Is Your Small Business a Good Fit for HubSpot's Marketing Hub Starter?

By Lynton Team

“I can’t afford HubSpot.” Those are words that countless SMB owners have muttered, but as of 2018, they are words that are expected to be heard less and less.

In July, HubSpot finally tapped into an eager audience that had long been yearning for the platform’s attention: small business. Marketing Hub Starter can be assessed for absolutely free, and it’s so far showing incredible promise for those hoping to get a taste of the platform’s power.

Who’s it for?

Small businesses have no shortage of tools available to them, and that makes starting a marketing program easy—but it often makes starting the right marketing program incredibly difficult. Managing multiple tools across multiple platforms with none of them quite wanting to integrate and connect with one another leads to a separated, clunky process that leaves much to be desired.Typically, this conglomeration of tools that the average small business collects leads to a lot of head scratching and overwhelm. Many end up throwing in the towel altogether.

HubSpot’s entire platform is aimed at ending that frustration. It’s a hub for all your necessary marketing tools. It’s the spot to go whenever you need to think about your business’ marketing and advertising strategy. And it’s now available for small businesses who previously could only dream of paying the high fees that the world’s top enterprises are paying.

Here are the key things that Marketing Hub Starter will allow your business to do:

  • Combine all the tools you need to begin marketing your business the right way and put them in one dashboard with an intuitive interface
  • Take advantage of a powerful CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system that helps you keep customers happier while nurturing leads into full-on brand advocates.
  • Scale your marketing processes over time with ease. HubSpot offers tools for growing companies at every stage, and that means you never have to worry about overpaying for or outgrowing your tools.

The Marketing Hub Starter Plan

Every level of the Marketing Hub platform comes with essential tools that can instantly boost your small business’ marketing efforts. There are four tiers, ranging from free tools to the Enterprise plan, which costs more than $2,400/month. The free plan offers extreme value right out of the gate, but your business is likely going to progress down the road as you grow and thrive and move up to the Marketing Hub Starter, which starts at just $50 per month.

Free vs. Starter

Everyone loves free, and the free marketing tools collection is well worth the affection. It gives your small business access to:

  • Forms
  • Contact activity
  • Contact management
  • Contact & company insights
  • Facebook & Instagram lead ads
  • Conversations inbox
  • Team email
  • Live chat
  • Conversational bots
  • Reporting dashboards

Now, if you’re willing to front as little as $50/month for some extra (extremely beneficial) tools, you can purchase the Marketing Hub Starter plan for your business. The Starter plan gets you access to all of the above tools in addition to:

  • A platform without HubSpot branding: Enjoy a marketing platform for your business that’s all yours. HubSpot’s branding will be removed with the Marketing Hub Starter platform.
  • Email marketing tools: Email marketing is a powerful technique, and you can begin utilizing it on the cheap. Send up to 5 emails per contact within a calendar month. Personalize every campaign to match your bran.
  • Lists: You’ll be able to create up to 25 Smart Lists along with another 25 Static Lists. Plus, you have the ability to segment your lists based on the criteria of your choosing, giving you powerful targeting abilities.
  • Mobile optimization: Everyone uses their pocket-sized devices these days. The Marketing Hub Starter plan will ensure that you look great on every single one.

Are There Hidden Fees?

HubSpot is an extremely popular platform and one key reason why is that they are super transparent and very responsive to customer questions. Most of the time, the answers that other companies try to shy away from are what HubSpot will feature right on their front page. For instance, a lot of companies will try to hide the fact that they have onboarding costs. HubSpot is very open about the fact that they do have such fees…except not for you!

HubSpot does charge onboarding fees (in the thousands of dollars) to Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise plan subscribers, but at the Marketing Hub Starter level, there are no onboarding fees to speak of.

The Actual Cost

For just $50/month, you can have up to 1,000 contacts. As you get more contacts, you’ll be able to scale up through the Starter plan. If you have about 5,000 contacts, for example, it will cost you around $130/month.

You can estimate the costs for your specific business by going to the Pricing page. When you’re ready, you can reach out to one of the HubSpot representatives for assistance.