HubSpot Pricing 2026: The Hidden Costs Behind 'Free'

What HubSpot doesn’t tell you upfront

HubSpot’s pricing page is designed to funnel you toward the free tier, and it should, because the free tools are legitimately good. What the pricing page doesn’t make obvious is the cost structure once you outgrow free.

Here are the four costs that surprise most buyers:

1. Mandatory onboarding fees. Professional plans require a one-time $3,000 onboarding fee. Enterprise requires $6,000. These aren’t optional. You can’t skip them, negotiate them away, or do self-serve setup instead. That means your first year on Professional costs a minimum of $13,680 ($890 x 12 + $3,000) before adding a single extra seat or contact.

2. Per-seat pricing adds up fast. The base price for Professional includes 3 seats. Each additional seat is $45/month. Enterprise includes 5 seats at $75/month each extra. A 10-person sales team on Professional pays $890 + ($45 x 7) = $1,205/month.

3. Marketing contacts are metered separately. Professional includes 2,000 marketing contacts. Enterprise includes 10,000. Beyond that, it’s $250/month per additional 5,000 contacts. A company with 25,000 marketing contacts on Professional pays an extra $1,150/month in contact fees alone.

4. Hub stacking multiplies everything. HubSpot sells separate hubs: Marketing, Sales, Service, CMS, and Operations. Each has its own pricing. If you need Marketing Hub Professional ($890/mo) and Sales Hub Professional ($890/mo), you’re looking at $1,780/month before seats and contacts. The bundled CRM Suite offers a discount, but you’re still paying for each hub.

Plan-by-plan breakdown

Free Tools: $0

Includes: 2 users, up to 1 million contacts, deal pipeline, email marketing (2,000 sends/month), live chat, meeting scheduler, forms, reporting dashboard, mobile app.

This is a real product, not a trial. You can run a small business on HubSpot Free indefinitely. The 1M contact limit is more generous than any competitor’s free plan.

Limitations: HubSpot branding on all customer-facing tools. No automation beyond basic email sequences. Limited customization. No phone support.

Starter: $20/seat/month ($15/seat annual)

Includes: Everything in Free, plus: remove HubSpot branding, simple automation (task creation, email sequences), multiple currencies, Stripe payment processing, email and in-app support.

What it actually adds: Branding removal and basic automation. That’s the honest summary. If you’re on Free and HubSpot branding bothers you, Starter fixes that. Beyond branding, the feature jump is modest.

1 seat minimum. No mandatory onboarding. Monthly or annual billing.

Professional: $890/month (annual billing only)

Includes: 3 seats, 2,000 marketing contacts. Full automation with workflows, custom reporting, A/B testing, predictive lead scoring, teams, content strategy tools, and phone support.

Mandatory $3,000 onboarding fee. Annual commitment only; no monthly billing. Additional seats are $45/month each.

This is where HubSpot becomes a serious marketing and sales platform. The automation engine is powerful, the reporting is deep, and the CRM finally feels like an enterprise tool. But the price reflects that.

Enterprise: $3,600/month (annual billing only)

Includes: 5 seats, 10,000 marketing contacts. Everything in Professional, plus: predictive lead scoring, custom objects, hierarchical teams, behavioral event triggers, single sign-on, and sandbox accounts.

Mandatory $6,000 onboarding fee. Additional seats are $75/month each. Annual commitment only.

Enterprise is for companies that have outgrown Professional’s limits and need advanced permissions, custom objects, or compliance features. At $43,200/year plus onboarding, this is a serious budget line item.

The real cost at different company sizes

Scenario	Plan	Seats	Contacts	Monthly cost	Year 1 cost
Solo freelancer	Free	2	Any	$0	$0
Small team, no automation	Starter	3	Any	$60	$720
Growing team, full automation	Professional	5	5K	$1,030	$15,360
Mid-size company	Professional	10	25K	$2,355	$31,260
Large org	Enterprise	15	50K	$5,750	$75,000

Year 1 includes mandatory onboarding fees where applicable. Marketing contact overage calculated at $250/month per 5,000 contacts above plan limit.

The free-to-paid cliff

This is the story most HubSpot reviews miss. The jump from Free ($0) to Professional ($890/month + $3,000 onboarding) is one of the steepest in SaaS.

Starter sits in between at $20/seat/month, but it doesn’t bridge the gap meaningfully. Starter gives you branding removal and basic automation, but it doesn’t give you the workflows, custom reporting, or A/B testing that growing businesses actually need. So the practical upgrade path for most companies is:

Free (works great) —> Starter (minor upgrade) —> Professional (massive price jump)

Many businesses stay on Free for months or years, then face a difficult decision when they need real automation. At that point, you’re either committing to $890/month or evaluating alternatives like ActiveCampaign ($49/month for CRM + automation) or Freshsales ($9/user/month with automation).

Who should (and shouldn’t) use HubSpot

Use HubSpot Free if:

• You need a CRM and email marketing with zero budget
• You’re a freelancer or small team (1-2 people)
• You want a meeting scheduler and live chat included
• You don’t mind HubSpot branding on customer-facing tools

Consider HubSpot Professional if:

• You’ve outgrown free tools and need real marketing automation
• You can budget $12,000+/year for your marketing platform
• You want an all-in-one CRM, marketing, and sales platform
• Your team is large enough to justify the per-seat investment

Skip HubSpot paid plans if:

• You need automation but can’t stomach $890/month: look at ActiveCampaign or Freshsales
• You’re a small team that only needs email marketing: Moosend at $9/month does more for less
• You want predictable pricing, as HubSpot’s per-seat + per-contact + per-hub model makes budgeting difficult

The verdict

HubSpot has the best free CRM tier in the industry. Full stop. If you can live within Free’s limits, there’s no reason to pay for anything else.

But once you need to pay, HubSpot becomes one of the most expensive platforms in its class. The mandatory onboarding fees, per-seat pricing, contact overages, and hub stacking create a cost structure that scales faster than most businesses expect. Go in with a clear budget model: not just the base price, but seats, contacts, and hubs projected 12 months out.

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Pricing sourced from HubSpot’s official pricing page and their sales documentation. Last checked February 2026.