Head to head
HubSpot vs Salesforce for a small team
HubSpot and Salesforce both start small and grow into large platforms. For a team of five or ten that sells, answers support email, takes calls and sends marketing email, they differ most in where each puts support, calling and the help center.
HubSpot and Salesforce, need by need
| What a small team needs | HubSpot | Salesforce |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts, companies and a deals pipeline | Yes, in every paid hub: contacts, companies and deal pipelines (15 pipelines on Starter, 100 on Professional). [A1] | Yes, on every suite: accounts, contacts, leads and opportunities. [B1] |
| Support email as cases in a shared queue | Tickets and a help desk inbox in Service Hub. [A1] | Email-to-case and case management on Starter Suite. [B1] |
| Knowledge articles and a public help center | Service Hub Professional and up: one knowledge base with 2,000 articles. Not on Starter. [A1] | Knowledge on Starter Suite; a public help center from Service Cloud Core ($195 a person). [B1][B2] |
| Calls in the browser, with recording and transfer | Calls in the browser with recording, on HubSpot numbers: 500 minutes a month for the account on Starter, 3,000 on Professional; more at $50 per 1,000. [A1][A2] | Sales Dialer from Pro Suite, $5 a user, for click-to-dial. Salesforce Voice with Partner Telephony from Service Cloud Core, from $50 a user, plus the partner’s charges. [B3][B4] |
| A phone menu for callers | Professional and up. A menu branch rings one person only if that person holds an Enterprise seat. [A1][A3] | Not on any Starter or Pro Suite pricing page; Contact Center ($125 a user) brings its own phone menu. [B1][B5] |
| Marketing email to about 2,000 people | Marketing Hub, a separate hub: Starter includes 1,000 marketing contacts, $50 a month for each 1,000 more. [A1] | Email campaigns on Starter and Pro Suite, with 2,000 sends a month; more at $10 per 1,000. [B1][B6] |
| Automation | Workflows: 50 on Starter, 300 on Professional. [A1] | Flows from Pro Suite. [B1] |
| Roles and who sees what | Permission templates on Starter and Professional; custom permission sets on Enterprise. [A1] | Roles and permissions on every suite. [B1] |
| An API and webhooks | Yes, with daily limits by edition. [A4] | A $25 add-on on Pro Suite; included from Core. [B1] |
What five and ten people would pay
A team that sells, answers support email with a knowledge base, takes calls with a phone menu and sends marketing email to 2,000 people. List prices, per month, paid yearly, in US dollars, before tax.
| What the team buys | 5 people | 10 people |
|---|---|---|
| HubSpot: Service Hub Professional for every person (tickets, the knowledge base, calling with a phone menu and the CRM’s deals), Marketing Hub Starter for email, and room for 2,000 marketing contacts. | ||
| Service Hub Professional, $100 a seat [A1] | $500 | $1,000 |
| Marketing Hub Starter, one seat [A1] | $20 | $20 |
| 1,000 more marketing contacts on Starter [A1] | $50 | $50 |
| HubSpot, about (and $1,500 required onboarding for Service Hub Professional) | $570 | $1,070 |
| Salesforce: Starter Suite for the CRM, cases, knowledge and email campaigns, with Aircall Professional — the Aircall plan that integrates with Salesforce — for calling with a phone menu. | ||
| Salesforce Starter Suite, $25 a user [B1] | $125 | $250 |
| Aircall Professional, $50 a license [B7] | $250 | $500 |
| Email campaigns, 2,000 sends a month included [B6] | $0 | $0 |
| Salesforce, about | $375 | $750 |
HubSpot: HubSpot’s catalog list prices. HubSpot’s catalog prices every Core Seat at the highest edition in an account, so the Marketing Hub seat may be $50 rather than $20. Minutes past the account’s 3,000 a month, and taxes, are not included. HubSpot’s pricing page draws its prices with a script and was not read; on October 11, 2026 it showed Service Hub Professional at $90 a seat paid yearly.
Salesforce: Starter Suite has no public help center; that starts at Service Cloud Core, $195 a person. Whether Aircall’s Salesforce integration works on Starter Suite, which has no API access, is not stated on either vendor’s pages. Leaves out international calls and taxes.
