Choosing the right CRM can transform how you attract, engage, and delight customers, but with so many options on the market, it’s hard to know which platform truly delivers.
HubSpot is often seen as one of the premier choices for growing B2B businesses thanks to its all-in-one suites, intuitive interface, and powerful automation tools.
But how does it stack up against Microsoft Dynamics?
In this comparison, we’ll break down the key differences between HubSpot and Dynamics, looking at everything from features and flexibility to pricing to technical details, such as integrations, which will help you decide which platform fits your business best.
A slight caveat before we get into the meat of this article - we’re a HubSpot Solutions Partner. We’re well-versed in working with the platform, and we think it’s a brilliant fit for most B2B businesses. However, we would never recommend it if it doesn’t fit your specific business requirements.
Throughout this article, we will give an impartial comparison between HubSpot and Dynamics to help you make the correct decision for your circumstance.
Starting with HubSpot, there are numerous ways to get onboarded and started within the system. You can start with:
Either one of the three is effective in getting you started and helping you set up your portal in the correct way. And once you’re set up, you can take advantage of the numerous products that HubSpot offers.
Whilst, like all other CRMs, there may be an initial learning curve, HubSpot's user-friendly design supports businesses in effectively leveraging the platform's capabilities to drive growth and improve customer engagement. One user on G2 commented by saying:
Hubspot is very helpful, offering a robust way to learn and manage service, sales, and marketing. Its built-in help resources and user-friendly tools have made it much easier to understand and implement key business strategies.
With its wide array of tools and features across its three tiers, Starter, Professional and Enterprise (including a stripped-back, free version too), HubSpot is known for combining sales, marketing, service, operations and, most recently, eCommerce functionality within its suite. This makes it ideal for those B2B businesses looking to scale their business without the investment into a wide tech stack that needs external integrations to merge with your CRM.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers a broad suite of capabilities across sales, marketing and customer service. Its seamless integration with Microsoft 365 tools like Outlook, Teams, Excel, and Power BI offers a familiar environment for many users, which can soften the initial learning curve.
That being said, it's not a plug-and-play CRM. Microsoft does provide extensive onboarding resources, including guided learning paths via Microsoft Learn, product documentation, and customer success support, but doesn’t offer HubSpot’s onboarding options, which guide users through setup with in-app prompts and automation templates from the outset.
The platform’s breadth means that setup and onboarding require time, planning, and often external support. Custom modules, data modelling, security roles, and automated workflows can be configured in great depth, but the complexity can overwhelm teams that aren’t technically prepared. According to Fit Small Business:
Dynamics 365 has a steep learning curve, so beginners with no technical background might find it challenging.
HubSpot’s flexibility is one of the key reasons businesses continue to scale with - and use - the platform. With the ability to create custom properties, objects, workflows, and dashboards, teams can shape the system around their exact processes rather than adapting their processes to fit the tool.
Whether it’s segmenting contacts with bespoke criteria, building out tailored sales pipelines, or automating marketing workflows based on specific behaviours, HubSpot’s customisation options and flexibility enable users to design a system that mirrors their real-world operations. As one G2 reviewer puts it:
Adapt quickly with a flexible system that allows you to architect your business exactly as it appears in the real world... without months of custom dev work.
This level of adaptability means that even as your business evolves, HubSpot evolves with you, without the need for expensive development work or third-party tools.
When it comes to enterprise-grade customisation, Dynamics is one of the most adaptable CRM platforms available on the market - with HubSpot and Salesforce.
It gives organisations the ability to shape nearly every part of the system, from data models and business process flows to security roles and user interfaces. With native integration into Microsoft’s Power Platform, Dynamics aims to be a complete operational hub. For example, you have features such as custom entities, custom forms, automated workflows, and deep integration with Excel and SharePoint allow teams to model even the most complex internal processes in a single system.
However, this flexibility is matched by complexity.
Many users find that meaningful customisation often requires either a dedicated internal administrator or an external implementation partner. Without that support, setting up and managing custom features can be difficult for everyday users who don’t have a background in Dynamics. One reviewer on G2 summarised the experience clearly:
Dynamics 365 is incredibly customisable, but not easily so. You need someone who knows what they’re doing, otherwise you’ll spend a lot of time just trying to configure basic things.
This will be no surprise, but HubSpot’s main standout strength is its unified system across all business departments.
From marketing automation and sales pipelines to customer service, CMS, and operations, every tool is designed to work together on a single platform. This native integration removes the friction of jumping between disconnected systems and gives teams a clearer, shared view of the customer journey. It also connects up to your CRM, which enables your users to have a single-view of the customer.
What really sets HubSpot apart, though, is the balance between depth and usability.
