Where we’ve been, what we’ve learned, and how we’re making it better.
Pricing a multi-product, AI-powered platform is hard. We know that, and we know our customers and partners have felt it. The software industry as a whole is grappling with pricing during a moment of significant change.
At HubSpot, we’re in the middle of a journey to simplify our model, better match price to value, and make it more seamless for customers to use the entire customer platform. We are committed to listening to your feedback and being transparent about where we’re heading. So we’re taking a step back to explain how HubSpot pricing works today, why it evolved the way it did, and where we’re going.
At the core, our pricing philosophy remains the same: deliver value before monetizing value. What has changed is the shape of that value and the pace at which it’s evolving with AI.
Our journey from single app to platform
When HubSpot was smaller, pricing was simpler. We priced Marketing Hub like a marketing tool, Sales Hub like a sales tool, and Service Hub like a service tool. That made sense when customers bought one product at a time.
But as HubSpot grew into the unified customer platform it is today—with marketing, sales, service, operations, and AI all working together–that pricing model started to break down.
Customers want to use multiple products together, which is exactly how the platform is designed. HubSpot’s products are natively built, deeply connected, and accessed through one unified interface. One of the biggest lessons we’ve learned is simple: when your products are built to work together, your pricing needs to work together too.
As we added more capabilities to serve different teams, we created more ways to buy them: more seat types, more add-ons, more upgrade paths. We aimed to give customers flexibility. But what some of you felt was complexity. And that’s exactly what we’re working to fix.
AI raised the bar
AI changes what “value” looks like in software. In many cases, the value isn’t just helping someone do work more efficiently. It’s the software doing the work for you. Software pricing needs to reflect the outcomes of the work AI is delivering alongside teams. That introduces new dynamics around usage, cost, and flexibility that traditional SaaS pricing models weren’t built for.
Rigid tiers and fixed upgrade paths don’t work well when usage varies naturally; customers want to experiment safely, and costs can vary significantly per interaction.
That’s why pricing can’t be an afterthought. Customers need to be in control of their spend, know what’s driving their price, and confident their bill won’t be a surprise.
Add value before you monetize value
Every pricing decision we make starts with a simple principle: deliver value before monetizing value.
HubSpot delivers value in two ways. First, with features and data that help teams work better. Second, with AI agents and automation that do work for them.
This distinction matters because pricing should reflect how value is delivered, not just what is delivered.
To put that philosophy into practice, we use a hybrid pricing model designed to match different types of value. That model has three layers:
- Seats that give your teams access to embedded features and data that assist their work
- Credits for AI and automation that deliver work across the platform
- Hubs and editions for access to the features that support your size and maturity
This structure keeps pricing flexible without sacrificing clarity.
How we make pricing decisions
For each layer, we use specific frameworks to ensure every decision aligns with our value-first philosophy.
- Features built for specific functions, such as quote approvals or support ticket routing, are packaged in the relevant Hub. These features are accessed with the corresponding persona seat (Sales Seat for Sales Hub, Service Seat for Service Hub).
- Features built for all customer-facing teams, like user permissions and reporting, are packaged in the Core Seat. Breeze Assistant (HubSpot’s AI that increases personal productivity) and data enrichment also deliver value to all teams which is why they are included as part of the Core Seat.
- Features that deliver work for you, like Customer Agent and Data Agent, are offered through credits. Credits provide a simple, flexible way to pay for what you use. The work these features deliver is made visible with transparent rate cards and real-time usage dashboards. We provide tools, like spend caps and feature pausing, to give customers control.
- Editions align to your size and business maturity. Starter includes essential tools for small teams; Professional includes comprehensive tools for mature teams; and Enterprise includes advanced tools for large teams.
We’re just getting started — and we’re committed
AI is changing how software creates value, which means pricing needs to keep evolving too. We’ll continue making capabilities more accessible, giving you better visibility and control, and ensuring pricing supports your growth (rather than stunting it).
At the same time, we are also learning from you and looking for opportunities to make it easier than ever to buy and scale with HubSpot. In that spirit, you’ll see us making other welcome changes to how certain features are packaged and how value is distributed across editions based on your feedback in the months to come.
We will listen to how you’re using the platform, simplify where we’ve created friction, and treat pricing decisions with the same discipline we bring to the rest of the platform.