Is Breeze Intelligence free? A realistic look at HubSpot’s AI costs in 2025

If you’re a HubSpot user, you’ve probably seen the buzz around Breeze AI. It’s pitched as this amazing suite of tools for automation and efficiency, built right into the platform you use every day. But as you start digging in, a pretty important question pops up, especially around its data tools: Is Breeze Intelligence free?

The marketing can be a little fuzzy, and you’re definitely not the only one scratching your head about the real cost. This article is here to cut through the noise and give you a straight answer. We’ll break down what’s included, what’s not, how the credit system works, and what it actually costs to get AI running in your HubSpot world.

What is HubSpot Breeze AI?

First things first, let’s clear up the name. "Breeze" isn’t one single product. It’s the brand HubSpot uses for its whole collection of AI tools. Users have noticed the branding can be a bit of a moving target, but it generally falls into three main buckets.

• Breeze Assistant (or Copilot): This is your AI helper, baked right into the HubSpot platform. Think of it like having ChatGPT on standby to help you write marketing emails, summarize notes in your CRM, or draft a blog outline. It’s the most common part of the suite and is all about helping you work a bit faster.

• Breeze Agents: These are a step up. Agents are more like little AI teammates that can handle tasks with multiple steps. You can set up agents for things like prospecting new leads, scheduling social media posts, or answering customer support tickets. They’re the "doers" of the Breeze family, designed to take whole tasks off your to-do list.

• Breeze Intelligence: This is the data-crunching part of the suite, which grew out of HubSpot’s acquisition of Clearbit. Its main job is to work in the background to make your CRM data smarter. It focuses on three key things: data enrichment (filling in missing contact and company details), tracking buyer intent (seeing which companies are checking you out), and making your website forms shorter. This is the piece that now includes features that used to be free, which is where things get tricky.

Is Breeze Intelligence free? The short answer is no

Alright, let’s just get to it. While you might get a taste of some basic AI features in HubSpot’s free CRM, Breeze Intelligence is not free. It’s a paid feature that works on a two-part cost model: you need a paid subscription to HubSpot, and you have to pay for what you use through a credit system.

This is a real sticking point for many longtime HubSpot users. For years, HubSpot offered a free "Company Insights" feature that would automatically add basic info to company records. That’s being phased out, and now that same functionality is tucked behind the paid Breeze Intelligence paywall.

Here’s a simple breakdown of how HubSpot’s AI pricing works:

• You need a subscription: You can’t just buy Breeze Intelligence on its own. To even get the option to use its features and buy credits, you have to be on a paid HubSpot plan (Starter, Professional, or Enterprise). The specific AI features you can use also depend on which plan you have.

• It runs on credits: The whole thing is powered by "HubSpot Credits." The best way to think about it is like a prepaid phone plan. You get a certain number of credits with your subscription each month, and different AI actions use up a different number of credits. Enriching a company record, having an AI agent reply to a ticket, or tracking a buyer intent signal all take from your monthly credit stash.

If you run out of your included credits, the features just stop working until you buy more.

Here’s a look at the monthly credits HubSpot includes with its plans. A quick heads-up: these don’t stack if you have multiple Hubs. You just get the credits for your highest subscription level.

Once you use those up, you have to purchase extra credit packs to keep the AI running. This can make budgeting a real pain.

What you get with Breeze Intelligence (and what you don’t)

If you’re going to fork over the cash, you need to know exactly what you’re paying for. Breeze Intelligence has some genuinely helpful features, but it also has some limitations that users have been pretty vocal about.

What Breeze Intelligence does

• Data Enrichment: This is the main attraction. It automatically fills in the blanks on your company and contact records. For instance, when a new company is added from a website domain, it can populate fields like company name, industry, and number of employees.

• Buyer Intent Tracking: This feature helps you see which companies are visiting important pages on your website, like your pricing page. Your sales team can use this signal to focus on leads that seem ready to buy.

• Form Optimization: This lets you shorten the forms on your website, making it easier for people to sign up. The idea is that you ask for less info upfront, and Breeze Intelligence fills in the rest behind the scenes, hopefully boosting your conversion rates.

Common limitations and frustrations

While those features sound good, the reality has left some users feeling a bit disappointed.

• The data can be patchy: A frequent complaint is that the data enrichment is inconsistent. As one user mentioned, it might pull in a contact’s name and location but completely miss their job title, which is often the most critical piece of information for B2B sales and marketing. This means your team ends up doing manual research anyway, which kind of defeats the purpose.

