Compare Costs: Pipedrive vs Hubspot vs Microsoft Dynamics 365

Comparing ALL the features of Pipedrive vs HubSpot vs Microsoft Dynamics 365 would be a long, complicated article — but we can compare the cost of each platform for sales and marketing teams fairly quickly. That is exactly what I have done in this post and the comparison table at the end.

Let me say up front that there are a number of great, easy to use, low-cost CRMs in the marketplace. These are especially attractive for small businesses and startups that have moved past the point of shared spreadsheets — but these smaller CRMs do have a ceiling in terms of what they can do. Hitting that ceiling is precisely when many teams start looking at more robust CRM solutions and marketing automation options like Pipedrive, HubSpot, and Dynamics 365 Sales (with or without Dynamics 365 Marketing).

Once you start expanding operations, it really is inevitable: internal teams need additional functionality to support that growth. Which means you actually have a longer-range (and costlier) decision to make today:

Adding piecemeal integrations may seem cheaper (and it is on Day 1) but consider the details I have outlined below. Maybe you have already seen how the costs for more and more integrations quickly multiplies. Aside from the cost, however, switching to a more flexible, inclusive platform now will also save you a much bigger headache down the line.

Let’s say you use Pipedrive as your CRM. You may well have chosen it because, as a platform, they position themselves as easy-to-use — made for salespeople, by salespeople. If we draw a spectrum with easy-to-use, low-cost, and minimum customization options on one end, and to harder-to-use, expensive, and completely customizable and adaptable on the other, Pipedrive definitely tips the former.

For our example, let’s say you have 15 people that have Pipedrive licenses. You pay for the Professional license to receive the “cooler” features (revenue forecast reports and views, more than 100 custom fields, required fields, goals, etc). This costs you $49.90 a month (billed annually, per user). This is a great deal for smaller sales teams, maybe a sales team of 5-10. So, if you have 15 people that need a Professional Pipedrive license, you will be paying a total of $748.50 month.

_{Note: the only benefit of bumping your license up to the Enterprise option, which starts at $99.00 a month billed annually, is the unlimited phone support (which Microsoft includes for free), but let’s say you don’t think you need that.}

Great. But let’s talk seriously about marketing needs and requirements.

Your team starts to grow, and it becomes clear your newly hired marketing department really needs a marketing automation tool. They make a list of “non negotiables” for this new marketing software that will actually empower them to do their job:

1. Advanced customer segmentation based on demographics, organization relationships, behavior, etc
2. Ability to design customer journeys based on interaction behavior and create if/then clauses
3. Inbound lead forms for your website
4. Easy-to-use email template editor
5. Contact level website analytics
6. Social media management and post scheduling
7. Artificial intelligence capabilities
8. Subscription management and opt out features
9. Webinar registration and management
10. Predictive lead scoring
11. GDPR compliant

Pipedrive doesn’t have their own marketing app (the website says an email marketing app is coming soon, but no date is available). However, they do have an add-on called Web Visitors. This add-on helps identify people who have visited the company website. This is helpful for salespeople because they can see how prospects are navigating through the website. This is a nice feature, but it lacks 9 of the 11 requirements from your marketing team, so let’s just skip it for now.

Again, you have two options:

Option #1: Find a marketing automation tool that integrates with Pipedrive

Option #2: Consider making a switch to a platform that has both CRM and marketing automation functionality

Let’s look at the ways the integration option could likely play out first.

As discussed above, Pipedrive doesn’t have their own email marketing tool. However, they do have several connectors to other email marketing platforms. I decided to use HubSpot as my example, because it has comparable functionality to D365 Marketing, and it was the most popular email marketing software I saw on the integration page.

To get all the features that your marketing team is requesting, you would need the HubSpot Enterprise license (which includes 10K marketing contacts), which would bring you to $3,200 a month for your organization.

If you were to combine the Pipedrive total with the HubSpot Marketing Hub Enterprise license, you are now looking at $3,948.50 a month.

But, let’s say you think you can do without the interaction behavior triggers and predictive lead scoring. This means you can get the Professional license instead of the Enterprise license, bringing you down to $1,249 a month (includes 12K marketing contacts).

If you were to combine the Pipedrive total and the HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional license, this would bring you to $1,997.50 a month. Better… but keep in mind you are losing out on two of the eleven requirements.

You may consider switching to a completely new platform for a couple of reasons. Maybe your low-cost CRM doesn’t have the flexibility you need even at the highest license level — or you are just unhappy with your platform. Perhaps you don’t feel like you are getting enough functionality for the cost, etc. Whatever the reason is, let’s say you’ve decided to switch. Let’s compare HubSpot vs Dynamics 365 for migration costs.

Let’s say you want to migrate all your Pipedrive data to HubSpot, and you want to use HubSpot’s Marketing Hub + their Sales Hub. If you want Sales functionality in HubSpot Sales Hub that is comparable to what you have in Pipedrive, you will need the Sales Hub Professional license. This will cost you $1,350 a month for 15 users.

If you want to stick with the Professional license for both the Sales Hub and the Marketing Hub, your grand total will come out to $2,599 a month.

However, if you want to tackle all eleven of those Marketing requirements, you will need the Enterprise license for the Marketing Hub. When you bundle that with the Sales Hub Professional license, your grand total will come out to $4,550 a month.

_{Also, don’t forget to note that HubSpot does have some required onboarding fees, but those are not included in the numbers above.}

Now, let’s look at what that price would be for Dynamics 365 Sales + Dynamics 365 Marketing. To get comparable functionality to the Pipedrive + HubSpot bundle and/or HubSpot Sales + Marketing Hub, you would need the Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise license, which will cost you $1,425 a month for 15 users. You will also need the Dynamics 365 Marketing Attach license, which is another $750 a month.

Your Dynamics 365 Sales + Marketing monthly bill will come to $2,175 a month for 15 users. That fulfills all of your future (or current!) marketing team requirements for less than half of a comparable Pipedrive and HubSpot combination. Everything is in one place for your team. No glitchy integrations. No sprawling license agreements. No huge migration projects and costs down the road when you outgrow mid-sized CRM systems with limited functionality. Dynamics 365 already has everything you need. Given Microsoft’s research and development budget and its one-of-a-kind network of developers and experts — it’s very hard to imagine that changing in the years to come.

I know I’ve thrown a lot of numbers at you—here is a table that breaks down the costs by the potential bundle options.

If you are already using Pipedrive and you need a Marketing Automation tool, the cheapest option is to buy a Professional Hubspot Marketing Hub license and integrate it with Pipedrive. However, you will be missing out on some potentially game changing functionality and, although there is an out-of-the-box integration, it still is two separate systems. Whenever you are using an integration, there is always the possibility of something not working like you expect it to.

If you go with Dynamics 365 Sales + Marketing, you can meet all eleven requirements from your Marketing team and eliminate the headache of an integration, for just an extra $175 a month. Again, let’s review your savings when you switch to D365….

D365 Monthly Savings compared to PipeDrive + HubSpot Marketing (Enterprise): $1,873.50 a month ($22k a year)

D365 Monthly Savings compared to HubSpot Sales Hub (Professional License) + Marketing Hub (Professional License): $424 a month (5k a year)

D365 Monthly Savings compared to Hubspot Sales Hub (Professional License) + Marketing Hub (Enterprise License): $2,375 a month ($28k a year)