Short answer. Entry-level per-seat prices displayed on the three vendors’ official US pricing pages on 2026-10-24:

  • HubSpot — Starter. (Labeled “CRM Suite Starter” in our 2026-10-24 card capture; on 2026-10-30 the pricing page sells a single card named just “Starter”.) $7 per seat/month with upfront payment and an annual commitment, or $10 per seat/month month-to-month with no annual commitment, shown against a normal price of $20 per seat/month. HubSpot’s own offer text says this pricing is for new customers, for a limited time. What you pay after the offer period is not stated on the pages we checked.
  • Salesforce — Starter Suite. $25 per user/month, labeled “starting price” and “billed monthly or annually.” One price is displayed; the page does not state whether the effective rate differs by billing period.
  • Pipedrive — Lite. $14 per seat/month billed annually ($168 per seat per year). A monthly billing option exists per Pipedrive’s knowledge base, but Pipedrive’s monthly price could not be verified for this snapshot (no monthly figure was displayed in either verification, 2026-10-24 and 2026-10-25).

For 5 seats, the hypothetical base seat cost (annual billing, before taxes, add-ons, and fees) is $35/month at HubSpot’s displayed offer price, $125/month at Salesforce, $70/month at Pipedrive. That multiplication is arithmetic on displayed prices, not a quote, and not a total cost of ownership.

One assumption changes this comparison more than any price does: email integration. HubSpot’s Starter includes email sync. Pipedrive’s official plan cards list full email sync starting at the Growth plan ($39/seat/month), not Lite ($14). For Salesforce Starter Suite, what we could verify from its official pages is marketing email (2,000 sends/month included); Gmail/Outlook inbox sync for the sales workflow is not confirmed on the pages we checked. If email sync is a must-have for your five people, read “What the entry tier includes for email work” before using any price in this table.

What this page assumes

Every price below was read from the vendors’ official US pricing pages on 2026-10-24, in USD, while not logged in. The scenario is a 5-person team that needs core CRM work — contacts, companies, deals, and email integration — on an entry-level paid plan. New to CRM itself? What Is CRM? covers the basics before the price comparison. We compared HubSpot, Salesforce, and Pipedrive because their entry-level prices are public. If your team needs marketing automation, service desks, or heavy customization, you are shopping in a different tier and these numbers will not describe your cost.

The three entry plans are not equivalent products. HubSpot’s entry card on its Sales pricing page was the CRM Suite Starter bundle when captured on 2026-10-24 (per the pricing page card: Marketing Hub Starter with 1,000 marketing contacts, Sales Hub Starter, Service Hub Starter, Content Hub Starter, Data Hub Starter). In a 2026-10-30 rendered re-check, the same page displayed a single card labeled just Starter (“Essential marketing, sales, service, content, and data management software”) with no bundle breakdown — HubSpot’s card naming and composition appear to be in transition, so confirm the exact product you are buying at checkout. Salesforce Starter Suite is a simplified all-in-one CRM. Pipedrive Lite is a sales-pipeline tool. “Lowest price” below means lowest displayed price among the three vendors on the verification date, not best fit — a plan that lacks a feature you need is not actually cheaper for you.

Prices on all three pages are marked as starting prices or subject to change (Salesforce’s page carries a “provided for information purposes only and subject to change” disclaimer). Offer prices are identified as such throughout, and what is not stated is flagged rather than guessed.

