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Jira vs Monday.com: Software Tracker or Work OS? Prices, Limits and When to Switch

Retailbox Automation — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 07:54:48 +0000

By Mikhail Oskola, founder of Retailbox Automation.

Checked: prices, storage and item limits, automation quotas, the Jira integration and import options on 21 October 2026, against Atlassian's and monday.com's own pricing pages and help centers, in USD.

Pick Jira for software teams running sprints, and Monday.com for cross-functional, content and client work. That's our short answer to Monday.com vs Jira. For 15 people, Jira Standard costs $1,450 a year and monday dev Standard $2,160, both billed annually. Jira's price per user changes with team size. Checked 21 October 2026.

Jira vs Monday.com at a glance

Jira Cloud is free for up to 10 users, then billed per user at a rate that depends on team size: $9.70 a user a month on Standard for a 15-person team, billed monthly. monday dev, monday's product for software teams, has no free plan and starts at $9 a seat a month billed annually, with a 3-seat minimum. Checked 21 October 2026.

Every row comes from the vendors' own pricing pages and help centers, in USD. Jira here means Jira Cloud. On the monday side we compare monday dev, the product monday sells against Jira, and show monday work management where its prices differ. We don't use either vendor's comparison page as a source about the rival; what those get wrong is in the last section.

	Jira (Cloud)	monday dev
What it is	Work items moving through a workflow, in spaces. Atlassian sells it as "Project Management for the AI Era" for every team, from marketing to engineering	Boards of items with sprints, epics and releases, built on monday's platform. monday calls it "Agile software management"
Free plan	Up to 10 users, 2 GB of storage	None, only a 14-day trial. monday work management has a free plan for up to 2 seats
Entry price	Standard: $9.70 per user a month billed monthly for 15 users, or $1,450 a year for 11 to 15 users billed annually	Basic: $9 per seat a month billed annually, $12 billed monthly
Who you pay for	Each user. Monthly bills follow your exact user count; annual plans bill by user tier	Each seat, from 3 seats, sold in sizes of 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 100 and 200+
Automation quota	Steps a month: 150 per subscription on Free, then 400, 750 or 1,000 per user, pooled across the organization	Actions a month per account: none on Basic, 250 on Standard, 25,000 on Pro, 250,000 on Enterprise
Storage	2 GB on Free, 250 GB on Standard, unlimited on Premium and Enterprise	5 GB on Basic, 20 GB on Standard, 100 GB on Pro, 1,000 GB on Enterprise
Item limits	"Unlimited work items". No per-space cap stated	Unlimited per account, but 10,000 items per board, or 100,000 on Enterprise
Jira and monday together	Imports a monday board directly	Jira Cloud integration, one way or both ways per field, from the Standard plan
Server and Data Center	Server support ended 15 February 2024. Data Center turns read-only on 28 March 2029	monday lists separate integration apps for Jira Server and Data Center

Is Monday.com a real alternative to Jira?

For cross-functional work, yes. For an engineering team that lives in sprints, only partly. monday dev has sprints and a two-way GitHub sync from its Standard plan, and epics, subtasks and agile reporting on Pro. But it has no importer for Jira Cloud, while Jira imports monday boards directly. Checked 21 October 2026.

Jira starts from the work item. Each item has a type, moves through statuses along a workflow, and sits in a space. Atlassian doesn't pitch it as a developer-only tool: the menu lists marketing, engineering, design, operations and IT, and the comparison page says it's "built for every team". In our own work it's strongest where a software team ships in sprints.

monday dev starts from the board: rows are items with columns, plus sprints, a backlog, releases and story points. monday's FAQ says it is "adopted as a full replacement" for legacy issue tools. Read the migration section below before you count on that.

monday work management, sold "for projects & tasks", has no sprints. When someone asks for monday, check which product they mean.

Our position is on our own Monday.com implementation page: sprint-level dev tooling belongs in Jira or Linear, not Monday. Where monday wins is everything around the engineers: content, marketing, operations, client delivery, and the roadmap other teams need to see.

How much do Jira and Monday.com cost?

For 15 users, Jira Standard costs $9.70 a user a month billed monthly, or $1,450 a year billed annually. monday dev Basic costs $9 a seat a month billed annually, $12 billed monthly, from 3 seats. Jira bills per user at a rate that drops as the team grows, and the same page shows $8.48 at 300 users. A Jira price quoted without a team size, such as $7.53 or $7.91, matches neither. Both pricing pages read on 21 October 2026.

The $8.48 Standard and $15.56 Premium prices you see first are the page's default of 300 users. The $7.53 comes from monday's comparison blog and the $7.91 from AI answers; neither says which team size it belongs to. The table below uses 15 users.

Annual Jira billing isn't per user at all. It's a flat price for a user tier: "we'll charge you for the tier that most closely matches your user count". For 11 to 15 users that's $1,450 a year on Standard and $2,950 on Premium. Jira Enterprise is sold only on annual plans, from 801 users.

monday dev and monday work management share their Basic prices but not the rest: Standard is $14.50 vs $14 billed monthly, and Pro is $25 vs $24 billed monthly ($20 vs $19 billed annually). monday work management's annual Standard $12 and Pro $19 are a "Special offer" on its pricing page, $20 and $30 off the monthly bill; at the page's default 10 seats the regular annual prices are $14 and $22. monday dev's prices carry no offer. monday's plans "start from 3 users", and its prices "do not include tax". Atlassian's pricing page doesn't mention tax.

The tiers don't line up one to one, so the table pairs them by their place in each price list. That pairing is ours, not either vendor's.

Sources: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/pricing and https://monday.com/pricing, both read on 21 October 2026. monday's prices re-checked on 28 October 2026 on https://monday.com/pricing and https://monday.com/dev/pricing.

Tier (our pairing)	Jira, 15 users (per user a month billed monthly / per year billed annually)	monday dev, per seat a month (annual / monthly billing)	monday work management, per seat a month (annual / monthly billing)
Free	Free: up to 10 users	No free plan	Free: up to 2 seats
Entry	Standard: $9.70 / $1,450	Basic: $9 / $12	Basic: $9 / $12
Middle	Premium: $19.60 / $2,950	Standard: $12 / $14.50	Standard: $12 special offer, regular $14 / $14
Upper	Enterprise: annual only, 801+ users, price on request	Pro: $20 / $25	Pro: $19 special offer, regular $22 / $24
Top	No match	Enterprise: price on request	Enterprise: price on request

What does a 15-person team pay in a year?

Jira costs less for 15 people at every pairing we checked. On the plans a team that needs sprints and automations would compare, Jira Standard is $1,450 a year and monday dev Standard is $2,160, both billed annually. This is our arithmetic at list price, before tax, Marketplace apps, AI credits and setup work, with prices checked on 21 October 2026. monday work management's annual Standard and Pro totals are at its current special offer, re-checked on 28 October 2026; for 15 seats its pricing page shows regular totals of $200 and $315 a month, and Jira costs less at those too.

Why 15: monday sells seats in fixed sizes and 15 is one of them, so a 12-person team pays for 15. Jira bills monthly plans by exact user count and annual plans by tier, and 11 to 15 is one tier. Neither free plan fits: Jira Free stops at 10 users, monday work management Free at 2 seats.

Which monday plan to compare matters more than the price per seat. monday Basic lists no automations and no Jira integration, and monday dev puts sprints on Standard. So the fair match for Jira Standard is monday Standard, not Basic.

Neither price list covers the setup. What that work costs is broken down in what an AI automation agency costs.

15 users, 12 months	Jira	monday dev	monday work management
Cheapest paid plan, billed annually	Standard: $1,450	Basic: $1,620	Basic: $1,620
Cheapest paid plan, billed monthly	Standard: $1,746	Basic: $2,160	Basic: $2,160
With sprints and automations, billed annually	Standard: $1,450	Standard: $2,160	Standard: $2,160 special offer, regular $2,400 (no sprints)
With sprints and automations, billed monthly	Standard: $1,746	Standard: $2,610	Standard: $2,520 (no sprints)
Top plan you can buy without sales, billed annually	Premium: $2,950	Pro: $3,600	Pro: $3,420 special offer, regular $3,780
Top plan you can buy without sales, billed monthly	Premium: $3,528	Pro: $4,500	Pro: $4,320

Is Jira end of life? What actually ended

No, Jira Cloud has no end date. What ended is self-hosting. Atlassian stopped supporting Jira Server on 15 February 2024. Jira Data Center stopped selling to new customers on 30 March 2026, and on 28 March 2029 Data Center subscriptions expire and the product turns read-only. These dates are from atlassian.com, read on 21 October 2026.

Server: "As of February 15, 2024 PT, Server products are no longer supported. Support and bug fixes are no longer available".

Data Center: existing customers can keep buying subscriptions and apps until 30 March 2028. On 28 March 2029 the subscriptions expire, "making Data Center products and apps read-only", with extensions "by exception only". This covers Jira Software and Jira Service Management Data Center.

That deadline is often what starts the comparison. If self-hosted Jira has to move anyway, the question becomes which cloud tool.

Automations: run limits on each plan

Jira gives automation steps per user and pools them across your organization: 400 a user a month on Standard, 750 on Premium. monday gives actions per account, whatever the seat count: none on Basic, 250 on Standard, 25,000 on Pro. For 15 people that's 6,000 Jira steps against 250 monday actions on Standard. Checked 21 October 2026.

