Research-based monday CRM vs HubSpot vs Pipedrive comparison with no product testing: Saazora did not buy a plan from monday.com, HubSpot or Pipedrive for this article · Prices read on each vendor's own US pricing pages and help center on November 4, 2026 · US dollars, before tax · All team totals are Saazora's arithmetic on those list prices
Some links on this page are affiliate links: Saazora may be paid if you sign up for monday CRM through them, at no extra cost to you. Saazora has no paid relationship with HubSpot or Pipedrive, and the cost ranking below is built from list prices and plan limits only.
For a 5- or 10-person sales team, the monday CRM vs HubSpot vs Pipedrive question is mostly a question about which tier you need. On yearly billing, five sellers pay $1,020 a year on monday CRM Standard, $2,340 on Pipedrive Growth and $420 on HubSpot's Starter (a new-customer price that lists at $20 a seat). Once you need email sequences, the gap widens: monday Pro costs $1,680 a year for five, Pipedrive Growth with its Campaigns and LeadBooster add-ons about $3,120, and HubSpot Sales Hub Professional $6,900 in year one because of a required $1,500 onboarding fee. At ten sellers those figures double, except HubSpot's onboarding, which stays a flat one-time charge.
The catch on monday's side is its seat buckets. monday sells seats in fixed sizes (3, 5, 10, 15 and so on), so a 6-person team pays for 10. HubSpot and Pipedrive bill each seat. That one rule changes the ranking for some team sizes, which the sections below show with exact totals. If you only want monday's own plan details, our monday CRM pricing breakdown goes deeper on its limits and discount wording.
The short answer by team need
| What the team needs | Lowest yearly cost, 5 sellers | Lowest yearly cost, 10 sellers | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| A shared pipeline, little automation | HubSpot Starter $420 (discounted) · monday Basic $720 · Pipedrive Lite $840 | HubSpot Starter $840 · monday Basic $1,440 · Pipedrive Lite $1,680 | HubSpot's $7 seat price is marked "Discounts available for new customers only"; at its $20 list price, five seats are $1,200 a year |
| Automations and an email timeline | monday Standard $1,020 · Pipedrive Growth $2,340 | monday Standard $2,040 · Pipedrive Growth $4,680 | HubSpot Starter includes "Up to 50 workflows with restricted triggers and actions", but no sequences |
| Outbound: sequences and mass email | monday Pro $1,680 · Pipedrive Growth + add-ons $3,120 · HubSpot Pro $6,900 (year one) | monday Pro $3,360 · Pipedrive Growth + add-ons $5,460 · HubSpot Pro $12,300 (year one) | HubSpot Pro year one includes the one-time $1,500 onboarding; from year two it is $5,400 and $10,800 |
Yearly billing for all three. Pipedrive add-ons = Campaigns and LeadBooster at their lowest listed prices. Saazora's arithmetic from vendor pages read November 4, 2026.
On cost alone, monday CRM is the cheapest of the three at both team sizes in the middle and outbound tiers, and HubSpot is cheapest at the entry tier while its new-customer price applies. You can check monday's current seat prices on its monday CRM pricing page (affiliate link).
How each vendor charges for a seat
The three companies price the same way on the surface, per seat per month, but the rules underneath differ in ways that move a team's bill.
- monday CRM lists Basic at $12, Standard at $17 and Pro at $28 per seat a month on yearly billing, or $18, $25 and $41 month to month. Ultimate is a "Custom price, tailored to your organization". Its FAQ says "Plans start from 3 users", and the team-size menu on the pricing page offers 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 and 40 seats at list price; 50 seats and above switch every plan to a custom price. Yearly plans are paid in one go: "if you purchase a plan for one year, you will pay for one year upfront".
- HubSpot shows Sales Hub Starter at "$7/mo/seat" on annual billing and $10 on monthly billing, with $20 shown as the struck-through list price and the note "*Discounts available for new customers only." Sales Hub Professional is $90 a seat a month billed annually and $100 on the "Pay Monthly" option, which the page labels "Commit annually". Enterprise "Starts at $150/mo/seat" through sales. HubSpot's FAQ says "Paid Sales Hub plans are priced per seat."
- Pipedrive lists Lite at US$14, Growth at US$39, Premium at US$59 and Ultimate at US$79, each "Per seat per month, billed annually". Its help center says "You're charged per seat, whether it's assigned to a user or not."
