--- title: "HubSpot competitors, by reason for leaving" description: "HubSpot API alternatives ranked by why teams actually switch, with verified pricing and the trade each one makes." url: https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/alternatives/hubspot-alternatives updated: 2026-10-25 --- Alternatives · Verified 8 to 19 Oct 2026 # HubSpot competitors, sorted by *why you are leaving* The free tier is the best in the category. The bill when you outgrow it is why people look at HubSpot alternatives. 4 replacements below, each one matched to a specific reason rather than ranked on a score nobody can audit. Prices and limits for every option below are read off the vendor's own page. These are the HubSpot alternatives that answer a named problem, not a field of logos. See the 4 alternatives [Read the HubSpot API review](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/crm-apis/hubspot-api-review) reasons.txt 4 reasons attio **$44/user/mo** pipedrive **US$14/seat/mo** salesforce **US$125/seat/mo** clay **$167/mo** Currently on Free tier Diagnose first ## The 4 reasons people actually leave If none of these is your situation, the honest answer is that you should probably stay, and the [HubSpot API review](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/crm-apis/hubspot-api-review) covers what you already have. The 26 providers these replacements are drawn from are in the [CRM and sync APIs](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/crm-apis) listing. ### 1 · The free tier ends and the next step is steep HubSpot gives you full CRM object access on a free tier, which is the most generous entry in this directory and genuinely enough to ship an integration on. What sends teams looking is the shape of the curve after it, where seats, contact tiers and the marketing side compound at once. ### 2 · The rate limit is per 10 seconds, with a daily cap behind it 100 requests per 10 seconds on Free and Starter and 190 on Professional is fine for a steady sync and tight for a backfill, and there is a daily cap shared across every app on the account. A one-off load of a few hundred thousand records is an exercise in patience rather than a bulk job. ### 3 · The data model is HubSpot's Contacts, companies, deals and tickets with custom properties hung off them covers most of what a sales team does. It does not cover a GTM motion whose real object is an account signal or a usage event, and the usual workaround is a custom property that nothing else understands. ### 4 · It is a marketing platform with a CRM inside it That is the reason to buy it and the reason to leave it. If you only want the CRM and the API, you are paying for a suite, and the parts you are not using are the ones that set the price. The alternatives ## 4 replacements, and what each one fixes Ordered by how often they turn out to be the right answer, not by price. | Provider | Entry price | Unit cost | Free tier | Fixes | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | [HubSpot API](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/crm-apis/hubspot-api-review) | Free tier | $0 free tier | Free CRM including API access | Baseline | | [Attio API](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/crm-apis/attio-api-review) | $44/user/mo | Not by the unit | Free plan with full API access, 100 seat credits a month | Best API-first CRM | | [Pipedrive](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/crm-apis/pipedrive-api-review) | US$14/seat/mo | Not by the unit | No free tier. 14-day trial, no card. | Best CRM API for small sales teams | | [Salesforce](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/crm-apis/salesforce-api-review) | US$125/seat/mo | Not by the unit | No free tier with API access. Developer Edition is free and gets 15,000 calls a day. | Best CRM API for enterprise integration | | [Clay](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/enrichment-apis/clay-api-review) | $167/mo | $0.0452 per data credit | Free plan, 500 actions and 100 data credits per month | Best orchestration layer | Read from each vendor's own pricing page between 8 and 19 October 2026. In detail ## The case for each one Each one below is matched to a reason rather than scored, and each one names what you give up by taking it. A replacement with no downside is a replacement nobody has actually run. ### Attio API The closest like-for-like if the data model is what pinches: objects and attributes defined through the API, and a free plan with full REST access to test it on. [Attio](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/crm-apis/attio-api-review) is the only CRM in this directory where the schema is something you write rather than something you configure around. Custom objects and attributes are created through the API itself, so if your