HubSpot's free CRM is a great front door, but the automation you actually want lives in the Pro tiers at roughly $90/user. BackOffice gives you the full marketing stack — email, SMS, WhatsApp, social and paid ads with visual journeys — plus your whole back office: CRM, helpdesk, projects, invoicing and accounting, for $29/user on one workspace.
This isn't marketing-versus-operations: BackOffice runs full omni-channel marketing itself — email, SMS, WhatsApp, social and paid ads with visual journeys and one analytics dashboard — and the rest of your business. HubSpot's edge is the depth and maturity of its inbound-marketing suite and ecosystem; BackOffice's edge is getting that marketing stack plus CRM, helpdesk, invoicing and accounting on one bill at $29/user/mo instead of HubSpot Pro's ~$90/user, with no contact-based pricing.
HubSpot's useful automation sits in the Professional tiers (~$90/user/mo, scaling with contacts). BackOffice Team is $29/user/mo flat. Here is what each includes as standard.
| Capability | BackOffice | HubSpot |
|---|---|---|
| Price where automation is usable | $29 · flat | ~$90 · Pro |
| Contact-based pricing surcharges | ✓ None | — Scales with contacts |
| CRM & sales pipeline | ✓ Standard | ✓ Core product |
| Multichannel campaigns (email · SMS · WhatsApp · social · ads) | ✓ Native | Email-first + add-ons |
| Visual journeys & audience segmentation | ✓ Standard | ✓ Deep |
| Landing pages, funnels & Google Ads | ✓ Standard | Landing pages; ads separate |
| Inbound depth (lead scoring, attribution, SEO/content) | Core | ✓ Best-in-class |
| Helpdesk & tickets | ✓ Standard | Service Hub (extra) |
| Projects & custom ops entities | ✓ Standard | — Not built for it |
| Public forms with conditional logic | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| Multi-tenant (one workspace per client) | ✓ Standard | — Not built for it |
| AI builds a workspace from a prompt | ✓ Standard | AI assistants (add-on) |
| Per-tenant Postgres isolation | ✓ Standard | Shared multitenant |
| MCP server (connect Claude / ChatGPT to your data) | ✓ Standard | — Not built for it |
| Typed API + webhooks on every write | ✓ Standard | API (tier limits) |
| The rest of the platform — accounting, POS, invoicing, calls, scheduling, e-sign, AI agents… | ✓ All included | — Separate tools |
HubSpot stops at marketing and CRM. The same $29 seat also runs all of this:
One login, one database, one bill — every app above is part of the same $29 seat, not an add-on.
An honest split — pick the tool that matches the work you actually do.
Teams on HubSpot Pro still bolt on a helpdesk, a projects tool and forms. BackOffice replaces the stack with one predictable bill.
BackOffice runs full omni-channel campaigns itself — email, SMS, WhatsApp, social and paid ads with visual journeys — so this isn't a marketing-versus-operations choice. Choose HubSpot if you're a dedicated marketing team that wants the deepest, most mature inbound suite — advanced lead scoring, attribution, content and SEO tooling — and its large ecosystem. Choose BackOffice if you want that marketing stack and the rest of your business — CRM, helpdesk, invoicing, accounting, inventory — on one bill.
Yes, for teams that want a CRM and real operations software rather than a marketing suite. HubSpot's free CRM is generous, but the Pro tiers where the useful automation lives run around $90/user. BackOffice gives you CRM, helpdesk, projects, forms and custom ops on one workspace at $29/user.
HubSpot's Professional tiers are roughly $90/user/mo, and costs scale with marketing contacts. BackOffice is $29/user/mo flat with no contact-based pricing, covering CRM plus the rest of your back office.
Yes. BackOffice includes Omni Marketing — email, SMS, WhatsApp, organic social and paid ads, a visual campaign/journey builder, audiences segmented from your own data, and one cross-channel analytics dashboard — plus landing pages and Google Ads. HubSpot still leads on the depth and maturity of inbound-specific tooling (advanced lead scoring, attribution, content and SEO) and its ecosystem.
Yes. Export your HubSpot contacts, companies and deals to CSV and BackOffice AI ingests them, matching columns to entity fields and asking about anything ambiguous, so your pipeline lands as structured records.
Describe your business, let the AI build your CRM and ops, invite your team. Free for 3 users — no credit card, no contact-based pricing.
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