Two fees sit outside the seat price. HubSpot's Professional card says "*Cost shown does not include the required, one-time Professional Onboarding for a fee of $1,500," and Enterprise carries a one-time onboarding fee of $3,500. monday and Pipedrive list no onboarding fee on the pages we read; Pipedrive's Lite plan even lists "Personalized onboarding" as a feature.
One gap to know about: Pipedrive's pricing page offers a monthly billing toggle labelled "(Save up to 42%)", but the version of the page we could read showed only the annual prices. We have not estimated Pipedrive's month-to-month rates; check the toggle on Pipedrive's page before you compare monthly billing.
Comparable tiers side by side
Plan names do not line up across vendors, so we matched tiers by what a sales team gets. The deciding features are automation, email sequences and mass email.
| Tier | monday CRM | HubSpot Sales Hub | Pipedrive |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry pipeline | Basic: 1,000 active contacts & deals, 1 custom dashboard, no custom automations listed | Starter: 500 calling minutes, "Up to 50 workflows with restricted triggers and actions", 500 HubSpot Credits | Lite: 2,500 leads and deals per seat, no automations or sequences |
| Automation | Standard: 10,000 contacts & deals, 250 custom automations a month, "Centralized comms hub" | No separate tier: Starter is the only paid plan below Professional | Growth: 5,000 leads and deals per seat, 50 automations, 5 sequences, "Full email sync with tracking" |
| Outbound | Pro: 100,000 contacts & deals, 25K automations a month, "Send mass emails" and "Set email sequences" | Professional: sequences with "up to 500 email sends/user/day", forecasting, 3,000 calling minutes, 3,000 credits | Premium: LeadBooster, Projects and Smart Docs included, 25 sequences, 150 automations; mass email still needs the Campaigns add-on |
| Top tier | Ultimate: custom price | Enterprise: from $150 a seat plus $3,500 onboarding | Ultimate: US$79 a seat |
Limits from monday.com/crm/pricing, hubspot.com/pricing/sales and Pipedrive's "Usage limits in Pipedrive" help article, November 4, 2026. Pipedrive's automation and sequence limits are per company.
The outbound row is where the prices separate. monday puts mass email and sequences on Pro at $28 a seat. HubSpot puts sequences on Professional at $90 a seat plus onboarding. Pipedrive has sequences from Growth, but bulk email campaigns are a separate add-on on every plan, per its help center table, where Campaigns is marked "Add-on" for Lite, Growth, Premium and Ultimate alike.
What 5 sellers pay: monthly and yearly totals
This is the core table: every comparable tier priced for five seats. Per month, yearly billing is the per-month equivalent of an annual contract. HubSpot Professional's year-one figure adds the one-time onboarding fee.
| Plan | Per month, yearly billing | Year, yearly billing | Per month, monthly billing | Year, monthly billing | One-time fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| monday Basic | $60 | $720 | $90 | $1,080 | None listed |
| monday Standard | $85 | $1,020 | $125 | $1,500 | None listed |
| monday Pro | $140 | $1,680 | $205 | $2,460 | None listed |
| HubSpot Starter (new-customer price) | $35 | $420 | $50 | $600 | None listed |
| HubSpot Starter (at $20 list) | $100 | $1,200 | $100 | $1,200 | None listed |
| HubSpot Sales Pro | $450 | $5,400 ($6,900 year one) | $500 | $6,000 ($7,500 year one) | $1,500 |
| HubSpot Sales Enterprise | $750 | $9,000 ($12,500 year one) | Not listed | Not listed | $3,500 |
| Pipedrive Lite | $70 | $840 | Not shown | Not shown | None listed |
| Pipedrive Growth | $195 | $2,340 | Not shown | Not shown | None listed |
| Pipedrive Growth + Campaigns + LeadBooster | $260 | $3,120 | Not shown | Not shown | None listed |
| Pipedrive Premium + Campaigns | $327.50 | $3,930 | Not shown | Not shown | None listed |
| Pipedrive Ultimate | $395 | $4,740 | Not shown | Not shown | None listed |
Saazora's arithmetic: seat price × 5 (× 12 for a year). Pipedrive add-ons at their lowest listed prices: Campaigns $32.50 per company per month billed annually, LeadBooster from $32.50 per month per company; both are priced per company, not per seat. Prices from vendor pages read November 4, 2026.