A frequent complaint is that the data enrichment is inconsistent. As one user mentioned, it might pull in a contact's name and location but completely miss their job title, which is often the most critical piece of information for B2B sales and marketing.

Reddit

• Not much room for customization: Because Breeze is a native HubSpot tool, it’s built to play by HubSpot’s rules. If you want to connect it to knowledge sources outside of HubSpot or create really specific workflows, you’re going to hit a wall pretty fast. The system is quite rigid and doesn’t offer the kind of flexibility you get with standalone AI tools.

• It’s "good enough," but not great: The general feeling among experienced users is that while having AI inside HubSpot is convenient, it’s rarely the best tool for any single job. Whether it’s data quality or building reports, specialized tools often do a much better job. You’re really paying for the convenience of having it all in one place, not for top-tier performance.

The hidden challenges of a locked-in AI ecosystem

The problems with Breeze Intelligence point to a bigger issue with AI that’s built directly into a platform. Its greatest strength, being tightly integrated with HubSpot, is also its biggest weakness.

The real catch here is that you get locked in. When your AI is tied to your CRM, all your data, knowledge, and processes have to live inside that one system. But what if your team’s best troubleshooting guides are in Confluence? Or what if your support experts share solutions in Slack? Breeze can’t really access that information, which means your AI is working with one hand tied behind its back.

On top of that, the credit-based pricing makes your costs unpredictable, which is stressful for any team leader. Your bill is directly tied to how much you use it. If you have a busy month with a surge in support tickets or a marketing campaign that brings in a ton of new leads, your AI bill could jump without warning. This makes it incredibly hard to plan your budget and can almost feel like you’re being penalized for growth.

There’s a better way to do this. Instead of an all-in-one platform that does a bunch of things okay, a more modern approach is to use a flexible AI layer that connects with the tools you already use and trust.

A flexible and transparent alternative: eesel AI

This is exactly where eesel AI comes into the picture. It was designed to solve these exact problems of being locked in, dealing with unpredictable costs, and having limited access to your company’s knowledge. While HubSpot keeps you inside its walled garden, eesel AI gives you freedom and transparency.

• Go live in minutes, not months: Forget about complicated setup processes and mandatory sales demos. With eesel AI, you can get everything up and running on your own in a few minutes. It has one-click integrations with the help desks you’re probably already using, like Zendesk, Freshdesk, and Intercom, so you don’t have to change your whole support setup.

• No more surprise bills: We think your bill should never be a mystery. eesel AI has straightforward, tiered pricing with no weird per-ticket or per-resolution fees. Your costs are predictable, so you can actually budget for them without worrying about a busy month.

• Connect all your knowledge, instantly: This is a huge difference. Breeze is mostly stuck in the HubSpot universe, but eesel AI securely connects to over 100 knowledge sources. It can learn from your past support tickets, but it can also learn from your internal wikis in Confluence, your product docs in Google Docs, and your team’s conversations in Slack. This creates a much smarter AI that can give accurate, context-aware answers.

An infographic showing how eesel AI connects to various knowledge sources, a key differentiator when considering if Breeze Intelligence is free but limited.:

• Test it out before you launch: One of the coolest features of eesel AI is its simulation mode. You can test your AI on thousands of your past tickets in a safe, sandbox environment. This lets you see exactly how it will perform, get solid estimates on resolution rates, and figure out your ROI before the AI ever talks to a real customer. It takes all the risk out of the process in a way that built-in tools just can’t.

A screenshot of the eesel AI simulation mode, which helps calculate ROI before going live, a feature to consider when asking 'is Breeze Intelligence free'.:

Look beyond the built-in option

So, to circle back to the original question: no, Breeze Intelligence is not free. It can be a decent tool if your team is 100% committed to the HubSpot ecosystem and you don’t mind navigating its tricky pricing and limitations. But it comes with the heavy baggage of vendor lock-in, unpredictable bills, and a limited view of your company’s actual knowledge.

For most businesses that want flexibility, clear pricing, and an AI that can learn from all their existing tools, looking beyond the built-in option is the smartest move. The best AI solution is one that fits your workflow, not one that forces you to change it.

If you’re ready for powerful, customizable AI that plays nice with the tools you already have, you can get started with eesel AI for free and see how easy it is to build a bot that actually understands your business.