7 Best HubSpot Alternatives for Startups on a Budget

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The short answer

There is no single “cheap HubSpot.” HubSpot combines CRM, marketing, sales, service, content, and reporting, while most lower-cost alternatives solve a narrower problem. The best replacement depends on which part of HubSpot you actually need.

• Pipedrive is the best overall alternative for a small sales team.
• Zoho CRM provides the most capability per dollar for a configurable traditional CRM.
• Freshsales is the best low-cost CRM with email, chat, and phone built in.
• Attio is the best flexible, modern CRM for a product-led startup.
• ActiveCampaign is the best alternative for email automation.
• Brevo is the best budget option for high-volume email and multichannel messaging.
• Close is the best alternative for founder-led outbound sales.

If HubSpot’s free tools still cover the current need, staying free can be cheaper than migrating. Replace HubSpot when you can name the paid feature or cost driver that makes another product a better fit.

Comparison table

Alternative	Best for	Free option	Current entry paid price*	Main tradeoff versus HubSpot
Pipedrive	Focused small sales teams	14-day trial	$14/user/month annually	Marketing and service require add-ons or other tools
Zoho CRM	Configurable CRM on a tight budget	Up to 3 users	$14/user/month annually	Interface and setup can feel less cohesive
Freshsales	Sales teams wanting email, chat, and phone	Up to 3 users	$9/user/month annually	Smaller ecosystem and less marketing breadth
Attio	Flexible startup relationship management	Up to 3 seats	$35/user/month annually	Advanced automation and reporting move to higher tiers
ActiveCampaign	Email automation and lifecycle campaigns	14-day trial	From $15/month under 1,000 contacts	Not a complete multi-Hub customer platform
Brevo	Email volume, transactional messaging, SMS/WhatsApp	Yes	From $9/month	Sales Essentials and advanced features add cost
Close	Founder-led and outbound sales	14-day trial	Solo $9/user/month annually	Marketing, service, and broad CRM platform depth are limited

\*List prices shown at the last fact-check. Billing term, contact or send volume, add-ons, taxes, currency, and promotions can change the total.

Before replacing HubSpot, identify the actual problem

HubSpot’s free tier is not the expensive part. The budget pressure usually appears when a startup needs Professional automation, more marketing contacts, several Hubs, additional seats, onboarding, or AI usage. A replacement decision should start with a list of the features currently used or planned.

Ask four questions:

1. Is the primary need sales pipeline management, marketing automation, customer support, content, or a combination?
2. How many users, contacts, marketing contacts, and monthly sends will the startup have in 12 and 36 months?
3. Which integrations are mandatory?
4. Is the team willing to connect multiple focused products, or is one shared customer platform worth paying for?

Our HubSpot pricing guide explains the cost drivers that a replacement must actually eliminate.

1. Pipedrive — best overall for a small sales team

Pipedrive is the strongest HubSpot alternative when the company mainly needs a pipeline, activity management, email sync, sales automation, and forecasting. The interface stays focused on deals and next actions rather than exposing an entire marketing-and-service suite.

Current annual pricing is:

• Lite: $14/user/month
• Growth: $39/user/month
• Premium: $59/user/month
• Ultimate: $79/user/month

Growth is the practical starting point for many teams because it adds full email sync, tracking, automations, nurturing sequences, subscriptions and forecast reports, and a meeting scheduler. Premium adds lead routing, scoring, enrichment, contracts, e-signatures, and more customization.

Pipedrive is not a complete replacement for HubSpot Marketing Hub or Service Hub. Campaigns, LeadBooster, Projects, and Web Visitors can add to the bill, while deeper marketing and support often come from separate products.

Choose Pipedrive when: reps live in the pipeline and adoption, speed, and predictable seat pricing matter more than platform breadth.

Read our detailed HubSpot vs Pipedrive comparison.

2. Zoho CRM — best capability per dollar

Zoho CRM is a compelling budget option for a startup that wants a conventional CRM with significant customization. The Free edition supports up to three users. Current annual USD pricing is approximately:

• Standard: $14/user/month
• Professional: $23/user/month
• Enterprise: $40/user/month
• Ultimate: $52/user/month

Standard adds workflows, assignment rules, cadences, reports, forecasting, email integration, and other core capabilities. Professional adds process automation, CPQ, inventory management, and email intelligence. Enterprise adds deeper customization, territory management, journey orchestration, portals, and the Zia AI sales assistant.

Zoho’s larger ecosystem can replace more than CRM, but that breadth introduces product and interface decisions of its own. A startup should test the exact Zoho applications it plans to use rather than assume the entire suite feels like one product.

