Zoho CRM vs HubSpot: price, features and Australian hosting

Zoho CRM vs HubSpot is mostly a trade between price and polish. Zoho CRM charges per user across a free edition for up to three users and four paid editions, with a lot of sales features in its lower tiers, while HubSpot starts with free tools for two users and, in our experience, feels more guided, but its Professional tiers cost noticeably more and add a one-time onboarding fee. Both can keep your data in Australia, which matters if your customers ask where their details live.

Every figure below comes from the vendors’ own pages as at November 2026. Check their page for current prices. Both pages show bare “$” amounts, and HubSpot’s says its prices are in US dollars, so confirm the currency before you budget. CentriWeb builds many client systems on GoHighLevel, which comes up in a link below, so weigh our view with that in mind.

Zoho CRM vs HubSpot at a glance

How each one charges

HubSpot

HubSpot’s CRM pricing page lists free tools for up to two users with up to 1,000 contacts, no time limit. Starter is listed at $20 a seat a month at the standard price, with a new-customer discount shown of $7 a seat paid annually upfront or $10 a seat month to month.

The step up is the part to plan for. Sales Hub Professional is listed at $90 to $100 a seat a month depending on billing, plus a required one-time Professional Onboarding fee of $1,500. Enterprise is listed at $150 a seat a month with a $3,500 onboarding fee. The page says prices are in US dollars and subject to tax.

Zoho CRM

Zoho’s CRM pricing page lists a free edition for up to three users, then Standard, Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate, each priced per user per month. When we opened it, the page did not render the per-user figures for those editions, so check them there. It says paying annually saves up to 34% and has a currency selector, so pick yours before comparing.

What changes between Zoho’s editions is mostly features rather than seat count. Standard lists workflows, assignment rules, reports, dashboards and sales forecasting. Professional adds process automation, inventory management and quoting tools. Enterprise adds territory management and customer portals.

Where the price jumps

For a small team, both are cheap at the bottom. The gap opens when you need the features in the middle tiers.

A worked example with HubSpot’s listed figures: four salespeople on Sales Hub Professional, billed annually, is 4 × $90 × 12 = $4,320 for the year, plus the $1,500 onboarding fee, so $5,820 in year one before tax and currency conversion. If you also want marketing automation, Marketing Hub Professional is listed at $800 to $890 a month with three core seats and 2,000 marketing contacts, plus a $3,000 onboarding fee. Our guide to HubSpot pricing goes through each hub in more detail.

Run the same sum for Zoho’s Professional edition using the figure its page shows for your currency. Zoho’s page didn’t list a fixed onboarding fee, so the comparison turns on its per-user figure and any setup help you pay a partner for. Check rather than assume. Our guide to what a CRM costs in Australia sets out the full first-year sum, including setup and running costs.

• Seats. Both charge per person who logs in. Decide who needs a full login before you buy.
• Onboarding. HubSpot’s Professional fees are fixed on its page. Zoho’s Ultimate edition lists consulting and migration help.
• Billing period. Annual is cheaper on both. Try monthly first if you’re unsure.

Australian data hosting

Both can store your account in Australia, but the region is set at sign-up, so get it right the first time.

• HubSpot. Its hosting FAQ lists data centres in Germany, US East, US West, Canada and Sydney, and says a new account is assigned a data centre based on the geolocation of your IP address at sign-up.
• Zoho. Its data centre page lists Sydney as primary and Melbourne as secondary for Australia, and says the data centre follows the country chosen at sign-up, which is prefilled from your IP address.

Sign up from Australia, check the country field, and confirm the region in your account settings afterwards. If you have customers who ask where their information is stored, write the answer into your privacy policy. This is general information, not legal advice.

What Zoho CRM does well

• Features for the price. Forecasting, assignment rules and dashboards appear from Standard upwards, rather than only at the top tier.
• A bigger free edition. Three users instead of two, with contact management, follow-up reminders, workflow automation and mobile apps.
• A family of apps. If you already use other Zoho products, the CRM sits alongside them. Zoho also sells Bigin, a simpler pipeline product with built-in calling, for very small teams.
• Two Australian data centres. A primary and a secondary, both onshore.

The trade-off is that Zoho has many settings. Someone needs to own the setup, or the system ends up half configured.

What HubSpot does well

• An easy start. The free tools cover contacts, deals and email connections to Gmail and Outlook, with support through HubSpot’s community, academy and knowledge base.
• Room to grow. Sales, Marketing and Service hubs share one contact record, so a business can add marketing later without a migration.
• A guided feel. In our experience new staff find their way around it quickly, which helps a CRM actually get used.

One gap for Australian businesses: HubSpot’s SMS setup guide says its own SMS can only be sent from US-based numbers to recipients in the United States and Canada. If texting customers is central to how you work, plan on a third-party app, or compare an all-in-one tool. Our GoHighLevel vs HubSpot comparison covers that side.

Which suits your business?

Zoho CRM tends to suit

• Teams of three to fifteen who want forecasting and automation without top-tier prices
• Businesses already using other Zoho apps
• An owner or office manager who enjoys setting things up, or has a partner who will

HubSpot tends to suit

• Businesses that want to start free and add paid tools one hub at a time
• Teams with a dedicated marketing person who will use the marketing tools
• Businesses where staff adoption has failed before and an easier interface matters more than the seat price

Trades and service businesses that run jobs, quotes and invoices may find neither is the right shape. A trade business often needs job management software alongside a CRM, or instead of one.

When a system built and looked after for you fits better

Both products are self-serve. That works when someone in the business has time to set up pipelines, write automations and keep them tidy. It doesn’t work so well when follow-up depends on the CRM talking to your phone, website forms, calendar and accounting software, and nobody owns those connections.

A system built and maintained for you starts with the part that costs you most, such as enquiries going cold, then connects it to the tools you keep. That’s what our CRM setup work covers, on whichever platform fits.

It isn’t worth it for everyone. If you handle a few enquiries a week, if you enjoy running the CRM yourself, or if Zoho’s free edition or HubSpot’s Starter does everything you need, stay on the standard plan and keep the money.

Where to start

1. Count who needs a full login and who only needs reports.
2. List the three features you’d use every week. Find the lowest edition of each product that has them.
3. Open both pricing pages, set the currency, and run a first-year sum including any onboarding fee.
4. Sign up for trials from Australia and confirm the data region.
5. Run real enquiries through both for two weeks and see which one your team keeps opening.