When customers across every market today are demanding highly personalised experiences, investing in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is not a nice-to-have — it is a must-have.
But with so many major players dominating the market, how do sales, marketing, customer relations, account management, and RevOps teams decide which is the right CRM for their business?
For instance, do you choose HubSpot — the CRM that has been rated the easiest to use and the most implementable by G2? Or do you go with Salesforce — ranked the world’s No.1 CRM provider 11 years in a row by International Data Corporation (IDC)?
In this blog, we’ll take an objective look into the differences between these two leading CRMs and help you resolve the dilemma—HubSpot or Salesforce: which CRM is better for your unique business needs?
What Is HubSpot CRM?
HubSpot is an AI-enabled, easy-to-use, fast, and unified customer relationship management platform. It offers a suite of software, integrations, and resources that help marketing, sales, and customer service teams collaborate efficiently to provide personalised experiences to their customers. It also comes with Breeze—HubSpot’s AI suite—that includes Breeze Copilot and AI agents.
The suite of software offered by HubSpot include:
- Sales Hub: HubSpot’s AI-powered sales software has been designed to help sales teams build better pipelines and close more deals. It offers tools for sales engagement, deal management, reporting and analytics, CPQ, and coaching. The software also seamlessly integrates with more than 1,600 tools in HubSpot’s App Marketplace.
- Marketing Hub: This is HubSpot’s all-in-one marketing automation software that helps marketing teams generate leads and automate marketing. It offers advanced marketing reporting tools to help marketing teams understand their customer journey and track campaign performance.
- Service Hub: Designed to drive customer retention, this customer service software provides personalised, AI-powered support and self-service tools like an omnichannel help desk, knowledge base, call tracking, and 24/7 availability. It is connected to marketing and sales data on a unified customer platform and helps increase CSAT and retention by analysing customer health scores and product usage.
- Content Hub: This is HubSpot’s all-in-one content marketing software that helps content marketers create, update, manage, and distribute content from a central location. It offers AI-powered content generation, lead capture tools, a scalable CMS, video and podcast hosting, A/B testing, SEO recommendations, and advanced analytics and reporting.
- Operations Hub: This operations software by HubSpot allows RevOps teams to automate business processes and easily sync, clean, activate, and curate customer data. It offers programmable automation, data sync, data curation, and data quality functionalities on one central CRM platform.
- Commerce Hub: HubSpot’s fully featured B2B commerce software, Commerce Hub, offers powerful and easy-to-use commerce tools to help account and revenue teams bill customers and collect revenue. The software includes payment links, invoices, quotes, subscription management, automation, and revenue reporting, and seamlessly integrates with Quickbooks as well as with 1,400+ tools in HubSpot’s App Marketplace.
What is Salesforce CRM?
Salesforce is a cloud-based, AI-enabled customer relationship management software that offers out-of-the-box sales, service, and marketing solutions for all kinds of businesses and industries (including banking, mortgage, insurance, real estate, e-commerce, healthcare, and medical devices). It offers extendable tools, pre-integrated business apps, Agentforce AI agents, forecasting dashboards, and direct two-way integrations with external business systems. Salesforce’s AI platform—Einstein AI—integrates Generative AI across all Salesforce solutions.
Salesforce offers the Customer 360 portfolio of products that include:
- Sales Cloud: Salesforce Sales Cloud is a customisable CRM tool, designed to help sales teams manage leads and opportunities, gain complete visibility into sales pipelines, and speed up prospecting and opportunity management. It has been integrated with Agentforce for Sales to offer AI agents that autonomously nurture inbound leads 24/7 and coach every sales rep on every deal.
- Marketing Cloud: Salesforce Marketing Cloud has been designed to help marketing teams automate marketing activities across email, mobile apps, SMS, and websites. Its Agentforce integration helps marketers deploy smarter campaigns, gauge marketing performance, increase conversion, and optimise marketing programs with cross-channel personalisation.
- Service Cloud: Accelerating the delivery of personalised customer service, Salesforce Service Cloud enables customer support teams to boost service team productivity, speed up case resolutions with centrally managed interactions, enable AI-powered chatbots to handle common requests, and use Agentforce’s low-code, pre-built templates to customise their brand and voice.
- Data Cloud: Salesforce Data Cloud is a hyperscale data engine built by Salesforce to help companies eliminate data silos and achieve a single platform to access and leverage all their enterprise data. It allows you to integrate and store real-time data from various Salesforce data sources as well as external apps. Data Cloud leverages AI and can be integrated with Sales, Service, and Marketing Clouds to boost seller productivity, reduce customer churn, and personalise marketing campaigns for every lead.
- Revenue Cloud: Salesforce Revenue Cloud is a revenue management platform that helps businesses manage their revenue lifecycle end-to-end. This AI-enabled software can help automate and unify processes like pricing, quoting, contracting, fulfilment, and billing, across any channel, with any revenue model. It also enables sales teams to instantly generate accurate quotes with an AI sales agent, create and update contracts at any stage of the customer lifecycle, and unify billing for all sales channels on the CRM.
- Experience Cloud: Salesforce Experience Cloud is a cloud-based platform that helps companies create various platforms (such as portals, forums, websites, and help centres) for their customers, employees, and partners to interact with their business. These next-generation, low-code portals can be built directly on the Salesforce platform and integrated with your company’s CRM data.
