HubSpot’s allure is real. It bundles CRM, marketing automation, sales tools, content management all into one polished platform. But (yes, there is a but) its pricing starts to sting once your startup gains traction. The moment you want more automation, more workflows, or advanced reporting, the costs skyrocket.
It’s precisely then many of us begin asking: “What are HubSpot alternatives I can afford?” or “Is there a cheaper HubSpot alternative that won’t feel like I’m driving a go-kart in a Formula 1 race?”
If you’re a SaaS founder or marketer trying to balance growth with lean budgets, you’re in the right place. In this article, I’ll walk you through HubSpot competitorsHubSpot CRM alternatives , open source HubSpot alternatives , and inflation-friendly options for small business use. I’ll share what I’ve tested, what others swear by, and how to pick based on real-world tradeoffs (not vendor hype).
Also Read : 10 Best Brevo Alternatives for SaaS Startups
Why You Might Seek HubSpot Alternatives (or at Least Evaluate Them)
Before jumping into contenders, it helps to understand why founders look beyond HubSpot:
Escalating costs : The “starter” price looks attractive, but as you add users, contacts, marketing emails, automation workflows, etc., you quickly hit major tiers.
Locked features : Some “cool” features are tucked behind enterprise plans.
Migration friction : If you switch later, migrating all your data, automations, forms, etc., can be a nightmare.
Need for flexibility or customization : For niche SaaS products, you may want behaviors or integrations HubSpot doesn’t support out-of-the-box.
Open source / self-hosted control : Some teams prefer owning the stack, avoiding vendor lock, and customizing deeply.
So yes, HubSpot has its strengths (great UI, extensive ecosystem). But in many cases, especially for SaaS startups, you want a tool that scales economically, integrates well, and gives you options.
Key Criteria for Choosing an Alternative
Whenever I scout a tool, here’s my mental checklist. Use this framework to evaluate any CRM:
💲
Cost predictability
Avoid surprise jumps
What happens when contact count, email sends, or workflows increase?
🔁
Ease of migration
Switching later shouldn’t be traumatic
Can you import contacts, forms, histories easily?
🔗
Automation & workflow flexibility
Marketing and product-driven workflows are essential
How many workflows, conditional logic, branching decisions are allowed?
⚙️
Integrations / API / extensibility
Hook into your product, analytics, billing
Is there a full REST API? Zapier, webhooks, native integrations?
📊
Reporting & analytics
Growth is data-driven
Can you build custom reports, dashboards by cohort, attribution?
💬
Support & community
If something breaks, you need help
How is the support SLA, and is there an active user community?
Top HubSpot Alternatives & Competitors (Paid / SaaS)
These are proven, mature platforms that many SaaS startups are using today.
Zoho CRM / Zoho One Paid
One of the most frequently cited HubSpot alternatives for small business. Zoho is modular, so you can pick CRM, marketing, and support apps that suit you.
Best for: Small to medium businesses looking for an affordable all-in-one solution
✓ Why pick it
Great balance of features to cost
AI insights and decent automation
Strong integration across their stack
✗ Tradeoffs
Interface can feel old-school compared to HubSpot
Reporting sometimes requires paid add-ons
ActiveCampaign Paid
More marketing-automation-first, with solid CRM features. Great for behavioral workflows while keeping costs around 60% lower than HubSpot.
Best for: Marketing-focused teams with moderate CRM needs
✓ Why pick it
Comparatively affordable for email & marketing automation
Dynamic segmentation capabilities
Strong behavioral workflow features
✗ Tradeoffs
Less CRM-heavy than pure CRM solutions
Sales pipeline features may have gaps for complex needs
Pipedrive Paid
If your sales motion is core (versus content marketing or leads), Pipedrive is a clean, powerful CRM.
✓ Why I like it
Very intuitive drag-and-drop pipelines and clear deal stages
Great for keeping sales teams honest
✗ Tradeoffs
Marketing automation is limited unless you bolt on external tools
EngageBay Paid
A more all-in-one suite that combines CRM, marketing automation, and support. In Zapier’s best free CRMs 2025 list, EngageBay is among the winners.