Jira Free gets 150 steps a month for the whole subscription, Enterprise 1,000 per user. A step is any executed part of a flow, "including triggers, conditions, actions, branches, and loops", and a trigger that finds nothing to act on still costs one. Atlassian no longer counts rule runs, so an article quoting "rule runs per month" for Jira Cloud is out of date.

Going over: from 3 December 2026, extra Jira usage is billed at $0.50 per 1,000 steps. With extra usage turned off, flows stop at 100% until the allowance resets.

monday meters automations and integrations separately: 250 of each a month on Standard, 25,000 on Pro, 250,000 combined on Enterprise. Adding seats doesn't raise the quota. One automation can use several actions: creating an item with Status, People or Dropdown columns mapped uses one per column plus one for the item.

Steps and actions are different units, so don't divide one by the other. But note that a monday Standard account syncing with Jira spends its 250 monthly integration actions on that sync.

When a workflow outgrows the quota, or has to reach a system neither tool connects to, an external tool like Make, n8n or Zapier can take it over and bill on its own terms. We compare those three in Make vs n8n vs Zapier. If your team already works in Microsoft 365, see n8n vs Power Automate.

Can you connect Jira and Monday.com instead of choosing?

Yes. monday's Jira Cloud integration syncs issues into monday, into Jira, or both ways, chosen field by field, including status, assignee, sprint and story points. It only picks up issues created or changed after setup, and Jira lets it update 100 to 150 issues every 5 minutes. On monday dev it's listed from the Standard plan. Checked 21 October 2026.

Setup runs on OAuth and needs no Jira admin, but "only the individual who connected their Jira account with monday.com can edit the recipe(s)". Connect it from a shared team account, not one engineer's login.

From Jira, monday can pull status, priority, assignee, labels, sprint dates, story points, epic, fix version and time spent. monday's Formula, Timeline, Tags and Mirror columns don't go back to Jira, and status changes still follow Jira's workflow rules.

A newer Jira Cloud Two-way sync app is in beta. It polls every 3 minutes, doesn't sync Jira comments or deletions, and maps Jira sub-tasks to monday items rather than subitems. Its help page names no plan.

For Jira Server and Data Center, monday lists separate apps, which we didn't check. If you need something the native options don't do, the usual route is an automation tool such as Make, n8n or Zapier. Somebody on your side then owns that workflow.

Moving from Jira to Monday.com: what moves and what doesn't

monday has no one-click importer for Jira Cloud. Its Jira Server importer is Enterprise-only and marked for deprecation. In practice the move runs through the Jira integration: issues come over as they're touched, about 100 to 150 every 5 minutes. The reverse is easier: Jira imports a monday board directly. Checked on both help centers on 21 October 2026.

monday's own help center says: "While there is no direct way to import data from Jira into monday.com, starting a recipe will trigger an import." Because the integration doesn't work retroactively, old issues only come over once they change in Jira. monday's migration guide for monday dev (Standard plan and up) works around that: add a "migration" label, then go project by project and bulk-edit about 100 items at a time to trigger the sync. The guide is written for the Server and Data Center integration. How it applies to Jira Cloud, it doesn't say.

The older Jira Server importer is "Available on the Enterprise plan only" and "will be deprecated in the near future". It needs Jira Global Admin credentials and brings fields such as status, priority, story points and time spent into matching columns. Components become separate items, subitems aren't used, and team-managed projects aren't supported. Assignees map only when the email matches in both tools. Comments, attachments and history aren't on its supported list.

Going the other way, Jira's monday importer takes a board in one pass. Groups become a status, epic or category, items become work items and subitems become subtasks. Files come in as attachments, and dependencies become work item links. Formula, Mirror, Board relation and a few other columns don't come across.

Our view from migration work: whichever direction you move, the workflows, permissions and automations get rebuilt by hand. Neither vendor's import docs list them. We've written up what breaks in a data migration.

Jira Service Management and monday service are separate help-desk products with their own prices. We haven't compared them here.

Jira or Monday.com: which one to choose

Choose Jira if a software team runs sprints and releases in it, and Monday.com if the work is shared across content, marketing, operations or clients. If you run both kinds of team, keep Jira for the engineers and connect it to monday rather than forcing one tool on everyone.

Choose Jira if your engineers plan in sprints and releases, and the rest of the company doesn't need to work in the same tool. For 15 users, Standard is $1,450 a year billed annually.
Choose monday work management if the team is marketing, content, operations or client delivery and doesn't run sprints.
Choose monday dev if you want developers and the rest of the company on one platform, and you've read the migration limits above.
Up to 10 people? Jira Free covers you. monday dev has no free plan, and monday work management's free plan stops at 2 seats.
Heavy automation? Jira Standard gives 400 steps per user a month, pooled. monday Standard gives 250 actions per account, so a busy team ends up on Pro.
Still on Jira Server or Data Center? Server lost support in February 2024 and Data Center turns read-only in March 2029, so you're choosing a cloud tool either way.

What the vendors' own comparison pages get wrong

Both vendors' comparison pages misstate the other's product. Atlassian's says monday has 200+ apps and integrations, while monday's integrations page lists 850+. It also says monday has no comprehensive agile reporting, while monday dev lists agile reporting on Pro. monday's blog says you can "seamlessly and instantly migrate" from Jira, which monday's own help center contradicts. We checked every claim on 21 October 2026 against the other vendor's pricing and help pages.

The pages: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/comparison/jira-vs-monday and https://monday.com/blog/rnd/monday-com-vs-jira/ (marked "Updated on May 20, 2025"). Each claim sits next to what the other vendor's own page says.

Atlassian's page says monday has "200+ apps and integrations". monday's integrations page says "850+ integrations and apps". monday's own blog still says 200, so monday contradicts itself too.
Atlassian's table gives monday no check for "Comprehensive agile reporting". monday dev's pricing page lists "Agile reporting" on Pro and Enterprise. It's true only for monday work management.
Atlassian's page prices Jira Premium at "$17 per user / month", with a footnote that it may be lower depending on team size. Its own pricing page shows $19.60 for 15 users billed monthly, $15.56 for 300 users, and $2,950 a year for 11 to 15 users. We couldn't reproduce $17 at either size.
monday's blog says Jira Standard starts at "$7.53/user/month" and Premium at "$13.53". Atlassian's pricing page shows $9.70 and $19.60 for 15 users, $8.48 and $15.56 for 300, billed monthly.
monday's blog says Jira has "Limited AI functionality" and needs third-party apps "for most automation". Atlassian's pricing page includes Rovo Search, Chat and Agents on every paid plan, and automation steps on every plan, Free included.
monday's blog says you may need to buy Advanced Roadmaps as an add-on. Jira Premium includes cross-team planning ("Advanced planning") in the plan.
AI answers add their own Jira prices. Asked on 21 October 2026 whether Jira or Monday.com is cheaper for 15 people, ChatGPT (through its API) and Perplexity both priced Jira Standard at $7.91 a user, or $118.65 a month. Atlassian's page gives $9.70, which is $145.50 a month, or $1,450 a year on annual billing.

FAQ

Is Monday.com better than Jira?

Monday.com is better for cross-functional work such as content, marketing, operations and client delivery; Jira is better for software teams that run sprints and releases. For 15 users Jira is also cheaper at every pairing we checked: $1,450 a year on Standard against $2,160 on monday dev Standard, billed annually. monday dev has sprints from Standard and agile reporting on Pro, but no Jira Cloud importer. If you run both kinds of team, keep Jira for the engineers and connect it to monday.

Is Jira or Monday.com cheaper for a 15-person team?

Jira, at list price. Fifteen users on Jira Standard cost $1,450 a year billed annually, against $2,160 on monday dev Standard and $1,620 on Monday.com Basic, which lists no automations or Jira integration. Billed monthly, Jira Standard is $1,746 and monday dev Standard $2,610. Our arithmetic, before tax, prices checked 21 October 2026.

Is Jira end of life?

No. Jira Cloud has no end date. Atlassian ended support for Jira Server on 15 February 2024, stopped selling Data Center to new customers on 30 March 2026, and Data Center turns read-only on 28 March 2029. Teams leaving self-hosted Jira pick a cloud tool, either Jira Cloud or an alternative such as Monday.com.

Can you connect Jira to Monday.com?

Yes. Monday.com's Jira Cloud integration syncs issues one way or both ways, field by field, including status, assignee, sprint and story points. It only picks up issues created or changed after setup, and Jira lets it update 100 to 150 issues every 5 minutes. On monday dev it's listed from the Standard plan. Checked 21 October 2026.

How do I move from Jira to Monday.com?

Through monday's Jira integration, because Monday.com has no Jira Cloud importer. Issues come over only when they change in Jira, so monday's guide has you bulk-edit about 100 items at a time to trigger the sync. The Jira Server importer is Enterprise-only and marked for deprecation. Plan to rebuild workflows and automations by hand.

Is monday dev the same as monday work management?

No. Both run on Monday.com's platform, but monday dev is sold for product and dev teams, with sprints, epics and releases, and monday work management for projects and tasks. They have separate price lists: Pro is $20 a seat on monday dev and $19 on work management (a special offer; regular $22 at 10 seats), billed annually. Only work management has a free plan.

When were these Jira and Monday.com prices checked?

We checked every Jira and Monday.com price, limit and automation quota in this article on 21 October 2026, on Atlassian's and monday.com's own pricing pages and help centers, in USD. Jira's price per user changes with team size, so enter your own user count on atlassian.com/software/jira/pricing and check monday.com/pricing before you buy.

