On the surface, GoHighLevel and HubSpot appear to offer very similar features but, in fact, are quite different. Here’s how they compare.
- Plans cost from $97/month
- GoHighLevel is ranked as the #2 platform on SupplyGem
- Rated 4.8/5 on Trustpilot
- GoHighLevel is an excellent platform with an incredible number of features
- Plans cost from $23/month
- HubSpot is not currently ranked on SupplyGem
- Rated 3.4/5 on Trustpilot
- HubSpot is a good alternative for large-scale CRM requirements
Key Takeaways:
- GoHighLevel is our top choice for this comparison since the number of features you get for the price is unbeatable
- HubSpot is a good option for large businesses with CRM requirements
GoHighLevel vs HubSpot at a Glance
| Feature | GoHighLevel | HubSpot |
|---|---|---|
| Current Promotion | 30-day free trial | Free plan available |
| Smart Contact Lists | ✅ | ✅ |
| Unlimited Contacts | ✅ | ❌ |
| Pipelines | ✅ | ✅ |
| Automated Calendars | ✅ | ❌ |
| Funnel Builder | ✅ | ❌ |
| Website Builder | ✅ | ✅ |
| Landing Page Builder | ✅ | ✅ |
| Email Campaigns | ✅ | ✅ |
| Blogs | ✅ | ❌ |
| Customer Service Center Builder | ❌ | ✅ |
| Course Building | ✅ | ❌ |
| Automation | ✅ | ✅ |
| Analytics | ✅ | ✅ |
| CRM | ✅ | ✅ |
| Integrations | ✅ | ✅ |
| SMS Marketing | ✅ | ✅ |
| Phone Marketing | ✅ | ✅ |
| Sell as SaaS | ✅ | ❌ |
What Is GoHighLevel?
GoHighLevel is an all-in-one sales, marketing, and CRM platform that provides all its tools for a single monthly subscription price.
The platform is feature rich and allows you to perform sophisticated tasks such as creating fully automated workflows and multi-channel marketing campaigns.
What Is HubSpot?
HubSpot is a sales, market, and customer service platform, but the primary objective of the software is to boost and enhance CRM for businesses.
The platform boasts a great many features arranged into separate “hubs” (sales, marketing, etc.), allowing customers to pick and choose the tools they require for their business.
GoHighLevel vs HubSpot: Notable Differences
Both platforms offer sales, marketing, and CRM features. However, Hubspot is more dedicated to CRM, whereas GoHighLevel focuses more on sales and marketing.
One key difference is the pricing setup. GoHighLevel offers a flat fee in exchange for full use of the platform, mostly on an unlimited basis (the only difference between the two plans is the number of sub-account you can have).
On the other hand, HubSpot arranges its features into five separate hubs and charges a premium for each one. Furthermore, you get a lot of limitations on the lower-priced plans, such as the number of contacts and automation you can have.
The other notable difference is that HubSpot is focused on businesses of all sizes – from freelancers up to enterprise-sized businesses. In contrast, GoHighLevel chooses to aim its platform toward marketing professionals and agencies.
GoHighLevel vs HubSpot Pros and Cons
GoHighLevel Pros
- Unlimited features on both plans
- Single reasonable monthly price
- Unlimited contacts
- Very advanced automation tools
- Uses AI to complete bookings
- Build and sell courses
- Create advanced sales funnels
- Can white-label the platform and sell as SaaS
GoHighLevel Cons
- Not the most attractive user interface
- Requires a steep learning curve
- Training material frequently outdated
- Templates could be better
HubSpot Pros
- Basic free plan available
- Modern, easy-to-navigate platform
- Extensive and sophisticated features for CRM
- Excellent help prompts and resource center
- Live chat tool
- Create a full customer service center
HubSpot Cons
- Cheaper plans are very limited
- Top-tier plans are extremely expensive
- No funnel builder
- Limited contacts or pay to have more
- Lacks full marketing tools
- Not really suitable for individuals or small businesses
GoHighLevel vs HubSpot: Affordability
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GoHighLevel’s pricing is very straightforward:
- $97/month for one account plus one sub-account
- $297/month for one account plus unlimited sub-accounts
HubSpot has far more complex pricing and is dependent on which hub you choose and which plan you want:
- Marketing Hub: $20/month – $3,600/month
- Sales Hub: $20/month – $1,200/month
- Customer Service Hub: $20/month – $1,200/month
- CMS Hub: $25/month – $1,200/month
- Operations Hub: $20/month – $2,000/month
HubSpot also has a very limited free plan available and also a CRM bundle plan where you can have all the lowest-tier plans for all five hubs for a single price of $50/month.
| Platform | Cheapest Plan | Top-Tier Plan | Discount for Paying Annually | Free Trial? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GoHighLevel | $97/month or $80.83/month billed annually | $297/month or $247.50/month billed annually | 17% | 30-day free trial |
| HubSpot | $20/month or $18/month billed annually | $3,600/month or $43,200/month billed annually | 10% (discount not applied to top-tier plans) | Free plan available |
Winner Is GoHighLevel
GoHighLevel’s pricing is simple and easy to deal with. Plus, having unlimited features for the cost makes it a very attractive proposition.
