For most small businesses that run on leads, calls, texts and booked appointments, GoHighLevel gives you more tools for the money, starting at $97 a month for unlimited users plus usage fees for SMS and calls. HubSpot suits businesses that want a polished, easy-to-learn CRM that grows in steps, starting free and then from about $7 to $20 per seat a month on Starter, with Professional tiers running into hundreds of dollars a month plus onboarding fees. The right answer depends less on features and more on how you sell, who will run the system and how many people need a login.
What is the difference between GoHighLevel and HubSpot?
GoHighLevel (often shortened to HighLevel or GHL) is an all-in-one platform built with marketing agencies in mind. One account can hold several sub-accounts, each one a separate business with its own CRM, calendars, website, funnels and messaging. Many small businesses use it directly as a single sub-account.
HubSpot is a customer platform made of separate hubs, such as Marketing Hub and Sales Hub, sold in Free, Starter, Professional and Enterprise editions. You add hubs and seats as you need them, and the free CRM sits underneath everything.
Put simply, GoHighLevel bundles a lot into one flat subscription and charges for usage on top. HubSpot starts small and charges more as you add people, contacts and advanced features.
GoHighLevel vs HubSpot pricing in 2026
GoHighLevel plans
- Starter: $97 a month or $970 a year. Up to 3 sub-accounts, unlimited users and all core features.
- Unlimited: $297 a month or $2,970 a year. Unlimited sub-accounts, unlimited users, the ability to rebill phone and email costs at no markup and basic API access.
- Agency Pro: $497 a month or $4,970 a year. Adds SaaS mode, automated sub-account creation, rebilling with markup and advanced API access.
- Enterprise: custom pricing, with dedicated account management and HIPAA compliance listed.
- All plans come with a 14-day free trial, and billing starts automatically when it ends unless you cancel.
Email and SMS marketing, calling, Conversation AI, Voice AI and Reviews AI are marked as usage-based. GoHighLevel's phone billing guide lists US SMS at $0.00747 per segment for both outbound and inbound messages, a local number at $1.15 a month and outbound US calls at about $0.0166 a minute. These costs come out of a prepaid wallet that tops itself up when it falls below a threshold you set.
HubSpot plans
- Free: $0 for up to 2 users and 1,000 contacts, with HubSpot branding on emails, forms and meeting links.
- Starter (Customer Platform, Sales Hub or Marketing Hub): listed at $20 per seat a month, with a limited-time offer for new customers from $7 per seat a month at the time of writing.
- Sales Hub Professional: $90 per seat a month billed annually, or $100 monthly, plus a one-time $1,500 onboarding fee.
- Marketing Hub Professional: $800 a month billed annually, or $890 monthly, with 3 core seats and 2,000 marketing contacts, plus a one-time $3,000 onboarding fee.
- Marketing Hub Enterprise: from $3,600 a month with 5 core seats and 10,000 marketing contacts, plus a $7,000 onboarding fee.
HubSpot's costs climb with seats and with marketing contacts, because your email send limit is a multiple of your contact tier. A small sales team on Starter can be very cheap. A team that needs advanced marketing automation can quickly cost more per year than GoHighLevel's top public plan.
How do the features compare for a small business?
GoHighLevel bundles pipelines, workflow automation, email, SMS and booking calendars on every plan, with messages charged per use. HubSpot Starter covers pipelines, up to 50 workflows and marketing email, but SMS needs an add-on or a higher tier, and fully customizable workflows need Sales Hub Professional. Here is how they compare feature by feature.
Pipelines and deal tracking
GoHighLevel lists CRM and pipelines as a core feature on every plan. Its help centre describes a simple structure of contacts, opportunities, pipelines and stages, and you can run several pipelines with custom stages such as New Lead, Booked Call or No Show.
HubSpot Starter allows up to 15 pipelines per account across object types. Sales Hub Professional raises that to 100 and Enterprise to 350. For most small businesses, the Starter limit is enough.
Automation and workflows
GoHighLevel includes workflow automation on every plan. Workflows can start from triggers such as a form submission, a booked appointment, a payment, a call status or a Facebook lead form, and then create or move opportunities, send messages and tag contacts.
HubSpot Starter includes up to 50 workflows, with restricted triggers and actions. Fully customisable workflows (up to 300) and sales sequences arrive with Sales Hub Professional. If automation is the main reason you want a CRM, check which HubSpot tier you would actually need before comparing prices.
Email and SMS marketing
GoHighLevel bundles email and SMS marketing into the core platform and charges per message through the wallet. Texting is built into the same conversations inbox as email, chat and social messages.
HubSpot includes marketing email in Starter, with monthly sends set at 5 times your marketing contact tier, 10 times on Professional and 20 times on Enterprise. SMS is a different story. HubSpot's knowledge base says SMS requires a Marketing SMS add-on or Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise, and recipients must have US phone numbers. If you sell in the UK, Canada or the GCC and rely on texting, that is a real limitation to check.
Booking and appointments
GoHighLevel includes booking calendars on all plans, and a booked appointment can trigger a workflow, which makes it popular with clinics, salons, trades and consultants.
HubSpot Free gives you one personal meetings link with HubSpot branding. Starter raises that to 1,000 personal and team meeting links and removes the branding.
Reporting and dashboards
GoHighLevel lists custom dashboards and reporting as a core feature. HubSpot Free includes 10 dashboards, Starter includes 30, and Sales Hub Professional adds up to 100 custom reports plus forecasting. If you need detailed sales forecasting or multi-touch reporting, HubSpot's paid tiers are stronger and more mature here.
Everything else in the box
GoHighLevel also lists a website and funnel builder, social media planning, reputation management, payments and invoicing, courses, communities and a mobile app on its core plan. HubSpot offers similar tools across its hubs, but many sit in separate products or higher tiers. If you want to replace several small subscriptions with one, GoHighLevel has the edge on breadth.