What 10 sellers pay, and where onboarding stops mattering
Doubling the team doubles every seat line. HubSpot's onboarding does not double, and Pipedrive's add-ons are per company, so both shrink as a share of the bill.
| Plan | Per month, yearly billing | Year, yearly billing | Per month, monthly billing | Year, monthly billing | One-time fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| monday Basic | $120 | $1,440 | $180 | $2,160 | None listed |
| monday Standard | $170 | $2,040 | $250 | $3,000 | None listed |
| monday Pro | $280 | $3,360 | $410 | $4,920 | None listed |
| HubSpot Starter (new-customer price) | $70 | $840 | $100 | $1,200 | None listed |
| HubSpot Starter (at $20 list) | $200 | $2,400 | $200 | $2,400 | None listed |
| HubSpot Sales Pro | $900 | $10,800 ($12,300 year one) | $1,000 | $12,000 ($13,500 year one) | $1,500 |
| HubSpot Sales Enterprise | $1,500 | $18,000 ($21,500 year one) | Not listed | Not listed | $3,500 |
| Pipedrive Lite | $140 | $1,680 | Not shown | Not shown | None listed |
| Pipedrive Growth | $390 | $4,680 | Not shown | Not shown | None listed |
| Pipedrive Growth + Campaigns + LeadBooster | $455 | $5,460 | Not shown | Not shown | None listed |
| Pipedrive Premium + Campaigns | $622.50 | $7,470 | Not shown | Not shown | None listed |
| Pipedrive Ultimate | $790 | $9,480 | Not shown | Not shown | None listed |
Saazora's arithmetic: seat price × 10 (× 12 for a year). Add-ons at their lowest published tier; heavier Campaigns or LeadBooster use costs more. Prices from vendor pages read November 4, 2026.
At ten seats, HubSpot Professional's onboarding fee is about 12% of the first-year bill, against 22% at five seats. It stops being the deciding number; the $90 seat price is. A 10-seller team pays $7,440 a year more on HubSpot Professional than on monday Pro from year two onward, which is the price of HubSpot's forecasting, conversation intelligence and the wider HubSpot platform. Whether that is worth it depends on whether your team will use those tools, not on the CRM basics, which both cover.
monday CRM vs HubSpot at awkward team sizes: the seat-bucket effect
Five and ten are monday bucket sizes, so the tables above show monday at its best. Teams of 4, 6 to 9, or 11 to 14 sellers pay for empty seats, because the next available bucket is billed in full. HubSpot and Pipedrive charge for the exact number of seats you buy.
At the entry tier, Pipedrive Lite is cheaper than monday Basic at 4, 6, 7, 8, 11 and 12 sellers. At 9 sellers monday wins again, narrowly: Pipedrive Lite for nine seats is $1,512 against $1,440 for monday Basic billed for ten. In the higher tiers the bucket effect is smaller, because monday's per-seat price is so much lower than Pipedrive's:
- 6 sellers, automation tier: monday Standard billed for 10 seats is $2,040 a year; Pipedrive Growth for 6 seats is $2,808. monday stays cheaper even with four empty seats.
- 6 sellers, outbound tier: monday Pro billed for 10 is $3,360; Pipedrive Growth for 6 plus Campaigns and LeadBooster is $3,588. Close, but monday still leads.
- 11 sellers, outbound tier: monday Pro billed for 15 is $5,040; Pipedrive Growth for 11 plus the two add-ons is $5,928; HubSpot Professional for 11 is $11,880 plus $1,500 onboarding in year one.
The empty seats are not wasted if you plan to hire: a 6-person team on a 10-seat monday plan can add four sellers without a price change. If headcount is flat, though, compare at your real number, not at the nearest bucket; our monday.com pricing calculator shows the billed seats and yearly cost for any team size up to 50. Current monday seat options are on its CRM plans page (affiliate link).
Monthly billing: what flexibility costs
Paying month to month lets a team cancel or shrink faster, at a price. For five sellers on monday CRM, monthly billing adds $360 a year on Basic, $480 on Standard and $780 on Pro, which is why the toggle says "Yearly SAVE 33%". The page's own FAQ still says "Choosing yearly plan for monday CRM pricing results in an 18% discount"; the listed prices work out to roughly a third off ($12 against $18 on Basic), so we used the prices, not the FAQ line.
