What HubSpot costs, what it does better, when to stay, and what moves if you go.
Full disclosure: Nexa is our own product, so we have skin in this. That is why this page leads with what HubSpot does better and when you should stay, lists what Nexa does not do, and takes HubSpot's price from HubSpot's own pricing page (linked below).
Bottom Line
HubSpot's cheapest plan that does the core job is $20/month — $240 a year, $720 over 3 years at today's price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, tasks and accounting in one suite, so it costs less than HubSpot after 14 months. What Nexa is not: software someone hosts for you with a support desk, and it does not run payroll. If HubSpot's strengths below are why you pay for it, stay.
Can it pay for itself?
Nexa is $279 once, about $23 a month over its first year. Its Drain Guard reads your expenses (from a linked bank, an imported statement, or ones you type in), finds the charges that repeat, and adds them up by the month. Keep or Cut then walks you through them one at a time. Cancel $23 a month of charges you'd forgotten about and Nexa has paid for itself inside the first year, before you count the HubSpot bill you'd stop paying.
It depends on what you find and what you cancel, so we don't promise a number. In our demo data, Drain Guard finds 5 subscriptions adding up to $110.13 a month. That is sample data, not a customer's.
What HubSpot Is Built For
HubSpot's CRM page presents the free CRM as aimed at startups and small businesses. Its FAQ also says CRM software suits companies of every size, from small businesses to large enterprises. (hubspot.com)
The free CRM has no expiration date and needs no credit card. The page lists 2 users and 1,000 contacts, with no limits on customer data. (hubspot.com)
The free CRM includes contact management, deal pipelines, deal and task management, email tracking and templates, meeting scheduling, live chat, sales quotes, and a reporting dashboard. (hubspot.com)
Paid tiers are priced per seat: Starter from $15/month, Professional from $50/month, and Enterprise from $75/month. Professional adds duplicate management, contact scoring, calculated properties, and custom reporting. Enterprise adds custom objects, single sign-on, and field-level permissions. (hubspot.com)
The HubSpot Marketplace has more than 2,000 apps. HubSpot lists two-way sync with apps such as Gmail, Slack, Mailchimp, Shopify, Google Ads, and Zapier. (hubspot.com)
The CRM includes the Breeze Assistant for research, call prep, and record summaries. It also has an AI email writer, an AI content writer, and a chatbot builder. (hubspot.com)
The CRM runs in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge with no download. It has iOS and Android mobile apps. User permissions control access to records, content, and tools. (hubspot.com)
What people outside HubSpot and outside Nexa say:
Praise (EmailToolTester): the reviewer likes the free version's "unlimited users and 1M contacts". They also praise the guided setup wizard and the quick dashboard chat support. They call HubSpot "one of the most complete AI-powered CRM toolsets for SMBs", though some advanced tools need higher tiers or HubSpot Credits. (emailtooltester.com)
Criticism (EmailToolTester): paid plans above Starter become expensive. The Marketing Professional plan is $890/month plus a $3,000 onboarding fee. Migration services start at $500. The free plan caps email at 2,000 sends per month and shows HubSpot branding. (emailtooltester.com)
Criticism (EmailToolTester): the reviewer calls email deliverability "surprisingly low" in their testing. They also want more design options for email and landing page templates. Lead scoring is limited to higher tiers, and the custom reporting add-on costs $200/month. (emailtooltester.com)
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Feature by Feature: Does Nexa Have It?
From HubSpot's own published feature list, each with whether Nexa has an equivalent:
Comprehensive CRM with sales pipeline Nexa has a CRM with a pipeline board, lead scoring, tags and notes (no street address field yet).
Marketing automation on Pro+ Nexa has email drip sequences and status-triggered workflows. They send while Nexa is open on one of your devices.
Extensive integrations Nexa has no app marketplace or integration library.
Strong reporting and analytics
Free CRM is genuinely useful Nexa has a CRM with a pipeline board, lead scoring, tags and notes (no street address field yet).
A free plan to start on (with limits), so you can use HubSpot before paying anything.
When to Stay on HubSpot
HubSpot's strengths above — comprehensive CRM with sales pipeline and marketing automation on Pro+ — are the reason you pay for it, and you like how HubSpot does them. Switching tools costs time; it is not worth it to save money on something that already works for you.
You have a team large enough that HubSpot's per-seat pricing still buys you more than owning the software outright.
You want software someone else hosts, with a support desk and a roadmap you can ask for features on. Nexa is software you own and run yourself.
You run payroll, with taxes and pay stubs, inside the same tool. Nexa stops at the edge of payroll: it hands your payroll app each person's hours, overtime and pay rate — keep a payroll service.
What Nexa Does Not Do
It does not run payroll. It stops at the edge: each person's hours, overtime and pay rate per pay period, as a sheet to type from or a CSV for your payroll app. Taxes, pay stubs and paying people stay there.
It is not hosted for you: your data lives on your device. Syncing across devices is optional Cloud Sync, $4.99/month.
Automated emails (drip sequences, booking reminders, review requests) send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices. There is no server sending them overnight.
