by Are you faced with the choice between HubSpot Marketing Starter and HubSpot Marketing Professional? So read along here, where we review how each of them can lift your inbound marketing efforts. Hopefully we can help you make the choice that brings the most value to your business.
HubSpot Marketing Starter vs. HubSpot Marketing Professional. What actually best suits your company’s needs? You are certainly not the first to face the difficult choice between two of HubSpot’s most popular packages. Which lie squarely between the free version of HubSpot and the HubSpot Enterprise level of their HubSpot Marketing Hub.
Both are filled to the brim with features that enable you and your team to create successful inbound marketing campaigns.
We want to make the choice just a little easier for you. Therefore, we go into detail here with what the two popular packages each offer.
Is HubSpot a brand new part of your vocabulary, and do you first need to find out what it is and what it can do? Then we would recommend that you start by reading our detailed introduction to the platform.
If you already have a pretty good grasp of how HubSpot can be used to strengthen your business, then hang around here.
Who are the two packages best for?
The two package solutions suit different needs. So it is time well spent that you investigate which package suits you best before you make a final choice – it will also be sad to choose a solution and then find out in a few months that it doesn’t work at all not working for you.
If you choose a package solution that is too small to cover your needs, you risk having to do without crucial functions that would otherwise make a big difference to your business.
However, if you choose a package that is too large for your needs, then you will have to pay for functions that are not at all relevant to you or that you are not yet ready to use in your business. And, as we will get into in more detail shortly, it is not an insignificant difference in price, so it will be a waste of money.
But who do the two package solutions suit best?
HubSpot Marketing Starter
The HubSpot Marketing Starter package is an obvious choice for those new to HubSpot. For example, smaller companies with small marketing departments. If you are just starting your inbound marketing adventure and don’t have much experience with the concept yet, then this is the perfect solution for you.
When you choose this package, you don’t risk being overwhelmed by the many different functions that are in the other package solutions, which you most likely won’t get to use anyway to start with. Here, however, we would like to point out that there are absolutely no functions that Marketing Starter lacks, which you will also get an insight into below. If, on top of that, you have less than 1,000 contacts in your database, Marketing Starter is clearly the place to start.
You must also remember that you can always upgrade to Professional when you have gained more experience with the system, have created a bunch of good campaigns, added even more contacts to the system and generally just want even more options to work with in the system .
HubSpot Marketing Professional
HubSpot Marketing Professional, on the other hand, is aimed at marketing employees and marketing teams who already have more experience with the system and inbound marketing. So if you have a good understanding of the principles behind inbound marketing, a lot of good leads, and you want to run complete campaigns with automations, then Professional is a solution that is made for you and your company.
Here we would like to emphasize again that if you are just getting started with inbound marketing and HubSpot, then the Marketing Starter package will most likely be a better match for you than Professional – at least initially!
What is the price of the packages?
Have you decided to start Marketing Starter? Then it will cost you $50 per month at most. But you can save 10% if you sign up to pay annually instead of monthly, leaving you with a bill of $540. With the Marketing Starter package, you commit for a year, but if your inbound marketing needs grow, you can always switch to a larger package solution.
If, on the other hand, you decide that Marketing Professional is the way forward for you, then you will pay $890 per month, which then ends up being a whopping $10680. In addition, you commit for a minimum of one year when you choose this package, so it is not possible to change your mind in a few months and downgrade to a Starter package.
We are therefore in a completely different price range here, where Professional takes a significantly larger chunk of the budget than Starter. But it’s also an investment where you get amazing amounts of functionality out of the box – for example in the form of tailored reports, automations, optimization options and advanced support.
What is included in both HubSpot Marketing Starter and Professional?
The two package solutions are not completely different from each other – in fact, there are many functions that are repeated in both solutions, but Professional just has an even larger selection. So at the end of the day, it all depends on whether your business actually needs the extra features. Start by taking a look at what you get in both package solutions, and then you can assess whether it is worthwhile to upgrade to Professional.
HubSpot CRM features: No matter which package you choose in HubSpot’s Marketing Hub, you get access to all the features of their CRM system. Of course, this also applies to both Starter and Professional.
Collected forms: You can collect completed forms from all external websites that have a HubSpot tracking code installed. That way, you can collect all your contacts in a single database, no matter what type of form has been filled out.
Native forms: You can build forms in the form of standalone, pop-ups embedded and put on all the web pages you have as part of your HubSpot account.
Facebook and Instagram lead ads: You get the opportunity to create lead ads for both Facebook and Instagram, which automatically collect contact information and synchronize them with your HubSpot account. And then you can purchase the Ads Add-On, which makes it possible to synchronize with other formats, so that you can get even more solid reporting.
Shared inbox: You can collect all your 1-to-1 conversations in a shared inbox, so you and your whole team can keep track of emails, chat messages and more that come from different channels.
Team email: You can also create email accounts that can be used by your entire team and can be set to automatically collect emails on your conversation dashboard.
Live chat: With live chat you get the opportunity to communicate in writing with visitors to your website in real time.
Basic bots: You can also use a bot to make your live chat system even better.
E-mail marketing: Send e-mails that are thoroughly tested and optimized for mobiles and different e-mail providers, so that you can always measure their effect.