Current displayed prices and billing terms (checked 2026-10-24)

HubSpot Salesforce Pipedrive
Entry plan CRM Suite Starter bundle per the 2026-10-24 card capture; on 2026-10-30 the page displays a single card labeled “Starter” (see “What this page assumes”) Starter Suite Lite
Displayed per-seat price, annual billing $7/mo — offer price: upfront payment + annual commitment (new customers, limited time; $7/$20 re-displayed on the pricing page 2026-10-30) $25/mo (single displayed starting price; page label says “billed monthly or annually”) $14/mo ($168/seat/yr; re-verified 2026-10-30)
Displayed per-seat price, monthly billing $10/mo — offer price, month-to-month, no annual commitment (new customers, limited time) — quoted verbatim on the Starter product page, re-verified 2026-10-30. The Sales pricing page’s 2026-10-30 layout no longer displays a monthly figure on the card; its billing control reads Pay Monthly / Commit monthly / Pay Annually Same single displayed price; page does not state whether the effective rate differs by billing period Not verified (page advertises “Save up to 42%” for annual; no monthly rate was displayed in our verifications on 2026-10-24, 2026-10-25, and 2026-10-30)
Normal price as stated by the vendor $20/seat/mo (“normally priced at $20/month per seat” — official Starter product page; shown as compare-at price on the pricing page) Not labeled separately Not labeled separately
Commitment Offer annual = upfront payment + annual commitment; offer monthly = month-to-month. (Higher tiers differ: Sales Hub Professional can be paid monthly at $100/seat while still carrying an annual commitment.) Starter Suite: “billed monthly or annually” per page label. Pro Suite: billed annually, contract required. Monthly or annual; annual is one upfront payment per seat per year
Seat rules Every user in a paid subscription is assigned a seat (Core = paid; View-Only = free and unlimited, but View-Only users cannot connect email or log emails). Seat count can’t be reduced below the subscription’s minimum commitment or until the next renewal date. Per-user pricing; no seat minimum stated on the pricing page. Strictly per seat — charged “whether it’s assigned to a user or not” (KB)
Required extras None at Starter. Sales Hub Professional requires a one-time $1,500 onboarding fee; Enterprise $3,500 Page note: “Transaction fees apply.” Support beyond the included Standard plan: Premier at 30% of net license fees None required. Optional add-ons displayed at $13.33–$41 “starting from” (US pricing page; the billing period and per-company/per-seat unit are not stated there — Pipedrive’s KB says add-ons follow the plan’s billing cycle, and its worked example adds the add-on price once per account, not per seat); implementation free for plans over $400/year
Free plan Yes — free tools, capped at 2 users (pricing page 2026-10-30: “Free for up to 2 users. No credit card required.”) Yes — Free Suite, capped at 2 users, no contract or credit card None; 14-day trial, no credit card
Official source (checked 2026-10-24) hubspot.com/pricing/sales · products/crm/starter salesforce.com/crm/pricing pipedrive.com/en/pricing

The same data is in crm-entry-level-pricing-5-person-team-data.csv, generated from the same source rows as this table.

The HubSpot offer, precisely

This is the number most likely to be misread, so here is what the official pages actually say and what they leave out.

What the pages say (quoted from hubspot.com/products/crm/starter and the promo banner on hubspot.com/pricing/crm, both checked 2026-10-24 and re-verified verbatim on 2026-10-30 — product page by static full-text fetch, banner in a rendered browser session):

“Starter is normally priced at $20/month per seat, but for a limited time, we’re offering new customers up to 65% off. Pay $7/mo per seat, with upfront payment and annual commitment. Or pay month-to-month at $10/month per seat, with no annual commitment.”

“Save up to 65% on Starter … Get special Starter pricing when you choose a monthly or annual subscription. New customers only. Select offers available for a limited time.“

What that means for budgeting:

  • Eligibility: new customers only, per HubSpot’s own text. If your account already has paid HubSpot subscriptions, assume the offer does not apply to you until HubSpot says otherwise.
  • Duration: “a limited time” with no end date published. An offer visible today can be gone at your renewal.
  • Payment structure: the $7 rate requires upfront payment and an annual commitment — if the upfront payment covers the 12-month term, that is $84/seat for the year (a natural reading of “upfront payment and annual commitment,” not wording taken from the page; confirm the payment schedule at checkout). $10 is month-to-month with no commitment. These are different contract forms, not just different numbers.
  • Renewal terms are not stated. None of the pages we checked says what Starter costs after the offer period ends, whether the offer renews, or whether existing subscribers are moved to the normal price. We deliberately did not back-calculate renewal pricing from the “save up to 65%” figure.

