That said, Salesforce was still quite fixed in its layout. When the platform first loaded, it was set up in a very specific way. We were given separate databases for our contacts, leads, accounts, and opportunities and we weren't able to remove these from the top banner – only reorder them (as shown above).

HubSpot vs. Salesforce: Functionality

Key takeaway: Salesforce has more features than HubSpot. However, many of Salesforce's tools are unnecessary for SMEs. HubSpot also performs better for marketing – a big small business priority

Salesforce is undoubtedly a more powerful platform than HubSpot, boasting a much more sophisticated set of features and data storage capabilities. Sadly, with great power comes poor practicality. On closer inspection, many of Salesforce’s features will be superfluous for small businesses, as they’re better suited for large teams with more than 10 employees.

And surprisingly, important marketing features for startups – like webforms and an email design editor – are missing. Meanwhile, HubSpot boasted all of the above. Plus, we found it had lots of smart automations that are designed to grow your business while you sleep.

During testing, we particularly liked how the platform provides advice on common sense actions which you're likely to need. For instance, HubSpot sent us email remarketing prompts to send to our most engaged customers.

Salesforce was harder to grasp. During testing, we came unstuck several times by Salesforce's clunky interface which overall made the onboarding process very time-consuming. The main issues we ran into were error messages when trying to access settings to edit things like user permissions, and email campaigns.

What do HubSpot users say?

Liesa Stecher is Chief Marketing Officer at Addition, an accounting software company. Stecher told us: “HubSpot has one of the best free content libraries out there when it comes to digital marketing, SEO and automation.”

It’s worth stating that both platforms are excellent for communication and team collaboration. HubSpot provided a surprisingly advanced chatbot feature (unavailable with Salesforce), while Salesforce offers a shared team inbox and internal messaging feature.

What's new for Salesforce?

In July 2023, Salesforce unveiled some artificial intelligence (AI) enhancements to its various software-as-a-service products. Following the updates, customers will be able to access a real-time, generative AI assistant to help them carry out tasks and, ultimately, ensure the sales process runs more smoothly.

HubSpot vs. Salesforce: Help and support

Key takeaway: Neither HubSpot Free and Salesforce Essentials offer onboarding support. However, Salesforce CRM provides email support, while HubSpot does not, meaning it ultimately triumphs.

We’d prefer to end on a high note. Unfortunately, support tools is where the Salesforce vs HubSpot competition ends, with both platforms dramatically underperforming.

The two platforms are both resource-light, with only a knowledge base and community forum for users to try their luck on should they encounter a problem.

In the end, our testing points out that Salesforce CRM comes out on top. As we’ve mentioned, HubSpot requires a few more workarounds for some functions, and without the help of a service desk, these issues are going to be much more difficult for small businesses to overcome.

What do Salesforce users say?

One Salesforce user left this review on Trustpilot: “Salesforce support is not great. As a user, I will raise a case to be troubleshooted, but they don’t seem to assign it to the right channel. I am not happy with the customer service provided.”

How to switch your CRM software

Maybe you're debating switching your current CRM software over to HubSpot or Salesforce. Or, perhaps you're even considering migrating from one to the other.

The process of changing any business tool can be overwhelming. Carrying over huge volumes of data might feel risky, and you want to prioritise minimal disruption to your customers. But despite the potential drawbacks, switching might still be the best way forward. Here are three benefits of finding the right CRM:

You can match its feature list to your business objectives, so you won't lose growth opportunities
You could save money by switching to low-cost or even a free plan, like HubSpot
A more efficient system means more time and money for improving customer relationships

5 tips for a hassle-free migration

With the right amount of preparation, there's no reason you can't make a seamless switch over to a new CRM software. Here are our top five tips for a smooth CRM changeover, without downtime:

1. Keep the entire team involved – getting team buy-in for the new CRM system is crucial to the implementation process. Train managers on the platform first so they can drum up excitement in the workforce. Take advantage of a free trial for this – Salesforce offers a 14-day demo, while HubSpot is entirely free to use.

2. Research, research, research – make sure your new CRM has all the right features to fulfill your business needs. Less is more when it comes to CRM. Before you begin looking for a new system, audit your existing software so you know exactly what you expect your next platform to Excellerate upon.

3. Set a changeover date – be very clear about the exact date that employees must stop using the old CRM and fully migrate onto the new platform. During the first few months, schedule regular meetings or appraisals to review CRM reports, and make sure everyone is developing good data-entry habits.