Each Hub is feature-rich in its own right, with a level of practicality that you would usually assume to be reserved for specialist, independent tools. Having all these tools under a single umbrella enables businesses to take advantage without the need to patch together a load of third-party apps. As one reviewer puts it:
HubSpot is more than just a CRM – it's an ecosystem of powerful tools that seamlessly integrate to help you grow.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM, comparatively, offers an extensive suite of features that can support nearly every department across sales, marketing, service, finance, and operations. Its modular structure is like HubSpot’s, encompassing sales, marketing, customer service, field service, giving businesses the ability to build a platform themselves.
The CRM includes robust features like advanced forecasting, opportunity management, case routing, AI-driven lead scoring (similar to HubSpot), real-time sales dashboards, and deep reporting via Power BI and other Office 365 applications.
However, it has been noted that the system is regarded as unintuitive, needing outsourced development to make the product fit for purpose within organisations. One user on G2 said:
It has all the features we need—reporting, automation, integrations—but it’s definitely a system built for admins. Not everything is intuitive, and it often feels like too many clicks to get to what you need.
This quote captures what many users love, but also struggle with. Dynamics, like its competitors, is incredibly feature-rich, but accessing those features often requires training, admin setup and technical support, which won’t work for those looking for a cost-effective CRM solution.
This is where HubSpot can get tricky, as it’s not exactly a cheap option if you want all the bells and whistles.
HubSpot offers a free CRM option, but only allows you to store up to 1,000 non-marketing contacts within this tier. From there, if you want the customer platform (which is the bundle which encompasses all ‘Hubs’), it comes priced at:
However, what HubSpot does allow you to do is scale your tiers as you grow and adopt new features within ALL tiers if you choose the customer platform option. However, if you don’t you can also pick and choose what tier of each suite and make your own, personalised bundle - something that other CRM providers don’t often allow.
Despite not having public pricing on their website, Microsoft Dynamics offers a user-based pricing system, scaled on industry-specificities and enterprise-level tools.
According to G2, Microsoft Dynamics is priced at:
This is comparatively cheaper than HubSpot’s alternative, but it’s important to consider the total cost of ownership involved while comparing.
With HubSpot’s wide array of marketing, sales, service and operations tools, you get an all-in-one customer platform. Despite taking advantage of the wider Microsoft suite, Microsoft doesn’t help businesses cut down on their marketing tech stack and wider technology ecosystem.
Alongside that, with a less intuitive interface, businesses may suffer time and resource consequences when trying to set up the system to match their business’ processes.
The final comparison point is regarding integrations and how easy it is to connect multiple apps to the CRM.
Firstly, HubSpot offers an extensive integrations ecosystem, featuring over 1,500 native integrations through its App Marketplace. This allows users to connect their CRM with a wide array of tools, including, for example, QuickBooks, Microsoft Teams, LinkedIn Sales Navigator and other ERP & CRM tools.
This connectivity ensures that data flows smoothly between platforms, including HubSpot’s CRM, which reduces manual input and enhances operational efficiency. A Capterra user highlighted the value of HubSpot’s integration abilities by saying:
The integrations of HubSpot are unmatched, big reason they charge big is those ecosystem integrations.
This flexibility ensures that, as your business evolves and introduces more systems into your tech stack, HubSpot can adapt with you without needing substantial change.
On the other hand, Dynamics stands out for its robust integration capabilities and extensibility, offering businesses a unified platform that connects with a wide array of tools and services. This integration is, obviously, strong within the Microsoft ecosystem, allowing for smooth collaboration across applications like Office 365, Azure, and Teams.
Beyond native integrations, Dynamics 365 offers extensive extensibility options.
The platform supports customisation through extensions, allowing businesses to tailor functionalities without altering the core codebase. This approach ensures that customisations are preserved during updates, reducing maintenance overhead.
Developers can utilise tools like the Power Platform, including Power Apps and Power Automate, to build custom applications and automate workflows, enhancing the platform's adaptability to specific business needs. That being said, some users have noted challenges with the platform's complexity.
A reviewer mentioned:
There’s a bit of a learning curve, especially for those not used to CRM systems. Some parts of the setup and customization (sic) felt a bit technical, and we needed some outside help to get everything the way we wanted.
This plays into the chat about the total cost of ownership earlier on. Although there is the opportunity to seamlessly connect apps to Dynamics, you may need to get in outside help to do so.
Choosing the right CRM comes down to your team’s needs, technical capabilities, and growth ambitions. While Dynamics may offer strong features in certain areas, HubSpot stands out for its ease of use, unified ecosystem, and scalability, particularly for growing B2B businesses.
If you're leaning towards HubSpot and want to get implementation right from day one, download our 5 Stages of HubSpot Implementation guide. It walks you through each phase of a successful rollout, helping you avoid common pitfalls and maximise ROI from the get-go.