Practical read: treat $7/$10 as the currently displayed offer and $20 as the vendor’s stated normal price. If you budget on the offer price, budget for the possibility of paying the normal price later — confirm renewal terms in writing before signing. We do not present $7 as an unconditional list price, and we do not call it “cheapest” without the qualifiers above.

2026-10-30 re-check note. The offer paragraph above is unchanged on the Starter product page. The Sales pricing page itself has been restructured since our first capture: the billing control now reads Pay Monthly / Commit monthly / Pay Annually, and in every control state we captured the card displays “Starts at $7” with no monthly figure. The page also carries a separate Revenue Hub promotion ($57/$98 per seat annual, new Sales Hub and Revenue Hub customers only) and a HubSpot Credits system — all outside this page’s entry-price scope. The $7 and $10 payment terms above come from the Starter product page verbatim; confirm both at checkout before relying on them.

What the entry tier includes for email work

The 5-person scenario in this page assumes email integration. Each vendor’s entry tier covers that differently, per their official pages:

  • HubSpot — Starter includes email sync. The pricing page feature table shows 1-to-1 email at Starter as unbranded (Free tier: branded). The Starter product page lists email sync among what Starter adds over the free tools. Per HubSpot’s email-connection KB, users connect a personal inbox (Gmail, Microsoft 365, Exchange on-premises, or IMAP) to send one-to-one emails from the CRM and log replies — and users with View-Only seats cannot connect their personal emails. (HubSpot’s Sequences tool is a separate capability: per its KB it requires Sales Hub Professional or Enterprise, or Service Hub Professional/Enterprise — not Starter — and this page does not claim it for Starter.) Practical read: a 5-person team where everyone needs email sync needs 5 paid (Core) seats; the free View-Only seats do not cover that need. Note the separate free-tools cap: a free-only account is limited to 2 users.
  • Salesforce — Starter Suite: partially verified. The official Starter Suite product page lists email nurture campaigns and lead scoring, and states Starter includes 2,000 emails per month (with an add-on bundle for 1,000 more sends at $10/month). What we could not confirm from the official pages we checked is Gmail/Outlook inbox sync for the sales workflow at Starter Suite. Put “confirm inbox sync in a trial account” on your evaluation checklist rather than assuming it.
  • Pipedrive — full email sync starts at Growth. The official plan cards list lead, calendar, and pipeline management, AI report creation, 500+ integrations, and meeting intelligence on Lite, but full email sync appears on the Growth card ($39/seat/month annual) — re-confirmed in a rendered capture on 2026-10-30: the Growth card is marked “Lite plan +” and lists “Full email sync with tracking” and “Fully sync Gmail, Outlook or your company email”, which the Lite card does not. If email sync is a must-have, Pipedrive’s entry price for this scenario is the Growth price, not Lite’s $14. Verify on the official plan-comparison table before deciding — plan lineups have changed within the past year.

This is exactly why feature assumptions belong next to prices: the lowest displayed per-seat price is not the cheapest plan that meets a stated need.

Free plans, the 2-user cap, and documented seat rules

  • HubSpot free tools: up to 2 users (current pricing pages). HubSpot’s 2024 pricing announcement described 5 free users — free-user counts change, so read the live page. Upgrading from free tools to a Starter subscription removes the free seats; you select the total number of seats at checkout (seat-management KB).
  • Inside a paid HubSpot subscription: every user is assigned a seat. View-Only seats are free and unlimited; Core seats are paid. View-Only users can view records and dashboards but cannot edit records, log or track emails, or connect personal email (seat-management KB; email-connection KB). Documented seat-change rules: seat count can’t be reduced below the subscription’s minimum commitment; purchased seat counts can’t be reduced until the next renewal date; removing unassigned seats schedules the change for the next billing period and does not adjust the current invoice.
  • Salesforce Free Suite: up to 2 users, no contract or credit card required. Whether Free Suite users can coexist with a paid Starter Suite subscription is not documented on the pricing page — do not budget on a mixed free-plus-paid setup at Salesforce without vendor confirmation.
  • Pipedrive: no free plan; 14-day trial without a credit card. Pipedrive charges per seat whether the seat is assigned to a user or not (KB).

