HubSpot is easy to start on and expensive to grow into. The Starter plan is £7 a seat a month on a limited-time offer, but Professional, where the serious automation lives, is £81 a seat, and new customers in the UK and Europe now buy seats and AI credits under a new pricing model. If your team has hit that jump, you have good options, several of them a fraction of the cost.
We compared nine HubSpot alternatives on what matters to a UK business: the price in pounds, whether there's a free plan, what five users really pay in year one, and where your data is stored. We checked every price on the vendor's UK pricing page on 13 November 2026. No vendor paid to be included, and there are no affiliate links in this guide.
The best HubSpot alternatives at a glance
- Cheapest full CRM: Zoho CRM, free for three users and £12 a user a month with workflows.
- Best for sales pipelines: Pipedrive, from £14 a seat, with UK hosting for UK accounts.
- Simplest for small UK teams: Capsule, free for two users and from £14 a user, with no setup fee.
- Cheapest with automation: Freshsales Growth at £7 a user a month.
- If you already run projects in monday.com: monday CRM, from £10 a seat (three seats minimum).
- If you'll outgrow everything else: Salesforce Starter Suite at £20 a user a month.
- Most flexible data model: Attio, free for three users, priced in US dollars.
- If marketing email is why you have HubSpot: ActiveCampaign or Brevo.
HubSpot alternatives compared: UK prices and features
Prices are per user (or seat) per month, billed annually, excluding VAT, unless marked otherwise. The "next tier" is usually the plan that adds the automation and reporting teams leave HubSpot Starter for.
| CRM | Free plan | Entry price | Next tier | Free trial | Where your data is stored |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot | Yes, up to 2 users | £7 a seat (Starter, offer price) | £81 a seat (Professional) plus onboarding | Free plan instead | EU (Germany) on paid plans; free-only accounts in the US |
| Zoho CRM | Yes, up to 3 users | £12 (Standard) | £18 (Professional) | Yes | UK data centre available |
| Pipedrive | No | £14 (Lite) | £39 (Growth) | 14 days | UK accounts hosted in London |
| Capsule | Yes, 2 users and 250 contacts | £14 (Starter) | £27 (Growth) | 14 days | AWS in the US |
| Freshsales | No | £7 (Growth) | £29 (Pro) | 21 days | Europe, chosen at sign-up |
| monday CRM | No | £10 a seat (Basic, 3 seats minimum) | £14 a seat (Standard) | 14 days | EU region in Frankfurt, set from the first user's location |
| Salesforce | Yes (Free Suite) | £20 (Starter Suite) | £80 (Pro Suite) | Free plan instead | UK (London) region on Hyperforce |
| Attio | Yes, up to 3 users | $40 a month for the first user, then $35 (Plus) | $100, then $79 a user (Pro) | 14 days of Pro | Google Cloud in Dublin |
| ActiveCampaign | No | $15 a month for 1,000 contacts (Starter) | $49 a month (Plus) | Yes | EU for UK accounts opened since March 2024 |
Why UK businesses look for a HubSpot alternative
Almost nobody leaves HubSpot because it's bad. They leave because of what the next plan costs. These are HubSpot's UK prices for its Customer Platform, which bundles marketing, sales and service, billed annually:
| HubSpot plan | Price per seat a month | Users | HubSpot Credits a month | Onboarding |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | £0 | Up to 2 | None | Not needed |
| Starter | £7 (limited-time offer) | Up to 10 | 5,000 | Not required |
| Professional | £81 | Add seats at £81 | 10,000 | Required, price not published |
| Enterprise | £155 | Add seats at £155 | 15,000 | Required, price not published |
Three things push UK teams to look elsewhere:
- The jump from Starter to Professional. Workflows, sequences and custom reporting mostly sit in Professional. For five users that's £4,860 a year before any onboarding fee, against £420 on Starter at the offer price.
- The new seats-and-credits model. Since 1 October 2026, new HubSpot customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa buy one edition across the whole account, choose seat types, and get a monthly allowance of AI credits that resets each month and doesn't roll over. Extra credits cost €0.01 each. Existing customers stay on their current model for now.
- Onboarding fees. HubSpot requires Professional and Enterprise customers to buy onboarding, and its pricing page doesn't show what it costs. Ask for the figure in writing before you sign.
Starter also caps you at 10 users, so a growing sales team reaches Professional sooner than it expects.
What five users pay in year one
The fairest comparison is the cheapest plan on each CRM that includes workflow automation, since that's what most teams outgrow HubSpot Starter for. Here's what five users pay in the first year, billed annually and before VAT.
| CRM and plan | 5 users, year one (ex VAT) |
|---|---|
| Freshsales Growth | £420 |
| HubSpot Starter (offer price) | £420 |
| monday CRM Basic | £600 |
| Zoho CRM Standard | £720 |
| Pipedrive Lite | £840 |
| Capsule Starter | £840 |
| monday CRM Standard | £840 |
| Zoho CRM Professional | £1,080 |
| Salesforce Starter Suite | £1,200 |
| Capsule Growth | £1,620 |
| Freshsales Pro | £1,740 |
| Pipedrive Growth | £2,340 |
| Attio Plus | $2,160 |
| Salesforce Pro Suite | £4,800 |
| HubSpot Professional | £4,860 plus onboarding |
| Attio Pro | $4,992 |
Add 20% VAT if your business isn't VAT-registered. Add-ons change the picture too: Pipedrive's email marketing add-on starts at £13.33 a month and Freshsales charges extra for its AI agent, so price the plan you'll actually use.
