In an attempt to compare the NPS ratings of Salesforce and HubSpot CRM,we ran a survey for both. Unfortunately, none of the small business owners we surveyed were using Salesforce.

Most were using HubSpot CRM, while only a few were using something else. The NPS for HubSpot CRM was a ridiculously high 87. 17 of the 23 respondents were executives or sales leadership in their firm. All of them had less than 50 employees with 12 of them having 11 or more.

We also asked them why they gave the score they did. Here’s what they told us…

Joe Jerome
CEO,BrandBuilder

Favorite Part:“HubSpot is by far the easiest-to-use CRM. Salesforce is a robust platform and built for the enterprise, and priced accordingly. HubSpot has a free version and a pro version. The decision to switch was simple for me. I was spending close to $10K per year on the Salesforce CRM and moved to HubSpot Free and found little to no tradeoffs.

As we’ve upgraded our users into Pro for the Sales tool, there is no comparison in terms of what it does. I suppose Salesforce could do the same kind of things, but not out of the box. HubSpot CRM plus the HubSpot Sales tool has awesome Gmail integration, notifications, sales templates, timed sending, sequences, meetings, reporting, and chat.

The biggest reason I’d recommend HubSpot CRM plus HubSpot Sales is that it has supported our sales growth and it would be hard to imagine how to replace it.”

Number of Employees at Company:6-10

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):10

Beth McCluskey
Marketing Manager,RAIN Group

Favorite Part:“We used SFDC for several years before transitioning to HubSpot Sales in January 2016. SFDC is a favorite of mine, but a lot of the features (and price) were overkill for how we use a CRM. Making the switch made perfect sense for us: it’s free, easy to use (very important for less tech-savvy sellers), and the marketing data integration is seamless.

The only thing I miss is SFDC’s reporting. HubSpot’s reporting leaves a lot to be desired, but we’re able to work around it.”

Number of Employees at Company:11-50

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):8

Jo Shaer
MD,Lollipop Local

Favorite Part:“It’s really simple to use for an individual or for a team – even those who haven’t used a CRM before.

It is also versatile enough to be used as both a sales tool and a job management tool post-sale.

Providing proper notes are kept and processes are followed, any team member can see what is happening with every prospect and customer. When a customer calls, we have a complete history of our interactions right at our fingertips.

I have also found it really useful for managing my LinkedIn prospecting and keeping on top of relationships and interactions there.”

Number of Employees at Company:<5

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):10

Jon Law
Director,Lollipop Local

Favorite Part:“It’s simple to use and connects seamlessly with the HubSpot Marketing platform. We can see friction in the sales process and create email sequences to promote existing or new content to ease said friction.”

Number of Employees at Company:<5

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):10

Matthew Cook
CEO,Saleshub

Favorite Part:“易于使用。易于设置…这是直观的和做的esn’t require advanced knowledge of the CRM ahead of time. Given most companies don’t use their CRM properly, it’s a huge savings over SFDC (free!). If you are a small or medium sized business, it’s the best solution.”

Number of Employees at Company:11-50

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):10

Stuart Arsenault
Senior Rewards Specialist,Smile.io

Favorite Part:“Our team started with Salesforce as it felt like the “default” option, but quickly figured out it wasn’t a great fit.

For our company scale & deal size, having an easy to use CRM that enables our reps & works beautifully with our marketing software (also HubSpot) is worth the tradeoff for some of Salesforce’s sophistication.”

Number of Employees at Company:11-50

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):9

Yogesh Dasoar
Founder,Midas Digital

Favorite Part:“It supports us with key functionality we need to grow the business.”

Number of Employees at Company:<5

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):10

Andrew Brockenbush
CEO,Beefy Marketing

Favorite Part:“I’ve used almost every major CRM on the market and that’s not an exaggeration. But, only one was worth my monthly subscription. HubSpot’s intelligent lead tracking gives me an ongoing pulse of my sales pipeline and allows me to connect with my prospects and customers like never before. ”

Number of Employees at Company:<5

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):10

Raylee Melton
Dir. of Client Services,SparkReaction

Favorite Part:“The HubSpot CRM is so easy to use. I have used other CRM’s in the past and that data entry was such a pain. The HubSpot CRM logs most of your activity automatically, so tracking actually gets done.”

Number of Employees at Company:6-10

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):10

David Carpenter
President,Connection Model

Favorite Part:“HubSpot CRM is far superior to the alternatives, but it’s far from perfect.”

Number of Employees at Company:11-50

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):8

Damien Elsing
Director,CLCK Digital

Favorite Part:“HubSpot的CRM是非常容易使用和intuitive. And I love that it links to HubSpot’s Marketing software so that our marketing and sales data is nicely integrated for each contact. ”

Number of Employees at Company:<5

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):10

Dani Buckley
GM,LeadG2

Favorite Part:“Collectively, our team has used a variety of other CRMs and we found the HubSpot CRM to be incredibly user-friendly, intuitive, easy to customize, and to have a high adoption rate. It’s easy to get a team up and running on it quickly and it really helps the salesperson improve their sales process.

Plus, the price can’t be beat! (It’s free.)

I didn’t give it a 10 just because as with most technology it’s not right for everyone, but we’ve found it to be an ideal solution for many companies — even some bigger ones. ”

Number of Employees at Company:11-50

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):9

Mike Donnelly
CEO,Seventh Sense

Favorite Part:“As a previous user of Salesforce for over 10 years, I fell in love with the capabilities and ease of use with HubSpot’s CRM. It’s the first CRM I’ve seen that took the daily challenges of a sales person into account.”

