Is the HubSpot Free CRM Really Free? What you need to know!

Discovering the right CRM for your business is crucial, and HubSpot offers a free CRM option. However, it’s important to understand its limitations and whether it aligns with your specific needs.

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The Power of Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

In today’s business landscape, customers and prospects are undoubtedly the most valuable assets. Efficient and informed communication with potential customers drives new sales, while staying informed about existing and past customers fosters repeat business.To effectively manage and nurture these relationships, businesses require a centralised place to store and update all customer-related information. This is where a CRM (customer relationship management) platform comes into play, serving as a database for managing customer relationships and becoming essential for businesses operating in the digital space.

Is the HubSpot CRM truly free?

Absolutely! However, it’s important to understand its limitations.

Let’s explore what you can expect with the HubSpot CRM’s free version. This robust option allows you to store up to a million contacts in your HubSpot database, providing ample space for your customer information. Additionally, there are no restrictions on the number of users who can access and utilise this data, fostering collaboration within your team.

With the totally free version of the HubSpot CRM, you can store up to a million contacts in your HubSpot database, and you have an unlimited number of users on your team that can access that data. You also gain access to some of the tools to manage your database.

Free HubSpot CRM features include:

  • Content management
  • The ability to store companies that are associated with your contacts
  • The ability to store and track sales deals
  • The ability to track contact website activity
  • Gmail or Outlook integration
  • Limited sales productivity tools (like email scheduling, tickets, and meeting scheduling)
  • Access to email tracking, templates, and canned snippets
  • Access to calling
  • Access to third party integrations through the App Marketplace
  • Forms to capture leads throughout your site
  • Live chat and basic chatbots that can be embedded on your website

 

These features are a fantastic starting point for businesses embracing inbound marketing and sales, particularly for small or new ventures. However, it’s important to recognise that the free HubSpot CRM has its limitations.

What are the limitations of the free HubSpot CRM?

if your business is rapidly scaling or requires more advanced functionality, you may find that the free version falls short of your long-term needs. It’s crucial to consider these limitations and evaluate whether upgrading to a paid version would better support your growing business.

 

Here are the limitations of the free HubSpot CRM:

  • Limited Time-Saving Tools: While the free HubSpot CRM offers great features, it does not include time-saving tools like marketing automation and email marketing, which are crucial for streamlining manual processes.
  • Restricted Email Templates, Snippets, and Documents: With the free version, you have access to only five email templates, snippets, and documents. This limitation can hinder your ability to efficiently communicate with prospects and customers, especially when practicing assignment selling.
  • One Meeting Scheduling Link: The free CRM restricts you to using only one meeting scheduling link. This limitation prevents customisation and embedding, making it challenging to personalise the scheduling experience or provide multiple sales reps with their own meeting links.
  • No Access to Automated Features: Sales automation workflows, an essential tool for reducing manual actions and improving efficiency, are not available in the free version of the HubSpot CRM.

 

It’s important to consider these limitations when evaluating the suitability of the free HubSpot CRM for your business. While it provides a solid foundation, scaling up and running a full sales process and marketing operation may require the advanced features offered in the paid versions.

How long can you stay on the HubSpot Free CRM?

Simply put, if you can manage within the perimeters of the free CRM, you can stay on it forever.

Go Beyond Free Features: Trial the Full Version of CRM Solutions

When your business requirements exceed the limitations of free CRM features, it’s time to consider trialing the full version of CRM solutions. Unlock the complete range of features and functionalities with trial versions, allowing you to assess the software’s suitability for your specific needs.

Explore the following CRM solutions that offer trial versions encompassing all the features and capabilities of the software.

MOST POPULAR
  • Contact, deal & task management
  • Sales & marketing automation
  • Easy, free CRM
  • Intuitive interface
9.8

If you’re in the market for a free CRM that can actually get some work done, HubSpot is what you’re looking for.

It offers multiple pricing plans including a great free plan that doesn’t skimp too much on the features you need for client management.

HubSpot “Free” provides a customizable sales pipeline and quote proposal management at no cost, as well as the ability to view revenue data. Understandably, you won’t get all the organization and management features, but for free, you could do a lot worse.

With a contact limit of one million, HubSpot is suitable for businesses running larger customer service operations.

  • Users close 28% more deals on average
  • Provides 24/7 live support on all plans
  • Trello, Slack & Teams integrations
  • Easily schedule & customise sales actions
9.6

Pipedrive is a CRM system with a focus on usability.

The app’s clean interface supports a tidy visual pipeline – viewable from the ‘deals’ screen. Pipedrive has preset stages but you can easily edit their name, add, and remove them to create a custom pipeline that accurately reflects your unique customer relationships.

It might take a more dialed-back approach but sophisticated CRM tools are still available with Pipedrive.

And, thanks to its user-focussed design, you won’t have to suffer through complicated set up processes for new functions.

  • Flexible CRM software
  • Small business to enterprise
  • Filter to suite workflows
  • No coding required
8.8

Monday.com might be primarily known as a project management tool, but it’s also a full-featured CRM tool thanks to its fantastically customisable interface and huge arsenal of creative tools.

We identified monday’s top strengths as usability, customisation, and pricing. That’s because its an incredibly easy-to-use system that is also very wallet-friendly.

Once you sign up, you’re prompted to fill out a user-profile. This includes identifying an area you’d like to focus on (contact management, sales pipeline etc.).

The app is organised around a simple traffic-light system that categorises your workflow as either green (it’s completed), orange (I’m working on it), or red (I’m stuck), helping you to design a system that personalises the status of every customer relationship.

  • Maximize sales before the quarter closes
  • Easily track & analyse key metrics
  • Ultimate CRM for sales leaders
9.1

Maximizer is the ultimate solution for Sales Leaders.

Maximizer helps you get ahead of the game by combining leading AND lagging indicators to better predict – and influence – future sales performance. With Maximizer, you get unprecedented visibility into sales rep’s activity, making it easier to both track & analyse key metrics, as well as monitor & manage your sales reps in real-time – and maximize every single sales opportunity before the quarter closes.

Designed around your critical business processes. Your choice to use Maximizer’s pre-installed sales management tools OR quickly and easily configure your own custom workflows.

  • Customer management, marketing & sales in one place
  • Clean & easy to use interface
  • Feature-rich, flexible CRM software
8.6

Act! provides an all-in-one CRM and marketing automation solution at an incredibly reasonable price range that lets you automate repetitive tasks, market your business, manage leads, and reduce overhead.

Its powerful email campaign editor is a strength worth noting, as not many CRM platforms provide this.

Secondary to its rich features and price is the level of customer support, which is high compared to other small business CRMs.

Including CRM and Marketing Automation tools in one platform, it’s easy to market better, sell more, and create customers for life.

With over 35+ years in business, Act! has unparalleled industry know-how reflected in a robust, customizable CRM solution that is easily scalable as your business grows.

  • 360-degree customer view for complete context
  • Engage better with multi-channel capabilities
  • AI-powered insights that help sell smarter
  • Save time with advance automation capabilties
  • Boost productivity with intelligent insights
9.4

By trialing the full versions of these CRM solutions, you can evaluate their capabilities and assess how well they align with your business requirements.

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