✓ Why pick it
Good “bang for buck” — multiple modules in one place
✗ Tradeoffs
As a smaller player, certain integrations or advanced features lag
Freshsales / Freshworks CRM Paid
Focused on sales engagement, built by Freshworks. It’s often listed among HubSpot alternatives in comparison articles.
✓ Why pick it
Good email + calling + pipeline combo
✗ Tradeoffs
Marketing automation is not as deep as HubSpot’s
You might still need a separate marketing tool
Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) Paid
Designed for small businesses that want automation + CRM in one. It’s not light, but for many, it replaces multiple tools.
✓ Why pick it
All-in-one automation: upsells, sequences, payments
Replaces multiple marketing and CRM tools
✗ Tradeoffs
Learning curve for new users
Pricing can climb with large contact lists
Salesforce (Sales Cloud + Marketing Cloud / Pardot) Paid
Yes, it’s a beast. But for high-growth SaaS startups planning to scale, Salesforce remains a major HubSpot competitor.
✓ Why pick it
Highly customizable and robust ecosystem
Endless integration potential
✗ Tradeoffs
Expensive and complex setup
Often requires dedicated admin/support team
Overkill for early-stage teams
Open Source & Self-Hosted HubSpot Alternatives
🧩 Open Source HubSpot Alternatives
Odoo (Community Edition)
Open Source
An all-in-one suite: CRM + ERP + inventory + project. The community version is open source.
Why pick it:
It scales across your entire business. Once installed, you own it.
Tradeoffs:
You’ll need dev/ops to maintain, host, upgrade. Some modules are premium.
SuiteCRM
Open Source
A longtime player—built off SugarCRM’s open version. It covers sales, service, marketing.
Method
Why pick it:
Mature, modest community, decent feature set.
Tradeoffs:
UI feels dated and customization can get messy over time.
Erxes
Open Source
Built for marketing, sales, customer support workflows. Very modular and plugin-based.
Open Source Alternatives • +1
Why pick it:
Great for experience-driven SaaS. You can turn modules on/off.
Tradeoffs:
Because it’s relatively newer, fewer plugins and community size is smaller.
YetiForce / EspoCRM / CiviCRM
Open Source
Each has its niche: YetiForce is flexible, EspoCRM is lightweight, CiviCRM oriented toward nonprofit/community.
Open Source Alternatives • +2 • AlternativeTo • +2
Why pick them:
If your use-case is narrow, these may be lean and fit perfectly.
Tradeoffs:
Less polished, more DIY, thinner support.
Twenty CRM
Open Source
A more modern open-source CRM that’s gaining traction.
twenty.com
Why pick it:
Clean UX, developer-friendly, built with JSON fields (per devs).
Tradeoffs:
It’s newer, so you’ll sometimes run into edge-case gaps.
Comparing the Alternatives: Which Fits Your Stage?
Here’s a rough guide, based on what matters most at your stage:
Your Stage / Need
Best Pick(s)
Why
Bootstrapped SaaS, < 1,000 contacts
EngageBay , ActiveCampaign Lower cost, decent automation, full feature set
Sales-driven motion, < 5 sales reps
Pipedrive , Freshsales Clean pipelines, focus on deals & engagement
Balanced marketing + sales growth
Zoho CRM , ActiveCampaign + plugins Strong mix across both functions
Growing > 10 team, need advanced reporting
Salesforce , Zoho Enterprise , Freshworks Enterprise-grade scalability and integrations
Full stack control / avoiding vendor lock
Odoo , Erxes , SuiteCRM , Twenty You host, extend, and control upgrades
Pro tip: Migrations hurt. If you can delay swapping your tool until you reach the inflection point, do so—but plan ahead (keep exports clean, automations documented).
