Salesforce UI Changes to...HubSpot’s UI? (HubSpot vs Salesforce Update)

It’s been said that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” If that’s the case, then the latest Salesforce UI update should have HubSpot blushing a shade of candy apple red.

Image Credit: James Byrne

It’s reminiscent of the meme where one student asks their friend if they can copy their homework and the friend goes: “Sure, but change it up a little so it isn’t obvious.”

Okay, we’ve compared HubSpot to Salesforce a few times in the past—and we favor HubSpot, which is why the Bluleadz team uses it as our CRM, sales enablement, marketing, content management, and customer service ecosystem. In our humble opinion, HubSpot's UX-focused innovation throughout their entire platform continues to be second to none.

With Salesforce’s latest update, we feel validated in choosing HubSpot, since the Salesforce team seems to agree that HubSpot’s UI is an extremely smart, convenient way to lay out object and record data for users.

About the Lightning UI Change in Salesforce

Jokes aside, the Lightning UI design rework by Salesforce is part of a systematic effort to make the platform more user-friendly and less… Windows Millennium Edition.

Image Credit: Alwin Mulyono (Salesforce Blog)

Their stated goals in the redesign were to make the platform seamless, responsive, intuitive, trusted, and delightful for their users.

It’s a good UI—it takes and places information and resources at the user’s fingertips in a convenient layout to improve the user experience (UX) of the platform.

Important tools are placed on the left, interface elements have a more rounded design, and details in object records are organized into cards on the record screen. Throughout the interface, icons have been streamlined and simplified for greater ease of use and to minimize visual clutter.

It seems familiar, though...

Comparing HubSpot vs Salesforce

With HubSpot updating its pricing model and Salesforce updating its UI, it’s a good time to compare the two platforms again.

Here’s a quick comparison of key points between the two platforms:

• Cost of Entry. HubSpot has a “Free Tools” solution that allows customers to try out a basic version of the platform for free. Salesforce does not have a free option and free trials are not readily available. So, the cost of entry for HubSpot is lower.
• Ongoing Cost. The highest tier of HubSpot’s “Enterprise Customer Platform” bundle, which includes Marketing Hub, Service Hub, Sales Hub, Content Hub, Operations Hub, and Commerce Hub at an Enterprise subscription level with seven Core Seats (and additional Core seats available for $75/month), is a cost of $4,000/month, billed annually (or $48,000/year). Salesforce’s Einstein 1 Sales platform is $500/user/month—and that’s just for their sales tools. So, the ongoing cost of HubSpot is higher for the minimum number of seats but, as your team scales or you leverage more tools, HubSpot quickly becomes much more affordable as your operations expand.
  • For example, say you have 15 sales reps. In HubSpot, a paid Enterprise-tier Sales seat costs $150/month. So, you’d be paying $4,000 for the platform and another $2,250 for the paid sales seats, or $6,250/month. In Salesforce, each rep would cost you $500 for a total of $7,500 across 15 sales reps. The larger your team, the more affordable HubSpot becomes in comparison.
• Availability of Integrations. Salesforce is pretty much the king of integrations. It has more than 8,000 integrations to HubSpot’s estimated 1,500 integrations. So, if you’re looking for a CRM platform that integrates with whatever solution you’re already using, Salesforce is more likely to be your go-to.
• Email Marketing Features. G2’s aggregate reviews say it all: when it comes to email marketing features like ensuring email deliverability, A/B testing, and personalization, HubSpot outperforms Salesforce.
• Lead Intelligence. Here, the G2 reviews show that customers prefer Salesforce to HubSpot for things like market insights, account-level insights, and lead analysis.
• Content Management. Content management for blog, email, and social media post creation was baked into HubSpot from the very beginning, complete with SEO management and automation tools. Salesforce also includes content management with SEO optimization via its experience cloud

• AI Tools. HubSpot and Salesforce use AI tools for very different tasks. A core use of AI in HubSpot is content generation and management: writing posts, optimizing content to match your brand voice, image generation, content ideation, etc. Meanwhile, Salesforce uses AI more for analytics and forecasting with add-ons like their CRM analytics. So, the better platform for AI depends on what your goals are. If you’re more concerned with streamlining the generation and management of your content, the AI tools in HS are more helpful. If you’re looking for an AI solution to help you review and utilize data insights, then Salesforce will be the better tool.
• User Interface. Well, HubSpot used to be the more attractive and intuitive platform. However, Salesforce’s recent UI/UX updates have done a lot to bring the platforms into parity.

So, which is best? If you’re looking for a tool that already has native integrations with your current solutions (or want the prestige of using the biggest name in the industry), Salesforce is your go-to.

If you want a solution with a lower barrier to entry that makes it easy to manage content generation to support your marketing, sales, and service departments, then HubSpot might be the right choice for you.

Need Help Implementing HubSpot?

If you’re new to HubSpot and need help implementing and generating ROI from it, book a meeting with the Bluleadz team! We have over a decade of continuous experience in using HubSpot and helping others achieve more ROI from their HubSpot tools.