Strategic Go-To-Market Blog | Six & Flow

Is HubSpot the Best CRM For Startups

Written by Manveen Kaur | 07 December 2024

Building a startup from the ground up is no small feat. Between finding customers, refining your product, and scaling operations, you can't afford to bear with inefficiencies.

Yet, without the right tools in place, you risk wasting precious time on manual tasks instead of focusing on what really matters—growth.

This is where a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system comes in, and not just any CRM. For startups, HubSpot stands out as a platform that combines simplicity, affordability, and the power to scale as you grow.

Let’s explore why HubSpot might just be the best CRM system for startups like yours.

 

Why Your Startup Needs a CRM

You may already have spreadsheets or simple tools to manage customer interactions, but as your business grows, this approach quickly becomes unsustainable.

A CRM is designed to centralise and streamline these processes, giving you the ability to:

  • Find and reach your customers
  • Streamline your sales process
  • Manage customer relationships and retention
  • Automate repetitive tasks
  • Gain insights into your pipeline and customer journey

 

The Role of a CRM in Startup Growth

For startups, every decision counts. A CRM ensures you’re not relying on guesswork when engaging with prospects, managing your pipeline, or closing deals. It allows you to:

  • Save time by automating routine tasks.
  • Provide a seamless experience for your customers.
  • Make data-driven decisions to grow your business faster.

 

Choosing the right CRM can be the difference between a chaotic, disorganised system and a streamlined, scalable operation.

 

 

What Makes HubSpot the Best CRM for Startups?

As a startup leader, you’re constantly juggling countless priorities with limited time, resources, and team capacity. Your team likely wears multiple hats—your marketer might double as a salesperson, and your operations lead might handle customer support. This multitasking can quickly lead to inefficiencies, burnout, and missed opportunities.

What you need is a solution that lightens the load. HubSpot serves as the extra pair of hands your team needs, automating repetitive tasks, centralising workflows, and freeing you to focus on growth.

But we know how expensive CRMs can be, and those tight budgets add another layer of complexity. Most CRMs are either too expensive or too basic, leaving startups to find hacks and make do with what is readily available to them.

HubSpot bridges this gap with its Starter Customer Platform, offering all the essential features—like lead tracking, relationship management, and automation—at a price designed for startups. It gives you just the right tools to find customers, build relationships, and scale your business without overspending.

Let's take a look at some reasons why HubSpot is the best bet for your startup:

 

HubSpot is Built for Simplicity and Speed

HubSpot’s Starter Customer Platform is specifically designed for startups. It’s easy to set up, simple to use, and incredibly powerful right out of the box.

Intuitive Onboarding

Getting started with HubSpot doesn’t require technical expertise or a dedicated team. Its user-friendly interface ensures you can hit the ground running without spending hours learning a complicated system.

Automate Repetitive Tasks

HubSpot automates key processes like email follow-ups, lead nurturing, and data entry, giving you more time to focus on strategy and growth.

 

HubSpot CRM is Fast and Scalable

As your startup grows, HubSpot grows with you. With automation and AI tools, you can accomplish more without the need to expand your team too quickly.

  • Generate leads faster with HubSpot's AI-driven tools.
  • Manage your pipeline efficiently, even with limited resources.
  • Scale operations seamlessly without adding complexity.

 

All-in-One Functionality

One of HubSpot’s greatest strengths is its all-in-one platform. Instead of juggling multiple tools for marketing, sales, and customer service, you can manage everything in one place.

Centralised Data

Having a unified view of your customer interactions means no more searching through emails or spreadsheets for critical information.

Collaboration Across Teams

With all teams—sales, marketing, and customer service—working from the same platform, communication and collaboration become effortless.

 

 

HubSpot vs. Other CRMs for Startups

With so many CRM options on the market, why should you choose HubSpot?

Simplicity and Ease of Use

Unlike many competitors, HubSpot doesn’t come with a steep learning curve. Its intuitive design and robust onboarding process ensure you can start using the platform effectively from day one.

Cost-Effective for Startups

HubSpot’s pricing is designed to be accessible for startups. Its Starter Customer Platform gives you access to essential tools at a fraction of the cost of enterprise-level CRMs, making it a smart investment as you grow.

Community and Educational Resources

HubSpot goes beyond software by offering a wealth of resources—articles, guides, templates, and a thriving community of founders and business leaders. You’re never on your own when navigating the challenges of scaling your startup.

 

 

What Do You Get With HubSpot's Starter Bundle?

HubSpot Starter is a great fit for growing startups or small businesses like yours. It includes the Starter edition of HubSpot’s six core products for marketing, sales, and customer service - all powered by HubSpot’s Smart CRM.

Marketing Hub Starter

Get access to essential marketing tools to engage and convert leads like marketing automation, email marketing and automation, form automation, ad tracking and management, reporting dashboards, cookie management tools, and much more.

Sales Hub Starter

Streamline your sales process and empower your sales team to grow your pipeline with tools like meeting scheduling, deal pipeline, email templates, customisable quotes, analytics, prospect management, commerce tools, repeating tasks and task queues, sales automation, and outbound calling.

Service Hub Starter

Manage existing relationships with HubSpot features like ticket pipelines, ticket routing, reporting dashboards, canned snippets, ticket automation, and conversational routing, among a few.

Content Hub Starter

Create and manage personalised content experiences across your customer journey: build website pages and landing pages, utilise SEO recommendations and optimisations, leverage drag-and-drop editor to create pages that require no custom code, analyse web traffic, and use AI to create content and generate images. 

Operations Hub Starter

Get essential operations tools to sync and clean customer data with data sync, default field mappings, email reply tracking, reporting dashboards, etc. 

Commerce Hub

Commerce Hub includes all the tools and integrations you need to manage payments in HubSpot. Request and collect payments, streamline subscriptions and increase efficiency with automation and reporting.

Plus, you can choose to process payments with HubSpot payments or your Stripe account.

 

The Final Verdict

For those leading a startup the choice of CRM is critical. HubSpot delivers on every front:

  • Ease of use that saves time and reduces friction.
  • Affordability for startups looking to maximise their ROI.
  • All-in-one capabilities that simplify operations and scale with your business.

 

Ready to see how HubSpot can transform your startup? Learn what all HubSpot has to offer!