4. Design a data action plan – transferring data to a new platform is one of the most important stages of any tech migration. Create an action plan that allows ample time for both data transfer. Set up all automations, integrations, and customisations so that everything is ready for your sales reps to begin training on.

5. Communicate with clients – if you think the switch might cause disruption to your customers, come up with a custom, clear communication plan together that keeps them in the know. It's better to be upfront and honest about how the change might impact them. If there are any issues, acknowledge and address them as they arise.

When should you switch your CRM?

Considering switching over to a new CRM, but not sure if it's the right move for your business? Here are four reasons to consider purchasing new software:

It's missing key features and hampering your business growth objectives
You're consistently running out of features or data before the month ends
Employees find it hard to use and struggle to onboard new clients
You’re overspending and think you can find a better deal

HubSpot vs. Salesforce: CRM alternatives

We think SMEs deserve a proper understanding of the CRM market before deciding on a software option. Because of this, we’ve designed a specialist online CRM comparison tool, to help you find the provider that best fits your unique business strategy.

That’s also why, during our exact CRM research round, we didn’t just compare HubSpot to Salesforce – we examined 11 CRM software solutions in total, to decide upon a fair and inclusive recommendation of the top small business options available.

monday.com is our top overall CRM for SMEs, scoring highly for customisation, functionality, and usability
Runner-up is Freshsales, thanks to its superb usability and affordable pricing range

Despite these results, HubSpot CRM still came out in pole position for pricing and marketing tools – arguably the top two priorities for most small business owners.

Final verdict

HubSpot is the conclusive winner in the Salesforce vs HubSpot CRM battle. Its features are far more oriented towards brand-building and marketing, which is what most small business owners need to focus on during early-stage growth.

Budget is also a big concern for small business owners, and Salesforce’s expensive £20 per user price tag is just no match for HubSpot’s freemium plan.

Nonetheless, Salesforce is a rare product in that it has excellent usability and is a good choice for growing small businesses. The biggest fans of the platform will be those that might not have a huge IT department, but still want a platform that can cope with a large volume of sales or customer enquiries.

Next steps for small business owners

This recommendation is the result of Startups’ two decades of experience working with small business CRM products. Our intensive research is updated regularly to ensure that we are being properly reflective of the fast-growing CRM industry.

Don’t forget that you can use our online comparison tool for a more detailed overview of the top CRM providers on the market. Just tell us a bit about your business, and we’ll deliver you quotes that match your specific requirements.

Find the best CRM platform for your business.

Compare quotes with our online tool to get started now.

HubSpot vs Salesforce: FAQs

Which is better: HubSpot or Salesforce?
Overall, we think HubSpot is the better CRM for small businesses over Salesforce. It has similar functionality, is much better for marketing, and also costs much less.
Is HubSpot easier to use than Salesforce?
Our testers gave HubSpot and Salesforce the same usability score of 7.8 out of 10. This is because they are both fairly easy-to-use platforms, and possess clean, smart interfaces.
What are the limitations of HubSpot Free?
One of the biggest limitations of HubSpot Free is its poor customisation – an area where Salesforce performs well.
How many users can I have on HubSpot Free?
HubSpot Free rivals many paid-for CRM platforms with its allowances, permitting an unlimited number of users per account.

Startups.co.uk is reader-supported. If you make a purchase through the links on our site, we may earn a commission from the retailers of the products we have reviewed. This helps Startups.co.uk to provide free reviews for our readers. It has no additional cost to you, and never affects the editorial independence of our reviews.

Anyone can pass Salesforce-Consumer-Goods-Cloud exam with these practice questions and cheat sheet

Salesforce-Consumer-Goods-Cloud study - Salesforce Certified Consumer Goods Cloud Accredited Professional Updated: 2023

Other Salesforce exams

Why is Salesforce expensive?

How many small businesses use Salesforce?

Can small companies afford Salesforce?

Can small businesses use Salesforce?

How much do companies spend on Salesforce?

Is Salesforce affordable for small business?

What is the cheapest Salesforce license?

Is there a free version of Salesforce?

What percentage of companies use Salesforce?

What top companies use Salesforce?

Who are Salesforce biggest clients?

What company did Salesforce buy?

Is Salesforce expensive?

Why Salesforce is bad?

Is Salesforce actually good?