You see the ad: "Get started for €20/month."
You start building a quote, add five sales reps, 10,000 marketing contacts, and the CMS. Suddenly, your €20 bill is €1,300/month and you haven't even onboarded your team.
This sticker shock is the most common frustration we hear from operational leaders.
HubSpot is arguably the most powerful mid-market platform for connecting sales, marketing and operations. But its pricing model is complex. Let's clear it up so you can build a budget with confidence and avoid any surprises.
If you're a COO, CFO, or Managing Director, you don't budget for a "software licence." You budget for an outcome—like reducing quote-to-cash time by 30% or automating compliance reporting.
You're accountable for the total cost of ownership (TCO) and the eventual ROI.
You've likely been burned before by "hidden fees," "implementation overruns," or "surprise" renewal hikes that vendors conveniently forget to mention. As an operator, you value predictable costs and partners who don't oversell.
This guide is designed to give you the real maths. We'll show you the three main cost levers so you can build a predictable, board-ready budget.
HubSpot's pricing scales on three main axes:
Seats (Your internal users)
Contacts (Your audience)
Onboarding (Your one-time setup)
Let's break down each one, but keep in mind that the costs provided are based on list prices. Final pricing is determined by HubSpot and may vary. Discounts can be applied depending on factors such as contract length and payment terms but can never be guaranteed. With that said the follow breakdowns will give you a good estimate of what to expect.
This is the biggest change HubSpot made in the last two years. Forget the old "everyone needs an expensive seat" model. Now, access is granular, which saves most mid-market companies money.
View-Only Seats (Free): Perfect for executives, board members, or finance staff who just need to see dashboards and reports. They cannot edit anything.
Core Seats (€20 - €150/month/seat): This is the new "base" user. A Core Seat gives a user access to all the Pro or Enterprise Hubs you've purchased (Marketing, CMS, Operations) except for the advanced Sales or Service tools. Think of this for your marketers, ops managers, and IT leads.
Paid Sales & Service Seats (€100 - €150/month/seat): These are only for reps who need the heavy-duty tools: sequences, advanced deal pipelines, call logging, playbooks, or complex ticketing. Your frontline sales and service teams will need these.
This model is a huge win. Your marketing director no longer needs a €150/month Sales Hub seat just to build a report on pipeline velocity.
This cost is separate from your user seats. You pay based on the number of marketing contacts in your database (i.e., contacts you have permission to email).
The Professional and Enterprise plans come with a base number of contacts included:
Marketing Hub Pro (€890/month) includes 2,000 marketing contacts.
Marketing Hub Enterprise (€3,600/month) includes 10,000 marketing contacts.
As your database grows, you'll pay for additional contact tiers. This is a critical line item to forecast in your TCO model, especially if you plan on significant lead generation.
This is where most people get caught.
You must purchase onboarding (either from HubSpot or a certified partner like Avidly) to activate any Professional or Enterprise hub. This is non-negotiable and is designed to ensure you actually succeed with the platform.
Mandatory Onboarding: This is a one-time fee that can range from €1,500 (Pro) to €7,000 (Enterprise) for a single hub.
Add-ons: Need to manage multiple currencies or business units for your international operations? That's an add-on. Need a higher API limit for complex integrations with your ERP or MRO software? That's an add-on.
A good partner builds these costs into a transparent, fixed-scope proposal from day one. Our job is to ensure you are never surprised by a line item.
Let's put the maths together. Note: These are 2026 estimates based on annual contracts, which typically include a discount. Prices are directional.
Needs: Sales Hub Professional
Team: 5 Sales Reps (Paid Seats), 2 Ops (Core Seats), 1 Manager (Core Seat)
Audience: N/A (Sales Hub doesn't charge for contacts)
Year 1 Cost:
HubSpot Software: ~€9,600
Mandatory Onboarding: ~€1,500
Total Year 1: ~€11,100
Needs: Sales Hub Pro, Marketing Hub Pro, Ops Hub Pro (for integration)
Team: 15 Sales (Paid Seats), 10 Marketing (Core Seats), 5 Ops (Core Seats)
Audience: 25,000 Marketing Contacts
Year 1 Cost:
HubSpot Software (Hubs + Seats): ~€45,000
Marketing Contact Tiers: ~€8,000
Onboarding (Multi-hub): ~€6,000
Total Year 1: ~€59,000
Needs: Full Enterprise Stack (Sales, Mktg, Service, Ops) + Business Units Add-on
Team: 40 Sales/Service (Paid Seats), 25 Marketing (Core), 20 Ops/IT (Core)
Audience: 100,000 Marketing Contacts
Year 1 Cost:
HubSpot Software (Hubs + Seats): ~€185,750
Marketing Contact Tiers: ~€45,000
Business Units Add-on: ~€7,500
Onboarding (Enterprise Stack): ~€20,000
Total Year 1: ~€258,250
A €60,000/year platform is a major investment. A €250,000/year platform is a board-level decision.
The question isn't "what does it cost," but "what is the payback?"
If the platform can automate 200 hours/month of manual "swivel-chair" work, reduce your maintenance turnaround time by 30%, and provide a single source of truth for compliance audits, the payback period is often less than 12 months.
The cost of inaction—sticking with disconnected spreadsheets, manual handoffs, and vendor finger-pointing—is often far higher than the licence fee.
You don't just need a price quote. You need a 3-year TCO model and an implementation plan that guarantees your team actually uses the tools.
That's what a solutions partner does. We're not box-checkers; we're operational consultants. We start by auditing your current processes—the manual data entry, the compliance gaps, the revenue leaks.
Only then do we design a HubSpot stack that fixes those specific problems, complete with a transparent, itemised budget and a clear ROI forecast.
If you're an operational leader tired of surprise costs and failed implementations, let's talk. We can run a 30-minute operational audit to find your top bottlenecks and give you the real maths.
No pitch, just insight.
Expected payback: 90-180 days (for a well-implemented Pro stack). Critical path: Audit operational bottlenecks → Design a TCO-based stack → Implement with a phased pilot.