Free forever for two users, and honest about exactly where it stops
HubSpot CRM is the free contact, company, deal, and ticket database at the centre of HubSpot's customer platform, usable indefinitely at no cost by up to two users with email and calendar sync, meeting links, forms, live chat, and one deal pipeline, and upgraded through the separately priced Sales Hub subscription when a team needs sequences at volume, workflow automation, custom reporting, or forecasting.
Overview
HubSpot gave away a CRM in 2014 to feed its marketing software, and the giveaway worked so well that the free CRM is now how most small businesses meet the company. You get contacts, companies, deals, and tickets on a single shared timeline, forms, live chat, meeting links, email tracking, and a mobile app, with no expiry and no credit card. HubSpot's own Sales pricing page states the terms plainly: $0 per month, free for up to two users. Judged on its own terms it is the most capable free CRM available, and nothing else in the category is close.
The interesting question about a free product is where it stops, and HubSpot's edges are specific rather than vague. The free plan supports two users, so the third hire forces a decision. It gives one deal pipeline, which is workable for a single sales motion and cramped for two. Everything public-facing carries HubSpot branding: forms, chat widget, meeting links, marketing email. Custom properties, templates, and documents all sit under low caps. Most consequentially, there is no multi-step workflow automation and no sequence volume worth the name, so follow-up stays manual.
Those limits are deliberate, and they are the product strategy rather than an oversight. The free CRM is the top of a funnel whose paid step is Sales Hub, a separate subscription priced at $7, $90, and $150 per seat per month on annual billing, with required one-time onboarding fees of $1,500 and $3,500 on the upper two tiers. That ladder is documented in full on the Sales Hub profile, because it is a different purchase with a different buyer and deserves to be priced on its own merits rather than treated as an add-on to something free.
The right way to use HubSpot CRM is therefore to take it at face value and stay on it until a limit genuinely bites. For a founder, a two-person consultancy, or a company that simply wants correspondence attached to contact records, the free tier is a complete answer that costs nothing and will keep working indefinitely. The upgrade decision is a real decision to be made later on real numbers, not a foregone conclusion, and plenty of small teams that hit the wall are better served moving to Pipedrive or Zoho CRM than climbing HubSpot's ladder.
What you are also buying, at zero cost, is optionality. The free CRM sits on the same object graph as Marketing Hub, Service Hub, and the content and commerce tooling, so a company that later needs campaign-to-revenue attribution can get it by adding a subscription rather than running an integration project. HubSpot is a NYSE-listed company (HUBS) that reported 306,446 customers and $911.7 million of revenue in the second quarter of 2026 with roughly 8,900 employees, so the free tier is not a startup's goodwill that might evaporate next year.
Best for
One and two-person businesses that want a genuinely capable CRM at no cost, and small companies that want a free system of record today with a credible upgrade path to one shared marketing, sales, and service platform later.
Not the right fit for
- Teams of three or more who need everyone in the CRM; the free plan is listed as free for up to two users, so the third person forces a paid seat.
- Anyone who needs automated follow-up; sequences at volume and multi-step workflow automation are Sales Hub features, and no amount of configuration works around that on the free tier.
- Businesses running more than one sales motion, because a single deal pipeline cannot cleanly separate new business from renewals.
- Companies that cannot show HubSpot branding on customer-facing forms, chat, and meeting links, which is the main constraint the $7 Starter seat lifts.
- Teams expecting the free tier to stay sufficient as they grow; it is designed as the top of a funnel whose next real step is $90 per seat per month plus a $1,500 onboarding fee.
How it works
- 1
You sign up free, connect Gmail or Outlook, and HubSpot begins logging email and meetings against contact records automatically. Contacts, companies, deals, and tickets share one timeline, so a support ticket and a sales thread appear on the same record.
- 2
Deals move through pipelines with stages you define, and the free tier gives you one pipeline while paid tiers raise that to as many as 100 on Enterprise. Tasks, meeting links, quotes, and email templates cover the daily rep workflow.