HubSpot's monthly options are less flexible than the word suggests. On Starter, "Pay Monthly" is labelled "Commit monthly" and costs $10 a seat instead of $7. On Professional, "Pay Monthly" is labelled "Commit annually": you pay $100 a seat each month, but you still sign for a year. For ten sellers that is $1,200 more a year than annual billing, without the freedom to leave.
Pipedrive's help center describes its two cycles plainly: monthly means "You'll pay on the same day each month", and annual means "You'll pay upfront for the entire year and receive a discount". Add-ons follow the same cycle as the plan. As noted above, we could not read Pipedrive's monthly seat prices, so the monthly columns for Pipedrive are left blank rather than estimated.
Add-ons and extras that change the bill
Seat prices are only part of a CRM bill. These are the extras each vendor publishes that a 5- or 10-person team is likely to meet:
| Vendor | Extra | Published price | Who needs it |
|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot | Professional Onboarding | $1,500 one-time, required | Every new Sales Hub Professional customer |
| HubSpot | Enterprise Onboarding | $3,500 one-time, required | Every new Enterprise customer |
| HubSpot | Extra HubSpot Credits | "$0.010 per credit" | Teams that use AI agents beyond the 500 / 3,000 / 5,000 included credits, which "reset monthly" |
| Pipedrive | Campaigns (email marketing) | From $32.50 per company a month billed annually, $39 billed monthly | Any plan that sends bulk email campaigns |
| Pipedrive | LeadBooster (chatbot, live chat, Prospector, web forms) | From $32.50 per month per company | Lite and Growth only; included in Premium and Ultimate |
| Pipedrive | Web Visitors | From $41 a month; tiers of $49, $99 and $299 a month by identified organizations | Teams that want to see which companies visit their website |
| Pipedrive | Projects and Smart Docs | Add-on on Lite and Growth; prices not shown on the pages we read | Teams that need project boards or contracts and e-signatures |
| monday CRM | None listed for these plans | AI features are listed per plan with "AI credits are included in this plan" | Credit quantities are not stated on the pricing page |
From hubspot.com/pricing/sales, Pipedrive's pricing, add-on and help center pages, and monday.com/crm/pricing, November 4, 2026.
Pipedrive's LeadBooster includes "10 Prospector lead credits each month at no extra cost", and extra credits are tiered (its billing example shows second-tier credits at $0.85 each down to $0.25 at the fifth tier). If prospect data is part of the plan, our sales prospecting tools guide compares dedicated data tools that may cost less than CRM credits.
Features that justify paying more
Ranking on cost puts monday first for most 5- and 10-seat teams, but the cheaper plan is only the better buy if it covers what your sellers do every day. Three cases where the more expensive option earns its price:
- You already run marketing on HubSpot. HubSpot's Starter card is the wider Starter platform ("Essential marketing, sales, service, content, and data management software"), and the free tier is "Free for up to 2 users". If marketing is already on HubSpot, keeping sales there avoids a sync. Professional adds forecasting, "Deal Progression" and conversation intelligence; HubSpot's comparison table lists "750 hours of transcription per account per month" on Professional.
- You live in email and want limits that grow per seat. Pipedrive's leads-and-deals cap scales with seats (5,000 per seat on Growth, so 50,000 for ten sellers), where monday Standard has a flat 10,000 active contacts and deals for the account. A 10-seller team with a large deal history can hit monday Standard's cap before Pipedrive Growth's.
- You need a dialer-style calling setup. HubSpot includes calling minutes (500 on Starter, 3,000 on Professional) and "HubSpot-provided phone numbers". monday CRM's Standard and Pro list an "Outreach caller agent" among AI features, but its pricing page does not state calling minutes. If most deals are won on the phone, a calling-first CRM may suit you better than any of these three; our Close CRM review covers its built-in dialer and per-user pricing.
And one case where monday is the clear pick: a team that wants mass email, sequences and up to 100,000 contacts and deals without paying for a separate add-on or onboarding. monday Pro is the only one of the three that bundles all of that below $30 a seat. If you are weighing free CRMs before any of these, our best free CRM for small business roundup covers HubSpot's free tier and others.
