Free tools
$0
Free
US$0. Up to 2 users, no credit card. API limit 100 requests per 10 seconds per app and 250,000 per day per account.
API included
Comparison
HubSpot vs Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM costs less per seat, from US$14 a user a month billed annually, and meters its API with daily credits shared across the org. HubSpot's Starter seat lists at US$20 a month, with per-second and per-day API limits and richer batch and association endpoints. Both have a free plan, write 100 records per batch call and offer MCP: HubSpot as a hosted server, Zoho through its free Zoho MCP.
Pick HubSpot if
- You load data in bulk: batch upsert of 100 records per call, associations in batches of 2,000 and an Imports…
- You want a hosted MCP server you connect with OAuth, without configuring your own
Pick Zoho CRM if
- You want the lowest per-seat price: Standard at US$14 a user a month billed annually
- You need more free users: the Free edition covers 3 users
HubSpot
CRM
Zoho CRM
CRM
At a glance
HubSpot
- From
- US$20/seat/moStarter list
- Free plan
- YesFree tools for 2 users, 1,000 contacts
- Pricing model
- Per seat
- MCP server
- Official
Zoho CRM
- From
- US$20/user/moStandard monthly, US$14 annual
- Free plan
- YesFree for 3 users, 5,000 records
- Pricing model
- Per seat
- MCP server
- YesPartial: self-configured in Zoho console
Where they differ
13 points side by side. Open a value for the full detail.
| What | HubSpot | Zoho CRM |
|---|---|---|
| CRM platform with date-versioned REST APIA CRM platform for small and mid-sized teams: contacts, companies, deals, tickets and custom objects behind a date-versioned REST API. | Low-cost customisable CRM, REST API v8A low-cost, highly customisable CRM with REST API v8, COQL queries, GraphQL, Bulk Read and Write jobs and notification channels. | |
| Starter US$20/seat/mo listPer seat, US prices. Sales Hub Starter lists at US$20 a month on monthly or annual billing; a limited-time new-customer offer made it US$10 monthly or US$7 a month billed annually on 25 Oct 2026. Prices are set by location. Verified 2026-10-25. | Standard US$20/user/mo monthly, US$14 annualPer user, US price column. Standard is US$14 a user a month billed annually, or US$20 billed monthly. Zoho serves a different price column by visitor country. Verified 2026-10-25. | |
| Free tools for 2 users, 1,000 contactsFree tools for up to 2 users, no credit card. Free accounts are capped at 1,000 contacts. | Free for 3 users, 5,000 recordsFree edition for up to 3 users: 5,000 records, no custom fields and no webhooks, with 5,000 API credits a day. Signup asks for a mobile number verified by SMS. | |
| Every plan, including FreeEvery plan, including Free. Limits rise with the tier. | Every edition, including FreeEvery edition, including Free. The daily credit pool grows with edition and user count, and extra credits can be bought pay-as-you-go. | |
| OAuth or Service KeyOAuth for distributed apps. For one account, a Service Key (Settings > Integrations > Service Keys). Legacy private apps can no longer be created in existing accounts from 26 Oct 2026; existing tokens keep working. | OAuth 2.0 only, data-centre hostsOAuth 2.0 only: register a client, exchange a grant code for an access token (1 hour) and a refresh token. Tokens and API hosts are tied to your data centre (.com,.eu,.in and others). | |
| 100 per 10 seconds on Free, StarterFor privately distributed apps, per app per 10 seconds: 100 on Free and Starter, 190 on Professional and Enterprise. Per account per day: 250,000 on Free and Starter and 1,000,000 on Enterprise (for Professional, HubSpot's developer docs and its product catalog give different figures). Search allows 5 requests a second. | Daily credits; Free 5,000 a dayCredits over a rolling 24 hours, plus a cap on concurrent calls; no per-minute limit. Free gets 5,000 credits a day; Standard gets 50,000 plus 250 per user (up to 100,000) and Ultimate 50,000 plus 2,000 per user; for Professional and Enterprise, Zoho's API docs and its edition comparison page give different figures. Most calls cost 1 credit; writes cost 1 credit per 10 records. | |