- 3
Automation is the tier boundary. Free and Starter offer only simple, limited automated actions; Professional unlocks the full workflow builder with branching, enrolment triggers, and sequences at meaningful volume, plus custom report building and forecasting. This is the line teams cross when the CRM has to do work rather than store data.
- 4
Everything else in HubSpot's platform attaches to the same object graph. Marketing Hub adds campaigns and landing pages, Service Hub adds ticketing and a knowledge base, and Breeze AI features consume credits from your tier's monthly allowance. External systems connect through a large app marketplace, a comprehensive REST API with published per-second and daily call limits by tier, and webhooks on higher plans.
Feature breakdown
24 features in 4 modulesFree CRM foundation
What you get for nothing, and where it stops.- Contacts, companies, deals, and tickets
- One shared object graph with a unified activity timeline, so sales, marketing, and support activity appear on the same record from day one.
- Email and calendar sync
- Gmail and Outlook connections log correspondence and meetings automatically, with a browser extension and mailbox sidebar for working from the inbox.
- Meeting scheduling links
- Booking pages tied to your calendar, included free, which removes the need for a separate scheduling subscription for small teams.
- Forms, live chat, and a basic chatbot
- Lead capture on the website feeds contacts directly into the CRM; on the free tier everything carries HubSpot branding.
- One deal pipeline
- The free tier is limited to a single pipeline with a small allowance of custom properties, which is workable for one sales motion and cramped for two.
- Documents and email templates
- Shared template and document libraries with basic tracking, capped at low counts on free and lifted on paid tiers.
The rest of the free toolkit
Everything else included at $0, which is more than most paid entry tiers.- Tasks and activity queues
- Task creation, due dates, and a daily queue attached to records, so follow-up is tracked without a separate to-do app.
- Email tracking and notifications
- Open and click notifications on tracked email with a limited monthly allowance, surfaced in the browser and on the CRM timeline.
- Snippets and canned responses
- Short reusable text blocks callable from the inbox and from chat, capped at a small library on the free tier.
- Shared conversations inbox
- A team inbox collecting chat, email, and form submissions into one queue, so a two-person company does not need a separate helpdesk.
- Standard reporting dashboards
- A small allowance of prebuilt dashboards covering deals, activity, and contacts. Report building is not included; these are the reports HubSpot ships.
- iOS and Android apps
- Full mobile access to records, deals, tasks, and email with a keyboard extension for templates, included free and competitive with Pipedrive's, which is the category benchmark.
Where the free tier stops
The specific edges, because they decide when this becomes a paid product.- Two users
- HubSpot's Sales pricing page lists the free plan as free for up to two users. The third person on the team is the most common trigger for a paid seat, and it arrives earlier than most buyers expect.
- One deal pipeline
- A single pipeline with a small custom property allowance. Fine for one sales motion, cramped the moment renewals or a second product need separating.
- HubSpot branding on everything public
- Forms, live chat, meeting links, and marketing email all carry HubSpot branding on the free tier. Removing it is the main thing the $7 Starter seat buys.
- No multi-step workflow automation
- Free and Starter both get only simple, limited automated actions. The branching workflow builder is a Sales Hub Professional feature, and this is the single most consequential gate in the product.
- No sequences at working volume
- Automated multi-step follow-up is not a free capability. Starter includes it at limits low enough that Professional is the practical starting point for a real motion.
- No custom report builder
- Cross-object custom reports and forecasting against quotas both sit on Sales Hub Professional. The free tier gives you the dashboards HubSpot ships and nothing you design yourself.
Platform, seats, and administration
The seat model matters as much as the tier price.- Core Seats and Sales Hub Seats
- Sales Hub seats carry the sales tooling; Core Seats ($20, $50, or $75 per seat per month on Starter, Professional, or Enterprise) give non-sales staff edit access to shared CRM data. Budgeting for both is the most common HubSpot pricing mistake.
