HubSpot or a simple email tool: do you need the CRM?

Quick answer

No, you do not need HubSpot to send marketing email. A simple email tool handles newsletters, sign-up forms and automations for far less. HubSpot earns its place when you also need a CRM: tracking leads and deals, logging calls and emails, and several people following up the same contacts. If that is not you yet, start simple.

HubSpot is a well-known name, and its free tier makes it tempting to sign up “just in case”. For some small businesses that is the right call. For many others, it means learning a large system to do one job, then facing a big price jump when they outgrow the free plan. The real question is not “HubSpot or not?”. It is “do I need a CRM, or do I need to send emails?”

What each actually does

A simple email marketing tool, such as MailerLite, Brevo or Mailchimp, stores your subscribers, gives you templates to design emails, sends campaigns, runs automations such as a welcome series, handles unsubscribes and reports opens and clicks.

A CRM, short for customer relationship management, is a record of everyone you deal with and every interaction: enquiries, calls, quotes, deals, notes, tasks and reminders. HubSpot combines a CRM with marketing email, plus sales and service tools, in one system. Our guide to CRMs for small businesses explains what a CRM does in more depth.

Side by side

Prices are from MailerLite’s pricing page and HubSpot’s Marketing Hub pricing page at the time of writing, November 2026, both in US dollars before tax. Both change often and depend on contact numbers, so check the current figures for your list.

Signs you only need an email tool

• You want to send a monthly newsletter and perhaps a welcome series.
• One person handles enquiries, mostly by phone or email.
• Quotes and jobs live in your accounting or job-management software already.
• Your list is a few hundred or a few thousand people.
• You would rather spend an hour a month on email than learn a new platform.

That describes most sole traders and many small firms. A simple tool covers it, often on a free or low-cost plan. Our comparison of Mailchimp alternatives covers the main choices.

Signs a CRM like HubSpot is worth it

• Several people deal with the same leads and need to see who said what.
• You run a sales process with stages, such as enquiry, site visit, quote and won or lost.
• Leads slip through the cracks because follow-ups live in someone’s head or inbox.
• You want marketing emails triggered by what happens in sales, such as a follow-up after a quote is sent.
• You need reports on where your best customers come from, end to end.

If three or more of those ring true, a CRM probably pays for itself in leads you stop losing. Our guide to CRM costs compares HubSpot with other options.

The price cliff to plan for

HubSpot’s free and Starter tiers are inexpensive. The jump to Professional is steep: HubSpot’s own page listed it from $800 a month, with a one-time $3,000 onboarding fee that the page says is not included in the monthly price. More advanced automation and reporting features are tied to the higher tiers, so the tier you need depends on what you plan to automate. Before you build your whole business around HubSpot, check which features you will need in a year’s time and which tier they sit in. If the answer is Professional, compare it honestly with a simple email tool plus a lighter CRM, or with a tool built for how you work.

A middle route

You do not have to choose one system for everything. A common setup for small firms is a simple email tool for newsletters and automations, connected to the forms on your website and to whatever system already holds your jobs and invoices. Many email tools integrate with CRMs and accounting software, so you can add a CRM later without moving your list. And where off-the-shelf tools do not fit how you work, custom business software can tie quoting, jobs and follow-ups together.

A worked example: two businesses, two answers

A dog groomer in Kent has a list of past customers who agreed to hear from her and wants a monthly email with grooming tips and booking reminders. Bookings already live in her booking app. She has no sales pipeline: people book or they do not. A simple email tool on a free plan does everything she needs, connected to the sign-up form on her website. HubSpot would add a CRM she would never open.

A three-person kitchen fitting firm in Essex gets enquiries from the website, a showroom and referrals. Each one needs a home visit, a design, a quote and several follow-ups, often over weeks, handled by whichever of the three is free. Leads go cold because nobody is sure who last spoke to the customer. Here a CRM earns its keep: every enquiry, visit and quote in one place, with reminders, and marketing email triggered by stage. HubSpot’s free or Starter tier is a reasonable place to start, as long as they check what Professional would cost before relying on features that sit there.

Switching later: what moves easily and what does not

Starting simple does not lock you in. Subscriber lists export as spreadsheets and import into almost any tool, along with the consent records you keep. What does not move easily is the work built inside a platform: email templates, automation flows and the history of who opened what. Keep your templates simple and your automations documented, and changing tools later is a few days’ work rather than a project.

Whatever you choose, get consent right

The tool does not change the rules. In the UK, you need consent to send marketing email to most individuals, with a soft opt-in for previous customers in some circumstances, as the ICO’s guidance on electronic mail marketing explains. Import only contacts who agreed to hear from you, and record where and when they signed up. Moving a list into a new tool is a good moment to clean out contacts with no record of consent.

Our recommendation, by situation

Getting set up

If you want the email side done properly without the CRM overhead, our email marketing and automation setup is a one-off £149. It covers platform setup on Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Brevo or your choice, reusable branded templates, a welcome sequence, list segmentation, connection to your website forms and domain authentication. Our email marketing cost guide shows what platforms cost as your list grows, and every price of ours is on the pricing page.