| Functionality | 6 <p>Bigin offers essential features for small teams, like flexible contact and pipeline management, built-in phone, email sequencing, workflow automation, and analytics—all at an affordable price. However, advanced features like email marketing campaigns and data enrichment require add-ons or integrations.</p> | 9 <p>HubSpot offers all functionality that most companies will need, besides functionality required by the largest/ most sophisticated companies. For example, HubSpot's reporting functionality and ability to build highly customised workflows aren't on par with Salesforce's.</p> |
| Ease of Use | 7 <p>Navigating Bigin is straightforward and intuitive, and should take about an hour for most SMB users to get comfortable. Its "spreadsheet views" for contacts and pipelines are especially great for teams transitioning from spreadsheets. However, be aware of confusing terms like "touched records," and note that setting up email sequences can be cumbersome.</p> | 3 <p>HubSpot is so packed with features and customisation options that it will take an average SMB employee at least a week to learn how to navigate the platform. Even if you're only using HubSpot CRM, you'll see irrelevant modules and fields form other products in its suites everywhere, which can get quite confusing. But once you're past the initial learning curve, most key processes can get quite intuitive.</p> |
| Look and feel | 5 <p>Bigin loads quickly, but its interface feels plain and uninspiring.</p> | 4 <p>We find HubSpot's interface to be tired and overwhelming compared to the newer CRMs on the market. There is often an overwhelming amount of actions you can take on a single screen, which makes it difficult to locate key information at times.</p> |
| Customisability | 7 <p>You can customize Bigin by setting up pipelines, adding custom fields, and saving filters. Its standout multi-team, flexible pipelines help track deals, projects, and support tickets. However, it lacks custom objects and advanced automation workflows.</p> | 9 <p>HubSpot offers the highest degree of customisability out of all CRMs besides Salesforce. You can create complex workflows via code, and fully customise fully customize the design of client-facing assets, such as emails and webpages.</p> |
| Ease of Setup | 8 <p>Bigin offers offers a simple, self-serve free trial for their platform. When tested, we found the initial setup to be straightforward (taking ~10 mins). Fully customising the platform can take 1-2 days given Bigin's breadth of features and integrations e.g. setting up call functionality, payment links, advanced automations.</p> | 3 <p>HubSpot's free trial is available without having to speak to sales. Basic setup - importing contacts and creating pipelines - takes about 10 minutes. However, its extensive features and complex settings mean full customization can take weeks, especially for advanced settings like custom objects, chatbots, and automation. Many users we've talked to ended up hiring a HubSpot consultant for implementation. HubSpot's pricing structure adds another layer of complexity, with multiple plans and bundles to navigate during upgrades.</p> |
| Customer Support | 3 <p>Support is available via phone and email. Although there's a "Chat with Us" button, it was non-functional during testing. Online resources are limited and not very helpful.</p> | 6 <p><span style="color: rgb(9, 9, 11);">HubSpot's support team responds via live chat/ email in less than 3 minutes, 24/7. </span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(9, 9, 11);">That said, you don't get access to their phone/ video support, unless you pay for Professional/ Enterprise, and now if you're signed up to their discounted startup plan. We also find their support sometimes frustratingly bureaucratic - you can only speak with the assigned rep in your territory.</span></p> |
| Integratability | 6 <p>Bigin integrates with key third party tools like Google and Outlook Calendar, Mailchimp, Shopify, and over 100 telephony vendors. It has a marketplace for third-party plugins like Slack, Twilio, and Eventbrite. While it integrates well with Zoho products, it lacks key integrations with major customer support vendors like Zendesk and Freshdesk. An API is available for custom integrations.</p> | 10 <p>HubSpot offers native integrations with the overwhelming majority of 3rd part products a company will want to connect their CRM with, plus an ever-growing marketplace of more than 350 free and paid-for apps. The chances are that if you need a particularly integration and HubSpot don't have it, it will unlikely be provided by a competitive product.</p> |
| Ease of Migration | 9 <p>You can easily export key information such as contacts, deals, and reports from dashboards. All data can also be exported via API.</p> | 8 <p>HubSpot allows users to export key data data via self-serve. Export of most other data are also available via API or on request.</p> |