- Free view-only seats
- Unlimited free view-only seats inside a paid portal, so executives and delivery staff can read the CRM without a licence.
- Permissions and teams
- Role-based permission sets, team hierarchies, and field-level controls, with the most granular options reserved for Enterprise.
- App marketplace
- One of the largest ecosystems in business software, with well over a thousand listed integrations covering accounting, telephony, e-signature, data, and support.
- REST API and webhooks
- A comprehensive public API with OAuth apps and published rate limits that scale by tier; webhooks and higher call allowances sit on paid plans.
- Data quality tooling
- Duplicate management, format fixing, and property recommendations, with the automated data-quality tooling weighted toward higher tiers.
Use cases
4 documentedTwo-person startup with no CRM at all
Deals live in a spreadsheet and email, and there is no budget for software until revenue arrives.
The free CRM covers both users indefinitely with contacts, one pipeline, meeting links, email tracking, forms, and live chat, so the company runs at zero cost until the third hire forces a decision.
Marketing-led B2B company unifying its stack
Campaigns run in one tool, the sales pipeline in another, and support in a third, so nobody can attribute a closed deal to the campaign that started it.
One shared contact record across Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, and Service Hub gives real closed-loop attribution, which is HubSpot's strongest structural argument and the reason companies tolerate the price.
Ten-person sales team crossing the automation line
Reps need sequences, routing, custom reports, and a forecast, all of which the free and Starter tiers withhold.
Sales Hub Professional delivers it in one purchase, at roughly $900 a month for ten seats plus a one-time $1,500 onboarding fee, which is the moment to seriously price Pipedrive and Zoho against it.
Agency or consultancy standardising client work
The team implements CRM for clients and wants a platform with certifications, partner tooling, and a hiring pool that already knows the software.
HubSpot's partner programme, academy certifications, and marketplace make staffing and repeatable implementation easier than any competitor in this category.
Pricing
from $0 for up to 2 usersFree forever for up to two users, with no credit card. The paid path is the separately priced Sales Hub subscription, sold per seat, plus Core Seats for staff who only need shared CRM access and free unlimited view-only seats.
| Plan | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Free CRM | $0 for up to 2 users, no credit card |
Genuinely useful and genuinely capped. The third user and the first automation both cost money. |
| Sales Hub Starter | $7 per seat per month, billed annually ($20 per seat billed monthly) |
The natural next step from free, and a cosmetic one: it lifts caps without changing how a team works. |
| Sales Hub Professional and Enterprise | $90 and $150 per seat per month, billed annually, plus one-time onboarding fees of $1,500 and $3,500 |
A separate purchase with a separate buyer. Read the Sales Hub assessment before assuming the upgrade is automatic. |
Add-ons
- Core Seat ($20 (Starter), $50 (Professional), or $75 (Enterprise) per seat per month): Edit access to shared CRM data for staff who do not need Sales Hub tooling.
- Free view-only seats ($0, unlimited): Read access inside a paid portal, so the wider company can see the CRM without licences.
- Marketing Hub (Priced separately by tier and marketing contact volume): The companion purchase that makes closed-loop attribution work, and the usual source of bill growth.
Billing notes
- The free plan is permanent and listed on HubSpot's Sales pricing page as free for up to two users with no credit card required.
- The free tier's binding limits are the two-user cap, one deal pipeline, HubSpot branding on public assets, and the absence of multi-step workflow automation.
- The paid path is Sales Hub, sold per seat at $7, $90, and $150 per seat per month on annual billing, with required one-time onboarding fees of $1,500 on Professional and $3,500 on Enterprise.
- View-only seats are free and unlimited inside a paid portal, and seat minimums were removed in the 2024 restructure.
- Prices are the published US rates confirmed on hubspot.com/pricing/sales in September 2026.
