Chances are, if you’ve been hunting for business software, you’ve stumbled across HubSpot. It’s one of the biggest names in the game, promising to bring your marketing, sales, and service teams together under one neat and tidy roof. And honestly, for a lot of companies, it gets the job done.
But before you jump in with both feet, it pays to take a beat. While HubSpot offers a massive toolkit, you really need to understand its structure, what its AI can actually do, and its famously complicated pricing. This guide is here to give you a clear, no-nonsense look at the platform in 2025. We’ll walk through its main products, take a close look at its AI engine, break down the costs, and point out the spots where it might leave you wanting more, especially if you need a truly flexible AI support solution.
What is HubSpot?
So, what exactly is HubSpot? At its heart, it’s a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform designed to track the entire customer journey, from the moment they first see an ad to the support ticket they file a year later. The whole system is built around a central "Smart CRM," which acts as the one source of truth for all your customer data. Then, layered on top, are different "Hubs" for marketing, sales, customer service, and more.
With over 268,000 customers, HubSpot’s biggest draw is the idea of replacing a messy collection of different tools with one streamlined system. This all-in-one approach is its main strength, but it can also be a double-edged sword. When you commit to HubSpot, you’re often committing to its entire world. It can start to feel a bit like a "walled garden", nice on the inside, but it can be tough to integrate other best-in-class tools you might already love.
A breakdown of the core HubSpot products
HubSpot’s real power comes from how its different "Hubs" work together. There are a bunch of them, but let’s focus on the ones most relevant to teams that talk to customers every day.
The HubSpot Smart CRM
The Smart CRM is the foundation of everything. It’s the central database for all your customer info, from contact details and email history to sales deals and support tickets. The best part? It’s free to get started, which makes it a super attractive option for small businesses just getting their footing. It comes with all the basics, like contact management, activity logging, and reporting dashboards.
A screenshot of the HubSpot Smart CRM, showing the contact timeline with all customer interactions.::HubSpot Marketing Hub® and Sales Hub®
These two hubs are basically a one-two punch for finding and winning new customers. The Marketing Hub is all about grabbing attention and turning strangers into leads with tools for email campaigns, social media, and content. Once a lead looks promising, the Sales Hub steps in, helping your sales reps manage their pipeline, automate outreach, and close deals.
The HubSpot Sales Hub dashboard, illustrating the sales pipeline management features.::HubSpot Service Hub®
The Service Hub handles everything that happens after a sale is made. It’s built to help you manage customer support and keep people happy. You get features like a ticketing system, a shared inbox for your team, a tool to build a knowledge base, customer satisfaction surveys, and live chat.
An example of the HubSpot Service Hub's ticketing system and email follow-up capabilities.::This setup works great if your entire business, from customer info to internal guides, lives inside HubSpot. But let’s be real, that’s almost never the case. Most companies have important information tucked away in Confluence wikis, troubleshooting guides in Google Docs, or project plans in Notion. When your support knowledge is spread out, a platform that can’t see beyond its own walls creates a huge blind spot.
A deep dive into HubSpot AI (Breeze)
Naturally, HubSpot has jumped on the AI train with "Breeze," a collection of AI-powered features sprinkled throughout the platform. Breeze is meant to make your team more productive by automating things like writing content, analyzing data, and, most importantly for us, handling customer support with its "Customer Agent."
What can the HubSpot customer agent do?
The HubSpot Customer Agent is an AI bot built to take on those first-line customer questions automatically. HubSpot says it can handle over 65% of common queries, which in theory frees up your human agents for the trickier stuff. It works alongside other AI features like a chatbot builder for your website and an AI assistant that can summarize customer records to help you prep for a call.
A demonstration of the HubSpot AI agent interacting with a customer.::The limitations of the built-in HubSpot AI
An AI that’s already baked into your platform sounds convenient, right? But when you look a little closer, the all-in-one dream starts to show some cracks. Here are a few big limitations to think about:
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It only knows what’s inside HubSpot. HubSpot’s AI learns from data that lives inside its own ecosystem. It can read your HubSpot knowledge base and pull from your CRM data, but that’s pretty much it. If your team’s real brain is a detailed engineering wiki in Confluence or a folder of how-to guides in Google Docs, the HubSpot AI is completely in the dark.
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It’s not exactly self-serve. To get the most powerful AI features, you often have to upgrade to the pricey Enterprise plan and pay for mandatory onboarding, which can run you thousands of dollars. That’s a world away from modern AI tools that you can set up and tweak yourself in an afternoon, not over several months.
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You have to play by HubSpot’s rules. When you use a built-in AI, you’re stuck with its pre-defined workflows. They can be powerful, but also rigid. What if you need your AI to do something custom, like check an order status in Shopify or create a bug ticket in Jira? With HubSpot, these kinds of simple cross-platform tasks are often difficult, if not impossible, without hiring a developer.
<protip text="When you're looking at any AI support tool, ask this simple question: "Where does it learn from?" If the answer is just "our own platform," you're running the risk of building an AI that's missing out on a ton of valuable knowledge your team has already created elsewhere.">
A more flexible approach to AI automation
This is where a specialized AI layer like eesel AI starts to make a lot of sense. Instead of locking you into one system, eesel AI is built to plug into the tools you already use and unify your knowledge, no matter where it is. It connects to over 100 sources, including help desks like Zendesk and Freshdesk, company wikis like Confluence, and team chat apps like Slack.
The whole philosophy is different. With eesel AI, you can be up and running in minutes, not months. The setup is designed to be totally self-serve, meaning you can build, test, and launch a powerful AI agent without ever sitting through a mandatory sales demo or paying for a bloated onboarding package.