motion runs on an account, a workspace, a vehicle or a clinic rather than on a contact and a deal, you say that in code once instead of bending it into a custom field forever. The limits are the simplest here and that is worth more than it sounds: 100 requests a second for reads and 25 a second for writes, across the whole API. No token costs per endpoint, no daily pool, no per-app accounting. Sizing a job is one division, and nothing a colleague installs from a marketplace can quietly spend your allowance. The free plan carries full REST access plus 100 seat credits and 250 workspace credits a month, so the migration can be proved before anything is bought. Paid starts at $44 a user a month, or $35 on annual billing, which is above [Pipedrive](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/crm-apis/pipedrive-api-review) and below almost everything else that will let you define your own objects. #### What you give up The free tier you are leaving, if volume rather than schema was ever the issue. HubSpot's free CRM carries full object access with no seat cap at that level, and Attio's free plan is metered in seat and workspace credits. You also give up HubSpot's marketing side entirely: Attio is a CRM and a developer platform, not a suite, so email, forms, landing pages and workflows all become somebody else's product. #### When it is the wrong answer Teams whose complaint is the bill rather than the model. If you are on HubSpot Starter at $20 a seat and looking to spend less, $44 a user is the wrong direction, and Pipedrive is the pick below that actually answers it. Entry $44/user/mo. Free plan with full API access, 100 seat credits a month. Attio treats the schema as yours rather than theirs, so the objects your GTM motion actually runs on do not have to be bent into somebody else's idea of a deal. [Read the review](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/crm-apis/attio-api-review) · [HubSpot vs Attio](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/compare/hubspot-vs-attio) ### Pipedrive US$14 a seat, API access on every plan, and a pipeline that works without configuration. The answer when the suite was the problem. Pipedrive is the cheapest paid CRM in this directory that includes the API, at US$14 a seat a month on annual billing with no add-on and no gated tier. Against [Salesforce](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/crm-apis/salesforce-api-review)'s effective US$125 a seat that is a factor of nine, and against HubSpot it is the difference between a suite you half use and a pipeline you fully use. What it meters is complexity rather than calls. The daily budget is 30,000 tokens multiplied by a plan multiplier and by your seat count, and every endpoint has a published token cost: a search is 40 and a single read is 2. That is unusual and genuinely useful, because you can compute your exact daily capacity on paper before you write anything. The multiplier runs from 1 on Lite to 7 on Ultimate, so a five-seat Premium account carries 750,000 tokens a day. Throughput and headcount move together. Whether that is the right model depends entirely on whether your integration serves people or runs on its own. #### What you give up The free tier, the marketing platform and the breadth of the object model. Pipedrive has no free plan at all, only a 14-day trial, so there is nowhere to leave a prototype running while somebody approves it. The schema is a pipeline of deals, and anything that is not a person, an organization or a deal becomes a custom field on one of those three. #### When it is the wrong answer Anyone whose integration searches in a loop. A search costs twenty reads, so code that looks a record up by email where it could have fetched it by id burns the day's budget twenty times faster, and the failure arrives as a 429 in the afternoon rather than as a slow morning. Cache your ids or stay where you are. Entry US$14/seat/mo. No free tier. 14-day trial, no card.. Pipedrive is the CRM most small sales teams already run, and its API is priced into the seat rather than metered. [Read the review](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/crm-apis/pipedrive-api-review) · [HubSpot vs Pipedrive](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/compare/hubspot-vs-pipedrive) ### Salesforce The move when the org has outgrown an opinionated CRM entirely: more than a dozen APIs, real metadata and deployment tooling, and a ceiling that scales with licenses. Salesforce is the only provider on this page that gives you more than one API. REST, SOAP, Bulk 2.0, GraphQL, Metadata, Tooling and Pub/Sub, each shaped for a different job: the nightly million-row load goes through Bulk 2.0, the event stream through Pub/Sub, the deployment through Metadata. For an integration team that already knows which