HubSpot Reviews

HubSpot’s first two hubs cover operations and content management systems, with the other four being CRM hubs dedicated to commerce, customer service, sales, and marketing. With this jam-packed, all-in-one platform, the headache of manually integrating different software to cover all your business management needs has become a thing of the past.

The provider’s comprehensive reporting dashboards present all customer-related data, including interactions, contracts, notes, deals, tickets, and other pertinent information – offering an authentic 360-degree experience. However, it’s unfortunate that its e-signature feature only works for quotes, forcing users to resort to integrated solutions like PandaDoc.

While HubSpot’s pipelines don’t differentiate between leads and contacts, you can assign a deal stage status to each item, such as new, open, in progress, and bad timing. Though this approach saves time by avoiding the need for a separate tab, it would be confusing if it weren’t for the handy segmentation filters provided.

HubSpot’s Sales Hub manages and monitors leads and includes the means to easily generate quotes, such as with its CPQ tools. However, to create new contracts, a third-party app is necessary.

HubSpot’s Commerce hub seamlessly integrates with its other hubs, streamlining the turning of opportunities into revenue. We found expediting payments, boosting revenue, and saving time intuitive.

Managers and users with permission can create invoices from a contact, company, or deal. Plus, clients can purchase directly from the website, over email, or even during a chat session through HubSpot’s built-in payments feature.

Customization is at every user’s fingertips. It’s possible to easily modify displayed data, make quick edits as needed, and save personalized views for easy access to the most pertinent information. We found this a useful addition, as it streamlines the handling of numerous deals, packages, and pipelines.

Even with the free version, users get complete visibility over the entire sales cycle and can customize a default pipeline or create a new one. There’s also an efficient drag-and-drop tool that facilitates deal-stage editing and filtering.

HubSpot’s sales automation is enticing, providing the possibility to personalize thousands of email templates, queue follow-ups and reminders for each lead, and trigger notifications to keep teams informed about customer behavior.

With a Sales Hub Professional subscription, users can access forecasting software that provides a seamless picture of their pipelines, fostering data-driven decisions, revenue control, and enhanced team management.

HubSpot’s marketing toolkit includes several features, from lead-management tools to email campaign automation, and caters to businesses of all sizes when it comes to attracting quality leads.

From the Marketing Hub, users can personalize offers and messages based on their audience’s behavior and trigger engagement campaigns at the most relevant times. The possibility of automating branded emails, landing pages, live chats, and ads is the bread and butter of any successful company, and HubSpot offers just that.

With the option to create sequences or workflows, users can easily design email autoresponders to be sent in a specific order or in response to designated triggers. Whether opting for premade sequences or crafting them from scratch, the intuitive builder guides you through the process.

What sets this hub apart is its social media software, which can run campaigns, publish content, monitor brand mentions, and nurture clients with contextual interactions.

A 360-degree view of customer data, advanced marketing analytics, and the flexibility to customize data-gathering prompts and filters should be deal-breakers in any company’s search for the perfect CRM solution. Thankfully, HubSpot does this and more, excelling in empowering its users with in-depth insights into campaign performance, SEO recommendations, and client journeys.

Each hub in HubSpot comes with its own array of communication features, but for any company seeking tools to assess client satisfaction and manage tickets, there’s the Service Hub. Its primary purpose is to group communication channels, consolidating every interaction from website chats, Facebook Messenger, and VoIP calling in one shared inbox.

Integrating this hub with the marketing and sales hubs unlocks its full potential as businesses gain access to AI-powered conversation intelligence for client calls, a vast selection of email templates, social media engagement, and customer service playbooks.

HubSpot’s ticketing system prevents endless back-and-forth emails and offers a range of organizational tools for the efficient tracking, prioritization, and assignment of tickets. Another feature that stands out is the knowledge base service, where users can design a library of company information and guides.

Lastly, the Service Hub comes with a customer feedback platform, where teams can create NPS, CES, and CSAT surveys and send them out via email or web link. To access this, HubSpot provides built-in feedback dashboards packed with essential insights into customers’ satisfaction and opportunities for improvement.

HubSpot offers several default and customizable reports, but unlike most competitors, it also provides an innovative report builder. This tool gives users unparalleled flexibility, enabling them to select different data sources, incorporate subcategories such as contacts or deals, and personalize the layout with bars, tables, and pie charts.

