GoHighLevel vs HubSpot for a small business

The GoHighLevel vs HubSpot choice comes down to how your business wins work. GoHighLevel is an all-in-one platform on flat monthly plans with unlimited users, built-in SMS and calling, booking calendars and websites, and it’s usually set up and supported by an agency. HubSpot starts with free CRM tools and charges per seat as you add paid hubs, with deeper sales and marketing features at the higher tiers. Local service businesses that live on the phone and text often suit GoHighLevel. Businesses with a sales or marketing team that want room to grow often suit HubSpot.

A disclosure before we go further: CentriWeb builds many client systems on GoHighLevel, so weigh our view with that in mind. We’ve kept this comparison to things you can check on each vendor’s own pages, and we link to their pricing rather than quoting it.

GoHighLevel vs HubSpot at a glance

Both platforms change often. Treat this as a starting point and confirm anything that matters to you on the vendor’s current pages.

How do the CRM and pipeline compare?

Both do the core job well: a contact record with the full history, a pipeline you can set up with your own stages, tasks and reminders, and automations that move things along.

HubSpot’s free CRM covers contact management, deals and pipelines, forms, meeting scheduling, live chat, a shared inbox and reporting, with mobile apps for iOS and Android. It also connects to a large marketplace of other business apps. As you add Sales Hub or Marketing Hub at higher tiers, you get more automation and reporting options.

GoHighLevel’s pricing page lists CRM and pipelines, workflow automation, unified conversations, booking calendars, forms and surveys, a website and funnel builder, reputation management, payments and invoicing, and a mobile app among its core features. More of the tools a small business uses are in one place from the start, which also means more to learn.

Which handles SMS and phone calls better in Australia?

This is often the deciding factor for local businesses, because many customers reply to a text faster than an email.

• HubSpot. Its SMS setup guide says marketing SMS needs Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise plus an add-on, and messages can only be sent from US-based numbers to recipients in the United States and Canada. Australian businesses can add SMS through one of the third-party SMS apps listed in HubSpot’s marketplace instead. For calls, HubSpot’s calling countries list includes Australia, with mobile and local numbers, for users with a Sales Hub or Service Hub seat.
• GoHighLevel. SMS and calling are built in and billed by usage from a wallet that tops itself up. Its help centre says every Australian local number must be linked to an approved regulatory bundle using the business’s own details. Your setup partner should handle that, but it’s worth asking.

Whichever you choose, marketing texts and emails in Australia fall under the Spam Act. ACMA’s guidance covers consent, identifying your business and a working unsubscribe. This is general information, not legal advice.

Email marketing, forms and booking

Both can capture enquiries from a website form, book appointments and send marketing emails. The difference is depth versus breadth.

• HubSpot adds more email and marketing features in its paid Marketing Hub tiers, which suits a business with someone whose job is marketing.
• GoHighLevel puts forms, surveys, booking calendars, email and SMS marketing, reputation management and a website and funnel builder in one account, which suits an owner who wants enquiries, reminders and follow-up handled in the same place.

Reporting and ease of use

In our experience HubSpot’s interface is clean and consistent, and its free tools are a gentle way to start. Reporting gets more flexible on the paid tiers.

GoHighLevel has more menus because it does more things. Day to day, most staff only use the conversations inbox, the pipeline and the calendar, so a good setup hides the rest. Its pricing page lists custom dashboards and reporting.

The honest test is to give each to the person who answers your phone for a week. The one they keep opening is the right one.

Who supports it, and where is your data?

GoHighLevel is built for agencies. Its plans include sub-accounts, and its FAQ says the web app can be white-labelled, so you may use it under an agency’s brand without seeing the GoHighLevel name. Your first line of support is usually that agency. HubSpot sells directly, with paid onboarding on its Professional and Enterprise tiers, and lists certified agencies as Solutions Partners.

On data location, GoHighLevel’s security overview says its product infrastructure resides in the United States, hosted with Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services. HubSpot’s hosting FAQ lists data centres in the US, the EU, Canada and Sydney, and says paid accounts bought online are assigned a location based on where you sign up from. If your business is covered by the Privacy Act, APP 8 sets out steps to take before personal information is disclosed overseas. Using an overseas platform isn’t banned, but you should know where the data goes and say so in your privacy policy. This is general information, not legal advice.

Which suits your business?

GoHighLevel tends to suit

• Trades, clinics, gyms and other local services businesses where most enquiries arrive by phone, text or web form
• Teams where many people need a login and per-seat pricing would add up
• Owners who want forms, booking, SMS, reviews and follow-up in one system, set up and looked after by someone else

HubSpot tends to suit

• Businesses with a dedicated sales or marketing person who’ll use the deeper tools
• Teams that want to start free and add paid features one hub at a time
• Businesses that need data hosted in Australia or that already use apps from HubSpot’s marketplace

Cost is its own question, because flat and per-seat pricing behave very differently as you grow. Our guide to what a CRM costs walks through the sum.

Where to start

1. List how enquiries reach you now: phone, text, forms, social messages, walk-ins.
2. Count who needs a login and who only needs reports.
3. Decide whether you want to run the system yourself or have someone run it for you.
4. Check each vendor’s pricing page and the SMS and data hosting points above.
5. Trial your top pick with real enquiries for two weeks before signing up for a year.

If you’re a builder, our guide to choosing a CRM for builders covers the features to check. If you’d like a second opinion on which platform fits, or want one set up properly, have a look at our CRM setup service.