An expensive address book
One conversation that seems to come up more often than any other when talking to clients is them wanting to get away from HubSpot (or some other CRM, but HubSpot gets most mentions).
Rarely because of it being bad, mostly because it’s just so damn expensive. On top of that, they’re usually only using a small percentage of its functionalities.
The story is pretty much always this: they signed up for the free tier, then they added some contacts, maybe built a small pipeline. But then they needed a feature that was only available on a paid plan, then another… A few years later, they’re paying €50+ per seat per month for a marketing automation service that they’re really using as a contact list with notes.
This isn’t a HubSpot-specific problem. Salesforce, Pipedrive, and a plethora of other big CRMs follow the same playbook: pull you in for free (or cheap), let you accumulate a ton of data, then charge for features. By the time you’re hit with the painful prices, leaving feels like a sisyphean task. A migration no one wants to touch.
So you “stay and pay”.
Let’s be honest, though. Most small organisations don’t need a CRM. They need a structured way to keep track of who talked to who, what was said, and what should happen next. No lead scoring, no AI-powered forecasts, no behavioural email sequences…
There’s also the sovereign aspect: you’re storing sensitive data (names, emails, phone numbers, conversations, pricing…) on US servers, subject to US jurisdiction. I’m betting many of your contacts don’t realise you’re doing that.
There are plenty of small, European alternatives that cover what most teams really need. And, for many, even a well-maintained spreadsheet would do the trick.
And if leaving feels impossible today, imagine what it’ll feel like next year. It might not be an easy move, but I’d start planning it now, not next year.
Colin