Who wrote this

Retailbox builds on Monday.com, so we have a stake in which one you pick. We don't sell Jira implementation, and we kept our services out of the comparison above. For an EdTech content-production team, we ran a Jira to Monday.com migration with capacity tracking. For a construction company, we restructured Monday.com for a 20+ person team.

Originally published at https://retailbox-automation.com/blog/jira-vs-monday-com. Want this built for your team? See Monday.com implementation and migration.

GoHighLevel vs Pipedrive: All-in-One Platform or Sales CRM?

Retailbox Automation — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 07:52:17 +0000

By Mikhail Oskola, founder of Retailbox Automation.

Checked: prices, usage rates, add-ons and help articles on 27 October 2026, connector listings on 28 October 2026, Pipedrive automation limits on 23 October 2026, HIPAA terms on 16 October 2026, against GoHighLevel's and Pipedrive's own pricing pages and help centers, in USD.

Pipedrive vs GoHighLevel comes down to who runs the account. GoHighLevel (the company calls itself HighLevel) suits agencies and small service businesses that text, book and run funnels for leads, at a flat price plus usage. Pipedrive suits a sales team working deals in one pipeline, priced per seat, with calling and texting bought as apps. Checked 27 October 2026.

GoHighLevel vs Pipedrive at a glance

Every row below comes from the vendor's own pricing page or help center, read in USD on 27 October 2026. GoHighLevel sells one account with every feature switched on and charges for texts, calls, email and AI as you use them. Pipedrive sells four plans per seat and adds features through paid add-ons and Marketplace apps.

	GoHighLevel	Pipedrive
What it is, in the vendor's words	"An all-in-one platform designed to replace multiple subscriptions you're probably paying for now"	"A Web-based Sales CRM"
Free plan	None. 14-day free trial on any plan	None. 14-day free trial, no credit card
Entry price	Starter: $97 a month or $970 a year, per account	Lite: $14 per seat a month billed annually, $24 monthly
Pricing basis	Flat per account, unlimited users and contacts	Per seat, per month
Billed on top	Texts, calls, phone numbers, email and AI, from a prepaid wallet	Add-ons (LeadBooster, Projects, Campaigns, Web Visitors, Smart Docs) and any Marketplace apps
Automation	Workflows on every plan, no cap stated. Premium steps $0.01 each	From Growth: 50, 150 or 250 active automations by plan. None on Lite
Texts and calls	Built in on every plan, paid per use	No built-in calling. Texting from the mobile app opens your phone's own messaging app. Calling and SMS apps from the Marketplace
Funnels, sites and booking	Website and funnel builder, forms and booking calendars on every plan	Meeting scheduler from Growth. No website or funnel builder on the pricing page
Email marketing	Built in, $0.675 per 1,000 emails	Bulk email from Growth. Campaigns add-on from $13.33
Client accounts and white label	3 sub-accounts on Starter, unlimited from $297. White-label desktop app on all plans	One login can join several company accounts, each billed separately, no data shared. No white-label plan on the pricing page
HIPAA	BAA through a $297-a-month add-on	Terms say it isn't designed for HIPAA
Move data from the other	HighLevel's guide: export Pipedrive to CSV, import, rebuild automations by hand	Import2 lists GoHighLevel as a source, free up to 1,000,000 records
Best fit	An agency running client accounts, or a service business that texts and books leads	A sales team that works deals in one pipeline

What's the real difference between GoHighLevel and Pipedrive?

GoHighLevel is a marketing and CRM platform built around client sub-accounts. Pipedrive is a sales CRM built around the deal pipeline, and it grows through add-ons and apps.

HighLevel's pricing page lists what every plan includes: a website and funnel builder, CRM and pipelines, email and SMS marketing, inbound and outbound calling, workflow automation, forms and surveys, booking calendars, payments and invoicing, courses and communities. Its FAQ says most users replace "their CRM, funnel builder, email marketing software, appointment scheduler, SMS marketing tools, and review management software." The texts, calls, emails and AI those features send are billed per use.

Pipedrive's plans build up from the pipeline. Lite covers leads, deals, contacts and the calendar, with AI report creation and the Pipedrive Nova meeting tool. Growth adds full email sync, bulk email, automations, email sequences and a meeting scheduler. Premium adds LeadBooster lead capture, scoring and e-signatures. Ultimate adds security rules, data enrichment and a sandbox. Pipedrive's pricing page headline is "Plans built to help you close more deals, faster."

How much do GoHighLevel and Pipedrive cost?

GoHighLevel costs the same whether one person or twenty log in. Pipedrive costs more with every seat. The tiers don't line up, so the table pairs them by their place in each price list, not by features.

On GoHighLevel, annual billing costs ten times the monthly price: $970 a year against $97 a month. That's our arithmetic from the pricing page. Pipedrive takes annual plans as one payment per seat, for example "One payment of US$ 168 per seat/year" on Lite, and its prices exclude VAT.

Both pricing pages were read on 27 October 2026: https://www.gohighlevel.com/pricing and https://www.pipedrive.com/en/pricing. They match the prices in our other GoHighLevel and Pipedrive comparisons.

Tier	GoHighLevel, per account (monthly / annual)	Pipedrive, per seat a month (annual / monthly billing)	What changes at this tier
Entry	Starter: $97 / $970	Lite: $14 / $24	GoHighLevel: 3 sub-accounts. Pipedrive: no automations, no email sync
Second	Unlimited: $297 / $2,970	Growth: $39 / $49	GoHighLevel: unlimited sub-accounts, rebill phone and email at cost. Pipedrive: automations, email sync, meeting scheduler
Third	Agency Pro: $497 / $4,970	Premium: $59 / $79	GoHighLevel: SaaS Mode, rebill with markup. Pipedrive: LeadBooster, e-signatures
Top	Enterprise: no published price	Ultimate: $79 / $99	GoHighLevel: custom, includes HIPAA and the white-label mobile app. Pipedrive: security rules, sandbox

What does a 5-person sales team pay in a year?

If the team texts leads, GoHighLevel costs less. In our example below, five people on GoHighLevel Starter pay about $1,244 a year, and on Pipedrive Growth $2,340 before any texting app. This is our arithmetic from the 27 October 2026 prices, before tax and setup work, not a vendor quote.

We use five sellers because our Pipedrive comparisons with HubSpot and Zoho CRM do, so the Pipedrive numbers line up. Pipedrive Growth is the first plan with automations. On the GoHighLevel side we reuse the volumes from our GoHighLevel vs HubSpot example: 10,000 emails and 2,000 US text segments a month, plus one local number.

Pipedrive's texting column stays open on purpose. Pipedrive doesn't send texts itself, and the Marketplace apps that do bill through their own providers. We didn't price those apps, so add your provider's quote to that line.

If you don't need automations, Pipedrive Lite costs five sellers 5 × $168 = $840 a year, less than GoHighLevel Starter alone. Lite has no email sync either.

5 users, 12 months	GoHighLevel Starter	Pipedrive Growth
Subscription, billed annually	$970 (users don't change the price)	5 × $468 = $2,340
Subscription, billed monthly	12 × $97 = $1,164	5 × $49 × 12 = $2,940
10,000 emails a month	12 × $6.75 = $81	Sales email included. Newsletters need the Campaigns add-on, from $13.33
2,000 US text segments a month	12 × $14.94 = $179.28	A Marketplace texting app, billed by its provider
One local phone number	12 × $1.15 = $13.80	Through the calling app's provider
Booking page	Included	Meeting scheduler included from Growth
Total we can price, billed annually	about $1,244, before A2P and carrier fees and AI	$2,340, before add-ons and apps

Which has better automation, GoHighLevel or Pipedrive?

GoHighLevel automates on every plan and sets no workflow count. Pipedrive starts automations on Growth and caps how many can run at once. Which is better depends on whether you need the cheapest plan to automate.

HighLevel lists workflow automation as a core feature on all plans, and its pricing page states no limit. Standard triggers and actions are free. Premium ones cost $0.01 per execution, and HighLevel's pricing guide adds that some, "such as ChatGPT, have different pricing." Optional Workflow Pro tiers bundle executions: $10 a month for 10,000, $25 for 30,000 and $50 for 65,000 (https://help.gohighlevel.com/en/support/solutions/articles/155000001156-highlevel-pricing-guide, read 27 Oct 2026).

Pipedrive has no automations on Lite. A company can keep 50 active on Growth, 150 on Premium and 250 on Ultimate, each with up to ten actions, and email sequences are capped at 5, 25 and 50 per company (Pipedrive help center, updated 12 October 2026).

Our reading: a five-seat team that wants follow-ups automated pays $39 a seat on Pipedrive Growth. On GoHighLevel the automations come with the $97 account, and the cost moves to the texts and emails they send.

Texting, calling, booking and funnels: built in or bought

This is where the two prices stop being comparable. GoHighLevel builds texting, calling, booking and funnels into every plan and charges for each text and minute. Pipedrive builds in booking and leaves texting and calling to Marketplace apps.

On GoHighLevel, a US text segment costs $0.00747, a local number $1.15 a month, and an outbound US call $0.0166 a minute. HighLevel's phone pricing guide says "Pricing matches Twilio's rates", and A2P registration and carrier fees come on top. The money leaves a prepaid wallet that refills from your card when it drops below your minimum. The full list is in what GoHighLevel charges on top of the subscription.

