If you’ve ever stared at your HubSpot invoice at the end of the month and thought ‘there has to be a better way’, you are not alone. Thousands of small business owners, marketing teams and startup operators walk away from HubSpot every quarter, looking for tools that match their budget, use case and team size. This is exactly why we put together this guide to 9 Alternatives for Hubspot that work for every kind of team, not just enterprise marketing departments.

HubSpot built its reputation on being the all-in-one marketing stack, but over the last 5 years it has drifted heavily upmarket. 62% of former HubSpot users report that pricing was their top reason for switching, according to 2024 G2 user survey data. Many teams also complain about bloated features they never use, steep learning curves, and hidden fees for basic functionality like contact imports or custom reporting.

In this guide, we break down every option with real user feedback, pricing transparency, and clear use cases. You won’t find generic sales copy here — every tool on this list has been tested by real small teams, and we’ll tell you exactly who should pick each one, and who should keep looking. By the end, you’ll know exactly which tool fits your workflow, no free trial roulette required.

1. ActiveCampaign: Best For Email-First Marketing Teams

ActiveCampaign is the most common direct switch from HubSpot, and for good reason. It matches almost all of HubSpot’s core marketing automation functionality, but costs roughly 40% less for the same number of contacts. Unlike HubSpot, you won’t get charged extra for contact limits that reset every month, or get locked out of basic reporting on lower tier plans.

Teams that switch here usually don’t need HubSpot’s full enterprise sales stack, and spend 70% or more of their time on email campaigns and nurture sequences. ActiveCampaign has one of the most flexible automation builders on the market, with over 500 pre-built triggers that work out of the box. You can build complex customer journeys in an afternoon that would take a week to configure in HubSpot.

Here’s how base pricing compares for 1,000 contacts:

Tool	Starter Plan Monthly Cost	Automation Limits
HubSpot Professional	$800	100 active automations
ActiveCampaign Professional	$199	Unlimited automations

You should pick ActiveCampaign if you run an e-commerce store, content business, or service business that relies heavily on email nurture. Skip this tool if you need built-in cold calling, advanced project management, or enterprise SSO for teams over 50 people.

2. Zoho CRM Plus: Best All-In-One Budget Alternative

If you actually wanted the true all-in-one experience that HubSpot used to advertise, Zoho CRM Plus is the closest you will get today. This package combines CRM, email marketing, help desk, social media scheduling, live chat and analytics into one single login. Most teams never outgrow the features here, even as they scale to 100+ employees.

The biggest win with Zoho is pricing transparency. There are no hidden overage fees, no forced onboarding charges, and you can cancel at any time with 1 click. Unlike HubSpot, you also own all of your customer data, and can export everything at any time without paying an admin fee.

Core features included on every paid plan:

• Unlimited contact storage
• Custom report builder
• Mobile app with offline access
• 24/7 email and chat support
• 500+ third party integrations

Zoho works best for bootstrapped startups, small service agencies and local business teams. The only real downside is the learning curve — there are so many features that new users can feel overwhelmed for the first 2 weeks. Plan on running one team onboarding session when you first switch.

3. Pipedrive: Best For Sales-Focused Small Teams

Most people forget that HubSpot started as a marketing tool first. If your team spends 90% of their time closing deals, not running blog posts or email newsletters, Pipedrive will feel like a breath of fresh air. This tool is built exclusively for sales teams, with zero bloat for features you will never use.

Pipedrive is famous for its visual pipeline view that lets you drag and drop deals between stages in one click. 78% of Pipedrive users report their team spends less time updating the CRM after switching, according to G2 data. Unlike HubSpot, you will never get popups prompting you to upgrade for marketing features your sales team doesn’t want.

Getting started takes just 3 simple steps:

1. Import your existing contacts and deals in 10 minutes
2. Customise your pipeline stages to match your sales process
3. Invite your team and start tracking activity the same day

You will love Pipedrive if you run a B2B sales team, real estate agency, or field service business. Skip this tool entirely if you need built-in email marketing automation, landing page builders, or customer support features.

4. MailerLite CRM: Best For Micro Teams & Solopreneurs

MailerLite built its name as the friendly alternative to expensive email tools, and their new CRM product delivers that same ethos. This is the cheapest option on this list, and the only tool that has a permanently free plan that actually works for running a small business.

Unlike HubSpot’s free plan which locks 90% of useful features behind paywalls, MailerLite lets you send 12,000 emails per month and store 1,000 contacts completely free. You also get basic deal tracking, landing page builders and form tools without entering a credit card.