Value assessment: As a free product this is unbeatable and should be judged as one: two users, a real CRM, no expiry, and a public company behind it, for nothing. The value question only becomes hard at the upgrade, and it should be asked there rather than assumed. Starter at $7 a seat is worth it purely to remove branding. Professional at $90 a seat plus $1,500 of onboarding is a different order of decision, and one where Pipedrive Growth at $39 and Zoho CRM Professional at $23 do the pipeline job for a fraction. The honest summary is that the free tier is a gift and the paid ladder is a market-rate platform purchase, and the two deserve to be evaluated separately.
Entry price history
Entry price unchanged since 26 September 2026, last confirmed on 27 September 2026.
| Checked | Entry price | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| 27 September 2026 | $0 for up to 2 users | Re-checked, unchanged |
| 26 September 2026 | $0 for up to 2 users | First recorded |
Dates are when SaaSTracker checked the vendor’s published pricing, not when the vendor changed it. See the price changes log for movements across the whole database.
Strengths & limitations
Strengths
- The strongest free tier in the category by a wide margin, usable indefinitely and complete enough to run a two-person company's sales.
- One shared record across marketing, sales, service, content, and commerce, which delivers closed-loop attribution that stitched-together stacks rarely achieve.
- Enormous ecosystem: over a thousand marketplace apps, a mature API, a certified partner network, and a hiring pool that already knows the product.
- The Professional workflow builder and custom report builder are genuinely excellent, and materially deeper than Pipedrive or Capsule at any tier.
- Vendor stability is about as good as software gets: NYSE-listed, roughly 306,000 customers, about 8,900 employees, and revenue growing around 20 percent year on year.
- Free unlimited view-only seats mean the whole company can read the CRM without licence sprawl, which few competitors offer.
Limitations
- The Starter to Professional gap is a cliff, not a step: $7 to $90 per seat plus a $1,500 onboarding fee, with sequences at volume, workflow automation, custom reporting, and forecasting all on the far side.
- The free plan is capped at two users, so the third hire forces a paid decision earlier than most buyers expect.
- Custom objects are Enterprise-only, so unusual data models are handled with custom properties until you are paying $150 a seat.
- AI credit metering adds a variable line item and makes total cost harder to forecast than flat per-seat competitors.
- The seat taxonomy (Sales Hub seats, Core Seats, view-only seats) is confusing and regularly produces quotes that are higher than buyers modelled.
- Lock-in is real: once marketing assets, workflows, ticketing, and reporting all live on one object graph, leaving is a programme of work rather than a CSV export.
Head-to-head comparisons
8 alternativesHubSpot CRM vs Pipedrive
from $14 per user per month on annual billing (Lite)Pipedrive Growth at $39 a seat gives a working sales team email sync, 50 automations, sequences, and forecasting for less than half the cost of Sales Hub Professional, with no onboarding fee. HubSpot wins on platform breadth, reporting depth, and the free starting point. Choose HubSpot when marketing and sales must share one system; choose Pipedrive when the job is pipeline discipline and the budget is real.
Full HubSpot CRM vs Pipedrive comparisonHubSpot CRM vs Zoho CRM
from $0 for up to 3 users, then $14 per user per month on annual billing (Standard)Zoho Professional at $23 per user per month covers process automation, forecasting, and unlimited reports for roughly a quarter of Sales Hub Professional, and Zoho One extends the same logic across an entire suite. HubSpot's interface, marketplace, and partner ecosystem are far better. Buyers optimising for capability per dollar take Zoho; buyers optimising for adoption, polish, and hiring take HubSpot.
Full HubSpot CRM vs Zoho CRM comparisonHubSpot CRM vs Nutshell
from $13 per user per month on annual billing (Foundation)Nutshell bundles email marketing, forms, landing pages, and a chatbot into every tier from $13 per user per month, which is a small-scale version of HubSpot's marketing-plus-sales pitch at a fraction of the price. HubSpot is deeper on automation, reporting, and ecosystem by a wide margin. Under about 20 people with modest marketing needs, Nutshell is the value answer; above that, HubSpot's platform depth starts to justify itself.