Pipedrive's help center is direct about calls: "Pipedrive doesn't have a built-in calling integration, you can still make calls directly from the platform using a calling app from our Marketplace." It names CloudTalk, Kixie, CallHippo, Aircall, Toky, JustCall and Circleloop. Texting works the same way. The mobile app opens your phone's own messaging app with the number filled in, your carrier charges apply, and to log texts on a deal Pipedrive points you to Marketplace tools. Kixie, Aircall and JustCall handle SMS as well as calls (https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/how-can-i-make-calls-in-pipedrive, updated 3 Sep 2026).

Booking is the one place Pipedrive has its own tool: a meeting scheduler from Growth up. For capturing leads, Pipedrive sells LeadBooster from $32.50, included from Premium. It has no website or funnel builder on its pricing page. GoHighLevel includes a website and funnel builder, forms and booking calendars on every plan.

Which is better for agencies: sub-accounts and white label

GoHighLevel. It's built so one agency account runs many client accounts. Pipedrive lets one person join several company accounts, but each is a separate account with its own bill.

GoHighLevel Starter includes 3 sub-accounts, and HighLevel's FAQ calls it "perfect for a single business owner or a new agency." Unlimited ($297) and Agency Pro ($497) have unlimited sub-accounts. Every plan lets you "white-label the desktop web app". Agency Pro adds SaaS Mode, which sells subscriptions from your website and creates client accounts automatically, and lets you mark up the usage you pass on.

Pipedrive's help center says "you can be a user in multiple companies at the same time". It also says "No data is shared between different Pipedrive company accounts" and "Billing is handled separately for each company account" (https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/can-i-be-in-multiple-pipedrive-company-accounts, updated 3 Sep 2026). Its pricing page lists no white-label or reseller plan.

Can you move from Pipedrive to GoHighLevel, or back?

Yes, both ways, but not the same way. Moving into GoHighLevel is a manual CSV job. Moving into Pipedrive goes through Import2, which lists GoHighLevel as a source.

HighLevel's Pipedrive to HighLevel migration guide is a checklist, not an importer. Export contacts, deals, activities and notes from Pipedrive as CSV or Excel files. Import contacts in HighLevel, recreate your pipelines, then import deals from the CSV. Activities are recreated "manually" or imported, automations are rebuilt as HighLevel workflows, and Smart Docs templates are rebuilt in Documents. The guide suggests running both systems in parallel for a short time (https://help.gohighlevel.com/support/solutions/articles/155000003700-pipedrive-to-highlevel-migration-guide-, modified 7 Mar 2025).

Going the other way, Pipedrive's import menu (Tools and Apps, Import data, Import from other software) hands off to Import2, and GoHighLevel is on its list of supported sources. Pipedrive says "Import2 offers a free migration of up to 1,000,000 records", only global admins can start it, and you should allow 24 hours. Import2 can create your pipelines, stages and custom fields, and you can undo and redo the import at no extra cost (https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/importing-data-from-a-previous-crm-using-import2, updated 3 Sep 2026).

To keep both running side by side instead of moving once, there are connectors. HighLevel's App Marketplace lists several Pipedrive apps, among them a data-migration app from The One Technologies, and none had a review yet. Zapier connects Pipedrive with LeadConnector, HighLevel's Zapier app, for example to add new Pipedrive leads as HighLevel contacts (https://zapier.com/apps/leadconnector/integrations/pipedrive, both checked 28 October 2026).

Neither path moves automations. Plan to rebuild them by hand, and check owners, deal history and custom fields after the move. We wrote up what breaks in a CRM migration.

GoHighLevel or Pipedrive: which one to choose

Choose GoHighLevel if you run accounts for clients, or your leads come in through funnels, texts and bookings. Choose Pipedrive if a sales team works deals in one pipeline and you'd rather budget per seat than per message.

Still shopping for a sales CRM? See how Pipedrive does against Zoho CRM and against monday CRM, or Zoho CRM against monday CRM in Zoho CRM vs monday CRM. Or pick a CRM in six questions. If the tool you'd keep next to GoHighLevel is an email platform, see GoHighLevel vs ActiveCampaign.

If you handle patient data, the answer differs. HighLevel signs a BAA through a $297-a-month add-on, and Pipedrive's terms say it isn't designed for HIPAA. The details are in which CRMs sign a HIPAA BAA.

Choose GoHighLevel if you manage more than one business. Unlimited sub-accounts start at $297 a month.
Choose GoHighLevel if texting and calling leads is most of your follow-up. The rates are published, and they come from one wallet instead of a separate app.
Choose GoHighLevel if you also need a website, funnels and booking pages, and don't want separate tools for them.
Choose Pipedrive if your team only sells and wants email sync, sequences and automations on one plan. That's Growth, at $39 a seat billed annually.
Choose Pipedrive if you want a bill that moves with headcount, not with how many texts and emails go out.
Choose Pipedrive if you already use a calling tool such as Aircall or JustCall and want it logging into the CRM.

FAQ

Is GoHighLevel cheaper than Pipedrive?

For a team of five that texts leads, usually yes. GoHighLevel Starter is $970 a year for any number of users, plus usage: about $1,244 a year at 10,000 emails and 2,000 texts a month. Pipedrive Growth is $2,340 a year for five seats, before add-ons and texting apps. Prices checked 27 October 2026.

Does GoHighLevel or Pipedrive have a free plan?

Neither does. GoHighLevel gives a 14-day free trial on any plan, and warns that usage fees for texts and calls may apply during it. Pipedrive gives a 14-day free trial with no credit card. After that GoHighLevel starts at $97 a month per account and Pipedrive at $14 per seat billed annually.

What does GoHighLevel charge on top of the plan, and what does Pipedrive sell as add-ons?

GoHighLevel bills usage from a prepaid wallet: $0.675 per 1,000 emails, $0.00747 per US text segment, $1.15 a month per local number. Pipedrive sells add-ons on any plan: LeadBooster from $32.50, Projects from $16, Campaigns from $13.33, Web Visitors from $41 and Smart Docs from $32.50. Checked 27 October 2026.

Can Pipedrive send texts and book appointments like GoHighLevel?

Booking yes, texting only through apps. Pipedrive includes a meeting scheduler from its Growth plan. It has no built-in texting or calling: the mobile app opens your phone's messaging app, and Marketplace apps such as Aircall, JustCall and Kixie add SMS. GoHighLevel includes texts, calls and booking calendars on every plan, with texts and calls billed per use.

Can I move my Pipedrive data to GoHighLevel?

Yes, by CSV. HighLevel's Pipedrive migration guide has you export contacts, deals and activities from Pipedrive, import them, recreate pipelines and rebuild automations by hand. Going from GoHighLevel to Pipedrive is easier: Pipedrive's Import2 partner lists GoHighLevel as a source and migrates up to 1,000,000 records free.

Is GoHighLevel or Pipedrive HIPAA compliant?

GoHighLevel can be, Pipedrive isn't. HighLevel signs a BAA when you buy its HIPAA add-on at $297 a month, which can't be switched off once bought. Pipedrive's terms of service say its services "are not designed to comply" with HIPAA. Add-on price checked 27 October 2026, terms checked 16 October 2026.

When were these GoHighLevel and Pipedrive prices checked?

We read GoHighLevel's and Pipedrive's pricing pages, usage rates and help articles on 27 October 2026, in USD. Pipedrive's automation limits come from its help center (updated 12 October 2026, read 23 October), the connector listings were checked on 28 October 2026, and the HIPAA terms were checked on 16 October 2026. Confirm on the vendor's pricing page before you buy.

Who wrote this

Retailbox builds on GoHighLevel and helps teams choose and move between CRMs, so we have a stake here, and we kept our services out of the comparison above. On GoHighLevel, we built an admissions funnel for a coaching business (form, CRM, payment link, booking and follow-up emails), and we rebuilt a failing real-estate voice booking agent on Retell and n8n with booking into GoHighLevel.

None of the projects we can describe publicly is a move between GoHighLevel and Pipedrive, so the migration section comes from the vendors' help articles.

Originally published at https://retailbox-automation.com/blog/gohighlevel-vs-pipedrive. Want this built for your team? See CRM consulting: pick the right CRM before you pay for it.

HubSpot vs Microsoft Dynamics 365: Which CRM Fits Your Team?

Retailbox Automation — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 07:49:46 +0000

By Mikhail Oskola, founder of Retailbox Automation.

Checked: prices, plan limits, licensing terms, the HubSpot Dynamics 365 app listing and both vendors' import tools on 29 October 2026, HubSpot Sales Hub and Dynamics 365 Sales prices again on 30 October 2026, against HubSpot's and Microsoft's own pricing pages, help centers, Microsoft Learn and the HubSpot App Marketplace, in USD.

Dynamics 365 vs HubSpot, in short: HubSpot is quicker to start on, with a free tier and marketing on the same record. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales suits a company already on Microsoft 365 that wants its CRM inside Outlook, Teams and the Power Platform. At the middle tier, 10 sellers pay $12,300 or $12,600 in year one. Checked 29 October 2026.

HubSpot vs Dynamics 365 at a glance

Every row comes from the vendor's own pricing page or help center, read in USD on 29 October 2026. Microsoft shows every Dynamics 365 price as paid yearly. HubSpot's Starter price carries a new-customer discount, so we show the list price next to it.

