TL;DR
Pipedrive is $14 to $79 a seat a month billed annually with no onboarding fee. HubSpot is free for two users, $7 a seat on the current Starter promotion ($20 list), and then $90 to $100 a seat plus a required $1,500 onboarding fee for Sales Hub Professional. Both read from the vendors' pricing pages on October 9, 2026. For a five-person sales team, Pipedrive Premium is $3,540 a year; HubSpot Sales Professional is $6,900 in year one. Pipedrive wins when the pipeline is the product and marketing is handled elsewhere. HubSpot wins when you will stay on Free or Starter, or when a marketing team is the buyer and will pay the $800-a-month Marketing Hub Professional bill. Neither one schedules a crew, so a service business that dispatches trucks should read the last section first.
Disclosure: Skill Mammoth has no arrangement with Pipedrive or HubSpot. We are a Jobber partner (readers get 20 percent off through our link, and we earn a commission), which is relevant only to the final section. Several of our clients run HubSpot's free CRM and are well served by it.
The prices, side by side
| Pipedrive | HubSpot (Sales Hub) | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | None; 14-day trial | Free for up to 2 users, with contacts, deals, email and forms |
| Entry paid | Lite $14 a seat, billed annually ($168 a year) | Starter $7 a seat on promotion, $20 list; bundles the Starter tier of every hub |
| Mid tiers | Growth $39, Premium $59 | None between Starter and Professional |
| Professional | Ultimate $79 | Professional $90 a seat annually or $100 monthly, plus $1,500 required onboarding |
| Marketing | Campaigns add-on from $13.33; LeadBooster from $32.50; Web Visitors from $41 | Marketing Hub Professional $800 a month with 3 seats and 2,000 contacts, plus $3,000 onboarding |
| Onboarding fee | None; implementation free on plans over $400 a year | $1,500 (Sales Pro), $3,000 (Marketing Pro) |
| Billing | Monthly or annual; annual saves up to 42 percent | Monthly or annual; Professional discounted on annual |
| Verdict | Pipedrive's ladder has four rungs between $14 and $79; HubSpot's has two, at $7 and $90, with a $1,500 fee on the second. Companies that outgrow Starter and cannot justify Professional are the ones Pipedrive is built to catch. | |
Five seats, first year
| Setup | Monthly | First year |
|---|---|---|
| HubSpot Free (2 users max) | $0 | $0, but 5 seats do not fit |
| HubSpot Starter, 5 seats, promo | $35 ($100 at list) | $420 ($1,200 list) |
| Pipedrive Lite, 5 seats | $70 | $840 |
| Pipedrive Growth, 5 seats | $195 | $2,340 |
| Pipedrive Premium, 5 seats | $295 | $3,540 |
| Pipedrive Ultimate, 5 seats | $395 | $4,740 |
| HubSpot Sales Professional, 5 seats, annual | $450 | $6,900 including the $1,500 onboarding |
| Verdict | Under the Professional cliff, HubSpot Starter is the cheapest paid CRM on either side. Above it, Pipedrive Premium delivers the automation, lead routing and e-signatures a five-person team actually uses for about half of HubSpot's first-year bill. | |
Where Pipedrive wins
The pipeline. Pipedrive is a deal board first, and a team that lives in it (remodelers, solar, B2B services, anything with a quote stage and a 30-day close) gets a cleaner daily view than HubSpot offers at any price. Automations and email sequences arrive at Growth ($39), lead routing and e-signatures at Premium ($59), and nothing requires an onboarding call. Add-ons are priced per account rather than per seat for the most part, so a five-person team pays $13.33 for Campaigns, not $66.
The ladder. Four tiers from $14 to $79 means a team can step up as the need appears. HubSpot's jump from $7 to $90 a seat is the single most common reason companies search for HubSpot alternatives, and Pipedrive is the first name on that list.
Where HubSpot wins
Free. Two users with contacts, deals, forms, live chat and email templates for nothing is a better free CRM than anything Pipedrive offers, because Pipedrive offers no free plan. A two-person company should start on HubSpot Free and only leave when it hits a wall.
Marketing in the same system. Pipedrive's Campaigns add-on sends email; HubSpot Marketing Hub runs landing pages, forms, lead scoring, nurture sequences and attribution with the CRM record attached. If the buyer is a marketing team with a budget for the $800 Professional tier, nothing on Pipedrive's side competes, and the HubSpot pricing breakdown explains what the $800 and the $3,000 fee buy.
Breadth. HubSpot's Starter bundle includes a Starter tier of Marketing, Sales, Service, Content and Operations hubs for the one seat price. A company that wants ticketing, a knowledge base and a CMS in the same login gets them at $7 to $20; Pipedrive would need three vendors.
What neither one does
Schedule a job. Neither Pipedrive nor HubSpot has dispatch, routing, recurring visits, crew time tracking or field invoicing, at any tier. A plumbing, HVAC, landscaping or cleaning company that picks either as "the CRM" ends up running the calendar in a second product and double-entering customers. The contractor CRM guide covers the field service platforms built for that, starting with Jobber at $29 a month, and the contractor software hub maps the six categories a trade actually buys.
The decision
| You are | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Two people, any business | HubSpot Free | Free, and good; leave when you need a third seat or automation |
| Three to ten people on Starter, happy | Stay on HubSpot Starter | $7 to $20 a seat with every hub's entry tier |
| Starter's sales features ran out | Pipedrive Growth or Premium | $39 to $59 a seat with automation and routing, no $1,500 fee |
| Marketing team with a budget | HubSpot Marketing Professional | $800 a month plus $3,000; nothing on Pipedrive's side matches it |
| Long sales cycle, quote-driven, no marketing team | Pipedrive Premium | The pipeline view is the product |
| You dispatch crews | Neither; a field service platform | Scheduling is the job, and both lack it |
| Verdict | HubSpot below the cliff, Pipedrive above it, a field service platform if trucks are involved. Price both from the vendors' pages on the day you decide; HubSpot's Starter promotion changes without notice. | |
Not sure which category of CRM you actually need?
Half the companies comparing Pipedrive and HubSpot are service businesses that need a scheduling platform, not a sales CRM. Fifteen minutes with your lead flow sorts it out.