Pick HubSpot if you want the best free CRM on the market, marketing and sales on one contact record, and the biggest integration marketplace; it scores 4.6 and starts free for 2 users. Pick monday CRM if you want board-level customization, AI included from a lower price point, and a workspace that turns a won deal into a delivery project; it scores 4.4 and starts at $12 per seat with a 3-seat minimum, so $36 a month at minimum.
HubSpot is a CRM company that added marketing, service and operations hubs around one shared contact record. monday is a work-management company that pointed its board-and-automation engine at leads, contacts and deals. The result: HubSpot is the safer, more polished default for a company evaluating CRMs on their own terms; monday is the better fit when the CRM needs to plug into how the rest of the business already works.
We price both at 1, 5 and 20 seats, including monday's 3-seat minimum and the mandatory onboarding fees on HubSpot's upper tiers, then compare ease of use, features, integrations and support. Facts come from our full HubSpot CRM review and monday CRM review, scored with the same weighted rubric. Pricing verified Sept 2026.
| HubSpot | monday CRM | |
|---|---|---|
| Our score | 4.6 / 5 | 4.4 / 5 |
| G2 rating | 4.4 (14,302 reviews) | 4.5 (1,594 reviews) |
| Entry price | Free (2 users, 1,000 contacts) | $12/seat/mo, 3-seat minimum ($36 floor) |
| Free plan | Yes — no expiry, no card | No (14-day trial) |
| Marketing tools | Same record — forms, chat, email, campaigns | None — sales and delivery only |
| Project / delivery layer | None | Full boards after a deal closes |
| Best for | Sales + marketing on one record, biggest free start | Custom workflows, teams already on monday.com |
Pricing
HubSpot's tiers are Free (2 users), Starter $9, Professional $90 and Enterprise $150 per seat per month billed annually, with mandatory one-time onboarding fees of $1,500 on Professional and $3,500 on Enterprise. monday CRM's are Basic $12, Standard $17 and Pro $28 per seat per month billed annually — $18, $25 and $41 month to month — with Enterprise on a custom quote, and every plan requires at least three seats.
At the bottom, HubSpot wins outright: free for two people, then $9 a seat with no minimum, against monday's $36 floor for three seats nobody may need yet. In the middle the picture flips. HubSpot Professional's $90 a seat plus a $1,500 onboarding fee is a steep jump from Starter; monday Standard at $17 a seat, with AI agents and automation included and no onboarding fee, is the far cheaper way into a genuinely automated CRM.
| Tier (annual, per seat/mo) | 1 seat | 5 seats | 20 seats |
|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot Free $0 | $0 | — (2-seat cap) | — (2-seat cap) |
| HubSpot Starter $9 | $9 | $45 | $180 |
| HubSpot Professional $90 | $90 + $1,500 once | $450 + $1,500 once | $1,800 + $1,500 once |
| HubSpot Enterprise $150 | $150 + $3,500 once | $750 + $3,500 once | $3,000 + $3,500 once |
| monday Basic $12 ($18 monthly) | 3-seat minimum → $36 | $60 | $240 |
| monday Standard $17 ($25 monthly) | 3-seat minimum → $51 | $85 | $340 |
| monday Pro $28 ($41 monthly) | 3-seat minimum → $84 | $140 | $560 |
| monday Enterprise | Custom quote | Custom quote | Custom quote |
Compare like for like and the story is: HubSpot wins the free-to-Starter range decisively, and monday wins the automation-and-AI range decisively. A 5-seat team on HubSpot Professional pays $450 a month plus $1,500 once — $6,900 in year one. The same team on monday Standard, which includes AI agents monday doesn't bill separately, pays $85 a month, or $1,020 a year, no onboarding fee at all.
Watch two things: HubSpot's onboarding fees at Professional and Enterprise are mandatory, not optional, and Marketing Hub is a separate product with its own seat and contact pricing if you want it beyond what's on the free tier. monday's monthly billing runs about 50% above annual, and its automation actions are capped per month (250 on Standard, 25,000 on Pro).
Ease of use
HubSpot scored a perfect 5.0 for ease of use in our testing, the highest on our entire list; monday scored 4.5. Both are fast to start, but HubSpot's edge holds up over time in a way monday's doesn't always.
HubSpot's free plan gives two users a working pipeline, email tracking, a meeting scheduler and dashboards within an hour of signing up, and the product resists over-configuration by design — you can't accidentally build a 40-field form. Breeze, the free AI assistant, is genuinely useful for pre-call research without any setup at all.
monday is just as quick on day one: pick the CRM template and leads, contacts and deals boards appear with sensible columns in minutes, and its sentence-style automation builder is the most approachable we've tested. The catch is week two, when the same flexibility that makes setup easy invites endless columns, views and boards until the workspace sprawls. Appoint someone to own board design before customising past the template.
Features that matter
The pattern is consistent: HubSpot wins wherever marketing, polish or integration breadth is the job; monday wins wherever customization or post-sale delivery is the job.
| Feature | HubSpot | monday CRM |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing tools | Forms, live chat, chatbot, email marketing — free tier up | None — a marketing product isn't part of monday CRM |
| AI assistant | Breeze included free; agent automation on Professional | AI agents for outreach, sourcing, meeting prep — included from Standard ($17) |
| Calling | Calling minutes included from Starter ($9) | No native phone; connect a dialer such as Aircall |
| Automation | Simple workflows on Starter; full builder on Professional | Sentence-style recipes from Standard; 250 actions/month, 25,000 on Pro |
| Customization | Custom properties and pipelines; deliberately structured | Any column, view or board; complete flexibility at every tier |
| Project / delivery | None — HubSpot stops at the close | Won deals convert into delivery boards in the same workspace |
| Quotes & payments | Quotes and payment links included | Quotes and invoices from Basic, capped; uncapped higher up |
| Reporting | Dashboards from Starter; forecasting on Professional | Dashboards from any board; 5 on Standard, 50 on Pro |
| Integrations | 2,000+ marketplace apps | Several hundred native integrations |
| Free plan depth | Pipeline, email tracking, chat, dashboards — for 2 users, no expiry | None — 14-day trial only |
If your CRM also needs to run marketing campaigns, HubSpot's shared contact record is the differentiator nothing here replaces. If your CRM needs to become a project board the moment a deal closes, monday's workspace does that with no second tool at all.