Choose Zoho CRM when: the team wants a highly capable CRM at a lower seat price and is willing to invest time in configuration.

3. Freshsales — best low-cost CRM with communication tools

Freshsales combines contact and pipeline management with email, chat, and phone capabilities. Its free plan supports up to three users. Current annual pricing is:

• Growth: $9/user/month
• Pro: $39/user/month
• Enterprise: $59/user/month

Growth includes a Kanban view, lifecycle stages, email templates, custom fields, and basic workflows. Pro adds contact scoring, deal insights, custom sales activities, territory management, and sales sequences. Enterprise adds forecasting insights, field-level permissions, custom modules, a sandbox, and audit logs.

The low Growth price is attractive, but add-ons matter. Branded documents and certain Freddy AI capabilities have separate charges. A startup should confirm phone, chat, email, and AI usage costs before treating the seat price as the total.

Choose Freshsales when: the team wants sales communication and CRM in one affordable product without purchasing a broad marketing suite.

4. Attio — best flexible CRM for a product-led startup

Attio treats CRM more like a flexible relationship database. Startups can model companies, people, deals, partnerships, investors, or other relationships without forcing every workflow into a traditional sales CRM structure.

Current pricing is:

• Free: $0, up to three seats
• Plus: $35/user/month annually or $44 monthly, up to ten seats
• Pro: $79/user/month annually or $99 monthly
• Enterprise: custom annual pricing

The Free tier includes real-time contact sync, enrichment, up to three objects, and limited reports, email, and credits. Plus expands objects, records, email, permissions, and reports. Pro adds more credits, advanced permissions and reporting, more objects, sequences, and other growth features.

Attio’s flexibility is also the implementation decision. The team must define objects, lists, views, and workflows. It is a good fit for a startup whose relationship model does not look like a standard lead-account-opportunity funnel.

Choose Attio when: a modern, configurable data model matters more than built-in marketing and service breadth.

5. ActiveCampaign — best for email automation

ActiveCampaign is the strongest option when “replace HubSpot” really means “replace Marketing Hub workflows and email.” It specializes in behavioral automation, segmentation, campaigns, forms, landing pages, and lifecycle journeys.

Pricing starts at $15 per month for fewer than 1,000 contacts. There is a 14-day trial but no permanent free plan. Starter includes light automation limited to five actions per automation. Plus removes that limit and adds landing pages, more triggers and actions, web push, standard segmentation, and reporting. Pro adds advanced segmentation, connected automations, conditional content, predictive sending, attribution, custom event tracking, and three included users.

Costs rise with contact volume, and under ActiveCampaign’s current rules all contacts count toward the limit. Email-send limits and overage charges also deserve attention. Enhanced CRM, SMS, transactional email, reporting, and WhatsApp can be add-ons.

Choose ActiveCampaign when: email automation is the core growth engine and the startup can use a separate or lighter CRM.

Read our ActiveCampaign vs HubSpot comparison.

6. Brevo — best for budget email volume and messaging

Brevo prices marketing plans primarily around email volume and associated contact storage. It combines campaigns, transactional email, SMS, WhatsApp, chat, automation, and optional sales capabilities.

Current starting prices are:

• Free: $0/month, 300 daily email sends and storage for up to 100,000 contacts
• Starter: from $9/month, no daily sending limit
• Standard: from $18/month
• Professional: from $499/month
• Enterprise: custom pricing

Starter tiers scale by monthly send volume and contact storage. Standard and higher plans add capabilities beyond the entry level. Sales Essentials is an add-on on paid marketing plans; the current separately displayed package includes one seat and has its own monthly price.

Brevo can be substantially cheaper than HubSpot for a startup sending newsletters or transactional email. It is not a like-for-like replacement for HubSpot’s complete CRM, content, sales, and service platform.

Choose Brevo when: send volume and multichannel messaging matter more than a deep sales CRM or unified customer platform.

7. Close — best for founder-led outbound sales

Close combines CRM, email, calling, SMS, and sales workflows. It is designed for teams doing active outbound rather than relying mainly on inbound marketing.

Current pricing is:

• Solo: $9/user/month annually or $19 monthly; limited to one user and 10,000 leads
• Essentials: $35/user/month annually or $49 monthly
• Growth: $99/user/month annually or $109 monthly
• Scale: $139/user/month annually or $149 monthly

Solo provides a low-cost entry for a founder. Essentials adds team collaboration, forms, built-in communication, and unlimited contacts and leads, but not workflows. Growth adds automated workflows, a power dialer, custom activities, and bulk email. Calling, SMS, premium numbers, transcription, extra organizations, and additional AI usage can add cost.

