Last Updated on September 30, 2026
HubSpot is cheap to start and expensive to grow in. The free CRM covers two users. The paid Starter seat is £7 on a new-customer offer. The step after that is where UK teams go looking for alternatives, and it is the step most alternatives lists never price.
We read the UK pricing pages for HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM and Capsule on 30 September 2026 and priced a five-person team on each. Five seats on HubSpot Sales Hub Professional came to £5,930 in the first year, including the compulsory £1,310 onboarding fee. Five seats on Zoho CRM Professional came to £1,080.
The quick verdict
One or two people: stay on HubSpot’s free CRM. Nothing here beats free.
Three people: Zoho CRM is free for up to three users. That is the cheapest route for a three-person team on 30 September 2026.
Four to ten people who need a paid plan: Zoho CRM Standard at £12 a seat was the cheapest paid seat we priced at regular prices. Pipedrive Lite and Capsule Starter were both £14. HubSpot Starter was £18 at its regular price.
Stay on HubSpot if you use its marketing and sales tools on one database and would otherwise pay for a separate email platform and the work to connect the two. That is where HubSpot’s bundle earns its price.
What each CRM costs per seat
Annual billing, per seat per month, excluding VAT, read from each vendor’s own UK pricing page on 30 September 2026. All four showed prices in pounds.
| CRM | Free plan | Entry paid seat | Next tier | Top published tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot | Up to 2 users | Starter £18 (£7 new-customer offer) | Sales Hub Professional £77, plus £1,310 one-off onboarding | Sales Hub Enterprise £135, plus £3,050 onboarding |
| Pipedrive | None (14-day trial) | Lite £14 | Growth £39 | Ultimate £79 |
| Zoho CRM | Up to 3 users | Standard £12 | Professional £18 | Ultimate £42 |
| Capsule | Up to 2 users, 250 contacts | Starter £14 | Growth £27 | Advanced £42 |
What a five-person team pays
| CRM and plan | Five seats a month | Year one, excluding VAT |
|---|---|---|
| HubSpot Starter, regular price | £90 | £1,080 |
| Pipedrive Lite | £70 | £840 |
| Capsule Starter | £70 | £840 |
| Zoho CRM Standard | £60 | £720 |
| HubSpot Sales Hub Professional | £385 | £5,930 (includes £1,310 onboarding) |
| Pipedrive Growth | £195 | £2,340 |
| Capsule Growth | £135 | £1,620 |
| Zoho CRM Professional | £90 | £1,080 |
At the entry level the four are within £30 a month of each other for five people. The difference opens at the second tier. HubSpot’s is priced for a team that uses the whole platform, and its onboarding fee is charged once on top of the seats.
These tiers are not identical products. Each vendor puts different features on each rung, so compare the one feature you are moving up for, usually workflow automation or reporting, against the tier where each vendor places it.
The trap in each price
HubSpot: the offer price and the cliff
The £7 Starter seat is a new-customer offer. The regular price shown beside it on 30 September was £18. The next rung for a sales team, Sales Hub Professional, was £77 a seat plus a required one-off onboarding fee of £1,310. When we checked on 7 September, HubSpot’s full Professional bundle started at £1,139 a month with six seats included; our HubSpot vs Pipedrive comparison has the detail.
Pipedrive: monthly billing costs more
The prices above are annual. Pipedrive’s own page says annual billing saves up to 42%. If you pay monthly, price the monthly figure.
Zoho CRM and Capsule: check the free-plan limits
Zoho CRM’s free plan covers three users. Capsule’s free plan covers two users and 250 contacts, which a working sales team will pass quickly. Both are real routes for a small team, but read the limits before you import a spreadsheet of 2,000 contacts into a free plan.
Which route fits, by stage
Start. Fewer than about ten enquiries a month and one or two people handling them. HubSpot’s free CRM or a well-kept spreadsheet does the job. Paying for a CRM before you have a sales process only buys you empty fields.
Build. Three to ten people and a repeatable process. This is where the cheaper routes pay. Zoho CRM is free for three, and its Standard seat was the cheapest paid seat we priced at regular prices. Pipedrive suits a team that lives in its pipeline and wants a published per-seat ladder it can forecast.
Scale. Marketing and sales on one dataset, ten seats or more. Here HubSpot Professional has to be compared against a CRM plus a separate marketing platform plus the integration work. Price all three before deciding HubSpot is the expensive option.
Before you switch
- Export contacts, companies, deals and notes, and check how activity history comes across. Migration is where switching costs live.
- Count the seats you will need in twelve months.
- Check the contracting entity. HubSpot and Pipedrive both sell to UK customers through active UK-registered companies (checked on Companies House on 7 September 2026). We have not checked Zoho’s or Capsule’s contracting entities for this page.
What this page did not check
We read published prices from each vendor’s UK pricing page. We did not run the four products side by side or test data migration. Monday CRM and Salesforce are covered in our UK CRM guide and were not re-priced here.
The takeaway
The cheap part of HubSpot is cheap. The expensive part is the step up, and that is where a cheaper route saves the most: £4,850 in year one for a five-person team moving to Zoho CRM Professional instead of HubSpot Sales Hub Professional, on prices read on 30 September 2026.
Related: our HubSpot review, our Pipedrive review, HubSpot vs Pipedrive and per-seat software pricing in the UK.
Common questions
What is the cheapest alternative to HubSpot in the UK?
For a team of three or fewer, Zoho CRM’s free plan, which covers three users. For a paid plan, Zoho CRM Standard at £12 a seat a month billed annually was the cheapest paid seat at regular prices that Whito priced on 30 September 2026, against £14 for Pipedrive Lite and Capsule Starter and £18 for HubSpot Starter at its regular price.
How much does HubSpot cost for a team of five?
On 30 September 2026, five HubSpot Starter seats cost £90 a month at the regular £18 price, billed annually and excluding VAT. Five Sales Hub Professional seats cost £385 a month plus a one-off onboarding fee of £1,310, which is £5,930 in the first year.
Is HubSpot’s free CRM really free?
Yes, for up to two users, as shown on HubSpot’s pricing page on 30 September 2026.
Is Pipedrive cheaper than HubSpot?
At the entry level, Pipedrive Lite at £14 a seat is cheaper than HubSpot Starter at its regular £18 but dearer than HubSpot’s £7 new-customer offer. At the second tier, Pipedrive Growth at £39 a seat costs about half of HubSpot Sales Hub Professional at £77 a seat plus onboarding.
Do HubSpot alternatives charge onboarding fees?
HubSpot requires a one-off onboarding fee of £1,310 on Sales Hub Professional and £3,050 on Enterprise. The Pipedrive, Zoho CRM and Capsule plan prices we read on 30 September 2026 did not list a required onboarding fee.
Sources
All read by Whito from a UK connection on 30 September 2026: hubspot.com/pricing/crm and hubspot.com/pricing/sales (annual billing, GBP); pipedrive.com/en/pricing (annual billing, GBP); zoho.com/crm/zohocrm-pricing.html (annual billing, GBP); capsulecrm.com/pricing (annual billing, GBP). Companies House checks of HubSpot UK Holdings Limited and Pipedrive UK Limited were made on 7 September 2026 for our HubSpot vs Pipedrive comparison.