Full HubSpot CRM vs Nutshell comparisonHubSpot CRM vs Less Annoying CRM
from $15 per user per monthLess Annoying CRM is $15 per user per month flat with every feature included and a support team that answers the phone; HubSpot is free to start and then a platform with a steep upgrade path. Very small businesses that want simple contact and follow-up management and no upsell should take Less Annoying CRM. Companies that expect to need marketing automation and reporting within two years should start on HubSpot's free tier instead.
Full HubSpot CRM vs Less Annoying CRM comparisonHubSpot CRM vs Attio
from $35/user/mo (Plus, billed annually; $44 monthly)Attio is the modern, flexible CRM with custom objects on mid tiers, workflow automation, and AI agents from $35 a seat, with AI usage metered in credits. HubSpot has vastly more surface area and a marketing engine attached. Startups that want a fast, configurable system of record for a non-standard sales motion should pick Attio; companies whose growth engine is content, forms, and campaigns should pick HubSpot.
Full HubSpot CRM vs Attio comparisonHubSpot CRM vs folk
from $24/member/mo (Standard, billed annually; $30 monthly)folk is the light relationship CRM for network-driven deals, cheap and quick to adopt, with LinkedIn-first capture. HubSpot is a full platform with automation, ticketing, and marketing behind the same record. Small agencies, investors, and consultancies that sell through relationships fit folk; anyone building a repeatable inbound funnel fits HubSpot.
Full HubSpot CRM vs folk comparisonHubSpot CRM vs Close
from $9/user/mo (Solo, billed annually; $19 monthly)Close is built for teams that talk on the phone all day: native calling, SMS, power and predictive dialers, and Smart Views that turn the CRM into a prioritized queue, from $9 a seat annually. It is bootstrapped, thirteen years old, and deliberately simple, which also means no custom objects, no landing pages, no nurture campaigns, and no attribution. HubSpot gives you a free tier for two users, one record shared across marketing, sales, and service, and a thousand-app ecosystem, then charges $90 a seat plus $1,500 onboarding when you need real automation. Choose Close for call volume; choose HubSpot when marketing and sales have to be the same system.
Full HubSpot CRM vs Close comparisonHubSpot CRM vs HubSpot Sales Hub
from $7 per seat per month on annual billing for Starter, rising to $90 for ProfessionalNot really rivals: one is the free database and the other is the paid subscription that automates it. HubSpot CRM is free forever for up to two users and covers contacts, companies, deals, tickets, email sync, meeting links, forms, and live chat. Sales Hub adds sequences at volume, branching workflow automation, custom reporting, forecasting, playbooks, and call coaching, from $7 per seat per month for the cosmetic Starter tier and $90 plus $1,500 of required onboarding for the Professional tier that actually carries those features. Stay free until a limit bites, which is usually the third user or the first request for automated follow-up, then judge Sales Hub Professional against Pipedrive and Zoho on its own merits rather than upgrading by default.
Full HubSpot CRM vs HubSpot Sales Hub comparisonPairs well with
Reviewed September 2026HubSpot CRM is a CRM tool, and a team running it still has 7 neighbouring categories to staff. The pick in each is Smartlead for cold email outreach, Grasshopper for dialers & business phone, Fathom for AI meeting note takers, SignWell for proposals & e-signature, zcal for scheduling & booking, Lusha for B2B data providers and EngageBay for marketing automation, each the leading tool in that category on published criteria.
- SmartleadCold Email Outreach · Best Value
- Because
- HubSpot CRM lists the Starter to Professional gap is a cliff, not a step among its limits. Smartlead adds aggressive volume pricing at Pro tier and above.
- Benefit
- Outreach goes out on a schedule and replies land in one place instead of a personal inbox.
- GrasshopperDialers & Business Phone · Best Value
- Because
- HubSpot CRM sends buyers elsewhere for more than one sales motion. Grasshopper adds flat pricing with unlimited users.