Want the full field?
Our ranked guide compares HubSpot, monday and four other CRMs on price, ease of use and who each one is for, with pricing verified this month.
Integrations
HubSpot scored a perfect 5.0 for integrations, monday 4.5. HubSpot's marketplace lists more than 2,000 apps, and the ones small businesses actually need — Gmail, Outlook, Slack, Zoom, QuickBooks, Stripe, Shopify, Zapier — are native and reliable, with a well-documented API and a connector shipped by most other business tools because HubSpot is so widely used.
monday's list is also long — Gmail, Outlook, Slack, Teams, Zoom, Google Drive, DocuSign, Mailchimp, HubSpot itself, Salesforce, Zapier, Make and hundreds more, all wired into the same board-and-automation model used across monday.com. The gap is telephony: monday has no built-in phone, so you connect a dialer rather than pick one up natively, where HubSpot includes calling minutes from Starter.
Support
HubSpot scored 4.5 for support, monday also 4.5. HubSpot Free users get community and knowledge-base support; paid tiers add email and in-app chat, with phone support at Professional and above. HubSpot Academy — free, well-produced courses — plus a very large partner network make it easy to get hands-on help. monday's standard support and extensive template library are available broadly, with prioritised 24/7 support and tailored onboarding reserved for Enterprise.
Who should pick HubSpot
- Teams that want sales and marketing on one record, not two separate products stitched together.
- Anyone who wants to start at zero cost — the free plan is real and permanent for 2 users.
- Teams that want the biggest integration marketplace and a connector for almost anything else they buy.
- Companies that want AI included on every tier, including free, rather than gated to a higher plan.
- Teams under about 20 people who won't feel the Professional price cliff for a while.
Skip HubSpot if you need deep board-level customization or a project-delivery layer after the sale — neither exists in the product.
Who should pick monday CRM
- Teams already running projects, operations or marketing in monday.com.
- Agencies, consultancies and contractors where a closed deal becomes a project to deliver.
- Sales processes that don't fit a linear pipeline and need custom boards and views.
- Teams that want AI agents and automation included mid-tier, at $17, with no onboarding fee.
- Service businesses that quote often, with quotes and invoices built in from Basic.
Skip monday if you're solo, want a free plan, or need marketing tools on the same record. For that, HubSpot starts free.
Decision rule: if you're choosing a CRM on its own and might want marketing tools later, buy HubSpot — the free plan alone justifies trying it first. If a closed deal becomes a project your team then delivers, or you already pay for monday.com, buy monday CRM and accept the $36 floor. The overall score favours HubSpot, but the right answer depends on what happens after the deal closes, not the rating.
Frequently asked questions
Is HubSpot cheaper than monday CRM?
At the entry tier, yes and by a wide margin: HubSpot is free for 2 users while monday has no free plan and a 3-seat minimum, so its cheapest possible bill is $36 a month. Above that, HubSpot Starter at $9 a seat still undercuts monday Basic at $12. The gap reverses once you need automation and AI: HubSpot Professional is $90 a seat plus a $1,500 onboarding fee, while monday Standard, which includes AI agents, is $17 a seat with no onboarding fee.
Does monday CRM or HubSpot have a free plan?
HubSpot does: free forever for 2 users and 1,000 contacts, with no credit card and no expiry. monday CRM has no free plan, only a 14-day trial, and every paid tier carries a 3-seat minimum. For a team that wants to start at zero cost, HubSpot is the only one of the two that allows it.
Which is better for a team that also needs project delivery, not just sales?
monday CRM. Because it sits on the same board-and-workspace platform as monday.com's project tools, a won deal can convert directly into a delivery board without leaving the product. HubSpot has no project-management layer at all — closing a deal in HubSpot and then delivering the work means a second tool.
Is HubSpot or monday CRM better for marketing, not just sales?
HubSpot, decisively. Marketing Hub shares the same contact record as the CRM, and even the free tier includes forms, live chat and email tracking. monday CRM has no dedicated marketing product; it covers sales and delivery, not campaigns, landing pages or marketing automation.
Which has more integrations, HubSpot or monday?
HubSpot. Its marketplace lists more than 2,000 integrations against monday's several hundred, and HubSpot scored a perfect 5.0 for integrations in our review to monday's 4.5. monday's gap is telephony specifically — it has no native phone at all, where HubSpot includes calling minutes from Starter.
Conclusion
HubSpot and monday CRM are both genuinely good tools built for different starting points. HubSpot is the safer default: free forever, the easiest CRM we've tested, marketing built in, and the largest integration marketplace on our list. monday is the better platform once your workflow doesn't look like a standard sales pipeline — cheaper automation and AI mid-tier, total board customization, and the only one of the two that carries a deal from close into delivery.
Choose on what your team does after the deal, not the headline score. Evaluating a CRM on its own, or want marketing on the same record: HubSpot. Already in monday.com, or selling work you then deliver: monday CRM. To see how both compare with Pipedrive, Zoho, Freshsales and Salesforce, read our best CRM software ranking.