Great platform, if you can afford to access all the features
Updated July 26, 2019

Great platform, if you can afford to access all the features

Kirsten Meyer | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Professional

Modules Used

  • All

Overall Satisfaction with HubSpot

Hubspot's marketing platform is used by some organizations I work with as the center of their online marketing efforts, including housing the website, landing pages, email, social, blog, content offers, measurement, etc. Others use it in various configurations; for example some may have a blog hosted elsewhere and/or a website hosted elsewhere but with email, landing pages, social, and analytics done via Hubspot. It is used most successfully when there is adequate allocation of resources for content production. It can address business issues such as SEO, biz dev/leads, sales, and marketing.

Pros

  • Hubspot makes learning about online marketing accessible.
  • Hubspot is constantly updating its solutions to incorporate more features and the latest technology.

Cons

  • It's now mid-2019 and I'm updating a review from 2014. Wow, has my impression of Hubspot changed since then. I just deleted nearly all of my "pros" because they no longer apply. Hubspot used to be a company with EXCEPTIONAL customer service and great energy. It was a company I loved doing business with. There has been a real shift in Hubspot's energy, strategy, and approach roughly since they went public. Where the brand love used to be, there is now a sense that Hubspot is really nickel-and-diming on everything; less value, a lot of important features out of reach to many businesses. It's often cost-prohibitive for small to medium businesses to grow on the platform. Hubspot's original selling point was its all-in-one functionality, but in practice, most organizations can't afford to use it that way. Hubspot has an excellent product and if the budget is there, I don't think you can go wrong with them. At the same time, Hubspot's pricing strategy and approach to customers and potential customers has become off-putting. They've made a lot of customers feel like they are only concerned with their enterprise clients, which is a level most organizations will never grow into. Where Hubspot used to enjoy great loyalty, almost everyone I see on Hubspot questions whether they should move to a different, less costly alternative. People don't LOVE being on Hubspot anymore. They aren't loyal to it the way they used to be. The perceived value is not there. I think Hubspot has done permanent damage to their brand.
  • We have realized measurable ROI on marketing objectives through Hubspot which have indirectly, and to a lesser extent, directly impacted overall business objectives. However, I don't know that Hubspot specifically leads to a greater ROI for business objectives vs. other platforms because it's a vehicle for all of the work we put into the site and our online content assets. Making the investment into a platform like Hubspot forces a certain amount of time spent on marketing in order to justify the expense. If we put that same amount of work into another platform, I would expect the ROI to be comparable. And if that work was not done, then the investment would have a negative return.
It doesn't make sense to go with Hubspot if you don't have the resources to devote to it. It's smart marketing and money well-spent AS LONG AS you are also factoring in manpower for content creation and actually using the reporting features. You also need to really think about what features you need and the cost of growing on the platform. If you want more features, that costs more money. If you grow your audience, that costs more money too. If you are never going to be able to afford the features you really want, or if you don't want to pay more when your marketing succeeds in growing your contact list, then consider other alternatives like SharpSpring that are less costly and don't penalize you for your growth. Also, if you are already heavily invested in Salesforce and you wouldn't need Hubspot's CRM, then explore whether marketing options built into Salesforce's platform may be a better fit.

HubSpot Marketing Hub Feature Ratings

9.6
WYSIWYG email editor
10
Dynamic content
Not Rated
Ability to test dynamic content
Not Rated
Landing pages
10
A/B testing
10
Mobile optimization
7
Email deliverability reporting
10
List management
10
Triggered drip sequences
10
9.8
Lead nurturing automation
10
Lead scoring and grading
10
Data quality management
9
Automated sales alerts and tasks
10
10.0
Calendaring
10
Event/webinar marketing
Not Rated
10.0
Social sharing and campaigns
10
Social profile integration
10
10.0
Dashboards
10
Standard reports
10
Custom reports
10
10.0
API
10
Role-based workflow & approvals
10
Customizability
10
Integration with Salesforce.com
10
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Not Rated
Integration with SugarCRM
Not Rated