With the marketing toolkit, HubSpot subscribers can understand customer preferences and behavior, track site analytics, and evaluate communication channel performance – from website interactions to social media or email campaigns.

The platform offers attractive graphics and fully customizable reports, providing users with comprehensive insights into their data. However, for optimal effectiveness, integration with the CRM hubs is crucial. While mastering the platform may take time, its extensive analytical tools and customization options make it an asset for businesses seeking to enhance their marketing strategies.

Within the Sales Hub, this report builder allows managers to tailor visual reports and view real-time analytics on pipelines, deal status changes, and revenue conversions. Plus, the reporting filters make it extremely easy to analyze the number of sales made over a specific period.

But that’s not all, as HubSpot also helps track the performance levels of team members, such as identifying which agents closed which deals and how many hours it took them to make the sale.

To start using HubSpot, the first step is seamlessly adding team members individually or in bulk via a CSV file. Users can quickly import or create contacts after completing the initial prompts and account authentication.

HubSpot simplifies the setting up of permissions by including default lists and customizable, role-based settings. We found this process a breeze, thanks to its straightforward interface.

After team members are added, they are sent email invitations with logins to input their details. Once this is confirmed, they are then greeted with a helpful screen to guide them through the initial steps, such as importing contacts or exploring user guides.

Like most CRM solutions, HubSpot requires an integration with an email provider. The platform automatically syncs with calendars when a meeting is organized, but only if a Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace email address is used.

Although team members can visualize their upcoming meetings and tasks and their own recent activity, HubSpot lacks a built-in time tracking tool. Instead, it features several integrations with software such as HourStack and StopWatch.

HubSpot’s mobile app provides access to the full power of this comprehensive marketing and sales platform. With an intuitive design and user-friendly navigation, the app allows users to manage their contacts, deals, tasks, and more on the go.

The app is free and includes all the features from the CRM and Marketing hubs, although the scope of tools available varies depending on the subscription level. However, every user, even on the free plan, can access customer data, create and assign tasks, receive real-time notifications, and engage with clients at zero cost.

We found it remarkable that the first thing shown when you open the app is the upcoming tasks and schedules, helping to visualize and organize workflow priorities.

As a highly customizable CRM solution, HubSpot offers a vast range of extensions. Along with its API, HubSpot provides a Sales Hub browser extension for Chrome, plus add-ons for Office 365 and Outlook. Integrating your email provider from the start is advantageous for tracking and logging client interactions.

HubSpot’s usability and intuitiveness are fundamental to the overall experience of the software. The account is a breeze to set up, and the main dashboard’s organization is seamless. Plus, switching between tabs is smooth and straightforward.

The simplicity of it all is a huge advantage for users of the free plan who don’t have access to live support chats. However, HubSpot compensates for this limitation by offering invaluable guidance tools like an extensive knowledge base. In fact, this CRM solution excels in providing customers with various resources, including a webinar library, free training, certifications, and a plethora of ebooks and guides.

Besides its already feature-rich CRM hubs, HubSpot boasts hundreds of integrations with third-party services. From the service’s App Marketplace, users can explore a multitude of tools to customize their HubSpot platforms and address specific needs. Some noteworthy integrations include:

• Slack: Team collaboration and live chat notifications.
• Make: Workflow automation.
• Typeform: Create surveys, forms, and quizzes.
• Google Ads: Reports on ROI and performance.
• Zoom: Team meetings and contact records.
• Canva: Designing and branding.
• Salesforce: Bi-directional data syncing.
• Shopify: Analyze and segment campaign data.

HubSpot‘s plans may have robust feature sets, but they are not the most affordable. Luckily, there is a 14-day free trial available.

Additionally, HubSpot offers a generous free version that’s limited to five users and supports basic features from each hub. These include branded emails, live chat, three reporting dashboards, one deal pipeline, and integrations.

Although each of the six hubs can be acquired independently, it’s also possible to purchase bundles or customize your own CRM toolkit from HubSpot’s list of products and add-ons.

HubSpot’s free version is not meant to offer top-notch customer support. However, we were pleasantly surprised when a chatbot redirected us to a customer service agent who provided thorough and patient assistance. As it turns out, if users of the free plan have questions that aren’t technical, they can still benefit from the 24/7 help of an advisory team.