- Benefit
- Reps dial straight from the record with the call logged, instead of a phone and a spreadsheet.
- FathomAI Meeting Note Takers · Best Value
- Because
- HubSpot CRM lists the free plan is capped at two users among its limits. Fathom adds team pricing at $15 to $19 per seat undercuts the individual Premium.
- Benefit
- Nobody types notes during a call, and what was promised on it is searchable afterwards.
- SignWellProposals & E-signature · Best Value
- Because
- HubSpot CRM lists the seat taxonomy is confusing and regularly produces quotes among its limits. SignWell adds cheaper than the incumbents for the same practical job.
- Benefit
- A quote goes out the same day and comes back signed, with a record of who opened it.
- zcalScheduling & Booking · Best Value
- Because
- HubSpot CRM lists custom objects are Enterprise-only among its limits. zcal adds self-serve at every tier with no enterprise quote wall.
- Benefit
- Meetings get booked in one click at times that are genuinely free, with no back and forth.
- LushaB2B Data Providers · Best Value
- Because
- HubSpot CRM is built for CRM, not data. Lusha adds useful free tier.
- Benefit
- Lists get built in minutes from filters, rather than bought, scraped, or typed out by hand.
- EngageBayMarketing Automation · Best Value
- Because
- HubSpot CRM lists AI credit metering adds a variable line item and makes total among its limits. EngageBay adds a single shared contact record across marketing, sales.
- Benefit
- Follow-up fires off behaviour rather than a calendar, so nobody is chased at the wrong moment.
Pairings follow the methodology: the leading tool in each complementary category, chosen on published criteria. Placement cannot be purchased.
Full HubSpot CRM stackImplementation & onboarding
- Setup time
- The free CRM is usable in under an hour: sign up, connect the mailbox, import a CSV. A Professional implementation with workflows, lifecycle stages, custom reports, and lead routing is a 4 to 8 week project, which is precisely why the mandatory onboarding fee exists.
- Learning curve
- Low for reps, who mostly work from the inbox extension and the prospecting workspace. Moderate to high for administrators, because lifecycle stages, workflow enrolment logic, association labels, and permission structures all interact and are easy to get wrong in ways that surface months later.
- Onboarding
- Self-serve on free and Starter. Professional and Enterprise require paid onboarding ($1,500 and $3,500 respectively) delivered by HubSpot or a solutions partner. HubSpot Academy is the best free training library of any vendor in this category and is a genuine reason the ecosystem is deep.
- Migration notes
- Importing is easy: CSV import with association mapping plus guided importers from common CRMs including Salesforce and Pipedrive. Getting out is harder in practice than in theory, because records, properties, and engagements export cleanly but workflows, sequences, reports, marketing assets, and ticketing logic do not travel, and companies that have adopted the full platform find the exit cost is rebuilding processes rather than moving rows.
Platform, API & security
- Platforms
- Web appiOSAndroidGmail and Outlook extensionsChrome extension
- API
- Comprehensive REST API with OAuth apps, GraphQL for CMS data, and webhooks on paid tiers; call limits are published per portal and scale with subscription tier, with additional API capacity purchasable.
- Compliance
- SOC 2 Type 2GDPRHIPAA support on eligible higher-tier subscriptions
- Data residency
- Customer data hosting in the United States and the European Union, selected at portal creation.
- SSO
- SSO and SAML available on higher tiers; Google and Microsoft login supported broadly.
- Security notes
- Two-factor authentication, role-based permissions, field-level controls, audit logging on Enterprise, and a public trust centre with sub-processor and status reporting. As a public company, HubSpot publishes the security artefacts that procurement teams expect.
Support & resources
- Channels
- Community and knowledge base on the free tierEmail, in-app chat, and phone support from StarterPriority support on higher tiersPaid onboarding required on Professional and Enterprise
- Documentation
- Extensive product knowledge base, a large developer portal with API references and app-building guides, and HubSpot Academy for structured certification courses.