A note on mixed setups: arrangements such as “2 free users + 3 paid seats” are not supported by the vendors’ subscription documentation — the free-user caps, seat types, and permission limits above are the documented picture, so this page does not suggest them.

Why price × 5 is not your cost

The 5-seat figures are a hypothetical base seat cost. Things that can change the real invoice:

  • Taxes. Pipedrive states prices exclude VAT and bills VAT to EU customers. Salesforce’s pricing page does not state tax treatment. HubSpot’s pricing pages don’t either; its Starter product page footer notes prices are “subject to applicable tax” without further detail.
  • Fees beyond the seat. Salesforce’s cards carry a “transaction fees apply” note the pricing page does not quantify (the Starter Suite product page gives one example: 2.9% + $0.30 per US credit-card transaction for commerce). Support beyond Salesforce’s included Standard plan costs extra (Premier at 30% of net license fees). Pipedrive’s implementation service is free only for plans over $400/year; its add-ons display at $13.33–$41 “starting from” — the pricing page states neither the billing period nor a per-company/per-seat unit (Pipedrive’s KB: add-ons are billed according to the plan’s billing cycle, and its worked example adds the add-on price once per account, not per seat), so confirm the charged amount before budgeting. HubSpot charges a required one-time $1,500 onboarding fee starting at Sales Hub Professional ($3,500 at Enterprise) — not at Starter.
  • Seats you don’t use. Pipedrive bills every seat, assigned or not. HubSpot’s seat rules above mean you plan seat reductions at renewal, not mid-term.
  • The next tier, as displayed numbers only. HubSpot’s next step on the same page is Sales Hub Professional at $90/seat/month billed annually ($100/seat/month paid monthly, annual commitment) plus the required $1,500 onboarding — but Professional is a different product line from the CRM Suite Starter bundle, so a “times more expensive” ratio between them would mix products and offer periods and is deliberately not stated here. Salesforce Pro Suite is $100/user/month with an annual contract. Pipedrive Growth is $39/seat/month annual. Compare these as plan-by-plan numbers against your own must-have list, not as ratios.

Monthly vs annual: what to confirm before you sign

The annual-vs-monthly gap is real but vendor-specific, and monthly payment is not the same as monthly commitment:

  1. What the commitment is. HubSpot’s offer annual rate requires upfront payment and an annual commitment; the offer monthly rate is month-to-month. HubSpot Sales Hub Professional can be paid monthly at $100/seat while still carrying an annual commitment. Salesforce Pro Suite states “contract required.”
  2. What happens at renewal — automatic renewal, notice period, and whether the renewal price equals the first-term price. For HubSpot’s offer this is unstated (see “The HubSpot offer, precisely”).
  3. Whether the displayed price holds for both billing periods. Salesforce displays one $25 starting price labeled “billed monthly or annually” — the page does not state the effective rate is identical; confirm at checkout or with the vendor.
  4. How adding seats mid-term is billed (prorated or full price, effective immediately or next cycle).
  5. How removing seats works. HubSpot: not below the subscription’s minimum commitment, not until the next renewal date, effective next billing period with no invoice adjustment (KB). Pipedrive: every seat is billed regardless of assignment.
  6. Cancellation and refunds — who can cancel, when, and what happens to prepaid annual fees.
  7. Whether the annual discount is worth the lock-in. For HubSpot, the $3/seat/month gap between the displayed monthly and annual offer prices ($10 vs $7) is arithmetic on displayed prices; both sides of that comparison are offer-period prices for different commitment forms, so don’t read it as a normal-price discount.