Picking by situation
- Five sellers, need sequences, tight budget: monday Pro, $1,680 a year on yearly billing. Next cheapest with sequences and bulk email is Pipedrive Growth with Campaigns, about $3,120 with LeadBooster or $2,730 without it.
- Five sellers, pipeline only: HubSpot Starter while the new-customer price holds ($420 a year), monday Basic ($720) if you want monday's boards, or Pipedrive Lite ($840) for a higher deal limit per seat.
- Ten sellers on HubSpot marketing: HubSpot Sales Hub Professional, budgeting $12,300 for year one including onboarding.
- Six to eight sellers, entry tier, no hiring planned: Pipedrive Lite beats monday Basic on price because monday bills ten seats.
- Team likely to pass 40 seats soon: monday moves to custom pricing above that size ("more than 40 users, you can request a quote"), while HubSpot and Pipedrive keep listing per-seat prices, so get a monday quote before you commit.
Coupons and the current trial offer for monday are tracked on our monday.com deals page. monday's 14-day trial needs "no credit card", and you can start it from the monday CRM signup page (affiliate link).
Questions about monday CRM, HubSpot and Pipedrive pricing
Which is cheapest for a 5-person sales team?
On yearly billing, HubSpot Starter at its new-customer price ($420 a year for five seats) is the cheapest paid plan. Among plans with automations, monday CRM Standard ($1,020) is cheapest. Among plans with sequences and mass email, monday CRM Pro ($1,680) is cheapest.
Does HubSpot charge an onboarding fee?
Yes, on Professional and Enterprise. HubSpot's pricing page says Professional cost "does not include the required, one-time Professional Onboarding for a fee of $1,500", and Enterprise has a required one-time onboarding fee of $3,500. Starter shows no onboarding fee.
Can a 6-person team buy 6 seats on monday CRM?
Not at list price on the pricing page we read. The team-size menu offers 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 and 40 seats, so six sellers would buy the 10-seat option. HubSpot and Pipedrive bill per seat.
What does Pipedrive charge for monthly billing?
Pipedrive's pricing page lists annual prices (Lite US$14 to Ultimate US$79 per seat) and a toggle reading "(Save up to 42%)". We could not read the monthly figures on the version of the page available to us, so we have not quoted them. Check the toggle on Pipedrive's page.
Is the HubSpot $7 Starter price permanent?
The page marks it "*Discounts available for new customers only" next to a $20 list price, but does not say how long the discount lasts. Ask HubSpot before you sign, and budget for $20 a seat at renewal if they cannot confirm.
Do Pipedrive add-ons cost per seat?
No. Campaigns and LeadBooster are priced "per company", so the same $32.50 starting price applies to a 5- or 10-seat account. Web Visitors is priced by the number of identified organizations visiting your site.
How we researched this comparison
For this monday CRM vs HubSpot vs Pipedrive comparison, Saazora read monday.com's CRM pricing page and HubSpot's Sales Hub pricing page in a browser on November 4, 2026, switching each page's billing toggle and, on monday, every option in the team-size menu (3 to 200+ seats), and expanding HubSpot's pricing FAQ. Pipedrive's website blocked our browser, so its pricing page and add-on pages were read through a page-reading tool that returned the server-rendered text; that text showed annual prices only. Pipedrive's help center articles on pricing, usage limits, LeadBooster billing, Web Visitors pricing, new plans and plan changes were read in a browser the same day. Only each vendor's own pages were used; no third-party price estimates were used. All team totals are Saazora's arithmetic on list prices, before tax. No account was opened with any of the three vendors. The Saazora research and review process explains how prices are verified.
Sources: monday CRM pricing (monday.com/crm/pricing); HubSpot Sales Hub pricing and FAQ (hubspot.com/pricing/sales); Pipedrive pricing (pipedrive.com/en/pricing); Pipedrive LeadBooster page (pipedrive.com/en/features/lead-generation-software); Pipedrive Campaigns page (pipedrive.com/en/products/email-marketing-software/crm-campaign-management); Pipedrive Web Visitors page (pipedrive.com/en/features/web-visitors-add-on); Pipedrive Knowledge Base, "How does pricing work in Pipedrive?", "Usage limits in Pipedrive", "Understanding LeadBooster and Prospector billing", "How does Web Visitors pricing work?", "What's new in Pipedrive plans?" and "What happens to my billing when I change my Pipedrive subscription plan?" (support.pipedrive.com).