- Community
- One of the largest user communities in B2B software, with an active forum, a global partner and solutions-provider network, user groups, and INBOUND, the vendor's annual conference.
Company
- Founded
- 2006
- Headquarters
- Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
- Ownership
- Public company (NYSE: HUBS)
- Founders
- Brian Halligan, Dharmesh Shah
- Employees
- Approximately 8,900 (reported at the end of 2025)
- Funding
- Venture-backed through a 2014 IPO on the NYSE; reported 306,446 customers and $911.7 million of revenue in the second quarter of 2026, with full-year 2026 revenue guided at roughly $3.68 billion.
Funding history
| Round | Amount | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Venture rounds | Approximately $100M | 2007 | Backed by General Catalyst, Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Google Ventures across pre-IPO rounds. |
| IPO | Listed on the NYSE | 2014 | Went public under the ticker HUBS in October 2014. |
Timeline
- 2006Founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah around the inbound marketing thesis.
- 2014Lists on the NYSE under HUBS and launches a free CRM designed to feed the marketing product; the giveaway becomes the company's largest acquisition channel.
- 2020Repositions from a marketing company to a multi-hub customer platform, with Sales Hub, Service Hub, and CMS sharing a single contact record.
- 2024Restructures pricing into a seats model, removing seat minimums, introducing Core Seats, and making view-only seats free and unlimited.
- 2025Ships the Breeze AI layer across hubs and moves AI consumption onto a HubSpot Credits meter allotted by tier.
- 2026Reports 306,446 customers and $911.7 million of second-quarter revenue, with roughly 8,900 employees and full-year revenue guided near $3.68 billion.
Integrations
- Gmail and Google Workspace
- Microsoft 365 and Outlook
- Slack
- Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet
- Stripe and QuickBooks
- Shopify and WooCommerce
- Aircall, JustCall, and other telephony providers
- DocuSign and PandaDoc
- Zapier and Make
- Public REST API, webhooks, and an app marketplace with well over a thousand listings
Frequently asked questions
13 questionsIs HubSpot CRM really free?
Yes, and permanently, but with hard edges. HubSpot's Sales pricing page lists the free plan as supporting up to two users. You get contacts, companies, deals, and tickets on one timeline, email and calendar sync, meeting links, forms, live chat, and limited automated actions, with HubSpot branding on public-facing assets and low caps on custom properties, templates, and marketing email sends. Sequences and multi-step workflow automation are not included.
Where exactly does the free tier stop?
It stops at the third user, at the second deal pipeline, at multi-step workflow automation, at sequences run at any real volume, at custom reporting, and at removing HubSpot branding. Widely reported free-plan caps also include roughly 1,000 contacts on the marketing side and a small custom property allowance. In practice most companies outgrow it when they hire a third person or need automated follow-up.
How many users does the free HubSpot CRM allow?
Two. HubSpot's Sales pricing page lists the free plan as $0 per month, free for up to two users, with no credit card required. There is no way to add a third person without buying a paid seat, and that cap is the most common reason small teams leave the free tier. Note that view-only seats are free and unlimited only inside a paid portal, so they do not extend the free plan.
What is the catch with HubSpot's free CRM?
There is no catch in the sense of hidden costs or an expiry date; the plan is permanent and needs no card. The catch is scope. Two users, one deal pipeline, HubSpot branding on every public-facing form, chat widget, and meeting link, low caps on custom properties and templates, no multi-step workflow automation, and no sequences at working volume. Everything that automates or measures the sales process sits in the paid Sales Hub subscription above it.
Does HubSpot support custom objects?
Only on Enterprise at $150 per seat per month. Below that you extend the standard contact, company, deal, and ticket objects with custom properties. Small teams that genuinely need custom object types will get them far cheaper from Zoho CRM's custom modules or from Attio's object designer.
