CRM for real results: HubSpot or Livespace?

Embrace Efficient Simplicity

Both HubSpot and Livespace are promoted as intuitive tools with easily manageable interfaces that won't overwhelm or discourage employees who are just exploring such tools.

Livespace undoubtedly offers a significant advantage with its predefined solutions, ready-made templates, fields, and descriptions. All of these elements significantly facilitate the initial steps on the platform.

In the case of HubSpot, customization for the user's needs is possible on a much larger scale. Its extensive editing capabilities allow you to tailor almost every view to your specific needs or the requirements of your team, adapting to the specifics of the ongoing activities. Teams or individual users can effortlessly create their own objects as well. All of these features make daily work not only more efficient but also more enjoyable.

Both systems have a mobile application, crucial primarily for salespeople who often work on the go.

Automation Excellence?

In the realm of automation, HubSpot's victory is beyond any doubt. Livespace provides only basic automations (such as sending emails after a completed sale or creating email sequences with tasks like "call"). However, there is limited room for integrating sales and marketing, significantly narrowing the range of possibilities.

In HubSpot, the scenario is entirely different. A standout feature of this tool is its high level of automation. Thanks to it, sales teams save significant amounts of time, which can be invested in creative work. This solution supports lead qualification management, information transfer, thus contributing to the improvement of communication between marketing and sales, as elaborated further in this article. Depending on your needs, you can choose automations in the areas of contacts, companies, the sales funnel, service, or quotes.

Automations can take the form of sales sequences, as I described some time ago, or highly sophisticated workflows based on which practically any necessary process can be built with an unlimited number of "if" conditions. You can read more about setting up workflows in HubSpot here.

Contacts and Sales Funnel

Managing contacts is a fundamental CRM function. In HubSpot, thanks to the software's suggested tools, the management of lead flow can be significantly more efficient. This applies to the entire sales-marketing-post-sales service triangle. The unified system of 'lifecycle stage' and 'lead status' provides a lot of possibilities in this regard. Control over a contact from the moment of lead acquisition to its conversion is much more effective, resulting in better outcomes.

In Livespace, customers are "tagged." Unfortunately, once again, the lack of integration with marketing negatively impacts the capabilities. Without a 'lifecycle stage' system, implementing MQL (Marketing Qualified Leads) and SQL (Sales Qualified Leads) requires manual marking, which unfortunately does not expedite daily work.

Both systems feature an intuitive sales funnel that can be set up in a Kanban-style view. You can add required fields to proceed, change stages freely, and depending on the license level, increase the number of possible funnels/sales processes.

Reports and Communication

In Livespace, the set of reports is quite basic, requiring external forms. In HubSpot, there is a significantly broader range of reports. The platform provides ample non-standard options, allowing you to track key data specific to your business rather than a standard one. HubSpot, therefore, enables you to gain deep and multidimensional insights into sales processes and their progress.

However, obtaining information is not the end of the process; it needs to reach the right individuals. HubSpot allows you to add accounts of employees not directly related to marketing and sales to the CRM, but who are important for various reasons. These accounts are free, and the knowledge they contain reaches the individuals who need it in their daily work. Livespace does not offer such possibilities.

Integrations

Currently, almost no system operates in isolation and requires integration with other tools used in the company. In HubSpot, there are over 1500 ready-made integrations, along with a community of app partners and individuals who create their own integrations and applications, sharing them in the HubSpot Marketplace. This is a benefit commonly associated with open-source software, but without the inherent risks, as everything must be approved by the relevant HubSpot teams. Additionally, HubSpot has publicly accessible APIs at every license level.

In contrast, Livespace has fewer than 50 ready-made integrations, and API access is provided at the Automation license level.

Pricing

In Livespace, we have 4 license options.

Base 79 PLN per month - here, we have basic features such as sales funnel management, tracking sales opportunities, collecting data in 40 additional fields, connecting email, one sales funnel, and managing consent for data processing or basic reports.