| 100 per batch call, Imports APIBatch create, update and upsert of 100 records per call. Associations in batches of 2,000. Imports API up to 80,000,000 rows a day. | 100 per call; Bulk Write 25,000 per jobInsert, update or upsert up to 100 records per call. Bulk Write takes a zipped CSV of up to 25,000 records per job and costs 500 credits per job, even if it fails. | |
| Contacts dedupe on email; companies notContacts dedupe on email. Companies created through the API, including by sync apps, are not deduplicated by domain. | Upsert on duplicate-check fieldsUpsert matches on duplicate-check fields. The search API's equals operator behaves like contains, so it is not an exact dedupe check; use upsert or COQL. | |
| 1,000 subscriptions per app, 10 retriesApp webhooks: up to 1,000 subscriptions per app, retried up to 10 times over 24 hours. For webhook actions in workflows, the usage guidelines name Marketing Hub Enterprise. | Workflow webhooks from ProfessionalWorkflow webhook actions from Professional, capped per day by edition (50,000 on Professional). Notification channels send create, edit and delete events and expire after one hour unless set longer, up to one week. | |
YesOfficial remote MCP server at https://mcp.hubspot.com with OAuth. It reads and writes contacts, companies, deals and tickets. | Partial: self-configured in Zoho consoleZoho MCP: you configure your own server in Zoho's MCP console with OAuth. It costs nothing extra; each CRM action uses your existing API quota. | |
| Clay, Zapier, n8n, Make, marketplaceClay, Zapier, n8n and Make, plus HubSpot's own app marketplace. | Zapier, Make, n8n, official SDKsZapier, Make and n8n. Official SDKs in PHP, Node.js, Java, C#, Python, Ruby, TypeScript and Scala. | |
| SOC 1, 2 Type II, 3SOC 2 Type II, SOC 3 and SOC 1, with GDPR and CCPA support, per its trust and security pages. | SOC 2 Type 2, ISO/IEC 27001Zoho-wide: SOC 2 Type 2, ISO/IEC 27001, GDPR and CCPA, per Zoho's compliance page. | |
| Free start, bulk-friendly APIs, hosted MCPTeams that want a free start, bulk-friendly APIs with associations and imports, and a hosted MCP. | Cost-sensitive teams needing an APICost-sensitive teams that still need an API, batch writes and SQL-like reads, and can handle OAuth refresh tokens. |
No row matches in this view.
Pricing, plan by plan
US dollars as each vendor's page showed them on 25 Oct 2026. One panel per tool; switch each between monthly and annual billing (an annual price is the monthly rate when you pay for the year up front).
HubSpot
4 plans · API reviewSales Hub Starter
$20/mo
billed monthly
$20/mo
billed annually
Per seat, US list price US$20 a month on monthly or annual billing.
API included
Plan details
A limited-time new-customer offer on 25 Oct 2026: US$10 a month on monthly billing, or US$7 a month billed annually. 500 HubSpot Credits.
Sales Hub Professional
$100/mo
billed monthly
$90/mo
billed annually
Per seat, US price: US$100 a month paid monthly (still a one-year commitment), or US$90 a month billed annually.
API included
Plan details
Required one-time onboarding US$1,500. 3,000 HubSpot Credits. API limit 190 per 10 seconds.
Sales Hub Enterprise
$150/mo
annual billing only
$150/mo
billed annually
Per seat, US price: US$150 a month billed annually, bought through sales.
API included
Plan details
Required one-time onboarding US$3,500. 5,000 HubSpot Credits. API limit 190 per 10 seconds and 1,000,000 per day.
Zoho CRM
5 plans · API reviewFree
$0
Free
US$0 for up to 3 users.
API included
Plan details
5,000 records, no custom fields, no webhooks, 5,000 API credits a day.
Standard
$20/mo
billed monthly
$14/mo
billed annually
Per user: US$20 a month billed monthly, or US$14 a month billed annually (US column).
