Salesforce vs HubSpot is a topic that is often discussed. At Revenue Wizards, we are platform agnostic. This means we work with both CRMs and have no direct preference. Each tool has its place and time.

In this comparison, we look at it from a different angle that might be unusual. For sure no representative from Salesforce or HubSpot would present it this way.

Salesforce is built by developers for administrators

When you start working with Salesforce you will notice that it is built with a technical mindset. Salesforce is a dram for anyone with some understanding of computer science. When I look at Salesforce, I can see the code running in the background.

Clearly, this setup is not intuitive for an average business user. That is why for Salesforce you need to hire experienced admins (yes, plural, once you reach a certain size one will not do it). I am using bold here to emphasize the importance.  Inexperienced admins are the single worst thing you can do to kill the ROI of Salesforce and ultimately your revenue potential.

I would go even so far to say that the only reason why someone would move from Salesforce to HubSpot is a bad Salesforce admin.

You can make everything work in Salesforce and you can build a beautiful experience for the end user - with a good admin.

(In advanced companies you will also need solution architects and developers for a full salesforce team).

HubSpot is built by developers for business users

It took me a year to get decent at Salesforce and it is an ongoing learning journey.  It took me a few months to reach the same level in HubSpot and I am still learning as they are releasing more features.

The main difference is that HubSpot is designed to be easy to use for business users. The implementations are way faster than in Salesforce and there is less to maintain. Some computer science experience is also helpful for HubSpot. We have also seen poorly set up HubSpot instances.

An experienced admin is less important but you still need one. HubSpot can also be complex and even if it is designed for business users, there is still a lot that can go wrong.

Geek talk: I mentioned computer science experience. 
  A CRM is basically a relational database with loops, 
  if/else statements, validation, simple formulas, 
  and sorting. Then you put some graphs on top of it, 
    fancy UI, and allow connectivity with APIs. 
    
Voilà, you got a CRM

HubSpot is extremely popular for smaller companies (we use it also for our agency). It is easy to get started and it comes with plenty of out of the box features. That is amazing.

This explains the popularity of HubSpot with many SME. We surely can endorse it.

Pragmatic guide to selecting your CRM

What follows is a pragmatic view on how you should select your CRM.

Keep your exit in mind

Pick Salesforce if you plan to sell your company. There is a high probability that your buyer uses Salesforce (90% of Fortune 100 have at least one salesforce product). You probably have an idea who your potential buyer could be.

Having the same CRM as your buyers can save you hundreds of thousands of dollars in migration cost and ultimately boost your valuation. This alone can in most cases justify the higher maintenance of Salesforce.

Keep your stakeholders in mind

Most people that are CRO, VP of sales, or any other GTM leaders, started their careers 10 years ago. Guess which tool did they use? Salesforce. No surprise that many leaders that join a new organisation get Salesforce (if they use another CRM).

Who would blame them? I always say if key stakeholders are comfortable with Salesforce then just use it.

Most CRM adoptions do not fail because people don’t like the CRM, they fail because leadership is not embracing the CRM.

Same goes for HubSpot if leadership embraces HubSpot then uses HubSpot.

That is why we said that we are platform agnostic and don’t mind which CRM you use.

Keep your complexity in mind

For most companies that sell a product to other SaaS companies HubSpot would be an obvious choice without much consideration.

Should you predict your business process will not get too complex then go with HubSpot.

However, the moment a company is also selling outside of the SaaS sector you want to closely consider what CRM you want to pick. The complexity of the sales process, connectivity, and capability will require enterprise level custom functionality. In that regard, Salesforce is the leader.

(Yes, also SaaS can get complex. But, it is all relative if you compare it to a manufacturing or retail company)

That is why still many companies transition from around 200-400 employees from HubSpot to Salesforce (sometimes around the $10m ARR mark, but it is easier to think in terms of complexity).

Complexity is the amount of features and customizations.

Irrelevant criteria

Things I would not consider in evaluating a CRM:

• User interface. Oracle has a net income of $2.3b (similar to HubSpot's total Revenue). They run on the Oracle CRM. It has a horrible user interface. This just shows how irrelevant the user interface discussion is.

• Ease of use. Nobody missed their Revenue goals because the CRM is hard to use. Focus rather on training, culture, and discipline. The CRM job is to facilitate the processes.

• Price. They are pretty much the same nowadays. Salesforce can be slightly expensive but you get more.

• Reporting. We advocate for the build in reports as much as possible. But eventually, you will build out an analytics team, get a data warehouse, and BI tools.

Two example scenarios

A knowledge base software for revenue team to centralize sales collateral

Company sells mainly to mid size SaaS with a revenue team starting from 15 users.

• Exit strategy: 50/50% likelihood that our potential buyer is on HubSpot or Salesforce

• Stakeholders: Former HubSpot users and first time founders -> HubSpot

• Complexity: Overall, short sales cycle and simple ecosystem -> HubSpot

In this case, we would recommend HubSpot

A banking solution that facilitates the process of issuing bonds

We would sell into Enterprise clients from the start with a complex buying cycle.

• Exit strategy: 100% likelihood that our potential buyer is on Salesforce

• Stakeholders: Experienced team with former corporate employee -> Salesforce

• Complexity: Long sales cycle and complex ecosystem -> Salesforce

In this case, we would recommend Salesforce.

The verdict

By now you will understand why we advocate for being platform agnostic. It will always depend on the specific use case of the client.

That is why we strongly believe that every Revenue Operations consultancy should be platform agnostic. How can you be objective if you have a clear preference?

Salesforce might be the right platform for your business or it might be HubSpot. But some businesses can even have a use case for new contenders like folk. And why not consider Microsoft Dynamics? Microsoft is painful to administer (they know that) but with more AI features they are soon becoming the all in one platform for all business needs.

We embrace the platform that solves the specific needs of the zeitgeist.