In the past, HubSpot’s pricing model was often a sizable investment for companies, and in many cases was outright cost prohibitive – especially for small businesses or businesses with a huge database and relatively low lead value.
The good news is that HubSpot has redesigned its whole pricing structure to a Freemium model with very modest paid entry points for Starter versions of its Sales, Marketing, and Service products.
Fortunately, if you’re considering purchasing one of HubSpot’s Pro or Enterprise products, there are a bunch of tips and tricks on how you can save money.
Get Your Onboarding Fees Waived
(Savings $3,000 – $6,000 One Time)
HubSpot charges a mandatory one time onboarding fee for its Pro and Enterprise marketing plans. So right out of the gate, you’re looking at $3,000 for Pro and $6,000 for Enterprise.
The HubSpot onboarding program gives companies access to scheduled calls with an account manager who will basically help your team through a guided DIY onboarding process over the first several months. The idea is to get you a basic understanding of strategy and software – the very minimum of what you need to have a successful experience with HubSpot. And it’s important to keep in mind that it is still a do-it-yourself process – they don’t do it for you.
An alternative to HubSpot onboarding is to work with a Certified Agency Partner, like Alaniz. When you work with a partner agency, HubSpot waives your onboarding fees. Although this still entails costs from the agency, you’ll most likely experience a more white glove onboarding process and you’ll benefit from the consulting and strategic services of the agency.
If you’re already familiar with HubSpot, inbound strategy, and / or you like to inhale training and figure things out on your own, our agency has provided ultra-light onboarding services at little or no cost.
If you’d like to talk about how we can help you with onboarding, shoot me an email at andrew@alanizmarketing.com.
Get Help Structuring Your Package from a HubSpot Partner
Working with a HubSpot partner agency can give you an inside edge when it comes to structuring your package and getting a competitive price.
Each agency has a direct contact at HubSpot that works with us to help customers navigate the sign up process, choose the most appropriate products, plans and add-ons, and build custom pricing. And we do this fairly regularly, so we’re familiar with the ins and outs and we’ve also seen the range of deals and perks that HubSpot is willing to provide.
Clean Up Your Database
(Save $600 – $6,000+ Per Year)
HubSpot’s pricing structure on its Marketing product is based on the number of contacts you have in your database, so cleaning up old irrelevant contacts can save you a lot over the year.
For instance, if you clean up 5,000 old contacts from your Pro plan, you’ll save a total of $6,000 over the first two years. Here is the pricing structure as of today:
Marketing Starter – Comes with 1,000 contacts included. Additional contacts cost $20 / month / 1,000 up to 10,000 contacts, then decreases slightly from there as you get into larger numbers.
Marketing Pro – Comes with 1,000 contacts included. Additional contacts cost $50 / month / 1,000.
Marketing Enterprise – Comes with 10,000 contacts included. Additional contacts cost $10 / month / 1,000.
Cleanup Tips:
1. Delete Unengaged Contacts – If someone hasn’t opened an email in the last year or the last 10 – 20 email sends, chances are that they’re not worth keeping in your database. Not sure you want to cut into your database with a mass delete? Run a wake the dead re-engagement email campaign to see how many you can save.
2. Delete Hard Bounces and Unsubscribes – If you have any hard bounces or unsubscribes in your database, it could very well make sense to delete them.
3. Delete Vendors, Competitors, Spam Contacts – Over time, email databases get clogged up with contacts that will never become customers. A quick clean up using domain name searches and keyword searches that will pick up spammers (such as “SEO” or “Link Building”) can help clean out the junk.
4. Run a Deliverability Test – Email lists can decay at a rate of 20-30% per year. So if you have a list of 10,000 contacts that is a few years old, it would not be surprising to find that half or more are bad contacts.
If you have an old database or haven’t emailed them in a while, consider running your contacts through a deliverability testing service like Kickbox to identify undeliverable and risky emails.
Get a HubSpot Free Trial
(Save $800 – $3,200 One Time)
Although not widely publicized, HubSpot can give you a free trial. While you won’t be able to use the portal to send a ton of emails, it can buy you your first days, where most of your time will be dedicated to setup and training.
