Choosing the best customer relationship management (CRM) platform can be challenging. With so many options around, it’s essential to find the best CRM for your specific work criteria and client needs. Both Dubsado and Hubspot can help professionals to automate workflows, boost marketing processes, manage social media platforms, and handle administrative and payment tasks like scheduling, invoicing, and time tracking in real-time.
Whether you’re a solopreneur, a small-scale team, or a business of 50, a quality CRM platform is imperative to optimize workflow and streamline client communication.
In this unpaid review, we examine the strengths and weaknesses of Dubsado and Hubspot, offering insight to help you determine which CRM is best for your unique business needs.
Hubspot and Dubsado
CRMs provide a range of benefits, allowing professionals to organize client data, automate marketing tasks, and provide valuable reporting insights. Both Hubspot and Dubsado are comprehensive CRMs that also allow businesses to automate marketing processes. In a nutshell, Dubsado works well for contractors and freelancers thanks to its flexibility, and Hubspot works well for bigger businesses looking to enhance lead generation and marketing initiatives.
Let’s examine each in greater detail.
What is Dubsado?
Dubsado, much like platforms like HoneyBook, refers to itself as a “business management solution.“ It allows freelancers and professionals to automate their workflow and grow their business. It’s a flexible platform, ideal for contractors and smaller businesses.
Dubsado offers users many features, including forms and email templates, appointment scheduling, automation, client follow up, invoicing, and reporting tools. It also has a client section where clients can access contracts, pay their invoices, and fill out necessary forms or questionnaires.
What is Hubspot?
Hubspot defines itself as a CRM that aims to “grow with your business.” It includes all the integrations, software, and resources that businesses need to link marketing, sales, content, and customer service. Hubspot is ultimately made up of various hubs that focus on specific elements of a company (such as sales hub, marketing hub, service hub, etc.). While the hubs can work on their own, the modular price structure allows users to integrate them. Generally speaking, Hubspot is best suited for bigger businesses with multi-locations as it can be a pricier option if using the more comprehensive packages.
The Highlights
Both Dubsado and Hubspot have several highlights. Let’s delve into each platform’s offerings and features.
Dubsado
- Automated workflows: Dubsado is excellent when it comes to automation, making it ideal for busy coaches and freelancers. You can automatically send and schedule invoices and forms and trigger specific actions within projects. This has massive time-saving benefits, allowing coaches to never miss a payment or a beat.
The platform also has specialized smart fields so that you can automatically input client data. Forms and documents will auto-populate before you send them.
- Free for up to 3 clients: One of the best perks of Dubsado is that it is free for up to three clients. This means that users can enjoy the platform for free at first before signing up as their business grows. Sign up for their free trial and see how it works for your business. Unlike other CRMs like HoneyBook, the free trial doesn’t end (as long as you have three clients or fewer).
- Client Portal: The client section of Dubsado is ideal for professionals with many clients. Customers can access the portal and find all documents, forms, invoices, questionnaires, and contracts in one centralized place. Client information is protected with client-specific passwords, and it's customizable for that added personal touch.
- Invoicing: Dubsado offers quick and easy invoicing solutions so that professionals can get paid fast. Professionals can also set up specialized payment plans for specific clients with particular dates and auto reminders. This is ideal for freelancers managing multiple projects and clients.
Hubspot
- Customer Service Hub: The customer service hub allows businesses to deepen professional relationships with their clients. This hub has several features, including a shared inbox, conversational tools, customer surveys, knowledge-based functionality, a customer portal, playbooks, and reporting.
- Marketing Support: The marketing hub on Hubspot allows businesses to manage all marketing elements of the company. Features allow companies to connect with their leads and manage campaigns and contacts from one centralized place. Powerful reporting tools also allow businesses to monitor the success rate of particular campaigns.
- Content Management Support: The Content Management Support (CMS) hub is ideal for content management solutions and offers users a myriad of features to build a dynamic site. Features include flexible themes, drag-and-drop options for editing pages, hosting capabilities, and more. This hub enhances user experience (UX).
What are the main differences between Hubspot and Dubsado?
There are a few differences between the two CRMS.
Pricing
The pricing structures between the two CRM systems are very different. Dubsado has two pricing plans, namely the starter at $200/year or $20 a month and the premier at $400/year or $40 a month.
- The starter plan: This plan includes unlimited projects and clients, payment and invoicing plans, and email and form templates.
- The premier plan: This includes everything in the starter plan plus automated workflows, appointment scheduling, Zapier integration, public proposals, and multiple lead captures at once. This is more comprehensive for project management and the Zapier integration allows users to connect it to various apps like Zoho, stripe, PayPal, and more.
Hubspot has a more complex pricing process, and costs can add up pretty fast. Each hub is priced separately, and users can add services as needed. While there are some free plans, the more comprehensive ones can add up.
Let’s look at their marketing hub as an example.
- Marketing hub: The primary or starter package starts at $45/month and then things get significantly more expensive as the business grows. The professional package begins at $800/month and includes 2000 marketing contacts. The enterprise package begins at $3600/month and has 10,000 marketing contacts.
As the prices reflect, this system is suited to large-scale companies in need of comprehensive marketing support.
Users can however access a few free tools that allow them to access some basic features. This is a great introductory way to learn how the platform works and determine if it’s worth the hefty monthly costs.
With Hubspot, users also have to pay extra for technical support and have to splurge on the mandatory onboarding process when they start. This can make the customer support factor more costly than other CRMs.
Marketing Focus
Hubspot CRM pays greater attention to marketing and lead generation, making it better suited to larger businesses looking for thousands of leads. It is a great marketing automation tool. The marketing hub allows users to grow online traffic, convert visitors into paying clients, fulfill inbound marketing campaigns, and access marketing analytics.
Dubsado has a simpler client acquisition feature, allowing users to convert leads into paying customers with a specialized automated onboarding process.
Ease of Use
If you are looking for a basic one-stop shop that can handle most small business automation and tasks, Dubsado is easier to use since everything is in one centralized place. Hubspot can get a little tricky since each hub operates individually. Technical support is also charged via Hubspot, meaning that you will need to pay if you get stuck.
Hubspot vs. Dubsado: Which is the best option?
Both Dubsado and Hubspot have several benefits for users; however, since Hubspot is more expensive and marketing-focused, it’s better suited to larger companies than smaller businesses or solopreneurs. Nonetheless, Dubsado does have a few drawbacks in terms of email capabilities, meaning you will need to manage projects exclusively within the platform.
Choosing a CRM is a hugely personal decision, and contractors and coaches should carefully evaluate the features before forking out their hard earn dollars.
Practice is a great alternative
If neither of these options are quite the right fit, test drive Practice for free. Practice is ideal for freelancers, small business owners, and startups for several reasons. It’s easy to use and allows you to effortlessly manage clients, contracts, workflow, appointment scheduling, and invoices. It also has a secure and dedicated client portal for added client satisfaction and ease (one place to log in for everything).
