Is Plainsmith an alternative to a full CRM?

For a small business that needs a website and a place to manage inquiries and jobs, it may be enough. If you need custom pipelines, marketing campaigns or reports you design yourself, you need a fuller CRM.

Do I have to move my existing customer records?

No migration is required to get a Plainsmith website. Keep access to your existing records, and check your current provider’s export and plan limits before changing subscriptions. The Plainsmith Console keeps the records created through your site and tools.

What if I need more software later?

You can export your Plainsmith records when you’re ready to move. Your domain is yours, and the website files are available through the optional buyout. Choose the next system for the work you need it to handle.

Can my Plainsmith price go up?

It can, with 30 days’ notice by email. An annual payment locks the website price for that paid year. You can cancel before renewal; service continues through your paid period. Workflow tools come with the plan and change nothing on the bill.

If you have just been quoted Professional

The $7 is a promotion. The next real rung is $90 a seat.

You outgrew Starter, asked what was next, and found the answer is priced per person. The $7 is a new-customer promotion against a $20 list price, and the tier that actually replaces Starter is Sales Hub Professional at $90 a seat. For three of you that is $270 a month on annual billing, before HubSpot’s onboarding fee. It is still software somebody has to run.

The ladder, as it actually is

This is the Customer Platform, the bundle, and usually what you get shown when you ask what comes after Starter — with Sales Hub Professional, the single-hub rung people are actually moved to, set beside it. Prices from HubSpot's own pricing page, August 2026; the Sales Hub rung re-checked September 13.

Free

Two users. A working CRM, useful, and the reason most people start here.

$7/seat

Starter

A new-customer promotion against a $20 list price; $10 a seat if you pay monthly. Cheap, and for a lot of small businesses it’s enough for a while.

$90/seat

Sales Hub Professional

$90 a seat billed annually, or $100 paid monthly with an annual commitment. This is the rung people actually move to when Starter stops being enough, and the arithmetic is per person: three of you is $270 a month, five is $450. HubSpot also lists a required $1,500 onboarding fee. Sales Hub pricing, checked September 13, 2026.

$1,300/mo

Professional

The full Customer Platform bundle: $1,300 a month with six seats, and $45 a month for each seat after. Automation, reporting, custom objects: a platform built for a staffed marketing team.

$4,700/mo

Enterprise

Eight seats, built for staffed departments.

Professional is $15,600 a year to solve a problem that, for most 1–10 person trades, is four or five specific leaks: the call nobody answered, the quote nobody chased, the empty Tuesday slot, the invoice that went out late, and the customer nobody rang back.

If you were quoted $800 instead

Then you were quoted Marketing Hub on its own, which is a different ladder with the same shape. Professional is $800 a month on annual billing or $890 monthly, and includes three seats rather than six, with more at $45. Enterprise is $3,600 with five.

There is one line on that ladder worth knowing before you sign: Professional carries a mandatory $3,000 onboarding fee, and Enterprise $7,000. HubSpot lists these as required one-time fees. So the honest first-year number for Marketing Hub Professional is $12,600 — $9,600 of subscription and $3,000 to be taught the software.

Nothing here has an onboarding fee. Setup is a questionnaire, done for you, and the console is there when you want it. Nobody needs $3,000 of training to answer a text. A mandatory training bill that size is itself a fair signal about who a tool was built for.

Before you sign, work out which it is

Professional is the right buy for some businesses at your size. It’s worth ten minutes to work out which one you are, because these two answers point in opposite directions.

You need the platform. Somebody in the business runs marketing. You send campaigns, you want attribution, you have a pipeline with stages you designed, several people work the same leads, and you can name what a report would change. Buy Professional. It’s expensive because it’s a lot, and you’ll use it.
You hit a wall on one thing. You wanted automated follow-up, or texting, or more seats than Starter allows, and Professional — the $1,300 bundle, or Sales Hub alone at $90 a seat plus $1,500 to be onboarded — is the only door out of Starter. That is not a platform problem. It is one job, priced like the whole platform.

What the middle rung looks like here

Workflow tools on your own business number: a front desk that answers the call, takes the message and drafts the reply for your tap, quote and invoice follow-up on a cadence, a calendar built from your working hours that your website can book into, per-person crew day-sheets, review chasing, win-back, waitlist filling. Included with the website and Console for $40 a month or $400 a year, however many people you employ. Not per seat.

And you keep HubSpot Free if you want it. The two are not mutually exclusive — plenty of businesses should run the free CRM as their record of who is who, and let the tools handle the phone.

Watch a tool run › See what the plan covers

Fair questions

Is Plainsmith an alternative to a full CRM?: For a small business that needs a website and a place to manage inquiries and jobs, it may be enough. If you need custom pipelines, marketing campaigns or reports you design yourself, you need a fuller CRM.
Do I have to move my existing customer records?: No migration is required to get a Plainsmith website. Keep access to your existing records, and check your current provider’s export and plan limits before changing subscriptions. The Plainsmith Console keeps the records created through your site and tools.
What if I need more software later?: You can export your Plainsmith records when you’re ready to move. Your domain is yours, and the website files are available through the optional buyout. Choose the next system for the work you need it to handle.
Can my Plainsmith price go up?: It can, with 30 days’ notice by email. An annual payment locks the website price for that paid year. You can cancel before renewal; service continues through your paid period. Workflow tools come with the plan and change nothing on the bill.