HubSpot Vs. Salesforce — A Comparison
| Key Criteria | HubSpot CRM | Salesforce CRM |
| Ease-of-Use | Easy to learn & quicker adoption | Steeper learning curve required |
| Configuration / Setup | Easy to set up; offers a rich library of templates | Setup & configuration can be complex |
| User Interface | Intuitive, clean, & user-friendly | No-code Salesforce Lightning interface available |
| Customisation Options | Limited customisations available | Highly customisable, especially for advanced needs |
| Integration Capabilities | Native integrations possible with the HubSpot ecosystem | Extensive 3rd party integrations available via AppExchange |
| Technical Expertise | Basic technical skills are sufficient | High programming skills & technical expertise required |
| Cloud/On-Premise | Cloud-based (hosted on AWS) | Cloud-based; offers extensive cloud computing services |
| Software Suite | Offers CRM tools for sales, marketing, & CSM functions | Offers a broader range of tools for specific purposes |
| Sales | Offers sales automation & pipeline management | Extensive, AI-enabled sales tools & sales forecasting |
| Marketing | Go-to CRM for inbound marketing & SEO | Advanced automation available with added tools |
| Customer Service | Help desk, free ticketing software, & knowledge base | Customer service automation & self-service portals |
| Content Management | Easy content management; built-in SEO; video hosting | Offers multi-channel support & omnichannel delivery |
| Social Media | Content scheduling for LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. | AI-driven tools for social media analytics |
| Data Management | Offers data creation, synchronisation, & data quality | Offers data integration, quality, governance, & preparation |
| AI Functionalities | Offers complete AI CRM (Breeze) functionalities | Extensive AI suite with Einstein Generative AI & Agentforce |
| Analytics | AI-powered predictive analytics & reporting tools | Offers Einstein/Tableau analytics & business intelligence |
| Scalability | Scales for growing SMBs but limited for large firms | Highly scalable for businesses of any size |
| Security | RBAC, 2FA, data encryption, & security audits | Salesforce Shield, platform encryption, MFA, & RBAC |
| Compliance | GDPR, SOC 2 certified | GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2 certified |
| Size of Business | Ideal for small-to-medium businesses | Ideal for medium-to-large enterprises |
| Industries | Flexible CRM software for any industry | Specific solutions available for all major industries |
| Pricing | Free basic plan but professional & enterprise plans are relatively expensive | 4 pricing tiers (per user, per month) that are comparatively reasonably priced |
| Free Trial | 14 days | 30 days |
| Customer Support | Offers basic email & chat support | Dedicated manager & 24/7 support for higher-tier plans |
| Online Marketplace | Offers both free & featured apps | Offers extensive options for 3rd party app customisations |
| Training | Extensive online training resources (HubSpot Academy) | Salesforce Trailhead for tech upskilling & certifications |
| Partner Requirement | Only for custom integrations and/or advanced configurations | Consulting partner required, especially for tailored solutions |
HubSpot CRM Vs. Salesforce CRM—Which Is the Better Option?
With a CRM software becoming a necessity in managing the all-important interactions a business has with their existing and potential customers, it is important that you choose a CRM software that fits your business needs wisely.
Both HubSpot and Salesforce offer a wide range of AI-enabled tools that can help you optimise your sales, marketing, customer support, and revenue activities. We recommend choosing HubSpot if:
- You are a startup or a small-to-medium business with limited resources or CRM experience
- You need an easy-to-use interface with fairly strong sales, marketing, and analytics tools
- You want to get started with a free CRM and later scale as needed
On the other hand, we recommend choosing Salesforce if:
- You are a mid-sized business or growing enterprise that needs advanced tools
- You require deep customisations and specific integrations with third-party apps
- You need AI-driven capabilities and are ready to get started with agentic AI
Leverage Corptec’s Tech Partnerships for the Right CRM
For businesses that are looking to surge ahead in today’s demand-driven market, Corptec Technology Partners offers a wide range of technology partnerships and versatile integrations to help you achieve a competitive edge.
As a top-ranked HubSpot Gold Solution Partner in the APAC region, we can provide you with HubSpot consulting and implementation services, strategic guidance, operational support, HubSpot integration and low-risk migration to the CRM platform. If HubSpot is your CRM choice, Corptec is here to guide you expertly.
On the other hand, As a Salesforce-certified Consulting and Implementation Partner, Corptec has been at the forefront in designing customer journeys for organisations across Australia. We offer full-cycle implementation of Sales, Service, and Marketing Clouds, offer Einstein and Agentforce AI-enablement, and support custom Salesforce integrations with any ERP or third-party applications. If Salesforce is where you’re leaning towards, Corptec can help you maximise the potential of this leading CRM platform.
HubSpot Vs. Salesforce — Why Not Both?
If you’re a growing business wishing to leverage the unique benefits both CRMs have to offer, why not consider a HubSpot-Salesforce integration? Our certified consultants have extensive experience implementing unique integrations with these leading CRMs. This can help you close the gaps in your CRM journey and benefit from a combined suite of AI-enabled sales, marketing, customer service, and industry-specific apps.
Ready to embrace the best of both worlds? Book a free consultation with us today!
