How to switch from Salesforce to HubSpot

Should you switch from Salesforce to HubSpot?

Switching from Salesforce to HubSpot makes the most sense if your Salesforce bill is climbing past Enterprise ($175/seat/month) and you don't rely on custom Apex objects or the AppExchange marketplace. HubSpot's entry point, the Starter Customer Platform, lists at $20/seat/month against Salesforce Starter Suite's $25/seat/month, and its native Salesforce integration imports leads, contacts, accounts, and opportunities directly. You lose Salesforce's deep customization and its third-party app ecosystem, so this move fits teams whose Salesforce usage was mostly a sales database, not a configured platform.

The cost delta, tier by tier

Both vendors price per seat, but the tiers don't line up cleanly and neither company publishes a true apples-to-apples comparison. Here's what the equivalent tiers cost per seat per month, from each vendor's own pricing pages.

Salesforce's Pro Suite and everything above it is billed annually only, with no published monthly rate. HubSpot's Professional and Enterprise tiers add a one-time onboarding fee on top of the seat price, $1,500 and $3,500 respectively, which Salesforce doesn't itemize the same way, though its own rollouts usually need a paid admin or implementation partner instead. Neither cost disappears. HubSpot's shows up as a line item; Salesforce's shows up as a hire or a consulting invoice.

Where HubSpot wins is the top of Salesforce's range. Getting Salesforce's full Agentforce AI suite means Unlimited ($350/seat) or the $550/seat Agentforce 1 Sales edition. HubSpot's Breeze AI, including its Customer Agent and prospecting agent, is built into Professional and Enterprise Sales Hub without a separate AI-tier jump.

What the Salesforce integration brings over

HubSpot's native Salesforce integration is built for this move. Once you connect the two systems, HubSpot can import Salesforce leads, contacts, accounts, opportunities, tasks, cases, events, and custom objects directly, no CSV round-trip required. Active campaigns import too, but only if they're marked Active in Salesforce first.

The catch is the first pass is thin. On initial import, only the email address syncs over for leads and contacts. The rest of the fields land empty until a follow-up sync runs, which HubSpot triggers automatically for records inside an inclusion segment. Large imports can take several hours to complete, since HubSpot throttles the sync to stay within Salesforce's API limits.

What this means in practice:

• Records themselves move. Contacts, accounts, opportunities, tasks, and cases are all supported import types, including custom objects if you've built any in Salesforce.
• Full field data takes a second pass. Budget a day or two after the initial import for the sync to fill in fields beyond email address, longer for large databases.
• Campaigns need to be Active first. Anything archived or closed in Salesforce won't import until you reactivate it, which is worth doing before you start the migration, not after.

What you rebuild from scratch

Salesforce's real depth, custom objects, Apex-based automation, and page layouts, has no direct HubSpot equivalent, because HubSpot isn't built as a customizable platform underneath the CRM the same way. Plan to rebuild, not import, the following:

• Apex-based automation and approval workflows. These are custom code running on Salesforce's platform layer. HubSpot's workflow builder covers a lot of the same ground with a visual editor, but complex branching logic written in Apex has to be redesigned, not translated.
• AppExchange integrations. Any app you installed from Salesforce's marketplace needs a HubSpot-side replacement, if one exists. HubSpot has its own app marketplace, but coverage isn't one-to-one, especially for industry-specific tools.
• Custom reports and dashboards. Reports live against each platform's own data model. Salesforce's forecasting and pipeline-insight dashboards need to be recreated in HubSpot's reporting tools, not imported.
• Conversation Intelligence call data. Salesforce's call recording and analysis doesn't carry over. HubSpot's own conversation intelligence, where available on your plan, starts logging fresh.

For most teams, the honest estimate for a full migration, records, integrations, workflows, and reports, is around three months from kickoff to full cutover, based on HubSpot's own guidance for typical CRM migrations. Simple record imports finish in days. Rebuilding automation and reporting well is what stretches the timeline.

Migration steps

1. Audit what you use. List every Salesforce feature in daily use: custom objects, Apex automations, AppExchange apps, Conversation Intelligence. Anything outside standard leads, contacts, accounts, and opportunities needs a plan before you touch the data.
2. Reactivate any campaigns you want to keep. HubSpot only imports campaigns marked Active in Salesforce, so do this before starting the sync.
3. Connect the native Salesforce integration. Install it from HubSpot's app marketplace and authenticate both accounts.
4. Run the initial import. Bring over leads, contacts, accounts, opportunities, tasks, cases, events, and any custom objects. Expect only email addresses to populate on the first pass for leads and contacts.
5. Let the follow-up sync complete. Full field data fills in after the first sync cycle, longer for large record counts, since HubSpot paces the sync to Salesforce's API rate limits.
6. Rebuild your top workflows first. Start with the two or three automations your team relies on, like lead routing or a stale-deal reminder, in HubSpot's workflow builder. Add the rest only as people notice they're missing.
7. Recreate your core reports. Rebuild the handful of dashboards your team checks weekly before you cancel Salesforce, not the full library you accumulated over years.
8. Run both systems in parallel for one billing cycle before cutting off Salesforce access, so you can catch missing data while the source system is still live.

When Salesforce is still the right call

If your team is deep into Salesforce's platform layer, custom Apex objects, complex approval chains, AgentExchange apps built on your own CRM data, switching usually costs more than staying and paying for an admin. HubSpot doesn't try to be a configurable platform the way Salesforce is; it's a CRM with purpose-built Hubs on top. Teams standardized on the wider Salesforce ecosystem (Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Slack, Tableau) also lose the one-vendor, one-data-model setup they came for. Check what your Salesforce bill pays for before you commit: a bill dominated by seat count on Starter or Pro Suite is a different problem than a bill justified by the platform's customization, and it points toward a different answer. Our Salesforce alternatives guide covers HubSpot alongside Zoho CRM, Pipedrive, and Close for teams whose needs point somewhere other than HubSpot.

Frequently asked questions

How much cheaper is HubSpot than Salesforce?

At the entry tier, HubSpot's Starter Customer Platform lists at $20/seat/month standard against Salesforce Starter Suite's $25/seat/month, close but not dramatic. The bigger gap opens at the top: Salesforce's full Agentforce AI suite needs Unlimited ($350/seat) or Agentforce 1 Sales ($550/seat), while HubSpot's Breeze AI ships inside Professional and Enterprise Sales Hub without a separate AI-tier jump.

Does Salesforce data transfer to HubSpot automatically?

Yes, through HubSpot's native Salesforce integration, which imports leads, contacts, accounts, opportunities, tasks, cases, events, and custom objects directly. The first pass only syncs email addresses for leads and contacts; the rest of the fields fill in on a follow-up sync, which can take several hours for large databases.

What do you give up moving from Salesforce to HubSpot?

Salesforce's custom Apex objects, approval workflow code, and AppExchange marketplace apps have no direct HubSpot equivalent and need to be rebuilt or replaced. Conversation Intelligence call data and custom reports also don't transfer, since each platform builds reporting against its own data model.

How long does a Salesforce to HubSpot migration take?

HubSpot's own guidance points to around three months for a full migration covering records, integrations, workflows, and reports. Simple record imports finish in days; rebuilding automations and dashboards well is what takes the rest of the time.