Number of Employees at Company:<5

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):10

Fes Askari
Head of Inbound Sales,Strategic Internet Consulting

Favorite Part:“HubSpot is a very powerful free CRM that helps improve salesperson productivity, tracking, and insight. Quick to deploy, intuitive and so easy to train, with desktop and mobile access. For teams smaller than 15 salespeople, it’s a great fit. Larger than this and you may want to start to consider SDFC.”

Number of Employees at Company:11-50

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):9

John Kelleher
Director,ESM Inbound

Favorite Part:“The HubSpot CRM gives us all the power and flexibility that we (and our clients) need at absolutely no cost. It’s a complete solution in itself. We have since bolted on both Sales Pro and Marketing Pro to gain additional features but any new or growing business could benefit from the powerful free tools.”

Number of Employees at Company:<5

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):10

Susie Kelley
Founder,The Spot On Agency

Favorite Part:“I love the ease of use of the HubSpot CRM. The integration of contacts from the Marketing side of HubSpot keeps you from having to re-enter prospect info. The timeline shows all the interactions with the contact in one convenient place – and messages and sequences are extremely useful in connecting with prospects.”

Number of Employees at Company:6-10

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):10

Amara Omoregie
President,AmaraReps

Favorite Part:“Because it’s easy to use and setup, and the data from it is actionable. It’s good for businesses that are just starting out, and with all of the integrations it’s really a great tool to actually help you manage a sales team. And, because it’s easy to use, sales people are more inclined to use it because it actually helps keep them organized versus being a chore for them to use, which leads to bad data, and a useless system.

It’s my favorite CRM and I highly recommend it.”

Number of Employees at Company:< 5

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):10

Sandy Moore
Lead Accounts Manager,Kuno Creative

Favorite Part:“Ease of use, helpful tools, clear reporting”

Number of Employees at Company:11-50

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):10

Dominique James
Marketing Manager,Adhere Creative

Favorite Part:“Our agency is incredibly happy with the HubSpot CRM! We use it ourselves and recommend it to most clients.

Having used Salesforce in the past, I find the HubSpot CRM to be more intuitive, easier to set up, and a more enjoyable experience overall for day-to-day users. The features that have helped build Salesforce to the huge force that they are today, are the same features that often make it ill-fitting for growing small to medium size businesses. Everything has to be custom-built, from reports to contact properties, which is out of scope and budget for most.

HubSpot CRM comes out of the box ready-to-go with all of the most relevant reports built-in. It’s great to be able to offer clients a well-developed CRM, for free. ”

Number of Employees at Company:11-50

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):10

Kyle Kramer
CEO,Huify

Favorite Part:“Overall, it’s the best CRM there is. It’s not overly complex, and that’s what makes the data and insights useful.”

Number of Employees at Company:11-50

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):8

Jonathon Franchell
CEO,IronPaper

Favorite Part:“We fell in love with HubSpot CRM at first sight. The user interface is simple and intuitive. I love the speed at which my team can mine contacts and data using “views.”

Once we switched to HubSpot CRM, collaboration increased. The time it takes to do data entry had decreased. We now spend more time discussing strategy and engaging prospects. ”

Number of Employees at Company:11-50

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):10

Chris Strom
Principal,ClearPivot

Favorite Part:“One of my favorite but rarely-mentioned features of HubSpot CRM is that it doesn’t artificially divided your contacts into “Leads” and “Contacts,” like Salesforce, Zoho, and other systems do. There’s a few cases (trade shows, etc.) where it sometimes makes sense to separate and vet leads before converting them into contacts, but most of the time it’s an artificial distinction that just creates more hassle than it’s worth.”

In HubSpot CRM, a contact is a contact regardless. It works much better with our workflow that way.”

Number of Employees at Company:6-10

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):10

Rikki Lear
Director,Digital 22

Favorite Part:“Fantastic entry / medium level CRM. Anyone who does not currently have a CRM won’t be disappointed by getting started on HubSpot CRM.”

In HubSpot CRM, a contact is a contact regardless. It works much better with our workflow that way.”

Number of Employees at Company:11-50

Willingness to Recommend (out of 10):9

The 5 Main Reasons These Companies Use HubSpot CRM

In reviewing the data and quotes, there are clearly some common reasons these smaller businesses chose HubSpot CRM:

1. Price. HubSpot’s CRM is free.
2. Ease of use.
3. Integration with existing email systems to auto-capture and organize communication between customers and employees.
4. Integration with the HubSpot marketing tools that allow salespeople to easily find their best leads and know how their leads are interacting with their marketing.
5. Integration with HubSpot’s sales tools and how HubSpot’s Sales tools help salespeople more easily do their job.

At Databox, we’re happy users of HubSpot CRM and HubSpot Marketing too. They are brilliant together. We’ve even taken the extra step of integration our app with the HubSpot CRM, so that we can segment our users, customers and partners more easily. It helps us market, sell and service from one common database. As a HubSpot Premier Connect partner, we’ve also invested a lot of time and effort helping HubSPot CRM users monitor and report their sales activity and results. All in all, we’re super fans. If you want to explore more benefits of these powerful CRMs, check out these freeCRM dashboard examples.

Are you using HubSpot CRM? Did you choose Salesforce or something else?We’re continuing to run our survey, hoping we’ll find companies that use Salesforce and other tools. We know they’re out there.Take the surveyto tell us your favorite CRM and why you love it.