API included
Plan details
10 custom fields per module, no webhooks. API credits 50,000 plus 250 per user a day.
Professional
$35/mo
billed monthly
$23/mo
billed annually
Per user: US$35 a month billed monthly, or US$23 a month billed annually.
API included
Plan details
Webhook actions up to 50,000 a day or 100 per user licence a day. Daily API credits: Zoho's API docs and its edition comparison page give different figures.
Enterprise
$50/mo
billed monthly
$40/mo
billed annually
Per user: US$50 a month billed monthly, or US$40 a month billed annually.
API included
Plan details
Webhooks up to 500,000 a day. Daily API credits: Zoho's API docs and its edition comparison page give different figures.
Show all 5 plansShow fewer plans
Ultimate
$65/mo
billed monthly
$52/mo
billed annually
Per user: US$65 a month billed monthly, or US$52 a month billed annually.
API included
Plan details
Webhooks up to 1,000,000 a day. API credits 50,000 plus 2,000 per user a day.
Which one to pick
Choose HubSpot if
- You load data in bulk: batch upsert of 100 records per call, associations in batches of 2,000 and an Imports API for millions of rows a day.
- You want a hosted MCP server you connect with OAuth, without configuring your own.
- You want API limits counted per request rather than in daily credits, so a large write does not drain a shared pool.
- You plan to start free with 2 users and grow into Starter at US$20 a seat a month list.
Choose Zoho CRM if
- You want the lowest per-seat price: Standard at US$14 a user a month billed annually.
- You need more free users: the Free edition covers 3 users.
- You query across records with SQL-like COQL, or load 25,000-record CSV files through Bulk Write.
- You want webhook actions from Professional at US$23 a user a month billed annually.
If neither fits: Both store the records you already have. If the real job is getting emails for a list of people, find and verify them first, then load them into whichever CRM you pick.
How to find a person's work email addressWant us to build it for you?
Choosing between HubSpot and Zoho CRM, or moving from one to the other? Tell us your setup. We will show you how we would run it, and what we would check first.
Questions people ask
Is Zoho CRM cheaper than HubSpot?
On list prices, yes. Zoho CRM Standard is US$14 a user a month billed annually (US$20 monthly) and Professional US$23 (US$35). HubSpot Sales Hub Starter lists at US$20 a seat a month, with a limited-time new-customer offer of US$7 billed annually on 25 Oct 2026, and Professional is US$90 billed annually plus US$1,500 onboarding. Both set prices by location.
Which free CRM is better, HubSpot or Zoho?
It depends on the limit that binds first. HubSpot's free tools cover up to 2 users and 1,000 contacts. Zoho's Free edition covers up to 3 users and 5,000 records but has no custom fields and no webhooks. Both include API access.
How do the API limits compare?
HubSpot counts requests: 100 or 190 per 10 seconds per app, and 250,000 to 1,000,000 a day per account by tier. Zoho counts credits over a rolling 24 hours, from 5,000 on Free to 50,000 plus 250 per user on Standard (Zoho's own pages differ on the figures for Professional and Enterprise), with a cap on concurrent calls. In Zoho a write of 10 records costs 1 credit and a Bulk Write job costs 500.
Do HubSpot and Zoho CRM work with Claude or ChatGPT through MCP?
Yes. HubSpot runs a hosted MCP server at https://mcp.hubspot.com that signs in with OAuth. Zoho offers Zoho MCP, where you configure a server for your account; it has no separate price and each CRM action uses your existing API credits.
Which one prevents duplicate companies from API writes?
Not fully on either. HubSpot dedupes contacts on email but not API-created companies on domain. Zoho's upsert matches on duplicate-check fields, but its search equals operator behaves like contains, so check with upsert or COQL rather than search.
Related
Read from hubspot.com/pricing/sales, zohowebstatic.com/sites/zweb/json/pricing/crm-pricing… and each tool's API docs. Verified 25 Oct 2026.
