Salesforce Sales Cloud vs Hubspot Sales Hub

• January 16, 2024

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Salesforce Sales Cloud and HubSpot Sales Hub are two of the most popular sales automation tools in the market today, each offering a suite of features to streamline the sales process. In this blog article, we’ll compare and contrast these platforms to help you determine which might be the best fit for your business needs.

What is Salesforce Sales Cloud?

Salesforce Sales Cloud is a comprehensive customer relationship management (CRM) platform designed to support and enhance sales, marketing, and customer support activities. It is particularly adept in both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer (B2C) contexts. Sales Cloud is highly customizable and integrates all customer information into a unified platform. This integration includes components like marketing, lead generation, sales, customer service, and business analytics. Additionally, it offers access to thousands of applications through the AppExchange, providing a wide range of functionalities to cater to various business needs.

The platform is offered as Software as a Service (SaaS) and can be accessed via a web browser or through its mobile app. A key feature of Sales Cloud is its real-time social feed for collaboration, allowing users to share information or pose questions to the user community.

Key Features of Salesforce Sales Cloud

Sales Cloud is structured around three main pillars:

• Efficiency: This includes core sales force automation, channel sales, sales bots, Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) functionality, and billing automation. It enhances the efficiency of sales processes, enabling salespeople to engage with prospects through virtual channels and keep all interactions logged within the CRM.
• Analytics and AI: Features like forecasting, pipeline inspection, revenue intelligence, Sales Cloud Einstein, and Einstein Conversation Insights fall under this category. These tools provide deep insights into sales data and help in making informed decisions.
• Automation: This encompasses automated processes like sales engagement, seller enablement, sales planning, subscription management, and Slack collaboration. These features support salespeople by eliminating manual work and streamlining tasks.

Sales Cloud also includes robust lead management, account and opportunity management, forecast management, pipeline management, and a suite of reporting tools. This comprehensive set of features is designed to help businesses connect with customers, track deals, build accurate forecasts, manage their pipelines efficiently, and automate complex sales processes.

What Is Hubspot Sales Hub?

HubSpot Sales Hub is a dynamic component of the HubSpot platform, tailored to enhance sales processes. It offers a tiered structure with levels ranging from Free to Enterprise, each packed with specific functionalities to suit different business needs. Key features include contact and lead management, email tracking and automation, sales analytics and reporting, and sales forecasting. Designed to streamline sales activities and improve efficiencies, Sales Hub integrates seamlessly with HubSpot’s CRM, Marketing Hub, and Service Hub, creating a unified ecosystem for customer relationship management​.

Key Features of Hubspot Sales Hub

The HubSpot Sales Hub offers a comprehensive suite of features designed to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of sales teams. Key features of the HubSpot Sales Hub include:

• Lead Tracking & Management: The CRM system allows for detailed management of thousands of contacts and leads, supporting segmentation for personalized strategies.
  
• Pipeline Automation: This feature enables the automation of sales processes, ensuring consistent engagement with leads at the right time.
  
• Templates and Sequences: These tools aid in crafting and sending personalized emails at scale, ensuring consistent branding and messaging.
  
• Reporting & Forecasting: The platform provides tools for tracking performance and forecasting future deals, offering insights for optimizing sales campaigns.
  
• Tasks: This feature allows sales reps to keep track of their responsibilities, with the ability to set priority levels, due dates, and reminders.
  
• Playbooks: These are instructional guides for various stages of the sales process, offering resources like call scripts and checklists.
  
• Meetings Tool: This integrates with calendars to streamline the scheduling process and automate related actions.
  
• Documents Tool: It provides insights into how prospects interact with shared documents, informing follow-up strategies.
  
• Deals Board: A visual representation of the sales pipeline, allowing for detailed analysis of deals based on various factors.
  
• Automation: This feature enhances collaboration between marketing and sales teams and automates tasks related to deal stages and lead management.
  
• Reports: Customizable sales reports and dashboards provide insights into activity metrics, deal progression, and pipeline generation.
  

These features, combined with the integration of HubSpot’s CRM and Marketing Hub, provide a powerful tool for sales teams to optimize their processes and strategies.

Pricing: Hubspot Sales Hub vs Salesforce Sales Cloud

Salesforce Sales Cloud and HubSpot Sales Hub offer a variety of pricing plans tailored to different business needs. Below is a detailed comparison of their pricing structures:

Salesforce Sales Cloud Pricing

1. Starter:
   Cost: $25 USD/user/month
   Features: Basic CRM features, sales, service, and email outreach tools, geared towards small businesses.
2. Professional:
   Cost: $80 USD/user/month
   Features: A complete CRM solution suitable for any size team.
3. Enterprise:
   Cost: $165 USD/user/month
   Features: Offers a deeply customizable sales CRM.
4. Unlimited:
   Cost: $330 USD/user/month
   Features: Provides unlimited CRM power and support, the most comprehensive plan.

Additional Add-ons for Salesforce:

• CPQ & Billing: Starting at $75 USD/user/month, for configuring, pricing, and quoting complex solutions.
  
