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 SugarCRM?
In this comparison, we’ll break down the key differences between HubSpot and SugarCRM, 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 SugarCRM 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.
SugarCRM, on the other hand, markets itself as the “#1 rated CRM platform” and, as a consequence, is one of the biggest up-and-comers within the CRM industry.
As a highly customisable system, SugarCRM has the ability to mould itself to your unique business operations to maximise efficiency. However, when it comes to ease of use, user experiences are mixed.
For businesses with strong technical resources, the platform’s flexibility can be a strength, but for teams seeking intuitive out-of-the-box usability, the onboarding journey can feel less streamlined.
Onboarding support is provided by SugarCRM, with tools like the Customer Journey Plugin and Smart Guides to facilitate the process. Despite these capabilities, some users have reported difficulties during the initial setup and acclimation phases, finding the platform non-intuitive.
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.
Meanwhile, SugarCRM is regarded for its equally powerful customisation framework, particularly among teams with more complexity in the sales process or industry-specific requirements.
Unlike more rigid CRMs, Sugar’s open architecture allows businesses to configure the platform extensively to their needs. This is underpinned by Sugar’s studio and module builder tools, which provide a no-code/low-code environment for modifying the CRM’s structure. This enables companies to align the system with internal workflows rather than adjusting operations to fit the tool. One user said:
I love how customizable (sic) Sugar Serve is. You can do almost anything with it, and building what you need is fairly straightforward.
That being said, and as you’ll see throughout this article, while the customisation potential is extensive, it does come with complexity.
Many users find the system less accessible without technical expertise, and simple tasks like configuring views or workflows can be time-consuming without a developer or Sugar partner.
This isn’t too dissimilar to HubSpot, however, it offers a more out-of-the-box experience with predefined modules, drag-and-drop editors, and customisation paths designed to suit growing businesses without requiring technical involvement.
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.
Similarly, SugarCRM offers a comprehensive suite of tools that span sales, marketing, and customer service.
One of the standout features is its AI-powered predictive analytics, which provides valuable insights into customer behaviour and sales forecasting. This capability enables businesses to make data-driven decisions and anticipate customer needs effectively.
Additionally, like Hubspot, SugarCRM's marketing automation tools allow for the creation and management of targeted campaigns, enhancing lead-nurturing processes. To further this, the platform's customer service module, Sugar Serve, offers omnichannel engagement, allowing support teams to interact with customers across various channels from a unified interface.
However, some users have noted challenges with the platform's reporting functionalities. While SugarCRM provides a range of reporting options, creating custom reports can be cumbersome, and certain basic functionalities are missing, as one user noted:
There are a lot of downsides to sugar. We had corruption issues each time we upgraded, dashboards are extremely limited, and you cannot push out dashboards to users.
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.
As with most of HubSpot’s competitors, SugarCRM runs comparatively cheaper, with 4 tiers to choose from, with gradually increasing functionality the more you pay.
Although SugarCRM doesn’t offer a free version like HubSpot, it does offer a 7-day free trial of the software, allowing users to try the system before committing to a paid subscription. The tiers are priced at the following:
Despite running in cheaper, it’s important to ascertain the total cost of ownership of the platform, with more complex CRM projects requiring a consultant or agency to come in and help set your business up on the platform.
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.
Similar to HubSpot, SugarCRM has an app marketplace entitled “SugarOutfitters”. This enables users to find and install various add-ons, modules and integrations to natively extend the functionality of their CRM system.
Alongside that, SugarCRM is built on an open platform that enables deep configuration through RESTful APIs, custom modules, and third-party connectors. This makes it a particularly strong fit for teams with legacy systems or in-house software needing tight alignment with customer data and processes. One user shared:
It links our existing legacy system and shows great intuitive reporting and visuals for tracking.
That said, SugarCRM’s extensibility can introduce complexity, particularly during upgrades or when pushing customisations across multiple users or environments.
In summary, SugarCRM offers a highly extensible CRM solution that excels in integration with complex, customised tech stacks. However, that freedom comes with added technical responsibility, making platforms like HubSpot more appealing to teams looking for fast, low-code deployment and simple integration management.
Choosing the right CRM comes down to your team’s needs, technical capabilities, and growth ambitions. While SugarCRM 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.