Marketing Automation Software: Hubspot Review

Marketing automation has become an essential tool for online marketers. It has all the functionalities and options needed to make their marketing efforts smoother and more fluid. While there is a lot of marketing automation software out there, each has its distinct features that cater towards the needs of specific businesses. We want to help you choose the best software for your business by showcasing some of the most popular tools on the market today.  Our weekly ‘Marketing Automation Software Review’ series continues! In this edition, we will highlight one of the rising marketing automation platforms today: Hubspot Review

Hubspot Review: About HubSpot

HubSpot is a brand popularly known for being a developer and marketer of inbound marketing and sales software products. Hubspot also has one of the most comprehensively designed marketing automation software. The exceptional performance and features that their platform provides is the reason why they currently have the highest number of customers among other marketing automation tools.

However, despite their extreme popularity, their tool is massively overpriced, which commonly discourages their target buyers: small-scale businesses. But according to the recent survey conducted by the Marketing Automation Insider, HubSpot currently owns 42% of shares on the marketing automation software market for small businesses, positioning them firmly ahead of second-placed marketing automation brand, Infusionsoft.

The price for HubSpot’s powerful automation tool starts at $200 per month, which isn’t much for most. But HubSpot is also infamous for price creeping their software, along with offering lock-in contracts. That means the initial monthly cost of HubSpot’s marketing automation platform can potentially rise to the near thousands as you require additional features and contacts.

Pros & Cons

Like other automation tools, HubSpot also has its fair share of positives and negatives.

Pros

• Ease of Use – Price aside, there’s no doubt that HubSpot has one of the most well-designed automation platforms. Marketing automation usually is sophisticated, however, HubSpot has done a fantastic job of making it rather easy and intuitive for small-scale business owners who have just started transitioning from traditional to automated marketing.
• Free Trial – Despite the high setup requirements, fees, and contracts, HubSpot is among the few automation tools to offer a 7-day free trial.
• All-in-one – The main feature that all of HubSpot’s users love the most is its convenience. The tool mainly has everything in one place. You don’t need to incorporate external third-party software or acquire other tools just to get the most out of your marketing automation. Once you purchase HubSpot, everything will be in one place for your convenience.

Cons

• The 12-month contract – After its initial $200/month cost, HubSpot will automatically impose a contract, billed annually by default. It’s understandable that automated marketing is going to be something most marketers will use for many years, so you might not look at it as a serious issue. However, it would still be preferable if you’re given the option for payment, wherein a rolling monthly contract would be a lot more convenient.
• No A/B-testing feature for both basic and PRO packs – A/B testing is one of the essential methods of marketing automation, and sadly, it isn’t offered on both the basic and PRO bundles. A/B Testing is available for another HubSpot package, wherein you will have to upgrade for a whopping $2,400 per month.
• Steep price creep – As said earlier, HubSpot has an initial $200/month package. However, this basic package is way too limited. If you want to acquire other features, like marketing automation and CRM, you have to upgrade to their $800/month package. The downside is, this bundle only has 1,000 contacts. As your contact and requirement grow, you will be forced to upgrade again or risk losing potential contacts.
• Other features offered are free elsewhere – while HubSpot provides a well-designed set of tools, there aren’t any features that aren’t found elsewhere for cheap or free.
• Acquiring technical support requires additional charges – Implementing the tool is simple and straightforward, but once your business needs technical support, you will have to pay for it separately.

HubSpot clearly has a tool that is well-designed and offers features that are exceptional at best when compared to other tools. However, we would not recommend it, and the reason is that of its high price. There are other alternative platforms that offer solid features and cost 20 times less than HubSpot’s juggernaut. Overall, we think that HubSpot is way above everyone else regarding functionalities and amazing features. It’s a solid marketing automation software that offers nothing but the best features. However, the only downside – which also happens to be it’s most significant – is its price, which doesn’t suit the budget of small market businesses. For more marketing automation reviews, you can also read about the benefits Infusionsoft CRM can offer. Don’t have a CRM Singapore software yet? Contact us now! We’ll be glad to walk you through the benefits of using Infusionsoft CRM and how it can help your business.