How to choose between the three

  • If email sync is a must-have for all five people: HubSpot Starter includes it (unbranded 1-to-1 email, inbox connection for Gmail/Microsoft 365/Exchange/IMAP); Pipedrive’s entry for that need is Growth ($39/seat/month annual), not Lite; Salesforce Starter Suite’s inbox sync is unconfirmed — verify in a trial before comparing on price.
  • If email sync is not required and you want the simplest pipeline tool: Pipedrive Lite at $14/seat/month annual ($70/month for 5 seats) is the lowest non-offer annual per-seat price of the three — HubSpot’s $7 offer is lower but is a new-customer, limited-time offer with unstated renewal terms, while HubSpot’s stated normal price ($20) is higher than both. Confirm Pipedrive’s monthly rate on the live billing toggle, and remember empty seats are billed.
  • If you want one vendor to grow into: Salesforce Starter Suite at $25/user/month is the low-commitment on-ramp (billed monthly or annually per its page label), with the caveat that the Pro Suite jump requires an annual contract — and confirm what Starter does and doesn’t include before committing.
  • If you want starter-level marketing, service, and content tools alongside the CRM: that is what HubSpot’s CRM Suite Starter bundle is (Marketing Hub Starter with 1,000 marketing contacts plus four more Starter hubs) at the displayed offer price of $7/seat/month annual for new customers — with renewal terms unstated and the Professional tier’s required onboarding fee in mind if you expect to need automation at scale.

Decide on feature lists, not prices: write down your five must-haves before comparing plans, then check each vendor’s official plan-comparison table feature by feature. Already picked a vendor? Our CRM data export and migration checklist for small teams walks through the move itself.

Method, limits, and maintenance

How this was verified. Prices and billing labels were read from the vendors’ official US pages on 2026-10-24 (HubSpot pricing pages via a rendered browser session, including the billing-period toggle; HubSpot Starter product page, seat-management KB, and email-connection KB as public pages; Salesforce pricing and Starter Suite product pages as public pages; Pipedrive via its public pricing page and knowledge base). A pre-publish re-check on 2026-10-30 (real-browser rendered sessions where possible) re-verified: the HubSpot offer paragraph verbatim on the product page (static full text), the pricing-page $7/$20 display and 2-user free cap, and every Pipedrive price, add-on range, VAT note, trial terms, and the email-sync placement on the plan cards. Salesforce figures on this page were last re-verified on 2026-10-25. The re-check also found the HubSpot Sales pricing page restructured (single “Starter” card, no monthly figure displayed, new billing-control wording) — see the notes above. Pipedrive’s monthly price remains unverified across all three verification dates (2026-10-24, 10-25, 10-30); that cell is marked “not verified” rather than estimated. Salesforce labels its prices “starting price” and its page “provided for information purposes only and subject to change.”

What is deliberately not claimed. HubSpot offer renewal terms (unstated); Salesforce inbox sync at Starter Suite (unconfirmed); Pipedrive monthly price (unreadable); tax treatment at HubSpot/Salesforce (unstated); whether Salesforce’s single displayed price is identical across billing periods (unstated). Each of these is a question to resolve with the vendor, not a gap this page fills with an estimate.

This page is a dated snapshot, not a live feed. Prices, plan names (HubSpot’s entry card naming changed within our own verification window, and Pipedrive renamed its plans within the last year), free-tier user counts, and offer terms all change. When using these numbers for a purchasing decision, re-verify every price, plan name, offer eligibility, and the free-tier user counts on the three official pages first. This page is published as a dated snapshot with its verification dates in the header and body; it does not claim to reflect prices after those dates. Corrections: see the site’s contact/correction page.

