Still battling with Salesforce every day? If it feels like you need a developer just to add a new field, you're not imagining things. You’re probably spending more time wrestling the system than actually selling, marketing, or doing anything strategic.
That clunky interface, the never-ending customisation, the emails from salespeople saying “I didn’t log it because the CRM crashed again…” Yeah, we hear it all the time.
For many marketing and operations leaders (especially those playing multiple roles), Salesforce has simply become too rigid, too expensive, and too resource-intensive. You’ve got scattered data, disconnected teams, and no time to fix any of it, because you’re too busy firefighting. Sound familiar?
If you're looking for a CRM that just works and that people actually want to use, HubSpot is likely your next best move. It's intuitive, easier to manage, and gives you everything you need to centralise your systems and automate the boring stuff.
We’ve helped plenty of companies like yours make the move, and in this guide, we’ll show you exactly how to do it - step by step.
Before you get too excited about leaving Salesforce in the dust, let’s hit pause for a second.
A CRM migration isn’t just about picking the better platform (though yes, HubSpot is better - fight us).
It’s about setting your business up to use the new system the way it’s meant to be used: to drive efficiency, increase visibility, and stop the “which spreadsheet version are we using?” debates once and for all.
So, before you lift a single CSV file or start mapping fields, here’s what you need to get straight:
The aim here isn’t just to move data, it’s to fix what’s broken and get your teams working in sync. Do the groundwork now, and in the future, you will be smugly sipping coffee while everyone else is wondering how CRM suddenly became easy.
You’ve done the groundwork. You’ve audited your Salesforce CRM, rallied your internal champions, and made the case for change. Now it’s time to execute your Salesforce to HubSpot CRM migration, and do it properly.
At Axon Garside, we’ve handled migrations for businesses across manufacturing, tech, and services sectors. We know what works, what breaks, and how to ensure your teams don’t revert back to spreadsheets a week later.
This isn’t just a technical exercise - it’s a business transformation. And when it’s done right, your CRM stops being a burden and becomes the engine of your growth.
Here’s our tried-and-tested approach, based on our HubSpot CRM migration best practices and tailored specifically for Salesforce users looking to reduce complexity and improve CRM adoption.
Start by taking a deep dive into your current Salesforce environment. It’s tempting to rush this step, but trust us, everything downstream depends on what you uncover here.
This is where we separate the “must-haves” from the “legacy baggage” that doesn’t need to follow you into HubSpot.
Now it’s time to blueprint your ideal HubSpot setup—not just replicating Salesforce, but improving on it.
This is where Axon Garside adds real value, we don’t just lift and shift. We align CRM design with your commercial goals, so your HubSpot CRM becomes a driver of ROI.
Migrating messy data is like moving house with bin bags instead of boxes—it’s painful. Clean it up first.
You don’t want to waste time and budget importing clutter. This step ensures that only useful, structured, and relevant data makes the move.
It’s go-time - but that doesn’t mean uploading everything into live HubSpot straight away.
This phased approach ensures accuracy and helps build internal confidence as teams start using the system.
This isn’t just technical QA, it’s about ensuring the CRM behaves exactly how your teams need it to.
At Axon Garside, we often run “day in the life” simulations for sales and marketing teams to stress-test the new CRM before go-live.
If your Salesforce CRM suffered from low adoption, this is the make-or-break phase.
We focus heavily on enablement at this stage because, without adoption, the best CRM setup in the world is just another unused tool.
This final step is especially important if your old system wasn’t fit for purpose. With better onboarding, clear documentation, and tailored training, you'll eliminate the low CRM adoption that made Salesforce such a drain on your resources.
Cost is one of the biggest sticking points when it comes to CRM migration, especially if you’ve already sunk significant time and money into Salesforce, only to find it’s slowing your teams down and draining your resources.
Switching to HubSpot often represents a smarter long-term investment, but it’s essential to understand what you’re paying for and what you’ll get back.
Here’s how to think about the cost breakdown:
HubSpot’s licensing model is structured to be more transparent and scalable than Salesforce’s. The CRM itself is free, and pricing for Sales, Marketing, or Service Hubs is based on the tools you need and the features you use.
Because there’s no need to purchase enterprise-level access for every user, teams can scale at their own pace, whether you’re starting small or building toward complex automation.
The HubSpot implementation cost varies depending on how advanced your requirements are, but the flexibility of HubSpot’s tiered structure helps reduce the kind of overhead that typically inflates Salesforce budgets.
The cost of the actual Salesforce to HubSpot CRM migration will depend on the complexity of your existing system and how you choose to approach the project. If your Salesforce setup includes custom objects, layered automations, and multiple integrations, attempting a DIY migration can lead to delays and data integrity issues.
Working with a HubSpot Solutions Partner helps you avoid these pitfalls. A structured implementation includes discovery, planning, data transformation, and user enablement, ensuring the new system is tailored to your processes and drives immediate value. These elements are key to keeping your HubSpot implementation cost predictable and effective.
Licensing and setup are only part of the picture. A major reason many Salesforce implementations underperform is lack of training and internal adoption. That’s why it’s important to build training and onboarding into your CRM budget from the start.
Whether it’s team-based onboarding sessions or admin-level configuration training, ensuring your people can use the system is essential for long-term success. Estimates for these services can be found in a breakdown of HubSpot CRM training costs, which includes pricing models based on your team size and support level.
Over time, Salesforce’s reliance on technical resources, license complexity, and rigid customisation can create a high total cost of ownership, often without delivering the value businesses expect. HubSpot, on the other hand, is designed to minimise admin and development time while maximising usability and adoption.
A side-by-side TCO comparison of HubSpot vs Salesforce highlights just how wide that gap can be. For most businesses, switching leads to both operational improvements and measurable cost savings.
Moving from Salesforce to HubSpot isn’t just a system switch; it’s a chance to completely reframe how your business works. When CRM is no longer something that frustrates your team, slows you down, or requires hours of admin just to get useful data out, the benefits ripple across the business.
The right migration doesn’t just replicate what you had, it fixes what was broken. With HubSpot, teams can finally work from a single source of truth. Sales pipelines become easier to manage. Marketing campaigns get smarter. Operations stop wasting time reconciling duplicate data or chasing manual updates.
It’s a transformation you’ll feel every day, and one that starts with a migration strategy built around your goals, your systems, and your team. That’s what we deliver at Axon Garside: CRM implementations that work because they’re rooted in the reality of how your business runs.
For companies where CRM adoption has historically been poor or data is split across disconnected platforms, now’s the time to reset. Migrating from Salesforce to HubSpot opens the door to better alignment, faster workflows, and clearer insights across every department.
Ready to crunch the numbers? Get full visibility on what a Salesforce to HubSpot CRM migration could cost—and what’s included at every step in our pricing guide.