one it needs, nothing else here is in the conversation. The ceiling is an org budget rather than a per-app rate: 100,000 calls a day plus 1,000 for every Enterprise license, pooled across every integration. A company with 200 licensed reps starts at 300,000 calls a day without asking anyone, which is the opposite of HubSpot's shared daily cap that a marketplace app can quietly drain. You can also build the whole thing before buying it. A free Developer Edition org gets 15,000 API calls a day against the same endpoints, so the integration can be written, tested and demonstrated while the contract is still being negotiated. #### What you give up Price, simplicity and the free tier. API access is a US$25 per user per month add-on on Pro Suite and included only from Core at US$195, so US$125 a seat is the real floor for anything programmatic. You also take on an administrator: Salesforce is a platform that assumes somebody owns it, and on a team of eight that person is you. #### When it is the wrong answer Any team under about fifty people that is leaving HubSpot to save money or simplify. This is a step up in capability and a large step up in cost and overhead, and most HubSpot frustration is answered by Attio or Pipedrive for a fraction of it. Entry US$125/seat/mo. No free tier with API access. Developer Edition is free and gets 15,000 calls a day.. Salesforce has the deepest API surface of any CRM in this directory, and the only one you have to buy on purpose. [Read the review](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/crm-apis/salesforce-api-review) · [HubSpot vs Salesforce](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/compare/hubspot-vs-salesforce) ### [Visit Clay](https://go.frontal.so/clay) Clay Not a CRM. Named here because a good share of HubSpot frustration is really about enrichment, and if the rows are the problem then changing CRM fixes nothing. Worth checking before you migrate anything: is the complaint that HubSpot is the wrong CRM, or that the records in it are thin? Those feel identical from the inside and have completely different fixes. [Clay](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/enrichment-apis/clay-api-review) routes a lookup across more than 150 providers on one contract, which is coverage you cannot buy any other single way, and it writes back into the CRM you already have. The billing model is the thing to understand first. Clay charges two meters on a found contact, an action for its own work and data credits for the data, at $0.0036 and $0.0452 on annual Launch, and nothing on a lookup that finds nothing. Bring your own provider keys and only the action is billed. The HTTP API is also gated two tiers up. Integrating any HTTP API is what the Growth plan unlocks, at $446 a month against $167 for Launch, so if calling arbitrary endpoints is why you wanted Clay then the entry price for your use case is the higher number. #### What you give up Nothing, because this is not a replacement. It is an addition, and it is listed to stop you buying a CRM migration to solve a data problem. If you take it you keep HubSpot and add a second bill. #### When it is the wrong answer Teams whose enrichment logic changes twice a year and is owned by an engineer. Clay's real product is the workbench, and if nobody is going to open it, a lookup API at a published per-result rate is the better fit. Entry $167/mo. Free plan, 500 actions and 100 data credits per month. Clay is not really an enrichment API, it is the router in front of everybody else's. [Read the review](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/enrichment-apis/clay-api-review) · [HubSpot vs Clay](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/compare/clay-vs-hubspot) Plan by plan ## What you would actually pay, on each one Every provider on this page publishes a rate card, so the real numbers can sit next to each other rather than behind a summary. The plan you want is the one whose included volume covers a normal month for you, not the cheapest one on the page. ### HubSpot API HubSpot API publishes 4 tiers, one of them free, and the paid ladder runs from $20 to Quote. #### Free $0 up to 2 users - Full CRM object access over the API - Free Marketing, Sales, Service, Content, Data and Revenue tools - 100 calls per 10s, 250,000 a day - No credit card required #### Starter $20 /seat/mo - Same API, same limits as Free - 500 HubSpot Credits included - 1,000 marketing contacts - From $7/seat/mo on the current new-customer offer #### Professional Quote not on the CRM pricing page - 190 calls per 10s per app - 625,000 calls a day per account - Where the limit increase starts to matter #### Enterprise Quote not on the CRM pricing page - 190 calls per 10s per app - 1,000,000 calls a day per account - Highest published daily ceiling ### Attio API Attio API publishes 4 tiers, one of them free, and the paid ladder runs from $44 to Custom. #### Free $0 per user/month - Full REST API access - 100 seat credits a month - 250 workspace credits a month #### Plus $44 /user/mo, $35 annual - 500 seat credits a month - 1,500 workspace credits a month - Billed monthly or annually #### Pro $99 /user/mo, $79 annual - 1,000 seat credits a month - 10,000 workspace credits a month - The tier Attio marks as popular #### Enterprise Custom billed annually - 2,500 seat credits a month - Custom workspace credits ### Pipedrive Pipedrive publishes 4 tiers, none of them free, and the paid ladder runs from US$14 to US$79. #### Lite US$14 /seat/mo annual - US$168 per seat per year - Token multiplier 1, so 30,000 a day per seat - Full API access #### Growth US$39 /seat/mo annual - US$468 per seat per year - Token multiplier 2, so 60,000 a day per seat - Email automation and follow-ups #### Premium US$59 /seat/mo annual - US$708 per seat per year - Token multiplier 5, so 150,000 a day per seat - Pipedrive marks this the most popular tier #### Ultimate US$79 /seat/mo annual - US$948 per seat per year - Token multiplier 7, so 210,000 a day per seat - The complete suite ### Salesforce Salesforce publishes 5 tiers, none of them free, and the paid ladder runs from US$25 to US$550. #### Starter Suite US$25 /user/mo - Sales, service, marketing and commerce in one - Slack included at no extra cost - Not listed on the API rate-limit table #### Pro Suite US$100 /user/mo - Web Services API available for an extra $25/user/mo - So US$125/user/mo all in, the cheapest API access here - 5 flows per org #### Core US$195 /user/mo - APIs included, no add-on - Forecasting, opportunity scoring, conversation intelligence - Agentforce with the free Salesforce Foundations add-on #### Advanced US$395 /user/mo - APIs included - 1 Full Sandbox included per org - Everything in Core plus advanced automation #### Max US$550 /user/mo - APIs included - Slack Enterprise+ included - The complete suite ### [Visit Clay](https://go.frontal.so/clay) Clay Clay publishes 4 tiers, one of them free, and the paid ladder runs from $167 to Custom. #### Free $0 500 actions/mo - 100 data credits a month, 1,200 a year - Unlimited seats and tables, up to 200 rows per table - Multi-provider waterfalls and Claygent - Bring your own API key #### Launch $167 /mo, from 15,000 actions - 2,500 data credits a month, 30,000 a year, unused ones roll over up to 2x - Phone number enrichment - Job change and other signals, unlimited Audiences search - Send through the Clay Sequencer or an integration #### Growth $446 /mo, from 40,000 actions - 6,000 data credits a month, 72,000 a year, unused ones roll over up to 2x - Integrate with any HTTP API. This is the tier that unlocks it - Auto-sync and enrich CRM, warehouse sync - Web intent signals, webhook-driven automation #### Enterprise Custom quote - Custom action and data credit volume, and Clay API access for calling Clay from your own code - Auto-delete, so one webhook takes unlimited submissions Read the included volume before the headline price. A plan that costs twice as much and carries five times the credits is the cheaper plan, and on this page that is the usual case rather than the exception. Cost model ## What each one costs at your volume HubSpot first, then every replacement. The model picks the cheapest published plan that covers your volume on each one, which is the comparison a row of entry prices cannot make. ### HubSpot API Priced per seat, so the bill moves with headcount rather than with volume. Cheapest seat with the API **Starter** Per seat **$20 a month** Monthly **$60 for 3 seats** Twelve months **$720** ### Attio API Priced per seat, so the bill moves with headcount rather than with volume. Cheapest seat with the API **Plus** Per seat **$44 a month** Monthly **$132 for 3 seats** Twelve months **$1,584** ### Pipedrive Priced per seat, so the bill moves with headcount rather than with volume. Cheapest seat with the API **Lite** Per seat **$14 a month** Monthly **$42 for 3 seats** Twelve months **$504** ### Salesforce Priced per seat, so the bill moves with headcount rather than with volume. Cheapest seat with the API **Pro Suite** Per seat **$125 a month, including the $25 API add-on** Monthly **$375 for 3 seats** Twelve months **$4,500** API gate **costs you $100 a seat over Starter Suite** ### [Visit Clay](https://go.frontal.so/clay) Clay Priced on the volume you use, so the plan that covers a normal month is the one that decides the bill. Plan that covers it **Growth** Monthly **$446** Twelve months **$5,352** Included **40,000 actions** Your rate at this volume **$0.0446 per action** API gate **costs you $279 a month over Launch** Plans are read from each vendor's own pricing page and