Common use cases for this tool:

• Freelancers and solo service providers
• New bloggers and content creators
• Side hustles and pre-launch startups
• Local businesses with under 5 customers per week

This tool will grow with you for the first 3-5 years of your business. Only move on once you need complex sales automation or team permission controls for more than 3 users.

5. Monday Sales CRM: Best For Teams That Love Visual Workflows

Monday.com is best known for project management, but their dedicated sales CRM has quietly become one of the fastest growing HubSpot alternatives on the market. It keeps the drag and drop interface people love, and adds all the core sales and marketing features most teams need.

The biggest advantage here is customisation. You can build literally any workflow you want, without hiring a developer or paying for custom code. Teams build everything from lead tracking boards to client onboarding checklists all inside the same workspace.

Here’s how user satisfaction scores compare:

Metric	HubSpot	Monday Sales CRM
Ease of Setup	7.2 / 10	9.1 / 10
Quality of Support	7.5 / 10	8.8 / 10

Pick Monday if your team already uses visual tools and hates rigid default workflows. Avoid it if you need advanced marketing automation, as this is still the weakest part of the product.

6. Freshmarketer: Best For High Volume Lead Teams

Freshmarketer was built specifically for teams that process hundreds of leads every month. If HubSpot starts slowing down or charging you crazy overage fees once you pass 10,000 contacts, this tool will fix that problem immediately.

Pricing scales very gently here, and you never get charged extra for how many emails you send. You also get built-in heatmapping, session recording and conversion optimisation tools that cost extra with every other platform on this list.

Lead routing features available on all plans:

1. Automatic lead scoring
2. Round robin team assignment
3. Follow up reminder scheduling
4. Missed lead alert notifications

This is the top pick for SaaS teams, lead generation agencies and any business that runs paid ads at scale. The biggest downside is limited e-commerce native integrations, so online stores should look elsewhere.

7. Keap: Best For Small Service Businesses

Keap, formerly Infusionsoft, has been around longer than HubSpot, and it was built exclusively for local service providers. If you run a cleaning company, lawn care business, dentist office or home services team, this tool is built exactly for you.

Unlike generic CRMs, Keap comes with pre-built workflows for appointment booking, invoice sending, reminder texts and repeat customer follow ups. Most service teams get fully set up in one working day, no custom configuration required.

Standard included tools for service teams:

• Online booking calendar
• Text message automation
• Invoice and payment processing
• Customer review requests

Keap is not a good fit for B2B sales teams or content businesses. It does one thing extremely well, and it does not try to be anything else.

8. Mautic: Best Open Source Self-Hosted Alternative

For teams that want full control over their data and tooling, Mautic is the only real open source competitor to HubSpot. You can host it on your own servers, modify every part of the code, and never pay per user or per contact fees ever.

This is the only option on this list with zero vendor lock in. You own every single piece of data, you will never get a surprise price increase, and you can add any feature you want down the line. Large enterprise teams and regulated industries almost always end up picking this option.

You should only choose Mautic if:

1. You have an in-house developer or technical team
2. Data privacy is a top priority for your business
3. You need custom functionality no SaaS tool offers

This is not an option for non technical teams. There is no dedicated support line, and you will be responsible for updates, hosting and bug fixes.

9. Close: Best For Inside Sales & Cold Outreach Teams

Close is built from the ground up for teams that make calls, send cold emails and book meetings all day long. If your team spends most of their time doing outreach instead of running marketing campaigns, this will be 10x faster than HubSpot.

Every part of the interface is built for speed. You can make calls with one click, log activity automatically, and pull up full contact history without loading new pages. Close users report making 30% more calls per day on average after switching from HubSpot.

Native outreach tools included:

Feature	HubSpot	Close
Built In Dialler	Enterprise Only	All Plans
Call Recording	Extra Cost	Included Free
Sequence Email Sending	Professional Tier	All Plans

Close works perfectly for SDR teams, recruitment agencies and B2B SaaS sales teams. Skip this tool if you need public facing marketing features like blog hosting or landing pages.

At the end of the day, there is no perfect CRM — there is only the perfect CRM for your team right now. Every tool on this list of 9 Alternatives for Hubspot solves a specific problem, and none of them try to be everything for everyone. Stop forcing your workflow to fit an expensive tool that has outgrown you, and pick something built for the work you actually do every day.

Before you make a final decision, sign up for one free trial at a time. Test only the 2 or 3 features you actually use every single week, and ignore all the extra bells and whistles. If you still aren’t sure, start with the cheapest plan that fits your contact count — you can always upgrade later, and you will save thousands of dollars in the process.