Pick HubSpot if marketing email, forms and live chat need to live on the same record as your deals, or if you want the largest integration marketplace and a two-person free plan with the most tools in it. Pick Attio if your sales process needs custom objects such as investors, partners or candidates, you sell from Gmail or Outlook, and you want sequences and permissions at $79 a seat rather than HubSpot Professional at $90 plus a $1,500 onboarding fee.
| Attio | HubSpot CRM | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free for 3 seats, paid from $35/user/mo | Free for 2 users, paid from $9/seat/mo |
| Free plan | Yes (3 seats) | Yes (2 users) |
| Sequences tier | Pro $79, no onboarding fee | Professional $90 + $1,500 onboarding |
| Marketing tools built in | None | Native |
| Custom objects | All plans (3, 5 or 12 objects) | Enterprise only |
| Best for | Startups with a non-standard data model | Sales + marketing together |
Attio and HubSpot attract the same buyer: a founder or small team that has outgrown a spreadsheet and does not want a Salesforce project. Both set up in an afternoon and both have real free plans. The difference is philosophy. HubSpot wants to be the whole customer platform, with marketing, sales and service on one record. Attio wants to be the most flexible database of your relationships, and leaves marketing to other tools.
Below we put verified September 2026 prices side by side at 1, 5 and 20 seats, then compare ease of use, the features that decide the purchase, integrations and support. Scores come from our Attio review (4.3) and HubSpot review (4.6), scored with the same weighted rubric.
Pricing
Both vendors price per seat, per month, billed annually, and both offer monthly billing at a premium (Attio Plus is $44 monthly against $35 annual; HubSpot Starter is $15 monthly against $9). Totals are per-seat price multiplied by seats: five seats on Attio Pro is 5 × $79 = $395 a month, and five seats on HubSpot Professional is 5 × $90 = $450 a month plus a one-time $1,500 onboarding fee. Two caps matter: HubSpot Free stops at 2 seats, Attio Free at 3, and Attio Plus stops at 10 seats, so a 20-seat Attio team must be on Pro.
| Tier | Per seat / mo | 1 seat | 5 seats | 20 seats | Terms |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attio Free | $0 | $0 | — (3-seat cap) | — (3-seat cap) | No card, no expiry |
| Attio Plus | $35 | $35 | $175 | — (10-seat cap) | $44 if billed monthly |
| Attio Pro | $79 | $79 | $395 | $1,580 | $99 monthly; no onboarding fee |
| Attio Enterprise | Custom | — | — | — | Annual contract |
| HubSpot Free | $0 | $0 | — (2-seat cap) | — (2-seat cap) | No card, no expiry |
| HubSpot Starter | $9 | $9 | $45 | $180 | $15 if billed monthly |
| HubSpot Professional | $90 | $90 | $450 | $1,800 | + $1,500 onboarding once; $100 monthly |
| HubSpot Enterprise | $150 | $150 | $750 | $3,000 | + $3,500 onboarding once |
Read the table by the row you will actually be on. At the entry paid tier HubSpot wins easily: 20 Starter seats are $180 a month against Attio's cheapest 20-seat option, Pro, at $1,580. At the tier where a CRM runs outbound, Attio wins. Five Pro seats cost $4,740 in year one; five HubSpot Professional seats cost $450 × 12 + $1,500 = $6,900. At 20 seats the year-one gap is $18,960 against $23,100, narrowing to $2,640 a year once HubSpot's onboarding fee drops out.
Compare like for like: Attio Plus at $35 is not HubSpot Starter's peer. Starter is a light tier for teams that want branding removed and simple automation; Plus adds objects, private lists and email limits but still no sequences. The honest match-up is Attio Pro ($79) against HubSpot Professional ($90 plus $1,500). Also budget for Attio's credits: AI agents and enrichment draw on a monthly allowance, and add-on packs start at $70 a month. Work through your likely tier with our CRM cost breakdown.
Ease of use
HubSpot scores a perfect 5.0 and Attio 4.7, and the gap is about who does the work. HubSpot is the easiest all-round CRM we have tested: a new account went from signup to imported contacts, a renamed pipeline, connected email and a booking page in under two hours, and the defaults are good enough that most teams never change them. In-app guidance and HubSpot Academy carry new users through the extra screens.
Attio's first hour is arguably better. Connect Gmail or Outlook and a calendar, and it builds People and Company records from your history, enriches them and keeps them current. Nobody imports a spreadsheet. What costs it points is what happens next: custom objects, list-specific attributes and a canvas workflow builder give a team enough freedom to build something confusing. Attio works best when one person owns the data model. HubSpot works even when nobody does.
Features that matter
Strip the feature lists back to what decides this purchase and six items remain.
- Data model. Attio: custom objects on every plan (3 on Free, 5 on Plus, 12 on Pro), record references between objects, and lists with their own attributes. HubSpot: contacts, companies, deals and tickets, with custom properties on each; custom objects arrive at Enterprise ($150). If your business tracks investors, partners, properties or candidates alongside deals, this decides it.
- Data capture. Attio: real-time inbox and calendar sync creates and updates records, plus automatic enrichment. HubSpot: email logging, form and chat capture, and import. Attio's database is fuller on day one; HubSpot captures more from your website.
- Sequences. Attio: Pro ($79), with unlimited email. HubSpot: Professional ($90 plus $1,500). Both stop on reply and support personalisation. Attio's Free and Plus email caps (200 and 1,000 a month) mean outbound teams land on Pro.
