If you’ve been working with siloed tools and outdated playbooks for too long, HubSpot can feel like a breath of fresh air. But when it comes time to choose a plan, many businesses ask:
👉 Do we start small with Starter, or go all-in with Pro?
If you ask me, the answer depends less on the software itself and more on where your company is on its journey:
Let’s walk through each lens.
If your business still runs on:
Spreadsheets for sales,
Mailchimp for newsletters,
A shared inbox for customer support,
…then you’re still in the early digitization stage. In this situation, HubSpot Starter is the obvious choice. It consolidates these scattered tools into one Customer Platform for as low as 9 €/mo/seat.
With Starter you can:
Replace Mailchimp with built-in email campaigns.
Replace Excel with a proper sales pipeline.
Replace the shared inbox with a unified view of customer conversations.
Pro, on the other hand, starts at 791 €/mo. That’s only worth it if you’ve already digitized the basics and now need to optimize at scale.
Inbound marketing works best when you already have content, campaigns, and leads flowing in.
If you’re just starting inbound, publishing your first blogs, running simple campaigns, capturing leads through landing pages—then Starter is enough. You’ll get the chance to learn, experiment, and see what works.
If you’re already running multiple inbound campaigns, generating consistent traffic, and need to nurture leads at scale, then Pro becomes valuable. With Pro you can build workflows (like multi-step lead nurturing) and use lead scoring to prioritize hot prospects for sales.
Example:
Starter use case: a SaaS startup creates a landing page for a free trial, sets up an auto-response email, and manages leads in a simple deal pipeline.
Pro use case: a scale-up wants to automatically score leads based on product usage, send personalized email sequences, and assign the hottest leads directly to sales reps.
Software only works if your team does. Ask yourself:
If your sales team forgets to log calls and your marketers are still exporting CSVs from Mailchimp, then throwing Pro at them will overwhelm. Start with Starter, build habits, and assign one internal “HubSpot champion” to drive adoption.
If your sales and marketing teams already collaborate closely, track KPIs, and have someone ready to own HubSpot, then Pro will give them the advanced automation and reporting they crave.
Bonus:
Starter’s low price makes it easier to get buy-in and build adoption gradually.
Pro’s higher cost only pays off if your team is mature enough to actually use all those features.
This is often the deciding factor: are you still reactive, or already modern in your approach?
If you’re reactive, chasing leads, answering customer emails as they come, and running campaigns one at a time, then Starter gives you structure and visibility without overcomplicating things.
If you’re proactive, planning campaigns months ahead, using data to make decisions, personalizing customer journeys, then Pro is where HubSpot shines. Features like A/B testing, smart content, and advanced attribution reporting help modern teams optimize.
Take “Company A,” a mid-sized B2B firm.
Before HubSpot:
Marketing: Mailchimp for campaigns.
Sales: Excel for leads.
Service: shared inbox.
No unified view of the customer journey.
Step 1 – Starter:
Centralized CRM and deal pipeline.
Familiarized all teams with the tool:
Sales logged deals and calls, used email templates, scheduled meetings, synced tasks.
Marketing sent emails, built landing pages, and captured leads.
Service used shared inbox to track tickets.
Detected repetitive work and opportunities for future automation.
Step 2 – Add 3 Sales Hub Pro seats (€90/month/seat):
Sales used sequences to automate follow-ups.
Introduced playbooks, call transcription, and coaching playlists.
ABM tools allowed targeting of strategic accounts.
Forecasting gave leadership visibility into the pipeline.
Step 3 – Marketing Hub Pro upgrade (€740+/month):
Automated multi-step nurturing workflows.
Added lead scoring for prioritizing hottest leads.
Built custom dashboards to track ROI and campaign effectiveness.
The key? They didn’t jump into Pro too early. They learned, adapted, and only upgraded once they were ready.
Choosing between Starter and Pro isn’t just about features. It’s about where you are in your journey.
Starter → If you’re modernizing from spreadsheets and siloed tools, just starting inbound, or building team discipline.
Pro → If you already run inbound at scale, have close sales-marketing collaboration, and want to optimize with automation and reporting.
Think of HubSpot like training for a marathon:
Starter gets you running.
Pro helps you compete.
Most companies grow into Pro over time. The real success factor isn’t the plan. It’s your team’s readiness to learn, adapt, and actually use the system.
HubSpot will grow with you, as long as your people grow with it.