Keap vs HubSpot Sales Hub
Keap vs HubSpot for small businesses choosing between an all-in-one automation and payments plan and a CRM that scales with a sales team.
Verdict
Keap fits small businesses that want CRM, email automation, and payments in one plan; HubSpot fits B2B sales teams planning to scale. Keap, formerly Infusionsoft, has been owned by Thryv since October 31, 2024 and sells one all-features plan at $249 a month billed annually with 2 users. HubSpot has a free CRM and per-seat sales tiers, with marketing sold as a separate hub. The deciding factor is whether you are buying for a small owner-led team or a growing sales team.
How Keap and HubSpot differ for small businesses
Keap
Combines CRM and automation for teams that want lead follow-up without a heavier RevOps layer.
Best fit: Small business revenue teams. Category: CRM Software.
HubSpot Sales Hub
Fast time to value for teams that want CRM, automation, and reporting in one cleaner stack.
Best fit: Scaling mid-market teams. Category: CRM Software.
Questions to settle before choosing
Is the main need automated lead follow-up and payments, or pipeline management for a sales team?
How many users and contacts will you have in 18 months?
Do you need email marketing in the same plan, or will marketing run elsewhere?
What does implementation cost for each, and is it required?
Pricing
Keap: From $249/mo. Checked against the vendor on . Keap pricing and plans
HubSpot Sales Hub: Free plan; from $20/user/mo. Checked against the vendor on . HubSpot Sales Hub pricing and plans
Where Keap wins
Keap fits small businesses and small sales teams that want automated lead follow-up, email marketing, landing pages, and payments without stitching tools together. Reviews on Keap's own site keep returning to having everything under one roof.
Automation is approachable. A Gartner Peer Insights reviewer calls it easy to pick up, and Black Swan Media's review calls the drag-and-drop email builder intuitive.
Where Keap wins: payments and marketing automation in one price. Small businesses can capture a lead, nurture it, send a quote, and take payment without adding tools.
Pricing: one plan at $249 per month billed annually ($2,988 a year) or $299 month to month, including 2 users and 1,500 contacts. Extra users are $39 per month, contacts are priced by volume, and an implementation package is required (checkout data lists $1,500). Annual contracts carry a $299 early termination fee (checked September 2026 on keap.com).
Who it fits best: owner-led service businesses and small teams that sell and collect payment in one flow.
Where HubSpot Sales Hub wins
HubSpot Sales Hub fits B2B teams that want pipeline management, sequences, and reporting that scale with headcount. It is the default shortlist pick for scaling mid-market teams.
Its free CRM (up to 2 users) lets small teams start without a contract, and the platform grows into forecasting at Professional.
Where HubSpot wins: growth path. Sales teams can add seats, sequences, forecasting, and separate marketing and service hubs on the same record.
Pricing: Free, Starter at $20 per seat per month list, Professional at $90 billed annually plus $1,500 onboarding, and Enterprise at $150 plus $3,500. HubSpot's marketing tools are a separate Marketing Hub subscription (checked September 2026 on hubspot.com).
Who it fits best: teams planning to add reps, managers, and forecasting over the next two years.
Watch-outs
Pricing side by side for 10 users on annual billing: Keap is $2,988 plus 8 extra users at $39 a month ($3,744), about $6,732 a year with 1,500 contacts, before implementation. HubSpot Starter is $2,400 at list, but add Marketing Hub if you need Keap-style email marketing.
Where they overlap: both manage contacts and pipelines, send automated emails, and offer landing pages or forms in some form. Keap bundles more for small teams; HubSpot scales further for sales teams.
Keap is less suited to B2B teams that need multi-stage forecasting or territory rules. Test the pipeline report against the questions you ask in weekly reviews.
Support and price increases draw complaints about Keap. Software Advice reviewers mention slow support, and a long-time Trustpilot reviewer complains about repeated price increases. Ask about renewal caps.
Keap's trial caps email sending at 25 messages and blocks payments and texting, so plan a paid pilot to test live campaigns.
Migration note: if you outgrow Keap, export contacts, tags, and payment history before cancelling, and rebuild automations as HubSpot workflows one campaign at a time.
How to run the pilot: build the follow-up sequence you would send a new web lead in each tool and time it, then move ten real deals through your stages and check whether the pipeline report answers your weekly questions.