The HIPAA details, plan by plan, are in our list of which CRMs sign a HIPAA BAA.

	HubSpot	Dynamics 365
What it is, in the vendor's words	"All of HubSpot's marketing, sales, and customer service software on one agentic platform"	Dynamics 365 Sales: "Empower sales teams with automation, contextual insights, and next-generation AI"
Free plan	Sales Hub free for up to 2 users, no credit card	None. Free trial, length not stated on the pricing page
Entry price	Sales Hub Starter: $20 per seat a month at list. New customers: $7 billed yearly, $10 monthly	Sales Professional: $65 per user a month, paid yearly
Commitment	Starter monthly or yearly. Professional and Enterprise commit annually	Every plan paid yearly
Required setup fee	One-time onboarding: $1,500 on Professional, $3,500 on Enterprise	None on the pricing page. Microsoft publishes no implementation price
Outlook and Teams	Outlook inbox and Teams app on all plans, free included	Sales Professional lists "Microsoft 365 interoperation". Copilot in Teams needs extra licenses
AI	AI agents on every paid tier, run on HubSpot Credits: 500, 3,000 or 5,000 by tier	Copilot and prebuilt agents from Sales Enterprise. Agents run on Copilot Credits: 1,000 per user a month in Premium, otherwise bought separately
Customization	Workflows: 50, 300 or 1,000 by tier. Custom objects on Enterprise only	Power Automate inside the Dynamics app is included. Other flows and Power Apps need extra licenses. Professional: "Limited"
Marketing product	Marketing Hub, a separate subscription	Dynamics 365 Customer Insights: $1,700 per tenant a month, paid yearly, or $1,000 with 10+ Dynamics users
Patient data (HIPAA)	BAA on Enterprise only	BAA by default through Microsoft's data protection addendum
Move data in from the other	Smart Transfer lists Dynamics 365, one-way, one-time	Import wizard: Excel, CSV or XML, 8 MB a file. No HubSpot-specific tool
Best fit	A team that wants a free start and sales and marketing on one record	A Microsoft 365 company that wants its CRM inside Outlook, Teams and the Power Platform

What's the real difference between HubSpot and Dynamics 365?

HubSpot sells one CRM in parts. Sales Hub, Marketing Hub and Service Hub are separate subscriptions, and HubSpot's own description is a platform where "marketing, sales, and service share the same customer data". You add a Hub when you need it.

Dynamics 365 is a family of Microsoft business apps. The CRM is Dynamics 365 Sales. Marketing is Dynamics 365 Customer Insights and service is Dynamics 365 Customer Service, each with its own price. Records sit in Dataverse, the data layer Power Apps and Power Automate also run on, and Microsoft lists customization and custom apps as Power Automate and Power Apps features.

So the setup work lands in different places. In HubSpot, workflows, reports and sequences are settings inside the CRM, capped by tier. On Dynamics 365 Sales Professional, Microsoft marks customization as "Limited", and its footnotes say Power Automate and Power Apps work beyond that "requires additional licenses".

Marketing is a separate purchase on both sides. Dynamics 365 Customer Insights costs $1,700 per tenant a month, paid yearly, with unlimited users and 100,000 unified people. Companies with at least 10 users on a qualifying Dynamics 365 app, Sales included, can buy the Attach version for $1,000. HubSpot sells Marketing Hub on its own.

How much do HubSpot and Dynamics 365 cost?

Dynamics 365 Sales costs more per seat at entry and about the same at the top. HubSpot adds a one-time onboarding fee on two tiers. Microsoft bills every plan yearly.

Sources: hubspot.com/pricing/sales and Microsoft's Dynamics 365 Sales pricing page, both read 29 October 2026. Microsoft notes its prices "may not be reflective of actual list price due to currency, country, and regional variant factors", and the real price shows at checkout.

Microsoft doesn't say which of its plans competes with which HubSpot tier, so the rows below pair them by position in each price list. We don't list which Dynamics tier includes forecasting or territory management. Microsoft's comparison table shows that per plan, so check it before you pick one.

Tier	HubSpot Sales Hub	Dynamics 365 Sales
Free	Free for up to 2 users	No free plan
Entry	Starter: $20 per seat a month at list. New customers: $7 billed yearly, $10 monthly	Sales Professional: $65 per user a month, paid yearly
Middle	Professional: $90 per seat billed yearly, $100 monthly on an annual commitment, plus $1,500 onboarding	Sales Enterprise: $105 per user a month, paid yearly. Copilot and prebuilt agents included
Upper	Enterprise: $150 per seat a month, billed yearly, plus $3,500 onboarding	Sales Premium: $150 per user a month, paid yearly, with 1,000 Copilot Credits per user a month. "Contact us" to buy
LinkedIn bundle	No bundle plan	Microsoft Relationship Sales: Sales Enterprise plus LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Price on request, 10-seat minimum

What does a 10-seat sales team pay in year one?

Between $2,400 and $21,500 at list, depending on the tier. At the middle tier the two land $300 apart.

This is our arithmetic from the prices above, not a vendor quote. It counts licenses and required onboarding fees only. We use 10 seats because our HubSpot vs Salesforce numbers use the same team, so the three CRMs line up.

Left out: implementation work on either side, extra HubSpot Credits or Copilot Credits, standalone Power Automate or Power Apps licenses, and any marketing product. Microsoft publishes no implementation price. HubSpot's comparison page says Dynamics 365 Sales can mean "up to 4 months of planning and costs that average $80k". The page gives no source for that figure, so we don't count it.

Entry, HubSpot Sales Hub Starter: 10 × $20 × 12 = $2,400 at list, or $840 at the $7 new-customer price on yearly billing.
Entry, Dynamics 365 Sales Professional: 10 × $65 × 12 = $7,800, paid yearly.
Middle, HubSpot Sales Hub Professional: 10 × $90 × 12 + $1,500 onboarding = $12,300 on an annual commitment.
Middle, Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise: 10 × $105 × 12 = $12,600, paid yearly.
Upper, HubSpot Sales Hub Enterprise: 10 × $150 × 12 + $3,500 onboarding = $21,500.
Upper, Dynamics 365 Sales Premium: 10 × $150 × 12 = $18,000, paid yearly.

Which fits a Microsoft 365 company?

Both work with Outlook and Teams. They differ on where the AI sits and what needs another license.

HubSpot connects Outlook and Exchange inboxes on every plan, free included, so reps log emails and use HubSpot's sales tools from the inbox. Its Microsoft Teams app, also on every plan, brings HubSpot notifications, meetings, tasks and tickets into Teams and can log Teams Phone calls to HubSpot records.

Dynamics 365 Sales Professional names "Microsoft 365 interoperation" in its one-line description. Copilot comes with Sales Enterprise and Premium. Microsoft's page doesn't say it's in Professional. Where it's included, Copilot in Outlook can create, edit and read Dynamics 365 records, summarize opportunities and draft replies. Copilot in Teams "requires additional licenses".

HubSpot lists AI agents on every paid Sales Hub tier, starting with a prospecting agent on Starter. They run on HubSpot Credits: Starter includes 500, Professional 3,000 and Enterprise 5,000. Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise includes prebuilt agents such as the Sales Close Agent. Those agents run on Copilot Credits, which come with Premium or are bought separately, and Microsoft says "an Azure subscription is required to use agents."

Customization, reporting and the Power Platform

HubSpot keeps customization inside HubSpot and caps it by tier. Sales Hub Starter allows up to 50 workflows with restricted triggers and actions, Professional 300 and Enterprise 1,000. Professional allows up to 100 custom reports, Enterprise 500. Custom objects, for records that aren't contacts, companies or deals, need an Enterprise subscription.

Dynamics 365 hands customization to the Power Platform. Microsoft's licensing FAQ says Dynamics 365 licenses include "a limited set of Power Automate capabilities", and those flows must run in the context of the Dynamics 365 app, on its data. A flow that does something unrelated, such as updating an outside database, needs a standalone Power Automate license. Custom apps in Power Apps need additional licenses too. For reporting, Microsoft lists export to Excel and "advanced analytics with Microsoft Power BI".

If Power Automate is on your list as a tool in its own right, we've covered Power Automate's licensing in another comparison.

Can HubSpot and Dynamics 365 work together?

Yes. HubSpot builds its own Microsoft Dynamics 365 app and marks it as certified. On 29 October the listing showed about 3,000 installs and a 2.5 rating from 25 reviews.

It needs Dynamics 365 Sales Professional, Enterprise or Premium on a dynamics.com cloud domain. Contacts, leads, accounts, opportunities, tasks, notes, appointments, products and cases sync both ways. In HubSpot they show up as contacts, companies, deals, meetings and tickets. Emails, phone calls, invoices and sales orders sync one way, from Dynamics into HubSpot. Custom field mappings need Data Hub Starter or higher, and the listing links to its list of compatible HubSpot plans, so check that before you buy.

The app is built for a company that runs marketing in HubSpot and sales in Dynamics. HubSpot sends lead scores to Dynamics, and a rep can create a Dynamics sales order from HubSpot without switching apps.

If the HubSpot side of that setup is what you need help with, here is how we set up HubSpot.

Moving from HubSpot to Dynamics 365, or back

Each vendor documents an import path in its own direction.