No Google Calendar or QuickBooks sync. Calendars move by .ics file.
Invoices, jobs and your services list do not import. Clients, expenses, bank history, contacts and calendar do; the rest you re-enter once.
No vendor support desk or roadmap to lobby — you buy it once and own it.
Side by Side
✓ where HubSpot's published feature list shows it, ✗ where its record says it is missing, — where its list does not say.
HubSpot
Nexa
Invoicing
✗
✓
Scheduling
✗
✓
CRM
✓
✓
Time Tracking
—
✓
Full Accounting
—
✓ (SIMPL)
Task Management
—
✓
Works offline
—
✓
The Cost, and Where It Comes From
HubSpot: $20/month — the cheapest plan that does the core job, from HubSpot's pricing page, checked September 2026. That is $240 a year and $720 over 3 years if the price never changes. Nexa: $279 once. The break-even point is 14 months.
Over 3 years, at today's prices
Total
HubSpot, billed monthly, one seat
$720
Nexa, one device
$279
Nexa + Cloud Sync on all your devices
$458.64
Even with Cloud Sync, Nexa costs less over 3 years than HubSpot at today's price.
Extra users: Priced per seat: Starter $20/seat/mo monthly; Professional $100/seat/mo monthly ($90 annual); Enterprise $150/seat/mo (annual only).
Moving Your Data
These import into Nexa by file: clients and leads (CSV or Excel (.xlsx)); services and price list (CSV or Excel (.xlsx)); jobs (CSV or Excel (.xlsx)); open invoices (CSV or Excel (.xlsx)); open tasks (CSV or Excel (.xlsx)); time entries (CSV or Excel (.xlsx)); expenses (CSV or Excel (.xlsx)); bank and card transactions (CSV, OFX, QFX, QBO); personal contacts (CSV or vCard (.vcf) — the exports from Google Contacts, Outlook and iCloud); calendar events (.ics — the export from Google Calendar, Outlook, Apple Calendar, Calendly and most booking tools). Client addresses go in the Notes column for now. You re-enter once: recurring work, online booking. Past invoices and job history stay in HubSpot's export as your record.
Getting it out of HubSpot, per its own documentation:
Records can be exported as CSV, XLS, or XLSX. XLS is limited to 256 columns and XLSX to 16,384, and extra columns are dropped. HubSpot recommends CSV for wide exports because it has no column limit. (knowledge.hubspot.com)
By default, an export contains only the properties and associations in the current view. Under Customize you can export all properties, or all properties and associations. You can also include all email addresses and domains for multi-value records. Including all associated records works for CSV only. Each association column holds up to 1,000 associated record IDs. (knowledge.hubspot.com)
HubSpot emails a download link after you click Export, and the link expires after 30 days. Large exports can arrive as multiple files in a zip. CSV or XLSX files over 1,000,000 rows, and XLS files over 65,535 rows, are split. A user needs export permissions, and the limit is 300 exports per rolling 24 hours. (knowledge.hubspot.com)
Step-by-step for HubSpot, with where its export lives: HubSpot migration guide. Every import, with templates: Bring your data. Keep HubSpot running until Nexa checks out.
HubSpot vs Nexa, Trade by Trade
The same comparison worked through for specific trades, with a job example and the numbers for each:
At $20/month — the cheapest HubSpot plan that does the core job, per HubSpot's pricing page in September 2026 — it is $240 a year and $720 over 3 years at today's price. Nexa is $279 once.
When should I stay on HubSpot?
HubSpot's strengths above — comprehensive CRM with sales pipeline and marketing automation on Pro+ — are the reason you pay for it, and you like how HubSpot does them. Switching tools costs time; it is not worth it to save money on something that already works for you. You have a team large enough that HubSpot's per-seat pricing still buys you more than owning the software outright. You want software someone else hosts, with a support desk and a roadmap you can ask for features on. Nexa is software you own and run yourself. You run payroll, with taxes and pay stubs, inside the same tool. Nexa stops at the edge of payroll: it hands your payroll app each person's hours, overtime and pay rate — keep a payroll service.
Can I bring my HubSpot data to Nexa?
Partly. Your client list (CSV), expenses (CSV), bank and card history (CSV, OFX, QFX, QBO), contacts and calendar (.ics) import by file. Invoices, jobs and services do not — re-enter the open ones and keep HubSpot's export as your record.
What does Nexa not do?
It does not run payroll. It stops at the edge: each person's hours, overtime and pay rate per pay period, as a sheet to type from or a CSV for your payroll app. Taxes, pay stubs and paying people stay there. It is not hosted for you: your data lives on your device. Syncing across devices is optional Cloud Sync, $4.99/month. Automated emails (drip sequences, booking reminders, review requests) send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices. There is no server sending them overnight. No Google Calendar or QuickBooks sync. Calendars move by .ics file. Invoices, jobs and your services list do not import. Clients, expenses, bank history, contacts and calendar do; the rest you re-enter once. No vendor support desk or roadmap to lobby — you buy it once and own it.
What if Nexa does not work for me?
30-day money-back guarantee. Export from HubSpot first and keep it running while you try Nexa.