Not affiliated. This comparison contains no affiliate links and no vendor sponsorship.

Sources

All accessed 2026-10-24; key items re-verified 2026-10-25 and 2026-10-30 as marked. Note on verification channels: the two HubSpot pricing pages are JavaScript-rendered; their card-level details were captured in a rendered browser session on the verification date. Re-checks: 2026-10-25 tooling returned an empty shell; 2026-10-30 a rendered browser session captured the restructured page (single “Starter” card, no monthly figure, Revenue Hub banner, Credits; the CRM pricing page’s promo banner matched verbatim) — check card-level and toggle details on the live page before relying on them. The product/KB pages are static and were re-fetched independently (offer paragraph verbatim on 2026-10-30), including the email-connection KB in full on 2026-10-25 (provider list and View-Only restriction matched).

  • HubSpot Sales pricing page (browser capture 2026-10-24: CRM Suite Starter card, offer price and compare-at price, Professional/Enterprise cards and onboarding footnotes, billing-period toggle. Rendered re-check 2026-10-30: page restructured — single “Starter” card, no monthly figure displayed in any billing-control state, billing control now Pay Monthly / Commit monthly / Pay Annually, plus a Revenue Hub promotion and HubSpot Credits, none affecting this page’s entry-price facts; check card and toggle details on the live page before relying on them)
  • HubSpot CRM pricing page (promo-banner text re-verified in full 2026-10-25, matched verbatim; page is JS-rendered — bundle-composition card details from browser capture) (promo banner: “Save up to 65% on Starter … New customers only. Select offers available for a limited time.”; bundle composition)
  • HubSpot Starter product page (offer terms verbatim: $7 with upfront payment and annual commitment / $10 month-to-month / normally $20; email sync listed as a Starter addition; bill-change triggers)
  • HubSpot Knowledge Base — assign and manage seats (seat types; View-Only limits; seat reduction rules; free-tools upgrade behavior; the page exposes more than one date field — captures in this workspace read “last updated 2026-07-17” and, in a second fetch on the same day, “October 15, 2026”; check the visible date when following up)
  • HubSpot Knowledge Base — connect your personal email (supported providers; View-Only seats cannot connect personal email; re-verified in full 2026-10-25. The page exposes more than one date field — captures in this workspace read “last updated 2026-07-01” (2026-10-24 fetch) and “September 28, 2026” (2026-10-25 fetch); content matched in both. Check the visible date when following up)
  • HubSpot company news, 2024 pricing model (historical context: view-only seats, free-user counts have changed)
  • Salesforce CRM pricing page (Free/Starter/Pro Suite cards, “Transaction fees apply”, Success Plans, disclaimer; page metadata: modified 2026-04-29)
  • Salesforce Starter Suite product page (2,000 emails/month + $10 per 1,000 add-on; billing label; commerce fee example; page metadata: modified 2026-09-23)
  • Pipedrive pricing page (Lite/Growth/Premium/Ultimate cards incl. email-sync placement at Growth; add-ons shown as “Starting from” $13.33–$41 with no stated billing period or unit; VAT note; implementation FAQ. 2026-10-25 and 2026-10-30 full-text re-reads: all prices, the add-on range, VAT note, and trial terms unchanged; no monthly figure displayed on any date. 2026-10-30 real-browser rendered capture: plan-card feature lists captured — the Growth card (“Lite plan +”) lists “Full email sync with tracking” / “Fully sync Gmail, Outlook or your company email”, which the Lite card does not)
  • Pipedrive Knowledge Base — how pricing works (per-seat charging incl. unassigned seats; monthly/annual mechanics; add-ons are billed according to the plan’s billing cycle; add-on worked example adds the add-on price once per account, not per seat)
  • HubSpot Knowledge Base — create and edit sequences (sequences require Sales Hub Professional/Enterprise or Service Hub Professional/Enterprise; last updated October 20, 2026)