HubSpot to Dynamics 365: Microsoft's import takes Excel, CSV or XML files, one file at a time, up to 8 MB each (32 MB zipped). Microsoft recommends 20,000 rows or fewer per import and a programmatic import for larger volumes. Every column has to be mapped to a field, and "unmapped data isn't imported". Duplicate detection and alternate keys let you update existing records instead of creating copies. Microsoft names no HubSpot-specific import tool.

Dynamics 365 to HubSpot: HubSpot Smart Transfer lists Dynamics 365 as a source on all plans. It's one-way and built for a one-time move. Custom field mappings need a Data Hub subscription, association labels need Professional or Enterprise, and emails, meetings, notes and tasks can't be updated by import once they're in.

If both systems stay in use, the sync app is the better fit than a one-time transfer. HubSpot gives the same advice for Salesforce: Smart Transfer for a one-time move, the integration if you keep both.

Decide before import day which fields map where and how duplicates get matched. Neither tool makes those calls for you.

HubSpot or Dynamics 365: which one to choose

Choose Dynamics 365 Sales if your company runs on Microsoft 365 and you want CRM automation in the Power Platform, Copilot in your sales tools or a LinkedIn Sales Navigator bundle. Choose HubSpot if you want a free start, marketing on the same record and customization a sales ops person can do in settings. Already on one? Connect the other before you move anything.

Weighing enterprise CRMs more widely? See HubSpot vs Salesforce. Not sure which kind of CRM you need? Take the 6-question CRM picker.

We set up HubSpot and help teams pick a CRM before they sign a contract. Tell us what your team runs on today, and we'll go through the fit with you.

Choose Dynamics 365 Sales Professional at $65 a user a month if you need a CRM that works with Microsoft 365 and your automation stays inside Dynamics.
Choose Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise at $105 if you want Copilot and Microsoft's prebuilt sales agents.
Choose HubSpot Sales Hub Starter if you want to start at $20 a seat or less, paid monthly, with up to 50 workflows.
Choose HubSpot Sales Hub Professional if you need sequences, forecasting and 300 workflows. Ten seats cost $12,300 in year one, onboarding included.
Choose HubSpot Enterprise if you need custom objects, or a BAA for patient data.

FAQ

Is HubSpot cheaper than Dynamics 365?

At entry level, yes. HubSpot Sales Hub Starter lists at $20 a seat a month against $65 for Dynamics 365 Sales Professional, paid yearly. In the middle, 10 seats cost $12,300 in year one on HubSpot Professional with onboarding, and $12,600 on Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise. Checked 29 October 2026.

Does Dynamics 365 have a free plan like HubSpot?

No. HubSpot offers Sales Hub free for up to 2 users, with no credit card. Dynamics 365 Sales has a free trial but no free plan, and Microsoft's pricing page doesn't state the trial length. Every Dynamics 365 Sales price is per user a month, paid yearly.

Does HubSpot integrate with Dynamics 365?

Yes. HubSpot builds a certified Microsoft Dynamics 365 app that syncs contacts, leads, accounts, opportunities, tasks and notes both ways, and brings emails, calls, invoices and sales orders into HubSpot. It needs Dynamics 365 Sales Professional, Enterprise or Premium on a dynamics.com domain. Custom field mappings need HubSpot Data Hub Starter or higher.

Is Dynamics 365 better than HubSpot for Microsoft 365 users?

It sits closer to Microsoft 365. Dynamics 365 Sales Professional lists Microsoft 365 interoperation, and Sales Enterprise adds Copilot and prebuilt agents. HubSpot connects Outlook inboxes and a Teams app on all plans, free included. If your automation should live in Power Automate, Dynamics 365 is the closer fit.

Can you migrate from HubSpot to Dynamics 365?

Yes. Microsoft's import takes Excel, CSV or XML files, one at a time, up to 8 MB each, and recommends 20,000 rows or fewer per import. Every column must be mapped or it isn't imported. The other way, HubSpot Smart Transfer lists Dynamics 365 as a source for a one-time, one-way move.

Do you need a partner to implement Dynamics 365?

Not to buy it. Microsoft's pricing and FastTrack pages don't say a partner is required for Dynamics 365 Sales. FastTrack, Microsoft's onboarding program, does need a qualified implementation partner and a minimum yearly Dynamics 365 spend. HubSpot instead charges its own onboarding fee on Sales Hub Professional and Enterprise.

When were these HubSpot and Dynamics 365 prices checked?

On 29 October 2026, in USD, on HubSpot's Sales Hub pricing page and Microsoft's Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Insights pricing pages, and the Sales Hub and Dynamics 365 Sales prices again on 30 October 2026. HubSpot's Starter price carried a new-customer discount both days. Microsoft says its prices may differ by country and currency, so check both before you sign.

Who wrote this

Retailbox sets up HubSpot and helps teams choose a CRM before they buy, so we have a stake in this comparison.

Every Dynamics 365 row comes from Microsoft's own pricing pages and documentation, and every HubSpot row from HubSpot's. The year-one totals are our arithmetic.

Originally published at https://retailbox-automation.com/blog/hubspot-vs-dynamics-365. Want this built for your team? See CRM consulting: pick the right CRM before you pay for it.

GoHighLevel vs ActiveCampaign: Agency Platform or Email Tool?

Retailbox Automation — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 10:34:11 +0000

By Mikhail Oskola, founder of Retailbox Automation.

Checked: prices, plan limits, add-ons, the migration guide and connector listings on 28 October 2026, GoHighLevel usage rates on 27 October 2026, ActiveCampaign's A2P note on 23 October 2026, against GoHighLevel's and ActiveCampaign's own pricing pages, help centers and app directories and Zapier, in USD.

ActiveCampaign vs GoHighLevel, in short: ActiveCampaign is the cheaper email tool for a small list, and GoHighLevel is built for agencies and businesses that text, book and sell through funnels. The bills work differently. ActiveCampaign charges more as your list grows, GoHighLevel a flat fee plus each email and text sent. Checked 28 October 2026.

GoHighLevel vs ActiveCampaign at a glance

Every row below comes from the vendor's own pricing page or help center, read in USD on 28 October 2026. GoHighLevel's usage rates are from its help center, read on 27 October 2026. Both vendors publish a page comparing themselves with the other; we don't use either as a source.

	GoHighLevel	ActiveCampaign
What it is, in the vendor's words	"An all-in-one platform designed to replace multiple subscriptions you're probably paying for now"	"Marketing automation for any business"
Free plan	None. 14-day free trial on any plan	None. 14-day free trial, no credit card
Pricing basis	Flat per account, unlimited contacts and users, plus usage from a prepaid wallet	By contact count, billed yearly, 1 to 5 users depending on plan
Entry price	Starter: $97 a month or $970 a year	Starter: $15 a month for 1,000 contacts, billed yearly
Email	$0.675 per 1,000 emails sent	Included, up to 10x your contacts a month on Starter and Plus
Automation	Workflows on every plan, no cap stated. Premium steps $0.01 each	Multi-step on every plan. Starter: 5 actions per automation. Unlimited from Plus
CRM and pipelines	CRM and pipelines on every plan	Contacts, fields and tags on every plan. Pipelines and deals: Enhanced CRM add-on from Plus, price not published
SMS	Built in, $0.00747 per US text segment	Add-on from Plus, price not published
Funnels, sites and booking	Website and funnel builder, forms and booking calendars on every plan	Landing pages from Plus. Booking through Calendly or Eventbrite apps from Plus
Client accounts and white label	3 sub-accounts on Starter, unlimited from $297. White-label desktop app on all plans	No sub-account or white-label plan on the pricing page
Move data from the other	HighLevel's guide: export ActiveCampaign to CSV, import, rebuild pages, forms and automations by hand	"Contact migration" listed among ActiveCampaign's free services
Best fit	An agency running client accounts, or a business that texts, books and sells through funnels	A business whose marketing is mostly email, with one to a few marketers

What's the real difference between GoHighLevel and ActiveCampaign?

GoHighLevel replaces a stack of tools. ActiveCampaign is an email and marketing automation tool that connects to the rest of your stack.

HighLevel's pricing page lists what every plan includes: a website and funnel builder, CRM and pipelines, email and SMS marketing, inbound and outbound calling, workflow automation, forms and surveys, booking calendars, payments and invoicing, courses and communities. Its FAQ says most users replace "their CRM, funnel builder, email marketing software, appointment scheduler, SMS marketing tools, and review management software." The emails, texts, calls and AI those features use are billed per use.

ActiveCampaign's homepage title is "Marketing automation for any business". Its four plans are sold by contact count, and each plan adds more automation, segmentation and channels. Landing pages, SMS, WhatsApp and the deal pipeline all start on Plus, and the last three are paid add-ons. It lists 1,000+ integrations, and API access, webhooks and Zapier come on every plan.

So the first question is how many tools you want to keep. If you already have a website, a booking tool and a CRM you like, ActiveCampaign slots in as the email engine. If you'd rather run all of it from one login, or run it for several clients, that's what GoHighLevel is built for.

How much do GoHighLevel and ActiveCampaign cost?

GoHighLevel's subscription doesn't change with your list or your team. ActiveCampaign's price rises with every contact band, and it includes 1 user on Starter and Plus, 3 on Pro and 5 on Enterprise.

On GoHighLevel, annual billing costs ten times the monthly price: $970 a year against $97 a month (our arithmetic from the pricing page). Every plan has unlimited contacts and users. Unlimited ($297) and Agency Pro ($497) add unlimited client sub-accounts and the right to rebill phone and email usage to clients. ActiveCampaign's pricing page shows only prices billed yearly, and its FAQ says "There are no setup costs or hidden fees".