For a team of 3 people or fewer, ContactRoll Free costs nothing: 1,000 contacts, one pipeline, one support address, calling through your own Twilio account, and 500 marketing emails a month (Free’s limits). HubSpot’s free tools are for up to 2 users, with 2,000 marketing email sends a month that carry HubSpot’s branding. (HubSpot’s pricing page, read .) Salesforce’s Free Suite is for up to 2 users, with up to 100 marketing emails a month. (Salesforce’s pricing page, read .)
Which suits your team
HubSpot suits a team when
- You want support with a knowledge base, calling with a phone menu and the CRM in one product, and accept a $1,500 onboarding fee to start.
- Your team will use HubSpot’s AI agents and its app marketplace.
Salesforce suits a team when
- You want the lowest entry price for a CRM with cases, knowledge and email campaigns: Starter Suite is $25 a user, monthly or yearly.
- You expect to grow into Sales Cloud or Service Cloud and the AppExchange.
Where ContactRoll fits
ContactRoll is one product for a small team’s sales, support, calls and marketing email, with one record of each customer. On Plus, at $59 a person a month paid yearly, five people come to $295 and ten to $590, with calls billed by Twilio to your own account, with no markup. Contacts exported from HubSpot or Salesforce and saved as a CSV file import into ContactRoll, which shows what each row will do before it writes anything.
A HubSpot alternative for small teams · A Salesforce alternative for small teams · Pricing
Questions
Is HubSpot or Salesforce cheaper for a small team?
For the team on this page, Salesforce Starter Suite with Aircall for calls comes to less a month than HubSpot Service Hub Professional with Marketing Hub, and HubSpot also asks a one-time onboarding fee. Starter Suite has no public help center, which starts at Service Cloud Core.
Which has a phone menu?
HubSpot’s phone menu comes with Sales Hub or Service Hub Professional and up. Salesforce’s Starter and Pro Suite pricing pages list no phone menu; a team adds a phone system such as Aircall, or moves to Service Cloud with Salesforce Voice.
Sources
Each figure above, with the page it was read from and the date. Prices change, so check each vendor’s own pages before deciding. Each product named here is a trademark of its owner, named only to say which product is described.
HubSpot (A)
- HubSpot, Product and Services Catalog: products: https://legal.hubspot.com/hubspot-product-and-services-catalog/products, read 2026-10-14.
- HubSpot, Product and Services Catalog: add-ons: https://legal.hubspot.com/hubspot-product-and-services-catalog/add-ons, read 2026-10-14.
- HubSpot Knowledge Base, set up interactive voice response: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/calling/set-up-interactive-voice-response, read 2026-10-14.
- HubSpot, Product and Services Catalog: technical limits: https://legal.hubspot.com/hubspot-product-and-services-catalog/technical-limits, read 2026-10-14.
- HubSpot, Product and Services Catalog: https://legal.hubspot.com/hubspot-product-and-services-catalog, read 2026-10-14.
- HubSpot, App Marketplace: https://ecosystem.hubspot.com/marketplace, read 2026-10-14.
- HubSpot Knowledge Base, export records: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/import-and-export/export-records, read 2026-10-14.
Salesforce (B)
- Salesforce, small business pricing: https://www.salesforce.com/small-business/pricing/, read 2026-10-14.
- Salesforce, Service Cloud pricing: https://www.salesforce.com/service/pricing/, read 2026-10-14.
- Salesforce, Sales Cloud add-ons: https://www.salesforce.com/sales/pricing/add-ons/, read 2026-10-14.
- Salesforce, Service Cloud add-ons: https://www.salesforce.com/service/pricing/add-ons/, read 2026-10-14.
- Salesforce, Contact Center pricing: https://www.salesforce.com/service/contact-center/pricing/, read 2026-10-14.
- Salesforce, Starter and Pro Suite comparison chart (PDF): https://www.salesforce.com/en-us/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/documents/small-business/comparison-chart-starter-prosuite-features-us.pdf, read 2026-10-14.
- Aircall, pricing: https://aircall.io/pricing/, read 2026-10-14.
- Salesforce Trailhead, export your data: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/lex_implementation_data_management/lex_implementation_data_export, read 2026-10-14.