HubSpot’s bundle plan looks good on the surface, until you see how limited the features are. And its mid and top-tier plans get eye-wateringly expensive very quickly.
GoHighLevel vs HubSpot: Content Creation Features
GoHighLevel Content Creation Features
The GoHighLevel platform has numerous different tools that let you build and create online content.
First, it has separate funnel-building, website, landing page, and blog creation tools each with a wide variety of templates to help you get started.
The advantage of the funnel templates is that they contain prebuilt funnels with all the necessary steps already included, allowing you to get set up really easily.
The editing tool features a drag-and-drop interface that is pretty simple to grasp. Editing doesn’t take long to do and allows for a high level of customization.
On the downside, the template aesthetics let the platform down somewhat. They’re not the best and look a little dated.
Overall, they provide a good base to get started, but you’re going to need to edit them quite a lot.
In addition to web pages, GoHighLevel also has a course-building feature where you can design unlimited courses, lessons, modules, and membership sites.
This feature lets you upload documents, videos, and audio files to really bring your course material to life.
HubSpot Content Creation Features
HubSpot has a full website-building tool, and within this, you can create membership areas, a blog, and landing pages.
First, you select a theme (there are lots of free ones available) and once your theme has been installed, you can then select a page template. Editing each template utilizes drag-and-drop, which worked well when we tested it out.
It’s a bit confusing, though, because the theme is not the website itself – it’s the overall style of the site. And the templates are actually just separate pages that you piece together to make a whole site.
Membership areas are essentially web pages of gated content that customers can pay to access. However, there’s no feature available for creating courses or communities.
One downside here is that the content features are very limited on the Starter plan ($23/month). If you want the full set of features, you have to be willing to pay $360/month upwards, which is a massive jump in price.
Winner Is GoHighLevel
You can simply do more with GoHighLevel, and unlike HubSpot, you don’t have to worry about whether or not your chosen plan includes the tools you want to use.
Additionally, having the different building tools separate from each other makes the whole design process a lot more convenient.
GoHighLevel vs HubSpot: CRM Features
GoHighLevel CRM Features
GoHighLevel has plenty to offer its customers for effective and – mostly – automated CRM. The biggest draw is that you can input unlimited numbers of contacts, so whether you have ten or ten thousand, you can add them no matter which plan you’re on.
Here’s a quick overview of everything CRM-related on the GoHighLevel platform:
- Smart Contact Lists: Add tags and arrange your contacts in lists for different campaigns.
- Unlimited Calendars: Set up calendars for different purposes and automatically manage bookings and availability.
- Automated Booking: When customers go to book, the system will show availability, confirm booking, and take payments if necessary.
- Smart Pipelines: Create unlimited pipelines for different campaigns and use automation to move leads through the customer journey.
- Direct Communication: Call, email, SMS, WhatsApp, and social media message contacts directly from the GoHighLevel platform.
- Create Automated Workflows: Take the hassle out of repetitive admin tasks and never miss out on hot leads by using automation.
- Direct Payments: Take payments hassle-free by integrating with Stripe or PayPal.
- Comprehensive Dashboard: View analytics and reports anytime.
HubSpot CRM Features
HubSpot was built for CRM, so we were excited to see how this platform performed in this area. However, we were met straight away with one big disappointment – the limits placed on the number of contacts you can have.
The Starter plan only lets you have 1,000 contacts, while the Enterprise plan is 10,000. You can add more, but be prepared to pay at least $18/month extra per additional 1,000 contacts.
Here’s an overview of all of HubSpot’s CRM features:
- Contact Management: Add tags and organize contacts into handy lists.
- Call Tracking Software: Line up and prioritize your daily calls with ease.
- Conversation AI: Understand how your team is performing on customer calls.
- Deal Pipelines: See where each of your leads is in the customer journey.
- Meeting Scheduler: Allow clients to easily book with you.
- Live Chat: Talk with your leads in real-time to help conversions.
- Direct Calling: Phone customers straight from the HubSpot platform.
- Reporting Dashboard: All your analytics are in one place.
- Payments: Take payments in multiple currencies.
- Automation: Automate customer contact and admin tasks.
- Predictive Lead Scoring and Forecasting: Know the health of your future business.
Winner Is: It’s a Draw
There’s no doubt that HubSpot uses highly sophisticated software for highly effective CRM, and we can’t fault the platform in this respect. However, many of the best features aren’t accessible on the lower plans, and the extra cost of adding contacts is annoying.
