Our Pick: HubSpot for most Australian SMBs — its free CRM is genuinely excellent, it's far easier to use, and the paid tiers offer great value. Choose Salesforce if you need enterprise-grade customisation, complex sales processes, or you're scaling past 50+ users.
HubSpot and Salesforce represent two fundamentally different approaches to CRM. HubSpot starts free and focuses on simplicity — it wants to be the CRM that small businesses actually use. Salesforce is the world's most powerful CRM platform, built for customisation and scale, but with a steeper learning curve and higher price tag.
For Australian small and medium businesses, the choice often comes down to: do you need simplicity and value, or power and customisation? Here's our detailed comparison.
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | HubSpot | Salesforce |
|---|---|---|
| Starting Price (AUD/mo) | Free | $35/user |
| Paid Starter Plan | $27/mo (2 users) | $35/user/mo |
| Professional Plan | $1,180/mo (5 users) | $105/user/mo |
| Free Trial | Free forever plan | ✓ 30 days |
| Contact Management | ✓ | ✓ |
| Deal Pipeline | ✓ | ✓ |
| Email Tracking | ✓ (free) | ✓ |
| Marketing Automation | Paid plans | Separate product |
| Custom Objects | Enterprise only | ✓ |
| Reporting | Good (great on paid) | Excellent |
| Mobile App | ✓ | ✓ |
| API Access | ✓ | ✓ |
| Ease of Use | Very Easy | Moderate |
| AU Support | AEST hours | Sydney/Melbourne offices |
| Our Score | 9.0/10 | 8.5/10 |
1. Pricing Comparison
The pricing difference between HubSpot and Salesforce is dramatic, especially at the entry level. HubSpot's free CRM includes contact management, deal tracking, email tracking, meeting scheduling, and basic reporting — for unlimited users and up to 1,000,000 contacts. There's genuinely nothing else like it on the market.
Salesforce has no free tier. Its cheapest option is Essentials at $35 AUD per user per month. For a team of 5, that's $175/month before you've added any extras. The Professional tier jumps to $105/user/month ($525/month for 5 users).
HubSpot's paid plans start at $27/month (Starter, 2 users included) and jump significantly at the Professional tier ($1,180/month, 5 users). At the Professional and Enterprise levels, HubSpot's per-user cost can actually exceed Salesforce's. But for small teams, HubSpot's free and Starter tiers are dramatically cheaper.
Winner: HubSpot. The free tier alone makes this a no-contest for small businesses.
2. Ease of Use
HubSpot is one of the easiest CRMs to learn and use. The interface is clean and intuitive, with a logical navigation structure. Most features work exactly as you'd expect. Setting up your pipeline, adding contacts, logging activities, and sending tracked emails takes minutes, not hours. HubSpot also provides excellent onboarding guides and a free academy with video courses.
Salesforce is powerful but complex. The interface has improved significantly in recent years with the Lightning Experience, but there's still a noticeable learning curve. Setting up Salesforce properly often requires a consultant or admin, especially for custom fields, workflows, and reports. The trade-off is that once set up, Salesforce can be customised to match almost any sales process.
Winner: HubSpot. Dramatically easier to set up and use, especially for small teams.
3. Features & Customisation
Salesforce is the undisputed champion of CRM features and customisation. It offers custom objects, complex workflow automation (Flow Builder), advanced reporting with cross-object analytics, territory management, CPQ (configure-price-quote), and virtually unlimited customisation options. If you can imagine a CRM feature, Salesforce either has it or lets you build it.
HubSpot's feature set is strong for most SMBs but more constrained. The free plan covers the basics well. Paid plans add automation, sequences, custom reporting, and more. However, advanced customisation (custom objects, calculated fields) is locked to the Enterprise tier, which is expensive.
For most Australian SMBs with straightforward sales processes, HubSpot's features are more than sufficient. Salesforce's power becomes relevant when you have complex, multi-team sales processes or need deep customisation.
Winner: Salesforce for power and customisation. HubSpot for "enough features without the complexity."
4. Marketing & Sales Alignment
HubSpot was born as a marketing platform and expanded into CRM, which gives it a unique advantage: marketing and sales tools are built into the same platform. Even on the free plan, you get forms, email marketing (with limits), and a basic blog. Paid plans include sophisticated marketing automation, landing pages, social media management, and content tools.
Salesforce's marketing capabilities come through separate products — Marketing Cloud, Pardot (now Marketing Cloud Account Engagement), or third-party integrations. This means additional cost and complexity. For businesses that want marketing and sales in one platform, HubSpot is far more integrated out of the box.
Winner: HubSpot. Marketing and sales are natively integrated.
5. Reporting & Analytics
Salesforce's reporting is in a league of its own. You can create reports on any object, with any combination of filters, groupings, and charts. Cross-object reporting lets you analyse relationships between data sets. Dashboards are highly customisable, and the AI-powered Einstein Analytics adds predictive insights.
HubSpot's reporting is good and improving. The free plan includes basic dashboards and reports. Paid plans unlock custom reporting and attribution reporting. However, HubSpot's reporting doesn't match Salesforce's depth, especially for complex data analysis. For most SMBs, HubSpot's reports are perfectly adequate.
Winner: Salesforce. The most powerful CRM reporting available.
6. Australian Support & Presence
Salesforce has a significant Australian presence with offices in Sydney and Melbourne, plus a large ecosystem of Australian implementation partners, consultants, and developers. If you need hands-on help setting up or customising Salesforce, there's no shortage of local expertise.
HubSpot has grown its Australian team and offers support during AEST business hours. Its partner ecosystem in Australia is smaller than Salesforce's but growing rapidly. HubSpot's self-service resources (academy, community, documentation) are excellent and often reduce the need for partner support.
Winner: Salesforce for local enterprise support. HubSpot for self-service resources.
7. Integrations
Both platforms integrate with a vast range of business tools. Salesforce's AppExchange has thousands of apps and is the largest CRM marketplace. HubSpot's App Marketplace has 1,500+ integrations and is growing quickly.
For Australian businesses, both integrate with Xero, MYOB, and QuickBooks for accounting. Both connect with popular email marketing, ecommerce, and productivity tools. Salesforce has an edge with enterprise integrations; HubSpot integrates more readily with SMB-focused tools.
Winner: Draw. Both have extensive integration ecosystems.
Who Should Choose HubSpot?
- Small businesses wanting a free, functional CRM to start with
- Teams that value ease of use over deep customisation
- Businesses wanting marketing and sales in one platform
- Startups and growing businesses watching their budget
- Teams without a dedicated CRM administrator
- Businesses with straightforward sales processes
Who Should Choose Salesforce?
- Businesses with complex, multi-stage sales processes
- Companies scaling past 50+ sales users
- Organisations needing deep customisation and custom objects
- Businesses with budget for a dedicated Salesforce admin
- Enterprise companies with complex reporting requirements
- Industries with specialised CRM needs (real estate, finance, healthcare)
Our Final Verdict
For Australian small and medium businesses, HubSpot is the clear winner. Its free CRM is genuinely excellent, the paid tiers offer outstanding value, and the platform is dramatically easier to use than Salesforce. Most SMBs don't need Salesforce's enterprise-grade features, and the cost and complexity of Salesforce can be a genuine burden on small teams.
Salesforce is the right choice for businesses that have outgrown simpler CRMs, need deep customisation, or have complex enterprise sales processes. It's also worth considering if you're in an industry with Salesforce-specific solutions (there are tailored versions for real estate, financial services, healthcare, and more).
Start with HubSpot's free plan. If you outgrow it, you can always evaluate Salesforce later — and HubSpot's paid tiers may well meet your needs for years to come.