Does anyone else think HubSpot has a massive pricing problem between their basic and mid-tier plans? The jump from the starter package to professional feels way too steep.
Our small business currently uses the starter plan but we really need some of those workflow features and extra tools. We’d gladly pay double or triple what we’re paying now for those features, but the current price jump is about 10 times more expensive which is crazy.
So instead we stick with the basic plan and use other apps to fill in what we’re missing. In 2025 customers want flexible pricing where you pay for what you actually need, not huge bundles with tons of stuff you don’t use.
Am I the only one who thinks they’re missing out on a lot of potential revenue with this approach? Especially when so many of their customers are small and medium businesses who can’t afford such big jumps in pricing.
Hit the same wall when we needed better automation but couldn’t stomach that 8-10x price jump. The professional tier workflows are solid, but the cost is insane.
We solved it by building automation outside HubSpot. Kept our starter plan and used external tools for workflows. You get way more flexibility than what HubSpot locks behind their paywall.
I’ve built systems that pull data from HubSpot starter, run complex workflows, then push updates back. Costs maybe 15% of upgrading to professional and handles custom logic HubSpot can’t even touch.
Find an automation platform that plays nice with HubSpot’s API without enterprise pricing. Most people don’t realize you can get better automation outside the platform for way less.
Latenode nails this - connects to HubSpot in minutes and runs workflows that’d cost thousands more in their professional tier. Check it out: https://latenode.com
We hit this exact pricing wall three years ago while scaling up. The professional tier felt like buying a Ferrari when we just wanted better gas mileage. The most frustrating part? You can’t cherry-pick features—it’s all or nothing for a massive price jump. We threatened to leave and spent months negotiating a custom deal with multiple people involved. Our account manager admitted they lose many mid-market customers because of this gap. This experience made me realize HubSpot builds pricing around their dream customers, not what the market actually needs. We’re on the professional tier now but waste 70% of what we pay for. It only makes sense to stay because switching would cost us a fortune at this point. They’ve essentially held essential workflow features hostage—capabilities that should cost around $50-100 extra per month, not $500.
Switched from HubSpot last year for this exact reason. Their pricing makes zero sense - you jump from basic contact management straight to enterprise features with nothing in between. They don’t let you scale up gradually as you grow, which is insane. We kept HubSpot for basic CRM stuff and moved marketing automation elsewhere. Found a platform that charges based on actual usage instead. Migration sucked but we cut costs by 60% and got better features. HubSpot acts like companies either stay tiny forever or magically become huge enterprises overnight. That’s not how real businesses work.
This pricing gap made us look at competitors last quarter - we almost switched. HubSpot’s starter plan works until you need custom properties or lead scoring, then boom - 8x the monthly cost. What kills me is how they bundle everything in the professional tier. We just wanted better reporting and some automation, but had to pay for advanced integrations and marketing tools we never use. Took six months of back-and-forth with our sales rep to get any real discount. The whole thing showed me they’re focused on big accounts that can handle these price jumps, not growing businesses that need gradual upgrades. Companies like Pipedrive nailed this years ago with usage-based tiers.
Been dealing with this exact frustration for two years. We outgrew starter fast, but professional tier pricing is insane for our size. What kills me is they lock basic workflow features behind the higher tier - stuff that should be standard. We built workarounds with Zapier and other tools to get similar automation. Not as smooth as native HubSpot, but works fine and costs maybe 20% of upgrading. The irony? HubSpot probably spends more on sales calls trying to upsell us than they’d make with reasonable intermediate pricing. Most business owners I’ve talked to either stay on starter way too long or jump ship to platforms with gradual pricing. Their approach might work for enterprise, but they’re leaving serious money on the table with SMBs.
i totally get it! we got the professional tier too and honestly, half the stuff is just overkill for us. pretty sure they know they’re locking us in with our data. why can’t they just let us choose what we want? would make things so much easier.