Picking the right CRM is tough, right?
You’re looking at HubSpot vs Insightly, and it feels like comparing apples to oranges.
Imagine your sales team struggling with clunky software.
Don’t stress! This article breaks down HubSpot vs Insightly in simple words.
We’ll look at the key differences, pricing, and who each CRM is best for.
Overview
We didn’t just read reviews.
Our team dove deep, testing both HubSpot and Insightly.
We explored their features, tracked user experience, and analyzed real-world scenarios to provide a practical, hands-on comparison.
Ready to grow your business with a powerful all-in-one platform? Get started with HubSpot’s tools today.
Pricing: It has a free plan. The premium plan starts at $15/month.
Key Features:
- CRM
- Marketing Automation
- Analytics & Reporting
Need a CRM that goes beyond sales with robust project management tools? Insightly’s got you covered.
Pricing: It has a free trial. The premium plan starts at $29/month.
Key Features:
- Project Management
- Workflow Automation
- Relationship Linking
What is HubSpot?
Okay, so HubSpot. Think of it as your all-in-one business toolbox.
It helps with sales, marketing, and customer service. Basically, it keeps everything organized.
You get a clear view of your customers.
Also, explore our favorite Hubspot alternatives…
Our Take
HubSpot is a powerful platform with many features, but you must consider your budget and needs before committing. It’s a good choice for businesses that want a comprehensive solution & are willing to invest in it.
Key Benefits
- Free CRM: Start with a free plan with basic CRM features.
- All-in-one platform: Access a marketing, sales, and service tools suite.
- Extensive community and resources: Benefit from a wealth of knowledge and support.
- Inbound marketing focus: Attract and engage leads with valuable content.
Pricing
- Free Tools: Free for up to two users.
- Marketing Hub Starter: $15/seat/month.
- Starter Customer Platform: $15/seat/month.
- Marketing Hub Professional + three seats: $800/month, additional seats at $45/month.
Pros
Cons
What is Insightly?
Insightly? It’s more than just a CRM. It blends CRM with project management.
Think of it as keeping your sales and projects in one spot.
It’s built for those who juggle many things.
Also, explore our favorite Insightly alternatives…
Our Take
Insightly is a solid choice for businesses that need a scalable CRM with project management capabilities.
Key Benefits
- Scalable for growth: Adapt the platform as your business expands.
- Project management features: Keep your projects organized and on track.
- Customizable dashboards and reports: Get the insights you need to make informed decisions.
- Integrations with popular apps: Connect with your favorite business tools.
Pricing
- Plus: $29/user/month.
- Professional: $49/user/month.
- Enterprise: $99/user/month.
Pros
Cons
Feature Comparison
This evaluation pits HubSpot, the top crm platform known for its integrated marketing tools and scalability.
Insightly, a versatile crm solution praised for its native integrated project management tools.
This comparison will clarify which best crm platform excels at unifying sales pipeline management and lead management with overall company workflow and customer relationships.
1. Core Platform Focus
- HubSpot: Serves as a comprehensive crm platform designed to be the single source of truth for marketing, sales, and service teams. It excels in lead management and sales pipeline management with a focus on inbound marketing strategies.
- Insightly: Operates as a versatile crm solution that tightly integrates sales, marketing, and project delivery. Its core strength is bridging the gap between sales and execution through integrated project management tools.
2. Project Management Integration
- HubSpot: Offers basic integrated project management tools within its Operations Hub, mainly for organizing internal tasks and team collaboration related to a deal or contact. It is not its primary focus.
- Insightly: Features robust, native integrated project management tools that allow users to automatically create projects when a deal closes. This makes it ideal for teams that need to manage customer relationships from initial contact through to service delivery.
3. Sales Pipeline Management
- HubSpot: Provides highly visual and intuitive sales pipeline management with drag-and-drop boards. It is excellent for tracking deals and automating follow-ups, essential for effective lead management.