Here’s a quick side-by-side look:
| Feature | HubSpot Customer Agent | eesel AI Agent |
|---|---|---|
| Knowledge Sources | Mostly just HubSpot data | Help desks, Confluence, Google Docs, past tickets, Shopify & 100+ more |
| Setup Process | Often requires paid onboarding & enterprise plans | Totally self-serve, go live in minutes |
| Customization | Limited to HubSpot’s workflows | Fully customizable persona, prompts, and custom actions |
| Testing | Limited visibility before launch | Powerful simulation on past tickets for a confident rollout |
| Flexibility | Keeps you inside the HubSpot world | Works with the help desk and tools you already have |
Understanding HubSpot pricing
Alright, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: HubSpot pricing. It’s powerful, but it can also be bafflingly complex. Your final bill depends on which "Hubs" you use, how many contacts are in your database, and how many paid "seats" your team needs. It’s easy for the costs to spiral.
Let’s zoom in on the Service Hub, since that’s what a support team would use.
A graphic showing the different pricing tiers for HubSpot's services.::| Plan | Starting Price/mo | Key Features Included | Mandatory Onboarding Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Professional | $800/mo (3 seats) | Omni-channel automation, custom reporting, lead scoring | $3,000 |
| Enterprise | $3,600/mo (5 seats) | Everything in Pro +, customer journey analytics, custom objects | $7,000 |
A couple of things probably jump out at you here:
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Mandatory Onboarding: Yep, you read that right. To even get started on their higher-tier plans, you have to shell out a one-time fee of $3,000 or $7,000. That’s a hefty price just to walk in the door.
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Seat-Based Costs: The price climbs with every new team member you add. For a support team that’s growing, this model can get really expensive, really fast.
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It’s Complicated: Trying to calculate your total cost can feel like you’re doing your taxes. You have to juggle Hubs, seats, and contact tiers to figure out what you’ll actually pay.
In contrast, eesel AI keeps things simple with transparent and predictable pricing. Plans are based on how much you use the AI, not how many people are on your team, and all the core features are included. You don’t get hit with surprise fees, and you can start on a simple monthly plan you can cancel anytime.
The verdict: Is HubSpot the right choice for you?
So, what’s the bottom line? Should you go with HubSpot? It really boils down to what you’re looking for.
HubSpot is a great fit for:
Businesses that are fully committed to the all-in-one dream and are ready to move their marketing, sales, and service operations into a single system. Startups and small businesses can also get a ton of mileage out of the free CRM to get things organized.
HubSpot may not be the right fit for:
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Teams that need a top-tier, specialized AI for customer support that can learn from all their knowledge, not just what’s in one platform.
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Companies that want to avoid being locked into one vendor and would rather add power to the tools they already use.
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Businesses that want simple, predictable pricing for their AI tools without getting slapped with thousands of dollars in mandatory setup fees.
Supercharge your support with a dedicated AI layer
If you were nodding your head along with that second list, don’t sweat it. You don’t have to throw out your current help desk and start over. A solution like eesel AI works as a smart AI layer that sits on top of your existing setup. There’s no "rip and replace" involved. It integrates directly with popular platforms like Zendesk, Freshdesk, and Intercom to provide autonomous support, help out your human agents, and intelligently route tickets.
Best of all, you can launch it with total confidence. The simulation mode in eesel AI lets you test your AI agent on thousands of your past tickets, so you get a clear picture of how it will perform and what your ROI will be before it ever talks to a real customer.
This tutorial provides a step-by-step guide on how to set up and use the HubSpot CRM for beginners.
Final thoughts on HubSpot and your next steps
HubSpot is a beast of a platform that can absolutely bring a company’s customer-facing teams together. But its all-in-one strength is also its biggest weakness. Its built-in AI is limited to the HubSpot ecosystem, and the pricing can be both confusing and expensive, with some serious hidden fees.
For teams who want a flexible, powerful, and easy-to-use AI for customer service, a specialized tool that enhances your current workflow is often the smarter, more practical choice.
Ready to see what a truly flexible AI support agent can do for you? Sign up for eesel AI for free and you can build your first AI agent in under five minutes.
Frequently asked questions
HubSpot pricing is based on the specific "Hubs" you use, the number of contacts in your database, and the paid user "seats" your team needs. Higher-tier plans like Professional and Enterprise often come with significant mandatory onboarding fees, ranging from $3,000 to $7,000, in addition to the monthly subscription.
HubSpot’s AI, "Breeze" primarily learns from data residing within its own ecosystem, such as your HubSpot knowledge base and CRM. It cannot access valuable external knowledge sources like Confluence wikis or Google Docs, creating a blind spot for comprehensive AI support.
While HubSpot aims to be an all-in-one platform, its "walled garden" nature can make it challenging to integrate seamlessly with best-in-class tools you already use. Its AI, in particular, often can’t "see" or utilize knowledge stored outside the HubSpot environment.
HubSpot is ideal for businesses fully committed to consolidating marketing, sales, and service into a single system, and its free CRM is great for startups. However, it may not suit teams needing a specialized AI that learns from all their knowledge sources, preferring flexible pricing, or avoiding vendor lock-in.
Yes, you can start with the HubSpot Smart CRM for free, which includes basic contact management and reporting. As your business grows and you add more "Hubs" or team members (seats), the costs increase significantly, making it important to understand the tiered pricing and seat-based model.
The HubSpot Service Hub provides essential customer support features like a ticketing system, a shared inbox for team collaboration, a knowledge base builder, customer satisfaction surveys, and live chat functionality. It aims to manage post-sale customer interactions effectively.