The nine HubSpot alternatives, reviewed
Zoho CRM: the cheapest full CRM
Best for: small and mid-sized businesses that want HubSpot-level features for a fraction of the price, and have someone willing to set it up properly.
Zoho CRM is free for up to three users. Standard, at £12 a user a month billed annually, adds workflows, scoring and forecasting; Professional at £18 adds process automation and quoting; Enterprise is £35 and Ultimate £42. VAT is extra. Zoho lists a UK data centre, which matters if your clients ask where their data lives.
What you give up: polish. Zoho does almost everything HubSpot does, but marketing email, live chat and help desk are separate Zoho apps, and it rewards a team that will spend time configuring it.
Pipedrive: the best HubSpot alternative for sales teams
Best for: teams whose day revolves around a sales pipeline rather than marketing campaigns.
Pipedrive has no free plan but a 14-day trial with no card needed. Lite is £14 a seat a month billed annually, Growth £39, Premium £59 and Ultimate £79, all VAT exclusive. Growth is the plan most HubSpot leavers need: it adds full email sync, automations and follow-up sequences. Pipedrive says accounts from non-EU European countries, which includes the UK, are hosted in AWS's London region.
What you give up: marketing. Email campaigns (from £13.33 a month), lead capture forms and chatbots (LeadBooster, from £32.50) and website visitor tracking (from £41) are paid add-ons.
Capsule: the simplest CRM for small UK businesses
Best for: small service businesses that want a tidy contact list, a pipeline and tasks without a long set-up.
Capsule, a UK company, is free for two users and 250 contacts. Starter is £14 a user a month billed annually (£18 monthly), Growth £27, Advanced £42 and Ultimate £60, and there's no setup or onboarding fee. Growth adds workflow automation, email sync with Gmail and Outlook, and five pipelines. It connects to Xero, and its sister product Transpond handles email marketing.
What you give up: depth and UK hosting. Capsule is deliberately simple, so complex lead routing or marketing automation needs other tools. Its own sub-processor list says customer data is hosted on AWS in the US, so look elsewhere if your contracts require UK or EU hosting.
Freshsales: the cheapest way to get automation
Best for: budget-conscious sales teams that want workflows from day one.
Freshsales, from Freshworks, has no free plan but a 21-day trial. Growth is £7 a user a month billed annually and already includes basic workflows; Pro is £29 and Enterprise £49. Branded documents (£15 a user) and the Freddy AI agent (£36 per 100 sessions) are extras.
What you give up: a single all-in-one platform. Marketing automation sits in a separate Freshworks product.
monday CRM: if your team already lives in monday.com
Best for: businesses that run delivery in monday.com and want sales on the same boards.
monday CRM has a 14-day trial and a three-seat minimum. Basic is £10 a seat a month and Standard £14, with yearly billing saving 18%. Standard is where automation starts, with 250 custom automations a month.
What you give up: a traditional CRM structure. It's flexible boards rather than fixed contact, company and deal records, which suits some teams and frustrates others.
Salesforce Starter Suite: if you'll outgrow everything else
Best for: businesses that expect complex sales processes, multiple teams or heavy integration needs within a few years.
Salesforce now has a Free Suite, and Starter Suite at £20 a user a month covers sales, service and email marketing in one app. Pro Suite is £80 a user a month, billed annually.
What you give up: simplicity. Salesforce can do almost anything, but past Starter you'll usually need a partner or an admin to run it, and that cost belongs in your budget.
Attio: the most flexible data model
Best for: start-ups and B2B teams that want to shape the CRM around their own data.
Attio is a London-based company, free for up to three users. Plus is $40 a month including one user, then $35 for each extra user; Pro is $100 including one user, then $79 each, billed annually. It hosts data on Google Cloud in Dublin.
What you give up: sterling pricing and a long track record. You'll be billed in US dollars, and it's younger than every other CRM here.
ActiveCampaign: if marketing automation is why you chose HubSpot
Best for: businesses whose HubSpot use is mainly email sequences and nurturing rather than sales.
ActiveCampaign starts at $15 a month for 1,000 contacts on Starter, billed yearly, with Plus at $49, Pro at $79 and Enterprise at $145. Prices rise with your contact count and are in US dollars.
What you give up: sales tooling. Its CRM is lighter than Pipedrive's or Zoho's, so a sales-led team may need both.
Brevo: the cheapest replacement for HubSpot's email marketing
Best for: small businesses that mainly used HubSpot to send newsletters.