- Insightly: Also offers strong sales pipeline management features and customization options across its crm systems. It allows for multiple, complex pipelines to manage customer relationships effectively through different stages.
4. Marketing Tools and Automation
- HubSpot: Offers industry-leading marketing tools through its paid Marketing Hub, including email, landing pages, and sophisticated automation workflows. It is arguably the best crm platform for marketing at scale.
- Insightly: Provides strong marketing tools for email marketing and campaigns, though its features are generally less expansive than HubSpot’s dedicated marketing hub.
5. Service and Support Tools
- HubSpot: Includes a dedicated Service Hub with powerful customer service tools for ticket management, a knowledge base, and customer feedback surveys. It focuses on holistic customer relationships management.
- Insightly: Provides support services and ticketing capabilities, often relying on integrations for high-end customer service tools. Its primary focus remains on sales and project delivery over dedicated, complex support queues.
6. Scalability and Free Tier
- HubSpot: Offers a perpetual free-for-life crm platform tier and scales well, making it a viable crm solution from startup to enterprise. It is often regarded as the best crm platform for rapid growth.
- Insightly: Does not offer a true free crm platform tier but scales effectively for small and mid-sized businesses looking for a balance between crm systems and project tracking.
7. Customization
- HubSpot: Highly customizable with custom objects and fields, allowing businesses to adapt the crm systems to their unique internal processes and manage customer relationships.
- Insightly: Offers deep customization, particularly around linking contact data with project data. Users can create custom fields and views to tailor the platform as a comprehensive crm solution.
8. Ecosystem and Integrations
- HubSpot: Features a vast and integrated App Marketplace, easily connecting to other crm systems and marketing tools. It serves as a central hub for multiple crm platforms.
- Insightly: Offers strong native integrations, particularly with Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, making it a convenient crm platform for teams relying on those tools to manage customer relationships.
9. Overall Value Proposition
- HubSpot CRM: Provides exceptional value due to its free tier, unified hubs, and powerful marketing tools. It’s the best crm platform for businesses prioritizing inbound growth and integrated marketing.
- Insightly: Offers strong value by including core integrated project management tools and sales features in one package. It is the ideal crm solution for service-based businesses that need to track project execution alongside sales pipeline management.
What to Look for in a CRM Software?
- Consider your team’s size and technical skills.
- Match CRM features to your specific business needs.
- Evaluate scalability for future growth.
- Check for mobile accessibility and usability.
- Ensure seamless integration with existing tools.
- Assess customer support options and responsiveness.
- Factor in the total cost of ownership, including training and implementation.
- Look for security features and data privacy compliance.
- Determine if the CRM offers industry-specific solutions.
- Test the software with a free trial or demo before committing.
Final Verdict
So, which one wins? For most, HubSpot edges it out.
Why? It’s a powerful CRM with strong marketing automation platform features.
Plus, HubSpot offers a free plan, which is great for getting started.
It’s super user-friendly, and its reporting tools are top-notch.
Sure, Insightly is strong in project management.
Especially for small businesses, but HubSpot’s overall package is hard to beat.
We spent hours comparing Insightly and HubSpot’s automation features and closed system integrations, which make it our choice.
More of Hubspot
Here’s a brief comparison of Hubspot with these software solutions:
- HubSpot vs GoHighLevel: Hubspot is an all-in-one platform for agencies, with strong marketing automation and white-labeling options.
- Hubspot vs Pipedrive: It is a sales-focused CRM known for its visual sales pipeline management and intuitive interface, which makes it ideal for tracking deals. Hubspot provides a more comprehensive, all-in-one platform that encompasses sales, marketing, and customer service.
- Hubspot vs Keap: It (formerly Infusionsoft) specializes in CRM and marketing automation, particularly for small businesses looking to streamline sales processes. Hubspot offers a wider range of marketing, sales, and service features.
