TL;DR
For two to five sellers who mainly need deals tracked, Pipedrive is usually the easier tool to live with. If you want email marketing, forms and sales in one place, HubSpot is the stronger system. HubSpot's entry plan is cheaper right now on a limited-time offer, but its Professional plan costs more than any Pipedrive plan. A badly set up CRM fails whichever one you pick.
Why trust this page: I set up CRMs for small businesses, so I see what goes wrong after the sales demo. Every price below comes from each vendor's own UK pricing page, checked on 13 October 2026, and anything that's my own arithmetic is labelled. There's a shorter side-by-side on HubSpot vs Pipedrive.
The short version
- Pick Pipedrive if the job is moving deals forward: a clear pipeline, reminders, email tracking and simple automation, used by a small team every day.
- Pick HubSpot if you also want marketing in the same system: email campaigns, forms, a website chat and reporting from first visit to closed deal.
- Start on HubSpot's free CRM if it's just you, or you and one other, and you're not sure yet what you need.
HubSpot and Pipedrive UK prices in 2026
Both vendors now show prices in pounds, per seat (per user) per month, excluding VAT.
HubSpot's pricing page has a single price list across sales, marketing and service:
- Free: £0, up to two users.
- Starter: £7 a seat a month billed annually, or £9 billed monthly, up to ten users. That's marked as a limited-time 65% discount, so expect it to rise. No onboarding fee is required.
- Professional: £81 a seat a month billed annually, or £90 monthly. HubSpot requires you to buy onboarding on Professional and Enterprise, and the pricing page doesn't show what it costs, so ask.
- Enterprise: from £155 a seat a month.
Pipedrive's pricing page has four plans and no free tier, just a 14-day trial:
- Lite: £14 a seat a month billed annually, or £24 monthly.
- Growth: £39 annually, or £49 monthly.
- Premium: £59 annually, or £79 monthly.
- Ultimate: £79 annually, or £99 monthly.
Pipedrive also sells add-ons on top of any plan, priced "from": Campaigns (email marketing) from £13.33 a month, LeadBooster (lead capture) from £32.50, Web Visitors from £41, Smart Docs from £32.50 and Projects from £16.
What three sellers actually pay in a year
Here's a typical small team: three people using the CRM, billed annually, before VAT. This is my arithmetic on the list prices above.
- HubSpot Free: not an option. It stops at two users.
- HubSpot Starter: about £252 a year at today's discounted price (£324 if you pay monthly).
- Pipedrive Lite: about £504 a year.
- Pipedrive Growth: about £1,404 a year. Add about £160 if you want the Campaigns add-on for email marketing.
- Pipedrive Premium: about £2,124 a year.
- HubSpot Professional: about £2,916 a year, plus the required onboarding fee.
So the cheapest paid option today is HubSpot Starter, while the discount lasts. The most expensive is HubSpot Professional, which is where many teams end up if they want HubSpot's advanced automation. Pipedrive's prices sit in between and step up more gently.
Where they really differ
What each is built around. Pipedrive is built around the deal pipeline: columns of deals you drag along, with the next activity always in view. HubSpot is built around the contact record, with sales, marketing and service tools sharing it.
Email. On Pipedrive, full email sync with tracking and automations start at Growth, not Lite, so Lite is really a pipeline tracker. Email marketing is a separate add-on. HubSpot lists email campaigns in its Starter plan, so newsletters and simple nurture emails sit in the same system as your deals.
Getting leads in. Pipedrive's lead generation and routing comes in Premium, or as the LeadBooster add-on. HubSpot gives you forms and website chat from the free plan up, which suits a business whose leads mostly come from its own website.
AI features. Both now include AI meeting notes and help keeping records up to date. HubSpot meters its AI agents with "HubSpot Credits", with 5,000 a month included on Starter, so heavy use can cost extra. Read what each plan includes rather than the feature list on the homepage.
Room to grow. HubSpot Starter caps at ten users. Past that, you're on Professional, at more than ten times today's discounted Starter price per seat. Pipedrive has no equivalent cliff. Each plan up costs £20 to £25 a seat more.
Pricing traps to check before you buy
- Promotional prices. HubSpot's Starter price is a limited-time discount. Ask what it renews at, and for how long the price is fixed.
- Annual vs monthly. Annual billing saves up to 42% on Pipedrive, but you're committing for the year. Try monthly first if you're unsure.
- Seats you don't need. Count who will actually work in the CRM every week. Someone who only reads a monthly report may not need a paid seat. Check each vendor's rules on view-only access.
- Onboarding fees. Required on HubSpot Professional and Enterprise. Get the figure in writing.
- Add-ons and usage. Pipedrive's add-ons and HubSpot's credits can quietly double what you thought you'd pay.
- VAT. Both list prices without VAT, so add 20% if you're not VAT registered.
How to choose in an afternoon
- Write down your sales stages. From first contact to paid, in your own words. Five to seven stages is plenty.
- List where leads come from. Website forms and chat point towards HubSpot. Outbound calls and referrals work well in either.
- Decide if you need email marketing in the CRM. If yes, HubSpot Starter, or Pipedrive plus Campaigns.
- Run both free trials with real deals. Put ten live deals in each and use them for a week. Whichever your team keeps opening without being told is the answer.
The part that matters more than the tool
Most CRM problems I see aren't about the software. The stages don't match how the business sells, nobody owns the data, and follow-up still depends on someone remembering. A well set up Pipedrive beats a messy HubSpot, and the other way round.
I ran a full sales cycle through a HubSpot pipeline at a marketing agency in 2023, and I set CRMs up for clients now: stages, fields, automatic follow-up and a weekly report you can trust. If you'd rather have it done for you, see CRM and automation. If you're weighing up an all-in-one alternative, see GoHighLevel vs HubSpot.
Sources: HubSpot pricing page (GBP, annual and monthly billing, onboarding FAQ) and Pipedrive pricing page (GBP, annual and monthly billing, add-ons, VAT note), both checked 13 October 2026. Prices exclude VAT and change often, especially promotions; check both pages before you buy.
Fair questions
Is HubSpot cheaper than Pipedrive?
At the entry level, right now, yes. HubSpot Starter is £7 a seat a month billed annually on a limited-time discount, against £14 for Pipedrive Lite. Further up it flips: HubSpot Professional is £81 a seat plus a required onboarding fee, while Pipedrive's top plan is £79.
Is HubSpot's free CRM enough for a small business?
For one or two people who mainly need contacts and deals in one place, often yes. It's limited to two users, and automation and reporting are thin, so most growing teams move to a paid plan.
Does Pipedrive have a free plan?
No. It has a 14-day free trial with no card needed, then paid plans from £14 a seat a month billed annually.
Which is easier to use?
Most small sales teams find Pipedrive quicker to pick up, because it's built around one visual pipeline. HubSpot does more, so there's more to set up and more to ignore.
Can I switch from one to the other later?
Yes. Both import contacts, companies and deals from a spreadsheet. The work is in rebuilding stages, fields and automations, so pick carefully but don't treat it as forever.