Leverage Freemium and Paid Starter Products
(Save $800 – $3,200 One Time)
Freemium and Starter products are a fantastic way to get started and are a great way to get your first months at little to no cost, since you’ll probably be spending most of your time doing training and setup and may not have immediate use for some of the Pro and Enterprise features like workflows.
Take Advantage of Free Training
(Save $3,000+ One Time)
HubSpot has some of the best online training programs that I have ever seen. If you have a DIY attitude, love to figure things out, and have the time, you can get a ton of value from their online training – saving you countless hours of paid onboarding and training from your agency or HubSpot consultant.
Go for the Whole Growth Suite
(Save $4,800 – $16,800 Per Year)
HubSpot offers a very nice 25% discount for customers that are going all the way with the full growth suite. So, if you’re looking at Marketing Pro, Sales Pro, and Service Pro, it will save you $4,800 per year. If you’re looking at HubSpot’s Enterprise products, you’ll be looking at a whopping $16,800 in savings per year for the base plan. If you’re all in – or almost there anyway – go for the growth suite and take in the savings. Read more on the Growth Suite Pricing here.
Special Program for Entrepreneurs
(Save up to 30%)
HubSpot offers substantial savings for entrepreneurs. Get a whopping 30% off for qualifying entrepreneurs. More information on HubSpot’s entrepreneur programs here. Wow.
Special Program for Startups
(Save 50-90%)
HubSpot offers killer incentives for startups that are affiliated with an accelerator, incubator, or VC and has helped thousands of startups.
Eligible Seed Stage startups with less than $2M in funding can qualify for 90% off of HubSpot products, as well as access to special startup support and strategy.
Eligible Series A funded startups can get 50% off of HubSpot products, along with executive mentorship to help you grow your business.
Learn more about the HubSpot for Startups Program.
How to Negotiate in the SaaS World
I love that HubSpot is up front with their pricing – unlike many SaaS companies that hold their cards close to the vest and try to take you for all they can. I’ve had a couple of calls with other software companies where the software price goes from $30K per year to $15K in one call. Then the final purchase price settles at $10K. Rest assured that you are not dealing with that with HubSpot.
Even though HubSpot isn’t packing the price and isn’t known for major discounts, it’s always ok to ask for a break – especially if you have a sizable database or you’re looking at add on products. As long as you’re fair and everyone wins, there’s nothing wrong asking for a small percentage discount off of list price.
Leverage Good Timing
With any company, there are times when they are extra motivated to make a deal. The end of a month, quarter, or year are especially great times, since sales reps and organizations at large are working hard to make quota.
Negotiate Free Add On Products
(Save 25%)
HubSpot is much more likely to throw in add-on products than to outright discount. In fact, check out the full Growth Suite, which boasts savings of 25%.
It’s a good deal for them, since they’re driving product adoption, and they will have the opportunity to make good on the freebie down the road, come renewal time. So if you’re interested in Sales Pro, Service Pro, or Premium Reports, ask them to throw it in at the end. The worst thing they can do is say no.
Negotiate Special Payment Terms
A number of years ago, HubSpot was very strict about annual payment terms, meaning that companies had to cough up $10K – $20K – $30K or more, just to get started. Today, it seems that they’re much more lenient about offering quarterly and sometimes even monthly terms, which can be a great cash flow benefit.
Take Advantage of Cost Efficient Migration Services
(Save $1,000 – $10,000+ One Time)
Custom one-off migration from one CRM to another can cost an arm and a leg. Fortunately, today there are some really great and inexpensive migration services that will pull all of your data from SalesForce (or wherever) and import it to HubSpot for you. They’ll also have the APIs all figured out, so they’ll most likely be able to pull a lot of the data that doesn’t get pulled in a standard front end export. Check out TrueJay for your CRM migration.
One Last Tip
Finally, the last way to feel great about paying your HubSpot bill is to really dig in and adopt the platform and the inbound methodology do drive real results. There is nothing that feels worse than paying big bucks for an underutilized platform or for a platform that isn’t driving the results you expected.
The bottom line is that the more leads and closed won revenue you’re bringing in through the platform, the better it will feel to pay that bill every month.
I hope you found this article helpful. Looking for help securing the best price? Email me at “andrew at alanizmarketing.com”.
