Regardless of the size and nature of your business, it is better to have a great CRM. Yes, you are right; we are talking about Customer Relationship Management. For any business to grow, effective management of customer relationships is the key. When you intend to choose a CRM, the biggest rivalries that you will come across are HubSpot and Salesforce.
HubSpot and Salesforce CRMs hold the pride of being leaders in the industry due to different reasons. When comparing these two, HubSpot CRM holds the reputation of being an accessible and affordable CRM for small businesses. Particularly, businesses that are new to CRMs will find the CRM from HubSpot very friendly. On the other hand, SalesForce CRM is popular for offering large teams a wide range of customization options. When you understand how these two are different from each other, you can decide which one to choose for your business better.
To help you better understand the difference between these two CRMs, here is a table to show the comparison between them from different perspectives:
| Point of Comparison | HubSpot | Salesforce |
| Suitability | Ideal for small to medium-sized businesses that look for a user-friendly CRM that can handle both marketing and sales functions. | Suits larger businesses that look for an enriched CRM with advanced customization, automation and analytics. |
| Customer Support | With all paid plans, you will get round-the-clock support. | All plans offer customer support during local business hours. |
| App Integrations | More than 500 apps and most of them are free | More than 3000 apps but more than half of them come with a price tag. |
| Mobile Application | Works in conjunction with the calendar and messaging apps | It is powered by Artificial Intelligence and it caches data for access when you are offline. |
| Sales Automation | Task automation happens mainly for the sales pipeline | Automates tasks across varied functions. |
| Reporting | Suits basic CRM reporting needs | Capable of building any kind of CRM Report |
| Key Features | Easy to comprehend features that help the sales team to a gain better understanding of customers. | Advanced features help users to gain insights into their progress |
With this comparison, you might have a general overview. So, let us compare these two CRMs further so that you can decide, which one to choose for your business.
Naturally, before you choose one of these CRMs, you will be interested in knowing which one is rich in features. In reality, it is hard to compare these two CRMs on this ground. The reason is that both of them have distinct features. Even, both of them carry a wide range of service tiers right from basic to rich packages. To add to the confusion in deciding, both of them support modifications and integrations that permit you to get a personalized CRM experience.
When comparing features, Salesforce is robust as it offers everything you need. But, the problem here is that most features remain unused for many users. Even, Salesforce offers more customization options. But, you should either be a developer yourself or should have in-house developers or a big budget to take full advantage of these customization options.
On the other hand, HubSpot is popular for its user-friendliness and intuitive interface. Even, the free version offers different features like customer tracking. When you opt for a complete suite of tools offered by HubSpot, you will get access to business analytics, marketing automation, sales automation, and much more. In addition to being a full CRM, HubSpot is easier to instigate. But, when compared to Salesforce, it does not carry many personalization options.
So, considering the feature set, HubSpot wins the race even though Salesforce offers many features that you can actually use. Particularly, if you are a beginner, HubSpot will provide you with an impressive experience as a CRM for sure.
The all-in-one CRM platform of HubSpot offers Sales Hub. It encompasses conversation intelligence, CPQ tools, sales engagement software, and custom objects along with powerful sales analytics that will let your team work more efficiently not only to grow revenue but also to save time in an efficient manner.
Sales Cloud is offered as an all-inclusive Sales CRM by SalesForce. It brings together deal management, reporting, sales automation tools, and much more. With Sales Cloud, you can automate sales processes, track improvements, and can manage leads.
When comparing Sales Hub and Sales Clouds, both of them can benefit your sales team similarly. So, the choice is yours on this ground.
Salesforce is known for its huge set of features. But, all these features are not easy to understand. The more features a CRM has, the harder it becomes to understand. The same happens with Salesforce CRM as well. Particularly, beginners will find using Salesforce CRM hard to understand and use.
But, when you take the case of HubSpot, you will get an intuitive and comprehensive interface with this CRM. The intuitive interface has always helped people, who are new to using CRM. Even, it will be easier to use for a person without any familiarity with CRM earlier.
When you take the case of HubSpot, the biggest advantage remains with the management of business contacts. The tidy user interface of HubSpot CRM lets users view all the information pertaining to a contact in one place. HubSpot will provide a clear view of who your contact is and also your interactions with each contact.
In simple terms, comparing the ease of use of both these CRMs, HubSpot wins the battle with its simple layout and easiness it offers to access all the tools on the platform. Even when you feel sleepy when working on HubSpot, you will work with perfection in HubSpot due to its ease of use.
If you are a first-time user of a CRM, you will be interested in trying out the free version before you go for the paid edition. Here, HubSpot can be the best choice as it is known for offering free CRM. For marketing, you will get tools like landing pages, advertisement management, email marketing and even forms. When it comes to sales, you will get team email, basic bots, live chat and other tools that will help your sales department without requiring any spending from your end. As far as customer service is concerned, you can get free features like calling, shared inbox, email scheduling and ticketing tools from HubSpot CRM.
When it comes to Salesforce, it does not offer any free version. Nevertheless, you can try packages on free trials. But, this is not similar to the free plan offered by HubSpot. So, HubSpot is the clear winner in this regard.
HubSpot provides 24/7 support, while SalesForce offers support during weekdays at office hours according to your local time. Both offer live chat, email and phone support. Further, both provide a knowledge base and support through community forums.
So, when comparing these two CRMs on this ground, HubSpot CRM is the clear winner with its round-the-clock support. Further, the support team of this CRM is renowned for its excellence. So, you will get a solution to any issues that you face by using the HubSpot CRM instantly at all times.
Both Salesforce and HubSpot are comprehensive when it comes to integration and plugins. When it comes to HubSpot, you will find a wide range of tools part of the HubSpot Ecosystem. Above all, they are all designed to work in conjunction with each other. For instance, when you are working in the marketing suite of HubSpot, you can easily transfer data from and to your HubSpot CRM.
When talking about Salesforce, it is almost constantly expanding its product offerings. Of course, it offers different plugins and add-ons. But, the problem is that they are hard to use and clunky at times. For expanding its functionality and features, Salesforce has a marketplace called Appexchange, where you can find thousands of plugins. The problem with Salesforce is the steeper learning curves as compared to HubSpot, thereby making HubSpot a winner as you will find it easy to understand how to use the add-ons and plugins. This is not possible in Salesforce.
This cloud-based customer relationship management platform aids with scaling your business. With this tool, you will experience your business grow better in content management, marketing, service and sales with the management software offered for these areas by HubSpot. It offers a sole source of truth that provides the power for your front office teams to deepen their relationship with customers. In turn, they can provide the best-in-class experience to the customers. With HubSpot, you will get a unified experience and your team will find it easy to adopt and use.
Salesforce is also a cloud-based CRM. It has applications for marketing, service, sales, and much more. So, it can help with bringing your customers and your business together. Salesforce was built through acquisitions, which means the associations and experience can be varied based on the products that you use. The steeper learning curve and requirement of more admin resources and budget can make costly CRM.
So, comparing both these CRMs on different grounds, you might have concluded that HubSpot is the winner. Most importantly, its user-friendly interface and attractive pricing, besides providing users with rich features make it a winner.