the model picks the cheapest one that covers you, so these are list prices before any discount you negotiate and before annual billing, which most of these vendors discount. Twelve months ## What a year costs at three volumes The same plan-fit arithmetic as the model above, run out to a year, because an annual number is what a budget actually asks for. HubSpot API, Attio API, Pipedrive and Salesforce are priced per seat, so those columns do not move with volume. The figure shown is 3 seats for a year. | A year at | HubSpot API | Attio API | Pipedrive | Salesforce | Clay | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1,000 a month | $720 Starter | $1,584 Plus | $504 Lite | $4,500 Pro Suite | $5,352 Growth | | 10,000 a month | $720 Starter | $1,584 Plus | $504 Lite | $4,500 Pro Suite | $5,352 Growth | | 50,000 a month | $720 Starter | $1,584 Plus | $504 Lite | $4,500 Pro Suite | Quoted | 5 of the 5 providers here publish enough to be put in this table. These are list prices on the published plan that covers each volume, so they are the number before you negotiate and before annual billing, which most of these vendors discount by between a fifth and a half. Decide ## Which replacement is yours Answer what matters most and the lean appears below. Every option is read from the records on this page, and staying on HubSpot is one of the possible answers. What matters most on the thing you are replacing? What does your finance team want to see? Have you measured what you have today? Answer the questions above Each answer leans one way. The recommendation appears here once you have picked at least two. A tool like this can only weigh what is on the page. It does not know your segment, and the one test that does is the bake-off further down: real rows, cheapest entry on each side, spend divided by survivors. Where an answer leans on a certification or an integration, it means that vendor publishes it on the pages this directory read, which is not the same as the other one lacking it. The sources are listed at the foot of the page. Provenance ## Where the data comes from, and what you may do with it The question that arrives late and expensively is not how good the data is, it is who is allowed to hold it. A migration is the moment to check it, because you are signing a new contract anyway. | Provider | Fields returned | Coverage | Compliance | Redistribution | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | [HubSpot API](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/crm-apis/hubspot-api-review) | CRM records, Work email, Firmographics | Global | GDPR DPA SOC 2 Type II CCPA | Not stated | | [Attio API](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/crm-apis/attio-api-review) | CRM records, Work email, Firmographics | Global | GDPR DPA SOC 2 Type II | Not stated | | [Pipedrive](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/crm-apis/pipedrive-api-review) | CRM records, Work email, Firmographics | Global | GDPR DPA SOC 2 Type II | Not stated | | [Salesforce](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/crm-apis/salesforce-api-review) | CRM records, Work email, Firmographics | Global | SOC 1 ISO 27001 ISO 42001 | Not stated | | [Clay](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/enrichment-apis/clay-api-review) | Work email, Personal email, Mobile phone, Firmographics, Technographics, Job postings, Job changes, Intent and news, LinkedIn profile | Global | GDPR DPA SOC 2 Type II | Not stated | None of these states a redistribution position on its pricing or docs pages. Internally that never matters. Put the rows in something your customers can see and it becomes the question your legal team asks first. Two practical notes that apply to every provider on this page. A compliance badge describes the vendor, not your use of it, so a GDPR DPA does not give you a lawful basis for the outreach you send. And every one of these vendors runs its own opt-out, which means a person who asks you to delete their record has to be removed from your copy as well as from theirs. Migration ## Moving off HubSpot Written against Attio API, the first pick above, because the steps are the same whichever one you take and the specifics are what make them useful. Swap the name and the order still holds. 01 ### Measure the thing you are about to lose Run 500 rows you already have through HubSpot API and record the match rate, the fields that came back populated and the cost. Without that number a migration cannot be judged, because every provider looks cheaper per unit than the one you are paying for today. 