- Hubspot vs ActiveCampaign: It excels in email marketing and marketing automation, with advanced segmentation and conditional logic. However, Hubspot provides a more extensive all-in-one platform that encompasses lead generation.
- Hubspot vs Clickfunnels: It is dedicated to creating high-converting sales funnels, focusing on landing pages and sales processes. Hubspot, on the other hand, is a broader marketing and sales automation platform.
- Hubspot vs Folk: It is a simpler CRM solution that excels in straightforward contact management and organization. It is suitable for small teams that prioritize ease of use.
- Hubspot vs Instantly: It specializes in cold email outreach and lead generation automation. Hubspot provides a much broader suite of tools, including a full CRM, comprehensive email marketing with advanced design capabilities.
- Hubspot vs ClickUp: It is primarily a project management tool with extensive customization and collaboration features. It allows users to manage tasks, documents, and goals. While it offers some CRM functionalities through custom fields.
- Hubspot vs Monday CRM: It.com is a work operating system focused on project management, collaboration, and workflow automation. In contrast,
- Hubspot vs Capsule CRM: It is a simpler, user-friendly contact manager and sales tracker, ideal for small businesses needing organized customer information and clear pipeline views.
- Hubspot vs Insightly: It combines CRM with strong project management features, making it versatile for businesses requiring both.
- Hubspot vs Freshsales CRM: It is a sales-focused CRM emphasizing AI-powered lead scoring and sales automation for efficient deal management. Hubspot provides a more extensive all-in-one platform with robust marketing automation features integrated alongside sales and service tools.
- Hubspot vs Salesforce: It is a powerful, highly customizable enterprise-grade CRM with robust reporting and forecasting capabilities, ideal for large organizations with complex needs.
- Hubspot vs Zendesk: It is a specialized customer service and support platform, excelling in omnichannel support, ticketing, and advanced AI capabilities for issue resolution.
More of Insightly
Here’s a brief comparison of Insightly with these software solutions:
- Insightly vs Pipedrive: Insightly focuses on CRM with integrated project management; Pipedrive specializes in visual sales pipeline management, often preferred by sales-centric teams.
- Insightly vs GoHighLevel: Insightly is great for combining CRM with project management. It helps track sales and projects together. GoHighLevel is an all-in-one platform for marketing agency needs. It offers strong marketing and sales automation tools and can manage multiple clients.
- Insightly vs Keap: Insightly offers a robust CRM with project tracking; Keap provides powerful marketing automation, email campaigns, and comprehensive sales features.
- Insightly vs ActiveCampaign: Insightly merges CRM with project management capabilities; ActiveCampaign excels in advanced marketing automation, email sequencing, and lead scoring.
- Insightly vs HubSpot: Insightly offers a strong CRM with project management, while HubSpot provides a vast all-in-one platform for marketing, sales, and customer service.
- Insightly vs Clickfunnels: Insightly is a CRM with project management; ClickFunnels is primarily a sales funnel builder for creating landing pages and automating sales processes.
- Insightly vs Folk: Insightly is a comprehensive CRM with project management capabilities; Folk is a more streamlined, collaborative contact management tool.
- Insightly vs Instantly: Insightly offers a robust CRM and project management solution; Instantly focuses on automated cold email outreach and lead generation.
- Insightly vs ClickUp: Insightly integrates CRM and project management; ClickUp is a versatile work management platform that can be configured for CRM tasks.
- Insightly vs Monday: Insightly combines CRM with project management; Monday CRM is a highly customizable work operating system, adaptable for various CRM needs.
- Insightly vs Capsule CRM: Insightly is a more feature-rich CRM with project management, while Capsule CRM is a simpler, straightforward contact and sales opportunity tracker.
- Insightly vs Freshsales: Insightly offers a robust CRM with project management; Freshsales CRM provides advanced sales automation, AI insights, and multichannel communication.
- Insightly vs Salesforce: Insightly is a comprehensive CRM with integrated project management; Salesforce is an enterprise-grade, highly customizable, and expansive CRM solution.
