HubSpot vs Pipedrive 2026: a CRM comparison for small businesses

These CRMs price differently, so comparing entry-plan prices alone is not enough. Pipedrive charges per user: you pick a plan (currently called Lite, Growth, Premium and Ultimate) and multiply by the number of people. Some features, such as email campaigns or lead prospecting, may be paid add-ons.

HubSpot has a free CRM you can use with no time limit, and paid plans are priced by seats and by which hubs you choose (sales, marketing, service). At the start HubSpot is often cheaper or even free, but once you need more advanced automation or marketing features, the price can jump much more than Pipedrive’s. Marketing plan prices also depend on the number of contacts.

Before choosing, work out a three-year view: how many people will use the system, whether you need email campaigns, whether management needs reports. Both vendors have changed their pricing over the past year, so calculate with the current prices on their sites.

Pipedrive is built for salespeople: the main view is a deal board with stages, you drag a deal to the next stage, and each deal gets its next activity. New hires usually find their way around in a few hours, which is a strong argument if your team does not want “yet another complicated system.”

HubSpot’s interface is broader: contacts, companies, deals, tickets, emails, forms, website visitors. That is a plus when you want one tool for both marketing and sales, but a salesperson who only needs deals may find too many menus at first. It helps that HubSpot lets you hide what you do not use and set up only the fields you need.

Both have mobile apps, so if your salespeople spend a lot of time at client sites, either option works.

The biggest risk in both cases is not the system but salespeople not using it and keeping clients in notebooks or an Excel file. So when I set it up, I always agree on a few simple rules: every enquiry becomes a deal, and every deal has a next step with a date. Wherever possible, workflows move data into the CRM, so there is as little manual entry as possible.

Neither HubSpot nor Pipedrive has ready connectors for most Lithuanian accounting software, such as Rivilė or B1. So I connect invoicing from the CRM, or payment status back into the CRM, through a middle layer: n8n, Make or directly via the API. Both CRMs have a well-documented API and webhooks, so technically it works in either case.

The difference is where the automation rules live. Pipedrive’s workflow automation is available from the Growth plan and suits simple rules (“when a deal moves to this stage, create a task”). HubSpot’s workflows are more powerful, but the advanced features sit in pricier plans. When Lithuanian systems are involved, I usually move the complex logic into n8n or Make anyway, so simple rules inside the CRM are enough.

On data: HubSpot lets you keep data in an EU data center, and Pipedrive also offers EU data storage. Check which region your account uses and record it in your GDPR documents.

An illustrative case: a company in Klaipėda that installs solar power systems. Three salespeople, enquiries coming from the website form, Facebook ads and the phone. The sales cycle is long: site visit, quote, financing questions, contract. Marketing is a few newsletters a year.

For this company I would choose Pipedrive. The most important job here is not losing deals in a long cycle and seeing who is at which stage. Pipedrive’s board shows that most clearly, and newsletters can go out through the existing email tool. A separate scenario would move enquiries from the form and Facebook into Pipedrive, and once a contract is signed, the invoice details would go to the accounting software.

If the same company invested heavily in content marketing, sent regular newsletters and wanted to see which ad led to a signed contract, I would consider HubSpot. Then marketing and sales would sit in one place, and the path from ad to sale would be visible without extra reports.

Both CRMs support CSV export and import, and there are dedicated migration tools as well. Contacts, companies and deals are the easiest to move. Activity history, emails, attachments and custom fields are harder, because their structure differs between the two systems.

My process: first we agree which fields are truly needed, since a migration is a good chance to clean out unused ones. Then we move a test batch, the salespeople check a dozen or so of their own clients, and only then do we move all the data. Automation rules and integrations are rebuilt, because they do not transfer between CRMs.

Above all, sales must not stop. During the transition the old system stays available read-only, while new deals are already created in the new one. After a month or two, once you are sure nothing is missing, the old account can be closed.