Lists: Take advantage of the option to create static or dynamically updated contact lists based on different segmentation criteria – so you can target content, e-mails and much more.
User Management: You can decide for yourself what level of access different members of your team should have to the different functions of your HubSpot account.
Reporting dashboard: Keep an overview with detailed measurements on your relevant marketing activities and results.
Support: You can always get personal help from the HubSpot team over the chat or via the app if you encounter challenges or have questions.
Landing pages: It is easy to build responsive landing pages that match your website and focus on conversions.
Note: If you choose to invest in Marketing Starter rather than Professional, you must bear in mind that there may be different restrictions in relation to the points above. So always make sure to check what the limitations are and whether they can have an impact on your work.
What do I get with HubSpot Marketing Professional?
The list above is quite comprehensive, and you probably won’t be left with the feeling that the Starter package is basic in any way. But how does the Professional package differ from the cheaper solution?
Marketing automation: If you are interested in the possibility of marketing automation, you have to choose the Professional solution over the Starter package. But then you can also build customer journeys and automate lots of different actions – for example notifications to your team, automatic sending of e-mails, data management and much more.
ABM tools and automation: Get the opportunity to use Account-Based Marketing tools across Marketing and Sales, such as company scoring, properties, templates and out-of-the-box reports. If you would like to learn more about , what kind of size Account-Based Marketing is, read along here.
Forms: In addition to the options for various forms that you already have access to in Marketing Starter, through Marketing Professional you get the opportunity to, among other things, adjust the codes as needed and add smart fields.
Social media: In the Professional package, HubSpot gives you the opportunity to write, plan and publish content for a wide range of popular social media, including Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. In addition, you can also analyze how they perform.
Integration of Salesforce: Synchronize content, companies, agreements and much more between your HubSpot and your Salesforce account (if you have one).
Smart content: You get the opportunity to personalize emails and content on your website based on the segmentation of your visitors.
CTAs: You can create customized CTA buttons on your website, where you can send your visitors on to relevant landing pages or other places where you can convert them.
Mobile optimization: all types of content you create on your HubSpot account are responsive and therefore optimized for different types of mobile devices.
A/B testing: Find the most effective versions of both design and content by using A/B testing on your emails and landing pages.
Blog and content creation tools: There is plenty of opportunity to create different types of content through your HubSpot account with some really great blogging tools. In addition, you also get the opportunity to SEO-optimize all your content based on best practices, so that your content has the best conditions to be found by the right people.
SEO and content strategy: You can even use the SEO tools to identify which topics make the most sense to write about, so you can optimize your content and really see the effects of the work.
Attribution reporting: You can gain a valuable insight into which of your marketing efforts hit your new contacts and the revenue that is generated.
Multiple teams: Organize all the users of your HubSpot account into different groups that you can assign different levels of access to, display different reports as needed, and more.
Technical support: You can always get help to solve challenges on your way or get answers to questions by e-mail, in-app chat and over the phone.
Video hosting and management: Take advantage of the ability to host and manage videos through your HubSpot account. You can use videos to make your web pages, blogs and social media more interactive, while you can easily monitor how well they are doing on the dashboard.
SSL certificate: You get a standard SSL certificate, so that the security of your website is completely under control when you need to collect data from your leads.
Subdomain: You can connect your HubSpot account to a subdomain to your url, where you can, for example, have your blog or other relevant content.
What package should I choose?
We have now reviewed the various functions of the two HubSpot solutions, and you have hopefully gained a greater insight into what each of them can offer. But when it comes to actually making a choice, unfortunately we have to say again that there is no definitive list. It all depends on you, your team and the needs of your business.
If you are just about to embark on your inbound marketing journey and build concrete experience with HubSpot, then we would definitely recommend that you try Marketing Starter first.
When you have had the opportunity to dive into the many different options and functions, and you may have found that inbound marketing is the right thing to achieve your company’s ambitions, you can always upgrade your HubSpot solution to Marketing Professional or even Enterprise.
But even if there isn’t a list of facts that will easily let you make the right choice, there are still some different points you should take into consideration:
Your needs and objectives
Consider the needs and goals of your business. Do you, in pain and death, need marketing automation? Can’t imagine getting through the workday without the ability to A/B test? And do you need to be able to keep track of a lot of different contacts? Then it will probably pay off for you to invest in Professional right away.
If your needs go in the opposite direction and your goals are not as ambitious (right now anyway), then there is no reason to pay the high price for the Professional solution. Then you can have great success with the Starter package.
Your budget
Your budget is of course also very important for your choice of solution. If you don’t have a big budget, it doesn’t make sense to spend the entire amount to pay for HubSpot Professional.
If, on the other hand, you have a larger budget with room for the expense, and you are convinced that you can create value with one or more of the functions that come with the Professional package, then it might make good sense to choose exactly that one over Starting.
Your dedication
How dedicated are you and your team to the whole inbound marketing mindset? After all, it really comes down to how much you and your team believe in inbound marketing as a marketing discipline. If you want to grow and believe that inbound marketing is the way to do it, then a solution with more features is a good option.
Compare the two solutions and note which functions are “need-to-have” and which are “nice-to-have“. It can help guide you towards the right decision for you, your team and your company.
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