HubSpot vs. Salesforce: Which CRM Actually Fits a Growing Business?

You are likely reading this because your business has hit a ceiling.

You have grown past the 50-employee mark, perhaps pushing towards 200. Your revenue is climbing, but your operations feel fragile. You are relying on a mix of spreadsheets, a legacy CRM that nobody likes and sheer willpower to keep things moving.

You know you need a serious CRM infrastructure to scale.

The board wants better reporting. Your sales leader wants a pipeline they can actually trust. Your marketing team wants to prove ROI.

Inevitably, the conversation for which CRM to go for lands on the two giants: HubSpot and Salesforce.

The old adage used to be, "Nobody gets fired for buying Salesforce." It was the safe, default choice for any serious enterprise. But for a modern scale-up or SME focused on agility and efficiency, is "safe" really the choice you want to make when growing fast and efficiency is a necessity?

At Avidly, we have helped hundreds of businesses navigate this exact crossroads. We have seen companies thrive on Salesforce, and we have seen them drown in its complexity. We have seen businesses scale effortlessly with HubSpot and we have seen them underestimate their need for customisation.

This isn’t a sales pitch. It is a candid look at the trade-offs, costs and realities of both platforms for a business of your size. 

At a Glance: The Strategic Trade-Off

Before we dive into the details, here is the high-level comparison.

1. Usability and Adoption: The risk of the CRM not being used and adopted.

The most expensive software in the world is the software your team refuses to use.

Salesforce is a database first and a user interface second. It is incredibly powerful, allowing you to configure almost any data relationship imaginable. However, out of the box, it is a blank canvas. If you don't design the interface perfectly for your reps, they will find it clunky. We often see sales teams working in spreadsheets and only entering data into Salesforce on Friday afternoon to appease management. That kills data accuracy.

HubSpot was built with the end-user in mind. It mimics the consumer apps we use daily (think Spotify or Amazon). It reduces friction by logging emails automatically, syncing calendars seamlessly and reducing clicks so sales reps actually live inside it.

If you have a team of 50+ reps, adoption is your biggest risk. If the system is hard to use, your data will be bad. If your data is bad, your reports are useless.

2. Customisation: Configuration vs. Development

This is usually the deciding factor for technical stakeholders.

Salesforce offers virtually limitless customisation. Because it has a proprietary coding language (Apex), you can build entirely bespoke applications on top of it. If your business runs on highly specific, non-standard manufacturing processes, or you need to manage complex inventory logistics directly within the CRM record, Salesforce’s "build anything" approach is superior.

HubSpot has closed this gap significantly with "Custom Objects" and robust APIs, but it focuses on configuration rather than coding. You can customise pipelines, properties, and associations to match 95% of B2B business models without writing a line of code.

Ask yourself, "Is our sales process truly so unique that we need custom code, or are we just over-complicating things?" For most B2B services, asset management and project-based companies, HubSpot’s configuration is more than enough.

3. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

Comparing pricing between these two is notoriously difficult, but let's break down where the money actually goes.

Salesforce often wins on the initial license quote. However, you need to factor in the "Salesforce Tax":

• Implementation: rigorous bespoke setup often costs 1-3x the annual license fee.
• Maintenance: You will likely need to hire a full-time Salesforce Administrator (£50k-£80k/year) or retain an expensive agency.
• Add-ons: Features like API access, mobile offline access, or advanced reporting often cost extra.

HubSpot tends to have a higher sticker price for the software itself (especially at the Enterprise tier). However:

• Implementation: Typically costs a fraction of a Salesforce rollout.
• Maintenance: A smart RevOps lead can manage it; you don't need a developer.
• Inclusions: Most features (sandboxes, API, support) are included in the seat price.

Note: The costs provided are based on list prices. Final pricing is determined by HubSpot/Salesforce and may vary. Discounts can be applied depending on factors such as contract length and payment terms but can never be guaranteed.

4. Reporting and The "Single Source of Truth"

For the C-Suite, this is the endgame.

Salesforce has powerful reporting, resembling an Excel PivotTable on steroids. If you have a dedicated analyst, you can slice data in infinite ways. However, because Salesforce grew through acquisitions (Pardot for marketing, Tableau for data, Slack for comms), getting a unified view of the customer journey often requires stitching disparate systems together.

HubSpot shines in the "Single Source of Truth." Because Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, and Service Hub share the same database, you can see every touchpoint—from the first marketing email to the closed deal and the customer support ticket—on one timeline.

The Reality Check: If you want to attribute revenue to marketing spend easily, HubSpot makes this native. In Salesforce, it’s a project.

Use case scenarios: Which one are you?

Let’s stop talking in features and start talking about your business context.

Scenario A: The "Legacy Industrial"

• You are: A specialised manufacturing firm with 200+ employees.
• The Context: You have complex supply chain integrations, field sales teams that need offline access to inventory databases, and a 15-year-old ERP that requires a bespoke API connection.
• The Choice: Salesforce. The depth of custom development required here plays to Salesforce's strengths.

Scenario B: The "Modern Scale-Up"

• You are: A B2B service provider, software company, or asset management firm with 80 employees.
• The Context: You want to move fast. You need marketing to feed sales, and sales to hand off seamlessly to operations/onboarding. You want automation to replace manual data entry.
• The Choice: HubSpot. You will get 90% of the functionality of Salesforce with 10% of the headache, and you will likely go live in weeks, not months.

Scenario C: The "Compliance Heavy"

• You are: A defence contractor or highly regulated financial institution.
• The Context: You need granular field-level security (who sees exactly what data) and data residency in specific non-standard regions.
• The Choice: It depends. Historically this was Salesforce, but HubSpot’s Enterprise tiers now offer robust field-level permissions and audit logging. This is now a toss-up; evaluate both on security specs.

The Verdict

If you are a growing mid-sized business (50–200 employees) looking to reduce operational friction, increase speed to market and align your revenue teams, HubSpot is likely the smarter investment. It offers the path of least resistance to a "single source of truth."

For large enterprises (500+), the choice is more nuanced. While Salesforce remains a heavyweight champion for organisations requiring highly bespoke, code-heavy development, many modern enterprises are now choosing HubSpot specifically to escape that rigidity and gain agility at scale.

The biggest mistake we see?

Buying a platform simply because it feels "safe," only to realise 12 months later that you have commissioned an aircraft carrier: it is undeniably powerful and massive, but it takes five miles to turn around and requires a full crew just to leave the harbour.

Ready to validate your choice?

Book a 30-Minute CRM Audit with Avidly.

The only way to know for sure is to look at your specific data flow and requirements.

Don't guess by yourself, let’s map it out together.

We will look at your current stack, your growth goals and give you an honest recommendation on which platform fits your future.