• Sales Cloud Einstein: At $50 USD/user/month, this adds intelligence and automation to increase sales productivity and effectiveness.

HubSpot Sales Hub Pricing

1. Free Tier:
   Cost: $0
   Features: Basic functionalities including contact management, deal pipeline, quotes, live chat, and meeting scheduling.
2. Starter:
   Cost: Starting at $18/month
   Features: Adds sales automation, goals, sales content analytics, payments, and task queues to the Free plan.
3. Professional:
   Cost: Starting at $450/month
   Features: Includes everything in Starter plus prospecting & lead management, sequences, forecasting, custom reporting & sales analytics, and playbooks.
4. Enterprise:
   Cost: Starting at $1,500/month
   Features: Encompasses everything in Professional plus custom objects, predictive lead scoring, conversation intelligence, recurring revenue tracking, and deal journey analytics.

It’s important to note that Salesforce’s prices are billed annually and may require additional investment for extensive customization or additional features. HubSpot, while offering a free tier and more accessible pricing for smaller businesses, can also become more expensive as advanced features are added, especially at the Enterprise level.

The choice between HubSpot Sales Hub and Salesforce Sales Cloud will largely depend on your business size, budget, and specific needs. Salesforce offers more depth for customization and scalability, especially for larger organizations, while HubSpot is more accessible for smaller businesses or those looking for an easy-to-use platform with straightforward pricing.

Feature Comparison: Salesforce Sales Cloud vs Hubspot Sales Hub

The comparison between Salesforce Sales Cloud and HubSpot Sales Hub reveals distinct strengths and features, making each platform suitable for different business requirements.

Salesforce Sales Cloud

• Sales Reporting & Forecasting: Salesforce excels in sales reporting and forecasting, offering advanced capabilities integrated into its platform.
  
• Customization: Known for its high level of customization, Salesforce allows extensive tailoring of the platform, even to the extent of hiring external implementation partners for specific customizations.
  
• Integrations: With over 2,500 integrations, Salesforce provides a versatile experience, especially with acquisitions like Pardot, although this can lead to a less integrated user experience.
  
• Security: Adhering to strict security standards and compliance with major data regulations, Salesforce also has additional certifications in specific geographies, enhancing its global appeal.
  
• Pricing: Salesforce is generally more expensive and is aimed at larger organizations. Its pricing model is ‘per user’, which can escalate costs.
  
• Product Direction: Some reviewers prefer the direction of Salesforce for feature updates and roadmaps over HubSpot Sales Hub.

HubSpot Sales Hub

• Ease of Use: HubSpot is recognized for its user-friendly interface, making it a favorable choice for smaller companies. It’s easier to set up, navigate, and administer, with powerful yet straightforward reporting software.
• Customer Support: In terms of ongoing product support, reviewers lean towards HubSpot Sales Hub as the preferred option.
• Integration: HubSpot Sales Hub offers a more integrated experience by connecting data and people without the complexity of multiple tools, though it has fewer integrations (over 1,000) compared to Salesforce.
• Sales Force Automation: Both platforms provide robust sales force automation. HubSpot gives sales leaders visibility into sales metrics and has deep pipeline insights for accurate forecasting and team coaching.
• Pricing: HubSpot offers a free CRM with additional pricing for Sales Hub starting at a more affordable rate compared to Salesforce, making it a cost-effective option, particularly for smaller businesses and those looking for simpler pricing tiers.

Which One Should You Pick?

Salesforce Sales Cloud and HubSpot Sales Hub stand out as leading solutions, each with its unique strengths and capabilities tailored to different business needs. This comprehensive comparison highlights the core aspects of each platform, from their robust feature sets to pricing structures, offering valuable insights to businesses deliberating which CRM solution best aligns with their objectives.

Salesforce Sales Cloud, with its extensive customization capabilities and vast array of integrations, caters primarily to larger organizations seeking a deeply customizable CRM solution. Its advanced sales reporting and forecasting tools, coupled with comprehensive security measures and diverse product direction, make it a powerhouse for businesses requiring a high degree of scalability and sophistication in their CRM processes.

On the other hand, HubSpot Sales Hub, known for its user-friendly interface and streamlined integration capabilities, presents an appealing option for smaller businesses or those preferring an easier setup and navigation. It excels in customer support and sales force automation, offering a free CRM tier and a more straightforward pricing structure, making it an attractive choice for businesses seeking efficiency and affordability in their CRM solution.

Ultimately, the decision between Salesforce Sales Cloud and HubSpot Sales Hub hinges on the specific requirements and scale of your business. For organizations demanding a highly customizable and feature-rich platform, Salesforce emerges as the preferable choice. Conversely, for businesses prioritizing ease of use, cost-effectiveness, and a more integrated experience, HubSpot Sales Hub stands as the ideal solution.

Regardless of your choice, both platforms promise to offer robust tools and features to enhance your sales processes and elevate your business’s customer relationship management capabilities.