Close is not the cheapest option once a team needs Growth, and it does not replace HubSpot’s marketing, content, or service breadth. Its value comes from consolidating the daily tools of an outbound seller.

Choose Close when: founders or reps spend the day calling, emailing, texting, and following up with leads.

Which alternative should you choose?

If the problem is HubSpot Sales Hub cost

Start with Pipedrive Growth, Freshsales Growth, or Zoho CRM Standard. Choose Pipedrive for usability, Freshsales for built-in communication value, and Zoho for customization per dollar.

If the problem is Marketing Hub cost

Start with ActiveCampaign Plus for sophisticated journeys or Brevo for lower-cost sending and transactional communication. Neither automatically replaces the whole HubSpot platform.

If the CRM needs a different data model

Start with Attio. Its flexible objects and relationship model suit a startup tracking more than conventional leads and deals.

If outbound communication is the workflow

Start with Close. Compare telephony, SMS, AI, and workflow usage costs with the price of connecting those tools to another CRM.

If the team uses several HubSpot Hubs

Do not migrate because one alternative has a lower seat price. Map every form, list, workflow, property, pipeline, ticket, report, integration, and website dependency. A collection of cheaper subscriptions can create more cost and operational risk than one platform.

A simple three-year cost model

Build a spreadsheet with:

• User seats by year
• Total contacts and marketing contacts
• Monthly email and SMS volume
• Automation, AI, credit, phone, and messaging usage
• Add-ons and integrations
• Vendor onboarding or implementation
• Data migration and cleanup
• Internal administration time
• Contract term and renewal price

Then price the exact workflow in HubSpot and the top two alternatives. A startup should optimize for total operating cost and adoption, not the lowest first-month promotion.

Our recommendation

For most budget-conscious startups replacing HubSpot Sales Hub, Pipedrive Growth is the best overall first trial. It covers the most common pipeline, email, and automation needs without forcing the team into a broad suite.

For marketing automation, ActiveCampaign Plus is the better first trial. For the lowest-cost traditional CRM, compare Freshsales Growth and Zoho CRM Standard. Use Attio when flexibility is the deciding factor, Brevo when email volume dominates, and Close when outbound selling is the operating model.

Do not leave HubSpot Free only to recreate its tools across four disconnected products. Migrate when the replacement is clearly better for the startup’s primary workflow and the three-year cost still works after add-ons and labor.

Review HubSpot’s current plans and free tools before deciding to migrate

Frequently asked questions

What is the cheapest HubSpot alternative?

Freshsales starts at $9 per user per month annually and has a free plan for up to three users. Zoho CRM also has a free three-user edition, while Brevo and EngageBay offer free options for different marketing or CRM use cases. The cheapest useful option depends on the workflow and limits.

What is the best free alternative to HubSpot CRM?

Freshsales and Zoho CRM both support up to three users on their free editions. Attio supports up to three seats and is more flexible. Brevo is stronger for free email and messaging than for replacing a full sales CRM.

Which alternative is best for email automation?

ActiveCampaign is the strongest email-automation specialist in this group. Brevo is attractive when send volume, transactional email, SMS, or WhatsApp are more important than advanced branching and CRM depth.

Which alternative is best for a small sales team?

Pipedrive is the best general recommendation for a small team focused on pipeline execution. Freshsales can be cheaper, while Close is stronger for communication-heavy outbound sales.

Is it difficult to migrate away from HubSpot?

The contact export is the easy part. The difficult work is recreating properties, associations, lifecycle stages, lists, forms, workflows, pipeline history, reports, integrations, and consent records. Inventory those dependencies before canceling anything.

Sources for the fact-check

• HubSpot pricing: https://www.hubspot.com/pricing
• Pipedrive pricing: https://www.pipedrive.com/en/pricing/professional-crm
• Zoho CRM pricing and edition comparison: https://www.zoho.com/crm/zohocrm-pricing.html
• Freshsales pricing: https://www.freshworks.com/crm/pricing/
• Attio pricing: https://attio.com/pricing
• ActiveCampaign pricing and plan overview: https://www.activecampaign.com/pricing and https://help.activecampaign.com/hc/en-us/articles/14251311251356-Overview-of-ActiveCampaign-plans
• Brevo pricing plan overview: https://help.brevo.com/hc/en-us/articles/208589409-About-Brevo-s-pricing-plans
• Close pricing: https://close.com/pricing