Freshworks vs HubSpot CRM Pricing 2026: Which Is Actually Cheaper?

Freshsales Growth costs $9/user/month (billed annually). HubSpot Professional costs $890/month for a base of 3 seats. At 10 users, you’re looking at $390/month versus $1,205/month. That’s not a rounding error. That’s a different category of software budget.

This comparison cuts through the marketing and shows what you actually pay at every team size, where HubSpot’s free tier genuinely wins, and exactly which hidden fees will blindside you.

Cost at a glance: every team size

The table below uses annual billing for both tools (the only way to access Freshsales’ best rates, and the only option for HubSpot Professional and Enterprise). HubSpot Free is included for teams that qualify.

Team size	HubSpot Free	HubSpot Starter	HubSpot Professional	Freshsales Free	Freshsales Growth	Freshsales Pro
1 user	$0	$20/mo	N/A (3-seat min, $890/mo)	$0	$9/mo	$39/mo
3 users	$0 (2-seat limit)	$60/mo	$890/mo	$0	$27/mo	$117/mo
5 users	N/A	$100/mo	$980/mo	$0 (3-user limit)	$45/mo	$195/mo
10 users	N/A	$200/mo	$1,205/mo	N/A	$90/mo	$390/mo
25 users	N/A	$500/mo	$1,790/mo	N/A	$225/mo	$975/mo

HubSpot Professional figures above include 3 base seats; additional seats are $45/seat/month. The $3,000 mandatory onboarding fee is NOT included, so add that to your first-year cost.

The price compression at the Professional tier is staggering. At 25 users, Freshsales Pro ($975/mo) is cheaper than HubSpot Professional ($1,790/mo) with fewer than 5 people on it.

Free tiers compared

Both tools offer free plans. They’re built around different philosophies.

HubSpot Free CRM

HubSpot’s free tier is the most generous free CRM on the market, full stop. You get:

• Up to 2 users
• 1,000,000 contacts (not a typo)
• Deal and pipeline management
• Live chat and email templates
• Meeting scheduling links
• Basic reporting

The catch: HubSpot’s free plan is a lead-generation mechanism. Every free user sees “Powered by HubSpot” on chat widgets, email footers, and forms. Removing that branding requires upgrading to Starter. The 2-seat limit is also a hard wall. You hit 3 people on your team and the free plan stops being an option entirely.

That said, for a solo founder or a 2-person shop that doesn’t need automation, this is genuinely excellent for $0.

Freshsales Free

Freshsales Free gives you:

• Up to 3 users
• Contact and account management
• Built-in phone and email
• Mobile app
• Basic pipeline view

It wins on user count (3 vs 2) but loses on contact limits. Freshsales doesn’t publish a hard contact cap for the free tier the way HubSpot does, but the feature set is more restricted. You don’t get automation, AI-powered insights, or reporting; those live behind the Growth plan.

Free tier verdict: HubSpot wins if contact storage matters. Freshsales wins if you have 3 users and want slightly more functionality without branding restrictions.

Paid tiers side by side

Entry-level paid: Growth vs Starter

Freshsales Growth ($9/user/month annual, $11/month monthly) includes:

• Visual sales pipeline with multiple pipelines
• Sales sequences (email automation)
• AI-powered contact scoring (Freddy AI)
• Revenue analytics and forecasting
• Custom fields and modules
• 21-day free trial, no credit card required

HubSpot Starter ($15/seat/month annual, $20/month monthly) includes:

• 2 pipelines (limited vs Growth’s multiple)
• Email templates and sequences
• Meeting scheduling
• Basic reporting
• HubSpot branding removed

At a 5-person team, Freshsales Growth costs $45/month. HubSpot Starter costs $75/month (annual) or $100/month (monthly). Freshsales gives you AI lead scoring and forecasting at this tier; HubSpot does not. The value comparison isn’t even close.

Mid-tier: Pro vs Professional

This is where the comparison gets dramatic.

Freshsales Pro ($39/user/month annual) includes:

• AI-powered deal insights and next best action
• Sales forecasting with AI predictions
• Custom reports and dashboards
• Multiple currencies
• Product catalog
• Time-based workflows

HubSpot Professional ($890/month annual, 3 seats included) includes:

• Advanced automation (sequences, workflows)
• Sales analytics and custom reporting
• Predictive lead scoring
• Teams and permissions
• Required onboarding: $3,000 (one-time, mandatory)
• Annual contract required, no monthly option

A 5-person team on Freshsales Pro: $195/month. A 5-person team on HubSpot Professional: $980/month (base, not counting onboarding). That’s a $785/month difference, over $9,400/year.

At this tier, HubSpot has deeper integrations with its own ecosystem (Marketing Hub, Service Hub) and more mature enterprise features. But if you’re comparing pure CRM functionality for a sales team, Freshsales Pro delivers 80% of the capability at 20% of the cost.