On the other hand, GoHighLevel’s platform may not be as advanced, but it can still handle most tasks perfectly well without limiting your access to its features.
GoHighLevel vs HubSpot: Customer Service Tools
GoHighLevel Customer Service Tools
GoHighLevel’s customer service features are largely centered around SMS and social media messaging. The platform provides direct integrations with Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram messaging, allowing you to converse with customers in real-time.
Rather than provide a chatbot tool, the platform has a chat widget available. This can be placed on any web page, and when customers get in touch, it moves the conversation over to SMS.
However, its SMS automation capabilities win here. By creating an AI-powered chatbot for SMS conversations, you don’t have to be physically present to respond. And it means fewer leads are dropped because the customer always gets a response.
HubSpot CRM Customer Service Tools
HubSpot has an entire hub dedicated to customer service tools.
First, it provides you with the ability to create a customer portal whereby users can log in and request support. It also has tools to allow you to create a knowledge base and fill it with guides, walkthroughs, and more.
HubSpot also provides a live chat facility so that you can converse with customers in real-time; plus, you can pull all your conversation channels from social media and elsewhere into a single inbox to instantaneously see who needs responding to.
Finally, you have the ability to track inbound calls, make outbound calls from the HubSpot platform, and set up and run a full ticketing service for your customers.
Winner Is HubSpot
There’s no doubt that GoHighLevel’s AI booking bot is great, but the platform lacks a live chat facility and moving things onto SMS isn’t going to work for everyone.
HubSpot, on the other hand, offers live chat plus a way for you to create and manage an entire customer service center for your clients.
GoHighLevel vs HubSpot: Sales and Marketing Features
GoHighLevel Sales and Marketing Features
GoHighLevel was built for sales and marketing and, as such, has provided most tools you could ever need to carry out effective marketing campaigns.
Its email campaign builder is pretty detailed and lets you create email blasts and full email series and automate the entire process.
Next, you have its SMS marketing capabilities. This is one of our favorite features because it uses an AI-powered chatbot to take leads through to making a booking confirmation. This is a powerful tool that can be used alongside other marketing methods to create more impact.
Furthermore, GoHighLevel’s advanced Workflow creator lets you build automated multi-channel campaigns. Whether you want to use email, SMS, voicemail drops, or sales funnels in your campaign, the platform will let you create it.
We’ve already mentioned the sales funnel and web page creation tools, so we won’t get into that again, but it’s worth mentioning here that GoHighLevel provides something called “Snapshots.” These are prebuilt automated marketing campaigns for common business niches such as insurance or dental.
These snapshots allow you to get started on marketing a business right away without figuring out how to piece everything together.
Another feature that we really like is that you have the ability to sell the entire GoHighLevel platform as SaaS. You get to set your own prices, brand it, and sell it to clients an unlimited number of times.
Essentially, it’s providing another avenue for revenue that isn’t capped or restricted.
And finally, the platform integrates with PayPal and Stripe to allow you to directly take payments.
And you can create digital products with one-off payments or recurring subscriptions for ongoing revenue.
HubSpot Sales and Marketing Features
We’ve already looked at HubSpot’s web page-building tool. It’s true that you can create landing pages, but the platform lacks a funnel-building feature which is a shame.
However, you can enhance your web pages for sales and marketing purposes by adding data collection forms and paywalls.
The platform has an email campaign builder, but there are limits on how many emails you can send per month, and the fun stuff like adding automation or using split A/B testing is only available on the higher-tiered plans.
One pretty nice feature is the ability to view all your social media and Google Ads in one place. The tool shows you interaction and revenue stats and also provides an opportunity to re-engage contacts.
This is a great way to streamline all your ads and – more importantly – quickly find which ones are performing best.
Finally, HubSpot (like GoHighLevel) features deal pipelines that allow you to see where your leads are in the sales process.
Additionally, you get sales forecasting tools that help you predict your future revenue – something that most businesses will find very useful.
Winner Is GoHighLevel
GoHighLevel’s sales and marketing tools are super sophisticated, and the possibilities for the types of campaigns you can create are endless.
While the workflows tool takes some getting used to, once you have, you can build unlimited and fully automated marketing campaigns.
We will say that while HubSpot’s sales and marketing tools are not as diverse as GoHighLevel’s, it does do better in the analytics and predictions department.
GoHighLevel vs Hubspot: Automation Capabilities
GoHighLevel Automation Capabilities
GoHighLevel has advanced automation that lets you automate just about anything on its platform.
From automatic calendar and pipeline management, to fully automated, multi-channel marketing campaigns, this platform lets you do it all.
Automations are created in the workflows tool and although this has quite a steep learning curve, once you get it, you will find it hard to be without it.
