HubSpot has become almost synonymous with CRM for many small businesses. Their free tier is genuinely useful, their marketing is everywhere, and they've built a reputation as the go-to choice for growing companies.

Then you hit the paywall.

The jump from HubSpot's free tier to their paid plans is jarring. You go from £0 to £15 per user per month for Starter, which sounds reasonable until you realise how limited it is. The features most businesses actually need, proper automation, decent reporting, removing HubSpot branding, start at Professional tier. That's £702 per month when billed annually. For a small business, that's a serious expense.

The HubSpot free tier trap

HubSpot's free CRM is a genuine product, not a gimmick. You get contact management, deal tracking, and basic email tools. Many businesses run on it happily for months or even years.

The problems emerge as you grow. You hit contact limits. You want email sequences but they're locked behind paid tiers. You need more than the basic reports. Your emails have HubSpot branding you can't remove. You want to track where your leads came from, but attribution is a paid feature.

By this point, you've invested significant time building your processes around HubSpot. Your team knows the interface. Your data lives there. Migrating feels painful, so you consider just paying for the upgrade.

This is the trap. HubSpot's free tier is designed to get you invested before the real pricing reveals itself.

What small businesses actually need

Before looking at alternatives, it's worth clarifying what most small businesses genuinely require from a CRM:

  • A central place to store contacts and companies
  • The ability to track deals through a pipeline
  • Email integration (sending, tracking, templates)
  • Basic reporting on activity and sales
  • Multiple user access for teams
  • The ability to see where leads came from

That's it. You don't need AI-powered predictive lead scoring. You don't need complex workflow automation that requires a consultant to configure. You don't need integrations with 500 other tools you'll never use.

Most businesses are paying for features they never touch. The question isn't "does this CRM have everything HubSpot has?" but "does it have what I actually use?"

Evaluating the alternatives

When comparing CRM options, UK businesses should consider several factors beyond just the feature list.

Pricing transparency matters. Some CRMs advertise low starting prices but require expensive add-ons for basic functionality. Others have complex per-seat pricing that becomes expensive with small teams. Look for straightforward pricing where you know exactly what you're paying for.

UK considerations are often overlooked. Where is your data stored? Is the company GDPR compliant? Can you pay in pounds without currency conversion fees? Is support available in UK business hours? These details matter more than they might seem.

Actual usability trumps feature counts. A CRM with fewer features that your team actually uses beats a comprehensive platform that's too complex for daily use. The best CRM is the one you'll consistently use.

The mid-market gap

There's a strange gap in the CRM market. On one side, you have free tools with significant limitations. On the other, enterprise platforms starting at £500+ per month. The middle ground, capable CRMs at sensible prices for small businesses, is surprisingly sparse.

This is the space where businesses like ours operate. At Kabooly, we built our CRM specifically for small and medium UK businesses who need professional tools without enterprise complexity or pricing. Starting at £90 per month, you get proper contact management, deal tracking, email campaigns, and lead attribution, features that would cost significantly more elsewhere.

I'm obviously biased, but I built Kabooly because I saw too many small businesses either struggling with inadequate free tools or haemorrhaging money on features they didn't need.

Making the switch

If you're considering moving away from HubSpot or any other CRM, the process is more manageable than it might seem.

Export your data. Most CRMs let you export contacts, companies, and deals to CSV files. Do this first, before you cancel anything, and keep the files safe.

Clean as you go. Migration is a good opportunity to tidy up your data. Remove outdated contacts, merge duplicates, and fix inconsistencies. Starting fresh with clean data is worth the effort.

Run parallel briefly. Keep your old CRM accessible (even on a free tier) for a month while you get comfortable with the new one. This lets you reference historical information while you build new habits.

Commit fully. After your transition period, make the new CRM your only system. Split attention between tools defeats the purpose of having a central source of truth.

The real question

The question isn't whether HubSpot is a good CRM, it is. The question is whether it's the right CRM for your business at your current stage and budget.

For many UK small businesses, the answer is no. There are capable alternatives that cost less, do what you need, and won't pressure you into enterprise tiers you can't justify.

The best time to evaluate your options is before you've invested years of data and processes into a platform. But the second best time is now.