How does HubSpot meter AI?
AI features draw on HubSpot Credits, allotted monthly by tier at 500 on Starter, 3,000 on Professional, and 5,000 on Enterprise, with additional credits purchasable. That makes AI a variable cost rather than an included feature, so teams planning heavy AI drafting, research, or agent use should model credit consumption before committing.
How good is the HubSpot mobile app?
Good. The iOS and Android apps cover records, deals, tasks, calling, and email with a usable offline-tolerant experience, and the mobile keyboard extension lets reps use templates and snippets from any messaging app. It is competitive with Pipedrive's, which is the benchmark in this category.
How hard is it to leave HubSpot?
Exporting data is straightforward: contacts, companies, deals, tickets, properties, and engagements all export by CSV or through the API. The difficulty is everything that is not data. Workflows, sequences, custom reports, lifecycle logic, marketing assets, forms, and ticketing pipelines do not migrate, so companies that adopted the full platform face rebuilding processes elsewhere rather than a simple import.
What size of team is HubSpot CRM built for?
The free tier is built for one or two people. Starter suits very small teams that want a tidy front end. Sales Hub Professional is genuinely built for teams of roughly 10 to 200 who need automation, reporting, and forecasting and have someone to administer it. Between 3 and 10 people is the awkward zone where Pipedrive, Zoho, or Freshsales usually win on price.
Who owns HubSpot and how stable is it?
HubSpot is a public company listed on the NYSE under HUBS, founded in 2006 in Cambridge, Massachusetts by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah. It reported 306,446 customers and $911.7 million of revenue in the second quarter of 2026, employs roughly 8,900 people, and guided full-year 2026 revenue to about $3.68 billion. Vendor risk is minimal.
What should I pair HubSpot CRM with?
HubSpot CRM is a CRM tool, and a team running it still has 7 neighbouring categories to staff. The pick in each is Smartlead for cold email outreach, Grasshopper for dialers & business phone, Fathom for AI meeting note takers, SignWell for proposals & e-signature, zcal for scheduling & booking, Lusha for B2B data providers and EngageBay for marketing automation, each the leading tool in that category on published criteria.
What do I pair with HubSpot CRM for Cold Email Outreach?
Smartlead. HubSpot CRM lists the Starter to Professional gap is a cliff, not a step among its limits. Smartlead adds aggressive volume pricing at Pro tier and above.
Is HubSpot CRM enough on its own?
For CRM, yes. HubSpot CRM does not cover dialers & business phone, AI meeting note takers and proposals & e-signature, and its own profile says so; Grasshopper, Fathom and SignWell are the tools that fill those gaps.
Editorial verdict
Take it. HubSpot CRM is the best free CRM available and there is no catch worth worrying about at two users: contacts, deals, email sync, meeting links, forms, and live chat, permanently, with a NYSE-listed company behind it. Use it until a limit actually bites, and know in advance which one will, because it is almost always the third user or the first request for automated follow-up. What matters is that the upgrade is then a genuine decision rather than a formality. The paid step is Sales Hub at $90 per seat per month plus $1,500 of required onboarding for the tier that carries the automation, and at that price Pipedrive Growth and Zoho CRM Professional deserve a serious hearing. Start free without hesitation, then price the alternatives properly when the wall arrives.
Written by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Awards, when shown, are judged against the published criteria in our methodology.
Awards & badges
1 heldHubSpot CRM holds 1 award from the SaaSTracker editorial program. Badges may be displayed by the vendor; each embed links back to this profile.
Category Leader · Sales CRM
“The free CRM that defined the modern entry point, with the deepest ecosystem a small business can grow into.”
<a href="https://saastracker.org/products/hubspot-crm"><img src="https://saastracker.org/badges/embed/hubspot-crm/category-leader-summer-2026.svg?v=2" width="180" height="180" alt="HubSpot CRM: Category Leader, Sales CRM. SaaSTracker Summer 2026 Awards." /></a>