Both pricing pages were read on 28 October 2026: https://www.gohighlevel.com/pricing and https://www.activecampaign.com/pricing. The ActiveCampaign numbers match our HubSpot vs ActiveCampaign and ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp comparisons, and the GoHighLevel ones match our GoHighLevel vs HubSpot and GoHighLevel vs Pipedrive comparisons.

Contacts	ActiveCampaign Starter / Plus / Pro / Enterprise (a month, billed yearly)	GoHighLevel Starter / Unlimited / Agency Pro (a month)
1,000	$15 / $49 / $79 / $145	$97 / $297 / $497, any list size
2,500	$39 / $95 / $149 / $255	$97 / $297 / $497, any list size
10,000	$149 / $189 / $375 / $589	$97 / $297 / $497, any list size
Users included	1 / 1 / 3 / 5	Unlimited on every plan
Billed on top	Add-ons: SMS, WhatsApp, Enhanced CRM, transactional email	Email, texts, calls, phone numbers and AI, from a prepaid wallet

Which costs less at 1,000, 2,500 and 10,000 contacts?

ActiveCampaign Starter costs less at 1,000 and 2,500 contacts. At 10,000 contacts GoHighLevel Starter costs less than either ActiveCampaign plan in our example. This is our arithmetic from the October 2026 prices, before tax and setup work, not a vendor quote.

The assumption: every contact gets 4 emails a month, and both tools are billed yearly. GoHighLevel Starter is $970 a year plus $0.675 per 1,000 emails. ActiveCampaign includes email up to 10 times your contact count a month on Starter and Plus, so 4 emails per contact fits on both.

Send volume moves the GoHighLevel side. Each extra email per contact a month adds $81 a year at 10,000 contacts. At 10 emails each, the most ActiveCampaign Starter allows, GoHighLevel Starter comes to $970 + $810 = $1,780 a year, against $1,788 for ActiveCampaign Starter. Billing GoHighLevel monthly adds $194 a year to every row ($1,164 against $970).

Two costs are left out. GoHighLevel bills A2P registration and carrier fees on texts, plus AI and premium workflow steps, on top. ActiveCampaign's SMS add-on starts on Plus and its price isn't published, so the texting row has only one side.

Contacts, 12 months	Emails a month (4 per contact)	GoHighLevel Starter: $970 + email	ActiveCampaign Starter	ActiveCampaign Plus	Lower bill
1,000	4,000	$970 + $32.40 = $1,002.40	$180	$588	ActiveCampaign Starter
2,500	10,000	$970 + $81 = $1,051	$468	$1,140	ActiveCampaign Starter
10,000	40,000	$970 + $324 = $1,294	$1,788	$2,268	GoHighLevel Starter
2,500, plus 2,000 US text segments a month and one local number	10,000	$1,051 + $179.28 + $13.80 = $1,244.08	No SMS on Starter	SMS add-on, price not published	Can't compare

Which has better marketing automation?

ActiveCampaign has more automation tools for email. GoHighLevel puts no cap on workflows and runs them across texts, calls and bookings too. There's no neutral benchmark we can cite, so here is what each plan includes.

ActiveCampaign has multi-step automation and 950+ automation recipes on every plan. Starter caps each automation at 5 actions and sends email only. Plus removes the cap, adds other channels, sales automation and custom event tracking. A/B tests cover email on Starter and Plus, and email and automations on Pro and Enterprise. Site tracking is on every plan, and the automations map starts on Pro (pricing page, 28 October 2026).

HighLevel lists workflow automation as a core feature on every plan and states no limit. Standard triggers and actions are free. Premium ones cost $0.01 per execution, and HighLevel's pricing guide says some, "such as ChatGPT, have different pricing." Optional Workflow Pro tiers bundle executions: $10 a month for 10,000, $25 for 30,000 and $50 for 65,000 (https://help.gohighlevel.com/en/support/solutions/articles/155000001156-highlevel-pricing-guide, read 27 October 2026).

Our reading: if your automations are mostly email sequences that branch on opens, clicks and site visits, ActiveCampaign Plus gives you the deeper toolkit for $49 a month at 1,000 contacts. If a workflow has to text a lead, book a call and move a deal in the same run, GoHighLevel does that in one place.

CRM, pipelines and sales follow-up

GoHighLevel includes CRM and pipelines on every plan. ActiveCampaign sells pipelines and deals as an add-on from Plus up, at a price it doesn't publish.

On ActiveCampaign, every plan has contact profiles, custom fields and tags, and Starter allows up to 5 lists. The Enhanced CRM add-on comes in two versions. The pipelines version covers "Pipeline management", "Deal records", "Account records" and "Lead scoring". The sales engagement version adds "Automated 1:1 email" and "Win probability". We looked at whether ActiveCampaign's CRM is enough for a sales team in our HubSpot comparison.

In HighLevel, deals are called opportunities, and they sit in pipelines that come with every plan, next to the contact record, conversations and calendars. Because users are unlimited, adding a salesperson doesn't change the bill. On ActiveCampaign, more than one user means Pro (3 users) or Enterprise (5): at 2,500 contacts, Pro is $149 a month against $39 for Starter.

SMS, calling, funnels and booking

GoHighLevel builds all four into every plan and charges for each text and minute. ActiveCampaign sells SMS as an add-on, offers no calling on its pricing page, and handles booking through other apps.

ActiveCampaign's SMS add-on is available on Plus, Pro and Enterprise. It includes two-way messaging, automated sends and reply triggers, and personalized broadcasts in the US, UK and Australia. The pricing page gives no price, and in the US you must register for A2P 10DLC first (that last point read on 23 October 2026). WhatsApp is a separate add-on.

Funnels and booking: GoHighLevel includes a website and funnel builder, forms and booking calendars on every plan. ActiveCampaign has standard and inline forms on Starter, adds landing pages and site messages on Plus, and lists Calendly and Eventbrite integrations from Plus for booking.

Can you use ActiveCampaign with GoHighLevel, or move between them?

Yes to both. Keeping both running goes through Zapier or a third-party connector. HighLevel's own guide for moving into GoHighLevel is a CSV job plus rebuilding by hand.

To connect them, Zapier pairs ActiveCampaign with LeadConnector, HighLevel's Zapier app. Its templates include adding new ActiveCampaign contacts to LeadConnector and updating ActiveCampaign contacts when a LeadConnector pipeline stage changes (https://zapier.com/apps/activecampaign/integrations/leadconnector, checked 28 October 2026). In ActiveCampaign's app directory, a search for HighLevel returns one third-party app, CRM Connector Platform, which says it syncs contacts and deals with GoHighLevel and other tools. For anything Zapier's templates don't map, Make, n8n or webhooks can carry it; we compare them in Make vs n8n vs Zapier.

To move from ActiveCampaign to GoHighLevel, HighLevel's "ActiveCampaign to HighLevel (Migration Guide)" lists six things to carry over: contacts, deals, email templates, landing pages, forms and automations (https://help.gohighlevel.com/support/solutions/articles/155000003296-activecampaign-to-highlevel-migration-guide-, modified 24 April 2025). Contacts and deals go across as CSV files, and each contact needs a valid email address. Email templates move with an ActiveCampaign share link. Landing pages, forms and automations don't import: the guide says to recreate them in HighLevel's page builder, form builder and Workflows.

Going the other way, ActiveCampaign lists "Contact migration" among the free services on its pricing page, with basic migration support on Starter and Plus and priority support on Pro and Enterprise. The pricing page doesn't say which tools that covers, so plan for a CSV export from GoHighLevel and for rebuilding workflows as ActiveCampaign automations.

Either way, the automations are the slow part. Before you switch sending off in the old tool, read what breaks in a CRM migration, which we wrote from our own project.

GoHighLevel or ActiveCampaign: which one to choose

Choose GoHighLevel if you run accounts for clients, or your leads come in through funnels, texts and bookings. Choose ActiveCampaign if email is the main channel, one or two people run it, and the rest of your stack already works.

If you're still choosing an email tool, see ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp. If the other option on your list is a sales CRM rather than an email tool, see GoHighLevel vs Pipedrive.

We've built on GoHighLevel ourselves: for a coaching business, an admissions funnel on GoHighLevel (form, CRM, payment link, booking and follow-up emails).

Choose GoHighLevel if you manage more than one business. Unlimited sub-accounts start at $297 a month, and you can rebill texts and email to clients.
Choose GoHighLevel if texting, calling and booking are most of your follow-up, and you don't want a separate tool for each.
Choose GoHighLevel if your list is large and you send a few emails a month: at 10,000 contacts and 4 emails each, Starter comes to $1,294 a year against $1,788 for ActiveCampaign Starter.
Choose ActiveCampaign if your list is small and one person runs email: at 2,500 contacts Starter is $39 a month, billed yearly, against $97 for GoHighLevel Starter before usage.
Choose ActiveCampaign if email automation is the job and you want branching, event tracking and A/B tests inside automations.
Already on ActiveCampaign and adding GoHighLevel for funnels or texting? Connect the two through Zapier first, and move only once you know which automations you'd have to rebuild.

FAQ

Is GoHighLevel cheaper than ActiveCampaign?