02 ### Check the fields, not the field count Attio API returns every field HubSpot API does, so nothing downstream has to change shape. Confirm the values rather than the keys: two providers can both return a mobile number and disagree about which one it is. 03 ### Rewrite the auth and the limits, in that order HubSpot API authenticates with private app token or OAuth 2.0. Attio API uses bearer token or OAuth 2.0. The limits are the part that bites later. HubSpot API rate: 100 req/10s on Free and Starter, 190 on Professional. Daily cap shared across apps. Attio API rate: 100 requests/s for reads, 25/s for writes, across the whole API. A loop tuned to the first will either crawl or get throttled on the second. 04 ### Run both for one billing cycle Keep the old key live and route a slice of real traffic to the new one. A month is the shortest honest test, because credit expiry, rollover and the overage rate only show up at renewal and those are where the surprises live. 05 ### Cancel on the renewal date, not before Credits on most of these plans do not survive a downgrade. Check what happens to the balance you have already paid for, and time the switch so you are not buying the same records twice. The step people skip is the first one, and it is the only one that cannot be done after the fact. Once the old key is off you have nothing to compare the new match rate against, so a provider that is quietly worse on your segment looks like a provider that is fine. What practitioners say ## What practitioners say about HubSpot The one part of this page that is not a vendor claim. These are people describing HubSpot in their own words, transcribed as written and linked to the thread, and nothing here is the only source for a figure in the tables above. ### The per-app rate limit is why people end up running several private apps > API limits are not being respected or the sync isn't really set up in a way that someone with knowledge of the api. They may not be using a queue system. They haven't optimized and paid attention to api limits. \[...\] This may need to be done using multiple private app keys because you are hitting specific limits. \[...\] If these updates are happening all at once, batch and import/export APIs are the way to go [r/hubspot](https://www.reddit.com/r/hubspot/comments/1k2bpas/how_stable_is_hubspot_api_for_large_volume_of/) · April 2025 · 2 points This corroborates the shape of HubSpot's limits rather than the numbers. The rate, 100 requests per 10 seconds on Free and Starter and 190 on Professional, is per app, which is exactly why splitting work across several private apps raises throughput at all. The part that is easy to miss is that the daily cap is not per app, so the same trick does nothing for it. Splitting a sync across three private apps triples the requests a second you can make and shares one daily budget between them, which is a fix for the wrong half of the problem if the daily cap is what you were hitting. ### The search endpoint is the one to design around > When building custom integrations or custom data migrations, always set the external ID as a unique property so you can use the unique identifier endpoint to read/query records... instead of using the search endpoint which has a 5 calls per second limit. Use batch endpoints as much as possible. [r/hubspot](https://www.reddit.com/r/hubspot/comments/1mki87n/developer_diving_into_the_hubspot_ecosystem_for/) · August 2025 · 10 points The same lesson the Pipedrive side of this directory records as a token cost, arriving here as a separate rate. Search is the expensive call on every CRM in this listing and it is the one a first integration reaches for, because searching by email is the obvious way to find a contact when you have not stored its id. Storing an external id on creation is the fix in both products, and it is cheaper to do on day one than to retrofit. Treat this as a design note rather than as a published figure: HubSpot's own documentation is the authority on the per-endpoint limits. 14 threads read on 13 October 2026, searched by vendor name. Scores and dates are the comment's own. Nothing here is the only source for a price or a limit on this site: every figure in the tables above comes from a vendor's own page. What practitioners say ## What practitioners say about Pipedrive Transcribed as written and linked to the thread. A Reddit claim is a signal rather than a fact, so nothing here is the only source for any figure on this page. ### A third-party integration spends your token budget, and you find out late > \[...