HubSpot CRM Setup & Automation:
The Expert Configuration Guide

HubSpot Free vs. Paid: What You Actually Get

Feature	Free	Starter ($18/mo)	Professional ($800/mo)
Contacts	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Deals & Pipelines	1 pipeline	2 pipelines	Unlimited
Email marketing	2,000 sends/mo	5x contact limit	Unlimited
Marketing automation	No	Basic	Full workflows
Sequences (sales)	No	No	Yes
Custom reporting	No	No	Yes (25 dashboards)
A/B testing	No	No	Yes

Most small-medium businesses start on HubSpot Free + Starter and upgrade to Professional when they need advanced automation and reporting.

HubSpot CRM Setup Checklist

1. Contact & Company Properties

HubSpot comes with dozens of default properties, but your business almost certainly needs custom ones. We audit your data requirements and create custom contact, company, and deal properties that capture everything needed for segmentation and reporting.

2. Deal Pipelines & Stages

Configure your deal stages to match your actual sales process. Each stage needs a clear definition, probability percentage, and — crucially — automation triggers that fire when a deal enters that stage.

3. Lead Capture & Forms

Set up HubSpot forms on your website, landing pages, and pop-ups. Configure lead routing rules so every new lead is immediately assigned to the right rep and enters the right automation workflow.

4. Email Integration (Gmail/Outlook)

Connect your team's email to HubSpot so every email exchange logs automatically on the contact's timeline. Enable email tracking so reps know when prospects open their emails.

5. Workflow Automation

HubSpot's workflow builder is one of its most powerful features. Key workflows we set up:

• Lead assignment — Auto-assign new contacts based on territory, industry, or round-robin
• Lead scoring — Automatically score leads based on behavior and properties, surface hot leads to reps
• Lifecycle stage progression — Automatically move contacts from Subscriber → Lead → MQL → SQL based on behavior
• Follow-up tasks — Create rep tasks when deals go quiet for X days
• Deal stage automation — When deal moves to "Proposal Sent," auto-send proposal follow-up email sequence
• Internal notifications — Slack notifications when a high-value lead takes action

6. Sequences (Sales Hub Professional)

HubSpot Sequences are personal, 1:1 email sequences sent from the rep's email address — not bulk marketing email. They're perfect for outbound prospecting and follow-up cadences. We build your team's sequences so every rep has a consistent, tested outreach process.

7. Reporting & Dashboards

We configure your HubSpot dashboards to answer your most important business questions:

• Sales performance by rep, team, and quarter
• Pipeline velocity and deal stage conversion rates
• Lead source attribution — which channels are generating revenue
• Email campaign performance (open rates, clicks, conversions)
• Customer acquisition cost and lifetime value trends

8. HubSpot Integrations

HubSpot's App Marketplace has 1,400+ integrations. Key ones we configure:

• Slack — Deal notifications, lead alerts, won deal celebrations
• Zoom — Meeting booking and recording sync to contact timelines
• Salesforce — Bi-directional sync for companies using both
• Stripe/PayPal — Revenue data sync to HubSpot deals
• WhatsApp — Conversation logging via third-party connector
• Calendly — Meeting bookings create/update contacts in HubSpot

HubSpot vs. Pipedrive: Which Is Right for You?

Criteria	HubSpot	Pipedrive
Free tier	Excellent free CRM	14-day trial only
Ease of use	Moderate learning curve	Very intuitive
Marketing tools	Built-in (Marketing Hub)	Limited, needs integrations
Sales focus	Good	Excellent — purpose-built
Reporting	Excellent (Pro+)	Good
Price for full feature set	Higher ($800+/mo)	More affordable ($49/user)
Best for	Marketing-led growth	Sales-led growth

Not sure which CRM is right for you? Book a consultation and we'll give you an honest recommendation based on your team size, budget, and sales process.