The scope of these functionalities is met by the free version of HubSpot, which can be downloaded from the website for 5 users.

Next, we have the Automation license for 159 PLN net per month - here, you can set up 3 sales funnels, synchronize your mailbox with Gmail or Outlook, and have access to integrations via API.

This license level can be compared to HubSpot Starter, currently priced at $15. The difference is that in Starter, for the same amount, users have access to marketing tools, customer support - basically all hubs in HubSpot.

Another level is Growth - this is a promoted variant on the website for 240 PLN per month per user. In this package, we have the ability to create up to 20 sales processes, set sales goals, assign multiple caretakers to contacts and sales opportunities, manage advanced access permissions, dedicated support, and lead routing creation.

This variant can be compared to HubSpot Professional, with the difference that in HubSpot Sales Hub, we also have a dedicated prospecting panel, can create more advanced automations, have playbooks or ready-made suggestions, a conversation structure shown to us automatically during a phone call or meeting, and access to built-in AI - allowing us to quickly respond in different languages to the client, summarize the meeting, etc. The Professional variant currently costs $100 per month in HubSpot (around 400 PLN) for a salesperson who wants access to all sales support features and $50 (around 200 PLN) for everyone else or a salesperson who does not need access to automation features (such as sequences, playbooks, synchronized HubSpot calendar + e.g. Outlook) but leaves notes in the system, and managers want to have his activities in reports. In this case, HubSpot also adds the possibility of free access but without the ability to edit data.

There is still the last subscription level called Professional +. Here, Livespace removes limits, for example, the number of funnels, provides a sandbox test environment, and the ability to access, but only with data preview, for free licenses. The condition here is to have a minimum of 10 paid licenses. The price of a paid license is 400 PLN.

The HubSpot Enterprise level is aimed at large companies, international corporations. The license price is $150 (approx. 600 PLN) per user with sales features and $75 (approx. 300 PLN) per user with editing capabilities but without tools strictly for salespeople. There is no user limit.

This is a premium option where you truly get everything. In addition to the features from the Professional plan, you receive:

• Predictive lead scoring, which automatically assigns scores and groups leads based on hundreds of different factors, providing insights into which deal is most likely to close.
• Lead routing, an automated process of assigning leads within the sales team. If your company employs more than one sales model—such as self-service, transactional sales, and corporate sales—lead routing involves directing potential customers to the appropriate sales model.
• Custom objects, allowing you to store almost any type of data in HubSpot, including subscriptions, locations, attachments, events, and more. You can browse records of custom objects, configure workflows, and generate reports on data related to custom objects. Also available on mobile devices.
• Advanced access restrictions options, such as two-factor authentication.
• The ability to leverage AI to gain deep insights into team conversation content. Automatic tracking of interesting terms and the creation of detailed reports based on conversation content.

In addition to additional features with each subscription version, there are increased limits on the use of reports, teams, funnels, and sales sequences, etc. The exact list of features is available on the HubSpot website.

Summary

There is no doubt that HubSpot is a solution that will not only prove effective for basic sales operations but also in much more advanced scenarios. For a small sales team or individuals who have not previously used CRM in their company, Livespace may be sufficient. However, this software may not be able to grow with your company. HubSpot's scalability, on the other hand, offers the opportunity to develop the system as the organization's needs grow in terms of pipeline, traffic analysis, or lead management.

Primarily, Livespace is a solution for sales teams that operate independently of marketing, have minimal automation needs, and require a simpler solution for taking notes after meetings or segmenting clients.

HubSpot is the plan for a company looking to improve communication between sales and marketing, extract the potential inherent in this relationship, and automate a range of tasks that prevent both teams from focusing on more creative challenges. Automation frees up employees, allows them to reclaim their time, and simultaneously improves the information collection and management process.

If you want to find out what else HubSpot can offer you, or if you are unsure about which CRM to choose for a small company, we can together resolve key points and select a plan that will allow your team to benefit from the CRM features it currently needs. Feel free to get in touch!