The HubSpot and Salesforce rivalry is alive and well. But, evaluating HubSpot vs. Salesforce isn’t even the real question here. The question instead, should be, “What is your business model?”
Each system is designed for a different model. They can both flex into the other, but they’re designed with a particular motion in mind. Let’s take a look.
So what is your business model?
Salesforce is designed to be ops heavy. It’s designed to be administered by ops or IT, and they see ops and IT as their primary customer. This means they build tools for power, but it also means complexity and technical lift to make them work.
Hubspot is designed for marketers and salespeople. And more recently, revops folks. What this means is that it's generally more user friendly, but they also have a lot of opinions baked into how it functions that tend to guide your process vs infinite customization of something like Salesforce.
HubSpot does PLG better than Salesforce by a long mile with CMS Hub, contact analytics similar to GA, custom events, and better user level integrations with a SaaS product or external database. Their focus on the "contact" shines through when looking to do this sort of a CRM motion.
If you're top down control and heavy on ops, and need a way to use a system to enforce a process across a wide number of users with discrete functions (think call centers, SDR farms, shipping/receiving, etc.). Salesforce wins every time. The ability to configure and implement validation rules, complex data sharing, and restrict users views to exactly what you want them to experience is unmatched.
If you're talking about enabling go-to-market professionals to do their job better, HubSpot wins every time. The prevalence of Salesloft, Outreach, Scratchpad, Skuid etc. is a testament to this reality. If Salesforce was GOOD at enabling the end user, these technologies wouldn't exist at the degree they do.
We find most companies these days are much more about enablement than control, and HubSpot leans into that.
So, ask yourself, are you top down? Or bottom up?
Interested in evaluating your CRM needs and your options? Contact us at Aptitude 8.