\] co-founder of Outfunnel. You're right that our Pipedrive API usage wasn't well optimized initially. At the time, we had no advance notice that API usage would become metered, and we were caught off guard by the change. Sorry if we burned through your limits during those first weeks! That said, we responded quickly once the issue became apparent, and since those initial hiccups, we've had no recurring problems with excessive or unnecessary API consumption. [r/pipedrive](https://www.reddit.com/r/pipedrive/comments/1tvs4y4/marketing_emails_campaigns_vs_mailchimp/) · June 2026 · 2 points A vendor on the record about spending somebody else's allowance, which is the clearest illustration of what a shared daily budget means. Pipedrive's budget is 30,000 tokens times a plan multiplier times your seats, pooled across every integration on the account, so an app you installed from the marketplace draws on the same pool as the pipeline you wrote. The practical note is the one the thread starts from: you will notice through a 429 on your own code rather than through a bill. Audit what is connected before you size a backfill, and check the marketplace apps first. 14 threads read on 13 October 2026, searched by vendor name. Scores and dates are the comment's own. Nothing here is the only source for a price or a limit on this site: every figure in the tables above comes from a vendor's own page. What practitioners say ## What practitioners say about Salesforce Transcribed as written and linked to the thread. A Reddit claim is a signal rather than a fact, so nothing here is the only source for any figure on this page. ### Paying per seat for integrations is what pushed teams into sharing credentials > \[...\] I've seen SO much horrible security practise and API user sharing at small/mid size companies who just can't afford a proper full user license for each dedicated integration. Can't wait to share this news tomorrow to my boss. [r/salesforce](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesforce/comments/11mycpz/api_only_licences_finally/) · March 2023 · 11 points Written when API-only licenses arrived, and it is the clearest practitioner account of what this page's pricing section describes. When a license costs US$125 a seat with the API add-on, a company with six integrations is being asked for six seats for software rather than people, and the thing that gives way is the credential. The security consequence is the part a rate card does not show. One shared integration user across six systems means no way to tell which of them made a call, revoked access for one revokes it for all, and the daily org budget drains with no attribution. Price the integration users before you commit, not after. 14 threads read on 13 October 2026, searched by vendor name. Scores and dates are the comment's own. Nothing here is the only source for a price or a limit on this site: every figure in the tables above comes from a vendor's own page. What practitioners say ## What practitioners say about Clay Transcribed as written and linked to the thread. A Reddit claim is a signal rather than a fact, so nothing here is the only source for any figure on this page. ### Use it as a filter, not as a bulk provider > One thing I've seen with Clay is that it feels expensive when you use it like a bulk data provider, but much more reasonable when you use it as a filter first. I rarely enrich everything. I narrow the list with cheap signals and firmographics, then only run waterfall email/phone on leads that actually look worth it. That shift alone cut my credit usage a lot, and the outreach quality went up because fewer bad leads made it through. At that point you're paying for decisions, not just data. [r/gtmengineering](https://www.reddit.com/r/gtmengineering/comments/1q592xw/what_are_the_best_alternatives_to_clay_that_are/) · January 2026 · 16 points This is the argument the pricing section makes, arrived at from the other direction. The lever that moves a Clay bill is not the rate, it is how many rows ever reach the expensive step. Narrowing on firmographics first costs almost nothing and keeps the paid enrichments for rows worth contacting. It also explains why a team that thinks it wants to leave Clay often does not need to. The complaint is usually the spend, and the fix is usually an ordering change rather than a migration. 14 threads read on 13 October 2026, searched by vendor name. Scores and dates are the comment's own. Nothing here is the only source for a price or a limit on this site: every figure in the tables above comes from a vendor's own page. Verdict ## Should you actually switch? HubSpot is hard to beat on the way in and easy to beat on one axis at a time, so decide which axis. If it is the data model, Attio is the upgrade and it is cheaper. If it is the price of a suite you half use, Pipedrive at $14 a seat is the honest downgrade. If it is that the company has genuinely outgrown an opinionated CRM, Salesforce is the answer and you should price API access at $125 a seat before committing. One thing worth keeping in view: no competitor here matches HubSpot's free tier for API access, so if the integration is still being proved, leaving early costs you the cheapest place to prove it. Before you migrate anything A CRM migration