HubSpot Automation Capabilities
HubSpot’s automation is largely centered around its marketing tools. Here you can create automated workflows that take care of email and SMS sequences and lead follow-ups. This also feeds into your pipelines and parts of these can also be set to autopilot.
One fairly big drawback is that you are limited to using automated emails with only 50 contacts at once. This makes it very difficult to conduct large-scale marketing campaigns.
Winner Is GoHighLevel
Hubspot’s interface may look nicer than GoHighLevel’s, but it doesn’t possess nearly as much versatility or functionality as GoHighLevel. Their automation feature is the crowning glory of the platform and is one of the best we’ve seen so far.
GoHighLevel vs HubSpot: User Experience
GoHighLevel User Experience
GoHighLevel is a vast platform with vast quantities of features. Therefore, it stands to reason that there is a learning curve associated with it.
Some of the features are straightforward, like its web page building tools, but others like workflows and automation can be frustrating to use initially.
Additionally, GoHighLevel loves to update the platform on an almost weekly basis. As such, features move around, change appearance, or have new capabilities added. This is great because it’s obvious they’re working hard on improving the platform.
On the other hand, it’s a pain because you frequently have to relearn things. It also doesn’t help that they often fail to update their training material and support portal in line with new updates.
HubSpot User Experience
HubSpot’s interface is clean and modern, with dropdown menus at the top of the screen. This makes it really fast to locate the feature you want.
When you first start on the platform, you get a ton of help prompts and a checklist to get you set up and on your way.
For each tool, there is also an inbuilt tutorial showing you how everything works. This is great because it makes the platform beginner-friendly right from the off.
Additionally, the free plan provides you with the opportunity to really try out the platform without time limits and learn how it all operates
Winner Is HubSpot
HubSpot’s interface is much more appealing than GoHighLevel, and it’s easy to find and use the tools you need.
Furthermore, its help resources couldn’t be better both within the portal and in the help center.
With GoHighLevel, you have to rely on a frequently outdated help portal and less-than-stellar resources. It could definitely use some improvement in this area.
GoHighLevel vs HubSpot: Help and Support
GoHighLevel Help and Support
GoHighLevel utilizes its own SMS help service. You find the “chatbot” and post your query, then the conversation moves to SMS.
However, having used this several times, you often have to wait an entire day or even longer until someone gets back to you.
But one thing we do like, and that’s that the GoHighLevel team is usually willing to jump on a Zoom call with you to help you out.
This is great if you are experiencing a complicated issue that is difficult to solve over text.
HubSpot Help and Support
HubSpot claims it has 24/7 live chat, email, and phone support available. The live chat is pretty responsive and when testing it out, we got a response in just about three minutes. But it’s not actually 24/7 and depending on the time of day, chat agents were unavailable.
Winner Is: It’s a Draw
Overall, we feel that both platforms offer a decent level of support but could be better.
If you’re going to claim that your support is 24/7, it should be expected that agents are always available and that a response is provided within a day.
Neither platform managed this, though, when support was given it was of good quality and efficient.
GoHighLevel vs HubSpot: Final Verdict
Despite a few drawbacks, GoHighLevel is a comprehensive platform and excellent value for money. The team is hot on making frequent improvements, so we can only see it get better over time.
HubSpot is also an excellent platform, but its restrictive plans and insane pricing make it out of reach for many.
Overall, we say:
- Use GoHighLevel if you want a single platform for all your digital product creation, sales, marketing, and CRM needs, plus a way to drive uncapped revenue.
- Use HubSpot if you are a large business owner and want a sophisticated CRM platform and where budget is not the greatest concern.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Does GoHighLevel Compare With HubSpot?
GoHighLevel was designed for marketing professionals, has clear pricing, and offers unlimited features. In comparison, HubSpot was designed for businesses, has modular pricing, and places limits on its features. GoHighLevel is primarily a marketing platform, while HubSpot focuses on CRM.
Which Is Better for Marketing Agencies – GoHighLevel or HubSpot?
GoHighLevel was designed for marketing professionals and agencies and is, therefore, better than HubSpot for this business niche.
Which Is Better for Small Businesses – GoHighLevel or HubSpot?
HubSpot was designed for businesses and therefore has more relevant features to support a business than GoHighLevel.
Is GoHighLevel or HubSpot Cheaper?
HubSpot is cheaper, with plans available starting at $20/month (compared with GoHighLevel at $97/month).
Is GoHighLevel or HubSpot or HubSpot Better Value?
HubSpot places a limit on many of its features. For example, the number of contacts and reports is capped. In contrast, GoHighLevel’s features are unlimited, making it the better value platform overall.
Can I Use GoHighLevel or HubSpot for Free?
HubSpot has a basic free plan that you can use without providing credit card details. Unfortunately, GoHighLevel does not have a free plan available, but you can take advantage of an extended 30-day free trial.