Using HubSpot

2 - I work in many Hubspot client accounts, so I'm answering this based on the company I use Hubspot with most frequently. As the main marketing person for this account I am the primary user, followed by the company owner who mostly uses the CRM side and reporting features.
1 - You don't necessarily need a marketing expert, because Hubspot provides the necessary education. It's the investment of time that will get you. More so if you are starting from nothing, and/or if you are committed to quality content. The time required for success also depends on your level of marketing experience and CMS experience going in, as well as the complexity of your business and your goals. For your content, you will need at least one person on your team has above-average editorial and advanced writing skills. For the platform generally, you'll need at least one person who is tech-friendly and loves to learn. Whatever other marketing, SEO, website, design, or editing skills they bring are a plus.
  • Follow-on sales, cross sales to existing clients
  • Boosting online presence for better SERP rankings and more organic traffic/leads
  • Better understanding of how people are finding us, using our site, what formats and topics of information they are engaging with
  • Opportunity to soft-nurture potential leads with workflow campaigns to encourage more ongoing relationships with new visitors
Hubspot is a great product. The question (IMO) is its value and pricing strategy. They have made some recent changes to their product pricing which may make it more favorable to new users. Frankly, I hope that is the case. In 2014 when I originally wrote my review (after having already used Hubspot for nearly 4 years) I perceived Hubspot to be unmatched in value for its price, based on evaluations against InfusionSoft, Marketo, and Eloqua. At the time, InfusionSoft couldn't hold a candle to Hubspot on features or functionality, and Marketo and Eloqua were too costly. In 2019 as I update my evaluation, I think that SharpSpring could be a decent alternative, though I'm sure that will come with some compromises. I work primarily with Hubspot agency partners, agencies that are not Hubspot partners, and businesses that use Hubspot. In the past 4-5 years there seems to have been a marked shift from a lot of positive energy towards Hubspot to more of a "meh, as much as we like Hubspot, we'd really like to find a less cost-prohibitive option." People want Hubspot, but nobody really feels good about what they are forced to pay for it.

Evaluating HubSpot and Competitors

Yes - It replaced Exact Target, which was then just email/social/landing pages (not sure exactly what it offers and it was recently picked up by Salesforce, so may be tempting to revisit them at some point). We then used Exact Target only for email (not social or LPs). I was the sole user and I loved it. We did not pick up Hubspot as a replacement to ExactTarget, but we needed a new website and found Hubspot as a great option with all of these built-in add-ons, and since they had an integrated email we had to drop ExactTarget. It was a sad parting because I really appreciated ExactTarget's analytics (actually found Hubspot overall to be very similar to ExactTarget in that respect), but at that time Hubspot's email was very weak. Today's Hubspot has a great email component with built-in Litmus App previews. I wouldn't go back to Exact Target unless they out-Hubspotted Hubspot at a better price. (Hey, it could happen....).
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
  • Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor
One of things that sold me on Hubspot's inbound strategy was that I kept finding them in various searches and had downloaded a lot of their content, found it useful, and recognized and respected their brand based on that. I didn't really know or consider Hubspot as a vendor or service provider, I just knew they had been creating some content that I'd liked and they got a point for that. I figured if it worked for them in making an impression on me, it could also work for us in our industry niche. (Note: this was written in 2014 based on a move to Hubspot in 2010/2011).
As crazy as it sounds now, when I was first introduced to Hubspot in 2010, we weren't looking for a full marketing platform. We were just looking for a great website platform and got jazzed by the other possibilities.

HubSpot Support

I would rate the support now as basically average; it might take anywhere from 4-48 hours to get an emailed response. It's clear they don't want you to call them now and I'm not even sure that its still an option for the common folk.

For reference, here is what I said about their support in 2014: I've been calling Hubspot tech support for 3 years. These guys never, and I mean NEVER, let me down. No one really offers service this great anymore. Super dependable. They're almost like an extra team member.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Knowledgeable team
No escalation required
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
Not kept informed
Difficult to get immediate help
No - Because I don't think we should have to pay for this.
Yes - I have reported bugs that were ultimately acknowledged but not explained, so that I wasn't confident I wouldn't encounter them again. But that is the exception. Mostly the bugs and improvements I've suggested have eventually been fixed. Keep in mind this is more applicable to 2011-2015 than the period since then, as I was more proactive about suggesting improvements and pointing out bugs earlier on.
Hubspot has provided exceptional support many, many times. Their 2011-2015-era customer service was really something special. And for some businesses, it's probably worth paying extra for. But that service used to be included. Since then, Hubspot's prices have gone up and up and up and instead of including more, they seem to include less. At Hubspot's price point, I feel strongly that great customer service shouldn't be an add-on cost. To be clear, they still offer customer support, and it is not bad, it's just not stellar. It's now impersonal and not very timely.

Using HubSpot

Anyone can use it. How well you use it depends on what you are doing and how well you know what you are doing. I'll compare it's usability to Word (rather than, for example, Adobe's software, which I also use but find much less intuitive). Anyone can use Word, but not everyone has good grammar/spelling and spell-check doesn't catch everything. You can learn all kinds of things to better take advantage of the software, but at the same time, anyone can open it and start typing and do basic functions. It supports everything from the most basic lists to awesome and compelling displays of graphic/text marketing. It's intuitive, and you can grow with it and bend it to your will.
ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
None
  • blogs
  • website page content
  • calls-to-action
  • emails
  • reporting
  • workflows
Yes, but I don't use it

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