is a data-model migration, so test that rather than the API. Build your three most awkward objects in the replacement, using one free tier and one trial, then point one real integration at it and see what it has to invent. Count the reports and automations still pointing at the old system before you commit to a date: that number, not the seat price, is what decides whether this is worth doing. Keep going ## Head to head, and in a stack [HubSpot API vs Attio API Compare A free CRM API against a CRM whose data model you define in code. Compare them →](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/compare/hubspot-vs-attio) [HubSpot API vs Salesforce Compare A CRM that gives the API away against one that sells it by the seat. Compare them →](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/compare/hubspot-vs-salesforce) [HubSpot API vs Pipedrive Compare A free tier with a per-second rate limit against a $14 seat with a daily token budget. Compare them →](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/compare/hubspot-vs-pipedrive) [Inbound speed to lead Stack Form submission to enriched, verified, routed and sequenced in under a minute, with no human in the path. See the stack →](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/stacks/speed-to-lead) [All alternatives 29 Every provider in the directory that teams regularly try to replace, with the reasons and the replacements for each. Browse the hub →](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/alternatives) ## Switching costs more than the rate card says. *Usually.* Three times out of four the fix is a second provider behind the first and a credit ceiling in front of it, not a migration. We will tell you which case you are in before you sign anything. [Book a call](https://book.frontal.so) [See all alternatives](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis/alternatives) Worked with 300+ companies. A senior operator runs your account. FAQ ## Switching from HubSpot, answered **What is the best HubSpot alternative?** It depends on why you are leaving, which is how this page is organized rather than ranked. The replacement most teams land on is Attio, which this directory lists as the best API-first CRM, at $44/user/mo. The case for it, and what you give up, is in the section above. **Is there a free alternative to HubSpot?** Attio (Free plan with full API access, 100 seat credits a month) and Clay (Free plan, 500 actions and 100 data credits per month). **What is the cheapest HubSpot competitor?** On the entry plan, Pipedrive: US$14/seat/mo, against HubSpot at free. Entry price is not the same as cost per result, so check the unit figure on each review before deciding. **How were these competitors chosen?** By the reason teams leave, not by a score. The page opens with the reasons teams leave and matches a replacement to each one. Published by ## [Frontal](https://frontal.so/) Frontal is the go-to-market partner for B2B tech companies past product-market fit. It publishes this directory. Every price, tier requirement and rate limit on this page was read from the vendor's own pricing page, developer documentation or knowledge base on the date below. Nothing on it is restated from a press release or a third-party listing. Frontal is a HubSpot Solutions Partner, a Salesforce Partner and a Clay Elite Studio Partner. Where a vendor publishes no public figure, this page says so rather than estimating. [How we checked](https://frontal.so/gtm-apis#method). Reviewed by [Kenny Damian](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenny-damian-90aba221a/) Co-founder & Head of GTM, Frontal **Verified** 8 to 19 Oct 2026 **Sources** 14 vendor documents Read from - [hubspot.com/pricing](https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/crm) - [developers.hubspot.com/docs](https://developers.hubspot.com/docs/developer-tooling/platform/usage-guidelines) - [developers.hubspot.com/docs/api-reference](https://developers.hubspot.com/docs/api-reference/latest/overview) - [attio.com/pricing](https://attio.com/pricing) - [developers.attio.com/docs](https://developers.attio.com/docs/rate-limiting-and-timeouts) - [developers.attio.com](https://developers.attio.com/) - [pipedrive.com/en](https://www.pipedrive.com/en/pricing) - [developers.pipedrive.com/docs](https://developers.pipedrive.com/docs/api/v1/) - [developers.pipedrive.com/docs/api](https://developers.pipedrive.com/docs/api/v1) - [salesforce.com/sales](https://www.salesforce.com/sales/pricing/) - [developer.salesforce.com/docs](https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api_rest.meta/api_rest/intro_what_is_rest_api.htm) - [clay.com/pricing](https://www.clay.com/pricing) - [clay.com/university](https://www.clay.com/university) - [university.clay.com/docs](https://university.clay.com/docs)