It’s no secret that we at Spitfire Inbound are huge fans of HubSpot. After all, we’re a Diamond Agency Partner. You may have been looking around for marketing, sales and/or service software for your business and HubSpot popped up on your screen. Perhaps you’ve already decided to go with HubSpot for your business and have come to the important decision-making stage of which package to choose.
- Where do I start?
- Is free really free?
- The five hubs of HubSpot
- What to consider when choosing a package
HubSpot specialist at IMPACT, Carina Duffy, agrees that HubSpot is versatile enough to work for all types of companies and industries of various sizes. Carina says, "Before looking at the different features and costs of the different HubSpot Packages, take some time to think about what problems you’re looking for HubSpot to solve. As you consider the right tools for the job you need to think carefully about how the tool will be deployed in your business. Buying the tool is the easy part, making sure it is used effectively is much harder. My recommendation is that before you invest in a tool, you need to establish who will be the internal champion for its success and work out a project plan for the deployment of the system."
Where do I start?
When scoping a project, you need to identify your biggest challenge and decide which one to do first. Once you have the project and your priority scoped out then choosing the best tool for the job becomes much easier. Not only that, the chances of a successful adoption will be far greater.
Ensure that the solution you implement is working and then expand the solution into the other problem areas of your business, if it applies. A good way to do this is with a low-risk and low-cost offering, such as the free HubSpot CRM for you to dip your toes in the water and see what you’ll be able to do with HubSpot further down the line.
Is free really free?
HubSpot has free packages in the different hubs and who doesn’t love free software? HubSpot Free allows you to get free Gmail and Outlook integration, contact management, reporting, and other sales and marketing tools. These packages are free forever but are limited. The *best* free product HubSpot has is their CRM. It’s unlimited. That means unlimited users, contacts and access forever.
Read here on why Spitfire Inbound loves the HubSpot CRM.
(Caution HubSpot Free is easily addictive and you’ll love it so much that you’ll be hooked!)
As you reach certain milestones in your business growth journey, you’re going to want more from this great inbound marketing, sales and service software. In the same breath, starting with the top tier package isn’t always the best idea. Identifying your primary needs and the level of technology you need to solve them is critical to the project's success because too many changes at the same time can lead to overall project failure.
The Six Hubs of HubSpot
The six HubSpot Hubs: Marketing, Sales, Service, Operations, and CMS.
- Marketing Hub is a marketing automation tool which enables you to not only automate your marketing efforts but also consolidate your marketing tools (including social media management). With marketing hub you can also personalise your marketing efforts, increase conversion rates, and facilitate closed loop reporting. Marketing hub is a contact-based platform, so you pay for the number of contacts you market to.
- Sales Hubs is a sales CRM platform that offers an array of features designed to ensure your sales team spend their time and efforts on the prospect, not on admin. With this hub you can ensure that everyone has a single view of the customer, manage your pipeline, deepen relationships, and report on all sales efforts.
- Service Hub is a service based platform that focuses on delighting your customers. This hub offers a robust ticketing system, customer surveys, and self-service tools such as a knowledge base and chatbot.
- Content Hub is HubSpot’s content and website platform. While HubSpot integrates with all other CMS platforms like Wordpress, having your website built on HubSpot offers many great benefits. For one, when taking Content Hub, you get access to other tools available within HubSpot. HubSpot has also recently launched a free version of the Content hub.
- Operations Hub According to HubSpot, this hub “lets you easily sync, clean, and curate customer data, and automate business processes”. There are many benefits to Ops hub, but the key power in this hub lives in the programmable automation (which is available in pro and above).
- Commerce Hub is the newest addition to the HubSpot family. This hub gives you access to a range of tools which make payments easy. Integrated with Stripe, you can process payments from quotes or payments links. You can also create invoices, bringing all your needs into one place.
What to consider when choosing a package
Here are five considerations we’ve identified that will help you decide which HubSpot package is right for you, and your business.
1. Contacts
People (contacts) are the core of your sales, service and marketing strategies, so managing them is of utmost importance. Many businesses have a large contact database which they market to and these are ever growing!
One of the key questions when choosing the package you need is to look at the actively engaged contacts you currently have and decide accordingly. If you’re looking at using the Marketing hub, this is especially important as HubSpot marketing pricing is based on number of contacts. HubSpot calls these ‘Marketing Contacts’. The base packages each come with a number of contacts, pricing then increases based on the additional number of contacts you need
- 1,000 contacts with Starter (additional contacts in increments of 1000)
- 2,000 contacts with Professional (additional contacts in increments of 5000)
- 10,000 contacts with Enterprise (additional contacts in increments of 10,000)
The great thing about this format is that if you have multiple hubs (e.g marketing and sales) you are able to have a large number of non-marketing contacts which will not affect your pricing. You can read more about marketing contacts in our blog: What are HubSpot Marketing Contacts and how do they work?
2. Segmentation
Lists allow you to segment your database to ensure a more personalised experience for your prospects and customers. Hubspot free CRM allows for 5 smart lists and 25 static lists, and it goes up from there depending on your package.
Take a look at our HubSpot feature document for more details on the package limitations.
3. Automation
Automation is about making your marketing, sales, and service efforts seamless for both your staff and your customers. If you really want to get the most out of HubSpot for your business, automation is crucial.
When looking at which package you should choose, understanding the kind of automation you want is key. HubSpot offers two different kinds of automation.
- Workflows - available on all professional packages and above
- Sequences - available with sales or service professional and above
Workflows allow you to automate your marketing emails as well as your internal processes, while Sequences are designed to automate one-to-one personalised outreach.
4. Size of your sales or service team
All HubSpot packages will help you generate more leads. To be able to streamline and automate your sales or service process you will need to sign up for one of the paid packages.
Sales and Service starter both include 1 paid user or seat, while Pro includes 5 and Enterprise 10. Determining who requires the paid seats is important as the remainder of the team will have access to all of the features of Free. Like Marketing Contacts, if you need more sales or service seats, you would need to purchase additional seats at a price per seat.
The great thing about HubSpot is that not everyone will need a paid seat. So team members will be able to function perfectly as a basic user on HubSpot without needing to be allocated a paid seat. Deciding who would need a paid seat vs who can just be a user would be based on what functionality you need your team to have. For example, only paid users can access and send Sequences, but any user can create deals and manage them in the pipeline.
You can go to the HubSpot pricing page to get an idea of what you get with a paid seat.
5. Reporting
Reporting is fundamental for any business. Data is essentially what drives strategy. Without it, you’re shooting in the dark. All HubSpot packages come with some level of reporting. Depending on which hub you choose and which package, your reporting options become more robust.
When looking at which package you need, the level of reporting needed should be taken into account. For example, with a professional package you’ll get access to custom reports while an Enterprise package gives you revenue reporting. Then what you can report on also depends on which package you choose. With Marketing hub you get contact attribution reporting, while sales hub gives you deal and revenue attribution reporting.
No matter which HubSpot package you decide to go with, ensure that your business is ready and committed, much like any new technology, HubSpot requires some user adoption. Your tiered HubSpot partner agency will work with you as you grow, to guide you in the direction of the right package for you, and keep you up-to-date with all new HubSpot developments.
Ready to get started? Sign up for HubSpot free now.