Enterprise tier

Freshsales Enterprise ($59/user/month annual) adds dedicated account management, custom modules, IP whitelisting, and audit logs. At 10 users, that’s $590/month.

HubSpot Enterprise starts at $3,600/month with 5 seats included (extra seats at $75/seat), plus a $6,000 onboarding fee. At 10 users, you’re paying $3,975/month before onboarding.

The Enterprise gap is so extreme that these products are no longer competing for the same buyer. HubSpot Enterprise is a platform investment for a company running HubSpot across marketing, sales, and service, not a CRM decision.

The hidden cost trap

HubSpot’s headline pricing is not what you pay. Here are the fees that routinely blindside buyers:

Mandatory onboarding fees

HubSpot Professional requires a $3,000 one-time onboarding fee. This is not optional, not waivable for small teams, and not credited toward your subscription. Enterprise requires $6,000. These are billed immediately on signup.

If you’re comparing Freshsales Pro vs HubSpot Professional for a 5-person team over 12 months:

• Freshsales Pro: $195/mo × 12 = $2,340/year
• HubSpot Professional: $980/mo × 12 + $3,000 onboarding = $14,760 first year

That’s a $12,420 gap in year one. Even in year two (without onboarding), HubSpot costs $8,520 more annually.

Annual contracts

HubSpot Professional and Enterprise are annual contracts only; there is no monthly billing option. You’re locked in from day one. Freshsales offers monthly billing on all plans and does not require annual contracts (though annual billing gets you the lower rate).

Additional seat pricing

HubSpot Professional’s base price includes 3 seats. Each additional seat is $45/month, more than double what Freshsales charges per user on its equivalent tier. A team that grows from 3 to 8 people adds $225/month in seat costs alone.

Marketing contacts (if you expand to Marketing Hub)

HubSpot’s CRM is often the entry point to the broader HubSpot ecosystem. If you add Marketing Hub Professional, be aware that the base price includes only 2,000 marketing contacts. Contacts beyond that cost $250/month per 5,000. A list of 25,000 contacts adds $1,000/month on top of your plan fee.

Freshsales doesn’t have contact-based pricing tiers; your subscription covers your users, not your contact database.

Who should choose which

Choose HubSpot if:

You want a genuinely free CRM with no time limit. For a 1-2 person operation that doesn’t need automation or advanced reporting, HubSpot’s free tier is legitimately the best free CRM available. You get a million contacts and a capable deal pipeline at $0.

You’re already invested in the HubSpot ecosystem. If your team uses HubSpot Marketing Hub or Service Hub, adding Sales Hub creates real workflow advantages: shared contact records, unified reporting, and native integrations that third-party tools can’t replicate.

You need enterprise-grade compliance and customization. HubSpot Enterprise has more mature role-based permissions, audit logging, and compliance tooling than Freshsales at the equivalent tier.

You have budget and want a single vendor. If your company is willing to spend $1,000+/month on a CRM platform and values the all-in-one HubSpot ecosystem over cost efficiency, HubSpot is a defensible choice.

Choose Freshsales if:

You need paid CRM features and you’re watching costs. Any team of 3+ people that needs automation, AI scoring, and reporting should run the math. Freshsales is almost always cheaper, often by a factor of 3-5x.

You’re a small sales team without a marketing department. Freshsales is built around sales workflows first. The HubSpot tax you pay for the marketing ecosystem isn’t worth it if your team just needs pipeline management and outreach sequences.

You don’t want to be locked in. No mandatory onboarding fees, flexible billing, and a 21-day free trial mean you can evaluate the product on your own terms before committing.

You’re scaling headcount. Because Freshsales is per-user with transparent pricing, your costs grow predictably. HubSpot’s seat overage fees at the Professional tier make growth unexpectedly expensive.

The verdict

For most growing sales teams, Freshsales is the better financial decision, by a large margin.

HubSpot’s free CRM is the exception. It’s the best option for solo operators and 2-person teams that need basic pipeline management without paying anything. That specific use case is hard to argue against.

The moment you need automation, AI insights, or reporting, and you’re paying for them, Freshsales wins at every team size. The Professional tier comparison is almost embarrassing: Freshsales delivers comparable sales CRM functionality for 20 cents on the dollar, without mandatory onboarding fees or annual lock-in.

HubSpot’s premium is justified only if you’re buying into the full HubSpot platform across marketing, sales, and service. If you’re evaluating CRM as a standalone product, you’re paying for capabilities you won’t use.

Start with Freshsales’ 21-day free trial. If you hit a feature wall, you’ll know exactly what HubSpot’s premium is buying you. Most teams don’t.

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Pricing sourced from Freshsales’ official pricing page and HubSpot’s pricing page. Onboarding fee details from HubSpot’s onboarding FAQ. Last checked February 2026.