- Insightly vs Zendesk: Insightly is a CRM with project management features; Zendesk primarily focuses on customer support and service ticketing.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is HubSpot compared to Insightly?
HubSpot is a massive, all-in-one platform covering marketing, sales, and service, known for its “Free Tools” entry point but steep pricing for advanced features ($800/mo for Pro). Insightly, rated higher at 4.5/5, integrates project management directly into the CRM, making it better for teams delivering services after the sale. Insightly’s pricing is more linear, starting at $29/user/month.
What is Insightly CRM?
Insightly is a “Modern CRM” platform designed to unify sales and project management. Unlike standard CRMs that stop at the sale, Insightly includes features for tasks, pipelines, and project delivery. It offers plans ranging from $29 to $99 per user/month and includes AI automations.
What are the cons of HubSpot CRM?
The primary downside is the cost. While they offer a free tier, moving to the “Marketing Hub Professional” tier jumps drastically to around $800/seat/month. Additionally, its vast feature set (Content, Commerce, Automation) can be overwhelming for small businesses that just need a simple sales tracker.
Is there a better CRM than HubSpot?
For specific needs, yes. If you require project management alongside sales, Insightly (4.5 rating) is often a better fit. For strict budget adherence without feature gating, competitors like Pipedrive or ActiveCampaign might offer better value than HubSpot’s expensive upper tiers.
What is Insightly good for?
Insightly excels at relationship mapping and project execution. It is best for businesses that need to track a lead, close the deal, and then immediately manage the project deliverables (using its built-in “Tasks” and “Projects” features) within the same software ecosystem.
Who uses Insightly?
Insightly is popular among service-oriented SMBs. This includes consulting firms, marketing agencies, construction companies, and manufacturing businesses—essentially any organization that needs to manage long-term customer relationships and complex project workflows rather than just transactional sales.
Who competes against HubSpot?
HubSpot faces competition on multiple fronts. For enterprise-grade power, Salesforce is its main rival. For small-to-medium businesses focusing on sales and projects, Insightly and Pipedrive are strong competitors. For marketing automation specifically, ActiveCampaign is a common alternative.
More Facts about HubSpot and Insightly
- Look and Feel: HubSpot has a modern, easy-to-understand interface. Insightly looks a bit older but is still very clear and simple.
- Managing Projects: Insightly is special because it combines sales tools with project management. It is often a cheaper way to track your team’s projects.
- Free Learning: HubSpot has a “school” called HubSpot Academy. It offers many free classes to help you learn how to use the software.
- User Reviews: People often rate HubSpot higher for the experience. Insightly is known for being a simple, “get-it-done” tool.
- Sales to Projects: With Insightly, once you win a sale, you can turn that deal into a project. This helps you track the work until it is finished.
- Ease of Use: Most business professionals agree that HubSpot is the easiest tool to use.
- Free Plans: Insightly offers a free plan for only 2 people. However, its paid plans are often a good deal for small teams that need advanced tools.
- Connecting Apps: HubSpot connects directly with over 1,500 other apps. Insightly also connects with many apps, with over 2,000 integrations.
- Company Size: HubSpot works for everyone, from tiny shops to huge companies. Insightly is built mostly for small and medium-sized teams.
- Starting Out: HubSpot is recommended for new businesses because it has a great free version and can grow with you.
- Complex Work: You should choose Insightly if your business does complex project work after a sale.
- Cost: Insightly’s paid plans cost $29 per person per month. HubSpot’s starter plans usually cost $15-$20 per person.
- Simple vs. Complex: HubSpot is known for being user-friendly. Insightly can be a little harder to learn because it has more project features.
- Who Uses It: Both tools are good for small and medium businesses, but very large companies use HubSpot, too.
- Getting Help: If you pay for HubSpot, you can get help 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Insightly usually offers help only during business hours.
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