GoHighLevel vs HubSpot: side-by-side summary
- Starting price: GoHighLevel from $97 a month with unlimited users. HubSpot free, then Starter at $20 per seat a month list price (promotions from $7).
- Pricing model: GoHighLevel is flat plus usage fees for SMS, calls and AI. HubSpot is per seat plus contact tiers, with onboarding fees on Professional and Enterprise.
- Pipelines: both included. HubSpot Starter caps at 15 pipelines.
- Automation: included on every GoHighLevel plan. HubSpot Starter is limited, with full workflows on Professional.
- SMS: built into GoHighLevel. On HubSpot it needs an add-on or Marketing Hub Professional, for US numbers.
- Booking: GoHighLevel booking calendars on all plans. HubSpot meeting links from the free plan.
- Ease of use: HubSpot is generally easier for a non-technical team to pick up. GoHighLevel does more but needs more setup.
- Best fit: GoHighLevel for lead-driven local and service businesses and agencies. HubSpot for B2B sales teams and content-led marketing.
Which should you choose?
Choose GoHighLevel if your business runs on calls, texts, forms and booked appointments and you want CRM, booking, SMS and funnels in one place. Choose HubSpot if you have a B2B or longer sales cycle, want something a new team member can learn quickly, and care more about email and inbound marketing than texting.
Choose GoHighLevel if
- You get most of your business from calls, texts, forms and booked appointments.
- You want CRM, booking, SMS, a website or funnels, and review requests in one place.
- Several people need logins and per-seat pricing would add up fast.
- You are comfortable with usage-based costs for messages and calls, and will watch the wallet.
- You, or a partner, will spend time setting up and maintaining workflows.
Choose HubSpot if
- You run a B2B or longer sales cycle with deals, quotes and follow-up sequences.
- You want something a new team member can learn quickly with little setup.
- Email, content and inbound marketing matter more to you than texting.
- You want to start free and only pay as the team grows.
- You need strong reporting and forecasting and can budget for Professional tiers and onboarding fees.
What does it cost to switch from HubSpot to GoHighLevel, or back?
Switching between HubSpot and GoHighLevel costs more in time than in subscriptions. GoHighLevel's HubSpot import brings over contacts, companies, deals, pipelines, notes, tasks and custom fields, with some limits. Automations, email templates, forms, calendars and reports have to be rebuilt by hand, and your team needs retraining. The subscription is only part of the cost.
GoHighLevel offers a direct HubSpot import that can bring over contacts, companies, deals as opportunities, pipelines and stages, notes, tasks and custom fields. Its own help article lists limits: deals without an associated contact cannot be imported, recurring tasks are not supported, calculated fields become plain text and some associations may not come across. It recommends testing in a separate location first.
What does not migrate is just as important. You will need to rebuild automations, email templates, forms, calendars and reports by hand on either platform. Plan for these costs:
- Data clean-up and a test import before the real one.
- Rebuilding workflows, templates, forms and booking pages.
- Reconnecting phone numbers, email domains, ad accounts and payment tools.
- Training staff and running both systems side by side for a short period.
- HubSpot onboarding fees if you move up to Professional or Enterprise.
- Annual contracts: check your renewal date so you are not paying for two systems.
A good rule is to move in stages. Migrate contacts and pipelines first, rebuild your most important one or two automations, and only then cancel the old system.
Where Sygze fits
Sygze works with small and growing businesses in the US, UK, Canada and the GCC, and CRM and automation work is quoted per project after a free audit or a short call. That can cover choosing between platforms like these, setting up pipelines and workflows, or planning a migration.
If you also want ongoing marketing feeding the CRM, the Growth Engine package at $1,899 a month includes Google and Meta ads management, SEO fixes and content across 3 platforms, with ad spend always paid directly to Meta or Google. See the packages page for the full details.
Frequently asked questions
Is GoHighLevel cheaper than HubSpot?
Usually, once you have more than a few users or need automation and SMS. GoHighLevel starts at $97 a month with unlimited users, while HubSpot charges per seat and its Professional tiers add onboarding fees. For a one or two person team with simple needs, HubSpot Free or Starter can cost less.
Can I use GoHighLevel if I am not an agency?
Yes. The Starter plan includes up to 3 sub-accounts, so a single business can run on one of them. Agency features like SaaS mode and rebilling with markup are only on higher plans and you do not need them.
Does HubSpot include SMS marketing?
Not on Free or Starter by default. HubSpot's knowledge base says SMS needs a Marketing SMS add-on or Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise, and messages can only go to US phone numbers. If texting customers outside the US matters, check this carefully before you commit.
Can I move my data from HubSpot to GoHighLevel?
Yes. GoHighLevel has a built-in HubSpot import for contacts, companies, deals, pipelines, notes, tasks and custom fields. Automations, templates and reports do not transfer, so plan time to rebuild them and test the import in a separate location first.
Which is easier to learn?
HubSpot is generally the easier of the two for a team new to CRMs, because each hub is focused and the free tools are simple. GoHighLevel packs in far more, which means more setup and a steeper start, but less need for extra tools later.
If you would like a second opinion on which CRM fits your business, message Sygze on WhatsApp for a free 10-minute audit.
Sources
- HighLevel: Pricing
- HighLevel Help: LC Phone Pricing & Billing Guide
- HighLevel Help: Getting Started - Setup Pipelines and Opportunities
- HighLevel Help: Import data from HubSpot
- HubSpot: Starter Customer Platform
- HubSpot: CRM pricing (Free and Starter)
- HubSpot: Sales Hub pricing
- HubSpot: Marketing Hub pricing
- HubSpot Knowledge Base: Create and send SMS messages