Brevo's free plan sends up to 300 emails a day. Paid plans start at £6 a month on Starter, with Standard at £13. Pricing is based on email volume rather than users, which suits small teams with large lists.
HubSpot vs Pipedrive, Zoho and Salesforce
These are the three comparisons people search for most. Prices are per user a month, billed annually, excluding VAT.
HubSpot vs Pipedrive
| HubSpot | Pipedrive | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes, up to 2 users | No, 14-day trial |
| Plan with automation | Professional, £81 a seat | Growth, £39 a seat |
| 5 users, year one | £4,860 plus onboarding | £2,340 |
| Marketing email | Included | Add-on, from £13.33 a month |
| Data location | EU (Germany) on paid plans | UK (London) for UK accounts |
Choose Pipedrive if your team mainly sells and lives in a pipeline. Stay on HubSpot if marketing and service work in the same system every day: a HubSpot seat covers marketing, sales and service together, which Pipedrive's price doesn't.
HubSpot vs Zoho CRM
| HubSpot | Zoho CRM | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Up to 2 users | Up to 3 users |
| Paid plans from | Starter, £7 a seat (offer); Professional, £81 | Standard, £12 a user; Professional, £18 |
| 5 users, year one | £420 (Starter offer) to £4,860 (Professional) | £720 |
| Data location | EU (Germany) on paid plans | UK data centre available |
Choose Zoho for the most CRM for the money and a UK data centre, if someone on your team will set it up. Stay on HubSpot if you value an easier start and one platform over the lower price.
HubSpot vs Salesforce
| HubSpot | Salesforce | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Up to 2 users | Free Suite |
| Entry plan | Starter, £7 a seat (offer) | Starter Suite, £20 a user |
| Mid-tier plan | Professional, £81 a seat | Pro Suite, £80 a user |
| Data location | EU (Germany) on paid plans | UK (London) region on Hyperforce |
At the mid tier the list prices are almost identical, so the choice comes down to fit. Choose Salesforce if you expect complex processes, several teams or heavy integration, and can budget for an admin or partner. Choose HubSpot if you want something your own team can run.
Should you stay on HubSpot?
Sometimes, yes. We build HubSpot integrations for clients and use HubSpot ourselves, so we have no reason to talk you out of it. Stay if:
- Two people or fewer use it, so the free plan covers you.
- Starter does what you need. At the offer price it's as cheap as anything here, though check what it renews at.
- Your marketing, sales and service teams all work in it every day. Replacing one joined-up platform with three cheaper tools can cost more in time than it saves.
- You've built a lot of Professional workflows and reports. Rebuilding them elsewhere is a project, not an afternoon.
If you're an existing customer, you're still on your current pricing model, so compare your actual renewal quote rather than the new list prices.
How to switch from HubSpot without losing leads
The data is the easy part; every CRM here imports HubSpot's CSV exports. What breaks is everything connected to HubSpot, and the most important connection is usually your website.
- List what's connected. Website forms, chat, meeting links, email sync, tracking code, and any tools that write to HubSpot, such as your booking or accounting software.
- Export everything. Contacts, companies, deals, tickets, notes and activity history, plus your marketing consent records. Under UK GDPR and PECR you need to keep evidence of who agreed to receive marketing email.
- Map your fields. Decide where each HubSpot property goes in the new CRM, including lifecycle stages and lead source, before you import.
- Rebuild your website forms. Forms embedded from HubSpot stop working when you cancel. Rebuild them to post to the new CRM, and keep the lead source on every enquiry so your reporting doesn't reset.
- Run both in parallel. Keep HubSpot live for a couple of weeks while you check that every form and integration lands in the new CRM.
- Cancel at renewal. Check your contract end date and notice period before you commit to the new tool.
Our CRM integration service covers this part: connecting your website, email, bookings and accounts to the new CRM so every enquiry arrives with its source. If your forms are part of a bigger rebuild, see our WordPress development work.
Questions to ask any CRM before you sign
- Where is our data stored? Ask for the region in writing, and for the vendor's data processing agreement.
- Is the price in pounds, and is VAT included? Some vendors bill in US dollars or euros, so your cost moves with the exchange rate.
- Is there a minimum number of seats? monday CRM requires three; others charge per user from one.
- What's extra? Add-ons, AI credits, onboarding and premium support can double the list price.
- What's the contract length and notice period? Annual billing is cheaper but usually commits you for the year.
- Can we export everything if we leave? Including notes, emails and activity history, not just contacts.
How we compared these CRMs
We took every price from the vendor's own pricing page on 13 November 2026, viewed from the UK, choosing annual billing and excluding VAT. Where a vendor only shows US dollars we've left the price in dollars rather than convert it. Data locations come from each vendor's help centre, trust centre or sub-processor list, and the screenshots from each vendor's website, help centre or media kit. We included CRMs that UK businesses most often weigh against HubSpot, and we haven't been paid by any of them.
We recheck every price and data location each quarter, and the date at the top of this guide shows the last check. If you sell a CRM we've missed, or a price here is out of date, tell us through our contact page and we'll check it for the next update.