Pricing Notes & “Cheaper HubSpot Alternatives” Insight
Because pricing is often the tipping point, here’s what to watch:
Even cheaper tools impose limits on contacts, email sends, automation workflows .
Some vendors charge per workspace or module , which can surprise you.
Cheaper HubSpot alternatives” sometimes trade polish, integrations, or support for cost—so make sure you know what you’re giving up.
True open source tools have no license cost, but hosting, maintenance, plugins, and support will cost you (in time, or outsourced). So the “cheaper” label should always consider Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) over 24 months.
Mini Case Study: Switching from HubSpot to ActiveCampaign
Let’s look at a story of a SaaS startup, “DataDash,” with 5 founders and around 1,800 email contacts.
The Starting Point
They began on HubSpot Free and upgraded to the Starter package hoping to scale content and onboarding emails. After 6 months, they realized:
Their automation workflows required “Professional” features.
HubSpot costs would triple if they added 2 more users and more contacts.
They weren’t using many of the CMS or landing page features.
The Switch
They audited alternatives and landed on ActiveCampaign . Over the first quarter:
They paid roughly 60% less compared to upgrading HubSpot.
They rebuilt their core onboarding workflows (behaviors → sequences) in just 2 weeks.
They lost a couple of minor reporting dashboards, but replaced them with Looker / Metabase for advanced analytics.
Their churn rate dropped slightly — thanks to better segmentation and nurturing.
Moral: Sometimes what you lose (a few dashboards) is outweighed by what you gain — predictable cost, flexibility, and the breathing room to iterate.
Checklist: What to Re-Evaluate Before Switching
Before you take the plunge, walk through this:
Data export readiness — Can you move contacts, custom fields, form submissions, engagement data?Core automation rebuild cost — How many workflows do you need to replicate?Integration coverage — Are your payment, analytics, product, support tools supported?Support reliability — If things break, is there help you can count on?Scaling path — As your startup grows, will the new tool scale with you (or will you hit the same ceiling)?
I always tell founders: Don’t let the fear of “losing features” block you—but don’t dive in blind either. Map what you must have and what is nice to have .
Conclusion
If I were launching a SaaS startup today in 2025, here’s my play:
Start with a lean option like ActiveCampaign or Zoho CRM , because they hit a sweet spot between cost and functionality.
As you scale, reevaluate whether a tool like Freshsales or even Salesforce becomes necessary.
Keep open source tools (Odoo, Erxes, SuiteCRM) in mind if you want full control—or if you have dev/ops capacity.
Always build in future exit/migration paths (document workflows, tag data carefully, keep backups).
If you tell me your startup’s size, revenue, or tech stack, I can recommend exactly one or two “HubSpot alternatives” you should evaluate now. Want me to narrow it down for your case?
FAQs (People Also Ask)
1. What are good HubSpot CRM alternatives for small businesses?
2. Are there open source HubSpot alternatives?
Yes — Odoo (community) , SuiteCRM , Erxes , YetiForce , EspoCRM , and Twenty CRM are popular open source alternatives.
Open Source Alternatives +3 | OpenAlternative +3 | BTW +3
3. Which is the cheaper HubSpot alternative for marketing + CRM?
ActiveCampaign is often cited by users as a cheaper alternative that retains many core marketing automation features.
Latenode Official Community +1
4. How do I choose a HubSpot competitor for my SaaS startup?
Focus on your primary motion (sales-led vs marketing-led ), needed workflows, integrations, and how steep a price jump you can tolerate. Use the checklist above to compare.
5. Does switching from HubSpot cause data loss?
It depends. You can often export contacts, form submissions, and engagement history. But you may lose custom objects , in-depth dashboards, or linked assets until rebuilt in the new tool.
6. Is Zoho CRM really a HubSpot alternative?
Absolutely — it offers many comparable features, and Zoho even markets itself directly as a “HubSpot alternative” in its product messaging.
7. Can open source CRM handle advanced automation?
Some can, but often with more setup and coding. Tools like Erxes or Odoo may give you flexibility but require more effort to match commercial workflows.