- Automation. Attio: a visual workflow canvas with triggers, conditions, integration blocks and AI steps on paid plans. HubSpot: simple automation on Starter, full branching workflows on Professional. HubSpot's workflows are more mature; Attio's are closer to a light Zapier inside the CRM.
- Marketing and inbound. HubSpot: live chat, a chatbot builder, forms and a shared inbox on Free, and full campaigns through Marketing Hub on the same record. Attio: none. This is the clearest line between the two products.
- AI. Attio: Ask Attio natural-language queries, AI agents that research and update records, and call transcription on Pro, all drawing on credits. HubSpot: Breeze Assistant on every tier including Free. HubSpot's AI is included in more places; Attio's is deeper in the data.
Building a startup?
Our startups guide ranks six CRMs by what they cost at 3, 15 and 40 seats and where each one's price cliff sits.
Integrations
HubSpot scores 5.0 for integrations and Attio 4.2. HubSpot's marketplace lists more than 2,000 integrations, and the ones small teams rely on, from Gmail and Outlook to Slack, Zoom, QuickBooks, Stripe, Shopify and Zapier, are native on every tier including Free. Most other business tools ship a HubSpot connector before any other.
Attio covers the essentials natively: Gmail, Google Workspace, Outlook and Microsoft 365, Slack, Zapier and Make, plus importers from HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive. Its REST API and webhooks map directly onto the data model. What it lacks is breadth: no marketing suite, no telephony beyond meeting recording, and a far smaller catalogue of turnkey connectors. Expect Zapier, Make or code for the long tail.
Support
HubSpot scores 4.5 and Attio 4.0. HubSpot Free users get community and knowledge-base support only; paid tiers add email and chat, and phone support arrives at Professional. HubSpot Academy is the best learning resource of any CRM we cover, and there is a large partner network for hands-on help.
Attio offers in-app chat and email support on all plans, with a named contact on Enterprise. Documentation is clear. There is no phone support and no partner ecosystem to hire implementation from, so a team that wants someone else to set it up is better served by HubSpot. For a self-sufficient startup, Attio's support is adequate.
Who should pick Attio
- Startups whose sales motion needs custom objects, such as investors, partners or candidates, alongside deals
- Teams that sell from Gmail or Outlook and want the CRM to build itself from the inbox
- Teams that need sequences and permissions at $79 a seat with no onboarding fee
- Founders and ops leads who will own the data model
- Three-person teams that want a free plan with the richer data model
Who should pick HubSpot
- Teams that need email marketing, forms or live chat on the same record as the pipeline
- Businesses likely to add a marketing or service function within the next year
- Teams that want the largest integration marketplace
- Small teams that want a $9 paid tier and are years away from needing sequences
- Anyone who wants strong defaults, phone support and a partner network for implementation
Decision rule: ask two questions. Will marketing ever need to share this database? If yes, choose HubSpot and start free. Does your business track relationships that do not fit contacts, companies and deals? If yes, choose Attio; HubSpot cannot model them below Enterprise. If the answer to both is no, price the tier you will be on in a year: HubSpot Starter at $9 if you never need sequences, Attio Pro at $79 if you do.
Frequently asked questions
Is Attio cheaper than HubSpot?
At the entry level, no. HubSpot Starter is $9 per seat against Attio Plus at $35, and HubSpot's free plan covers 2 users while Attio's covers 3. At the tier with sequences and permissions, Attio is cheaper: Pro is $79 per seat with no onboarding fee, while HubSpot Professional is $90 per seat plus a one-time $1,500 fee.
Does Attio have a free plan?
Yes. Attio's Free plan covers up to 3 seats, 50,000 records, 3 objects and 200 emails a month, and it does not expire. HubSpot's free CRM covers 2 users and 1,000 contacts. For a three-person founding team Attio's free plan is the more generous on seats; HubSpot's includes more tools such as live chat and a meeting scheduler.
Can Attio do email marketing?
No. Attio has one-to-one email, sequences on Pro and workflow-triggered emails, but no newsletters, landing pages or forms of the kind HubSpot offers on its free plan and through Marketing Hub. If marketing campaigns need to run from the CRM, HubSpot is the only one of the two that does it.
Which is easier to use, Attio or HubSpot?
HubSpot scores 5.0 and Attio 4.7 for ease of use. HubSpot is easier for a team that wants sensible defaults and never wants to design anything. Attio's first hour is faster because it builds the database from your inbox, but its flexibility means someone has to own the data model.
Which is better for a startup?
Attio if your sales motion needs custom objects such as investors or partners, you sell from Gmail or Outlook, and you want sequences at $79 rather than $90 plus onboarding. HubSpot if you will run inbound marketing alongside sales, or want the largest integration marketplace. Both have free plans, so a founding team can try each for nothing.
Conclusion
HubSpot and Attio are both excellent places for a small team to start, and both are free to try properly. HubSpot is the safer all-rounder: more tools on the free plan, a $9 paid tier, marketing in the same system and a connector for everything. Attio is the better sales database: it builds itself from your inbox, models relationships HubSpot cannot below Enterprise, and stays cheaper at the sequences tier.
If marketing and sales will share data, start on HubSpot Free today and price Professional at your headcount before you depend on sequences. If your data does not fit a standard CRM, start on Attio Free and budget for Pro at $79 once you pass ten seats or need outbound. For the wider shortlist, see our best Attio alternatives and our ranking of the best CRM software.