For small lists, no. ActiveCampaign Starter is $180 a year at 1,000 contacts and $468 at 2,500, billed yearly, while GoHighLevel Starter is $970 a year plus email usage. At 10,000 contacts and 4 emails each a month, GoHighLevel Starter comes to about $1,294 against $1,788 for ActiveCampaign Starter. Checked 28 October 2026.

Does GoHighLevel replace ActiveCampaign for email marketing?

It can. GoHighLevel includes email marketing and workflows on every plan, at $0.675 per 1,000 emails. ActiveCampaign goes deeper on email: A/B tests inside automations from Pro, custom event tracking from Plus and 950+ automation recipes. If email is your main channel, ActiveCampaign lists more email features; if texting and booking matter as much, GoHighLevel covers them in one account.

Does ActiveCampaign or GoHighLevel have a free plan?

Neither does. ActiveCampaign offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card, then starts at $15 a month for 1,000 contacts, billed yearly. GoHighLevel offers a 14-day free trial on any plan and warns that usage fees for texts and calls may apply during it, then starts at $97 a month. Checked 28 October 2026.

Can ActiveCampaign send texts like GoHighLevel?

Yes, with an add-on. ActiveCampaign sells SMS from its Plus plan up, with two-way messaging and automated sends, at a price its pricing page doesn't publish, and US senders must register for A2P 10DLC. GoHighLevel includes texting on every plan and bills each US segment at $0.00747 from a prepaid wallet, with A2P and carrier fees on top.

Does ActiveCampaign integrate with GoHighLevel?

Through connectors. Zapier links ActiveCampaign with LeadConnector, HighLevel's Zapier app, with templates to add or update contacts in either direction. ActiveCampaign's app directory lists one third-party app, CRM Connector Platform, that names GoHighLevel. Make, n8n or webhooks work when you need to map more fields. Checked 28 October 2026.

Can I move my ActiveCampaign contacts to GoHighLevel?

Yes, by CSV. HighLevel's ActiveCampaign migration guide has you export contacts and deals from ActiveCampaign, import them into GoHighLevel and map the fields; every contact needs a valid email. Email templates move by share link. Landing pages, forms and ActiveCampaign automations have to be rebuilt by hand in GoHighLevel.

When were these GoHighLevel and ActiveCampaign prices checked?

We read ActiveCampaign's and GoHighLevel's pricing pages on 28 October 2026, in USD, ActiveCampaign at 1,000, 2,500 and 10,000 contacts. GoHighLevel's usage rates come from its help center, read on 27 October 2026, and the connector listings were checked on 28 October 2026. The yearly totals are our arithmetic. Confirm on both pricing pages before you buy.

Who wrote this

Retailbox builds on GoHighLevel and helps teams choose and move between CRMs, so we have a stake here, and we kept our services out of the comparison above.

The projects we can describe publicly don't include an ActiveCampaign build or a move between these two tools, so the ActiveCampaign rows and the migration section come from the vendors' own pages.

Originally published at https://retailbox-automation.com/blog/gohighlevel-vs-activecampaign. Want this built for your team? See CRM consulting: pick the right CRM before you pay for it.

AI Automation Agency Cost: Pricing Models, Hidden Fees and How to Check ROI First

Retailbox Automation — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 08:45:51 +0000

By Mikhail Oskola, founder of Retailbox Automation.

Most B2B SMB engagements start small - one high-ROI automation with a fixed, scoped price - rather than a large upfront commitment, so you can prove the return before scaling. Our current price ranges are on our AI automation agency page; this piece is about everything else that ends up on the bill.

The three main pricing models

Project-based - a fixed price for a defined build (e.g., a lead-routing workflow or an AI chatbot). Best for a clear, bounded first project.
Monthly retainer - ongoing development capacity for teams automating several processes over time.
Managed automation - a recurring fee for monitoring, maintenance, and free fixes when third-party APIs change, so your automations keep running.

What drives the cost?

Price tracks complexity and risk, not hours typed. The main drivers are how many systems must be integrated, whether AI models are involved, data-sensitivity requirements (e.g., healthcare or finance), and how much ongoing reliability you need.

Number and type of integrations (a 2-tool sync is far cheaper than a 6-system pipeline).
AI complexity - a simple FAQ bot vs. a custom agent with retrieval and guardrails.
Compliance & data handling (HIPAA, PII) adds architecture and testing.
Reliability needs - one-off build vs. monitored, maintained system.

Hidden costs nobody puts in the quote

The build fee is not the whole bill. Four line items routinely surprise buyers - none is a dealbreaker, but all four should be named before you sign.

LLM usage fees - AI features call OpenAI or Claude per request. For typical SMB volumes that's roughly $20-$200/month, but an unmonitored high-volume bot can run far past that. Ask for a usage estimate and a cap.
Tool subscriptions - automation platforms (n8n cloud, Make, Zapier) and CRM seats are billed to you, not the agency. A build that quietly requires three new subscriptions costs more than its invoice suggests.
Rework of fragile builds - the cheapest quote often skips error handling and monitoring. When a third-party API changes and the workflow dies silently, you pay a second time to rebuild it properly.
Maintenance ownership - if no one is contracted to keep automations alive, your team inherits that job. Price a light managed plan into year one instead of discovering this in month three.

Agency vs. freelancer vs. in-house: first-year cost

For a B2B SMB automating its first two or three workflows, here is a realistic US-market comparison of the first-year total - build plus keeping it alive. Figures are typical estimates, not quotes.

Option	Upfront build	Ongoing (year 1)	Who owns maintenance
Freelancer	$1,500-$8,000	Unpriced - breaks wait for re-hiring	You do, the day the contract ends
In-house engineer (part of role)	Salary time (~$8K-$20K loaded, at 10-20% of a $100K+ role)	Included, but competes with their real job	Your engineer - until they leave
Agency build + managed plan	A scoped project fee (our ranges: AI automation agency page)	A monthly managed plan	The agency, contractually

How to get real ROI (not just a cool demo)

The cheapest automation is the one that keeps working. Baseline the current time and cost of a process before the build, then measure after - so ROI is concrete. Start with the single workflow that wastes the most time, prove it, and expand from there. To run that baseline on your own numbers, use our free automation ROI calculator: it shows what the task costs a year, the hours automation frees up and the payback on the build.

Beware the hidden cost of fragile builds: an automation that breaks every time an API changes can cost more in firefighting than it ever saved. Durability and a maintenance plan are part of the real price.

No-code tools make DIY look free, but the real cost is the engineering time to build it well and the ongoing time to keep it alive. For most B2B SMBs without a dedicated automation engineer, a scoped agency build plus a light managed plan is cheaper over a year than the loaded cost of an internal owner.

How to budget your first project (a 3-step framework)

You do not need a big planning cycle to set a sane budget. Three steps get you a defensible number in an afternoon.

1. Baseline the waste - pick the process your team complains about most and count the hours: (hours per week) × (loaded hourly cost of the people doing it). A process eating 5 hours/week at $50/hour loaded is ~$13,000/year of manual work.
2. Keep the first build small - if a vendor can't scope a meaningful first win under ~$5,000 and live within two weeks, the scope is too big for a first project. Cut it down, not up.
3. Decide maintenance before launch - either name an internal owner with real hours, or budget a light managed plan. An automation without an owner is a future outage with a start date nobody knows.

FAQ

What are the ongoing costs after the build?

Three recurring items: LLM/API usage fees (typically $20-$200/month at SMB volume), subscriptions for the tools the automation runs on (n8n, Make, CRM seats), and maintenance - either a managed plan or your own team's time when APIs change.

Why do agency quotes vary so much for the same project?

Because 'the same project' rarely is: quotes differ on how many systems get integrated, whether error handling and monitoring are included, who owns maintenance, and how production-ready the AI layer is. A $3K and a $15K quote usually describe different reliability levels, not different margins.

What's the difference between a project fee and a managed plan?

A project fee is a one-time cost for a defined build. A managed plan is a recurring fee for monitoring, maintenance, and free fixes when third-party APIs change - it keeps the automation running over time.

Is it cheaper to build automations in-house?

Only if you already have a dedicated automation engineer with spare time. The build cost is just the start - someone must maintain integrations as APIs change. For most SMBs, a scoped agency build plus a light managed plan is cheaper over a year.

Originally published at https://retailbox-automation.com/blog/ai-automation-agency-cost. Want this built for your team? See Retailbox AI Automation Agency services.

What n8n’s 13,491 Public Templates Connect (2026 Study)

Retailbox Automation — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 08:44:31 +0000

Research by Retailbox Automation · snapshot 16 Oct 2026

Key findings

n8n’s public template library held 13,491 workflow templates on 16 October 2026, published by 2,912 different creators.
7,191 of the 13,491 n8n templates (53.3%) use AI, meaning they contain at least one AI or LLM node.
Google Sheets is the most-used app in n8n templates: it is in 4,795 of 13,491 (35.5%), ahead of OpenAI (32.9%), Gmail (22.4%), Slack (16.5%) and Telegram (12.3%).
OpenAI is the most-used AI provider in n8n templates: it is in 4,443 of the 7,191 AI templates (61.8%), ahead of Google Gemini (22.8%), OpenRouter (7.5%) and Anthropic (6.8%).
MCP is rare in n8n templates: 36 of 994 randomly sampled templates (3.6%) use an MCP node.
The most common app pair in n8n templates is Google Sheets plus OpenAI, together in 1,661 of 13,491 (12.3%).
7,975 of the 13,491 n8n templates (59.1%) contain a Code node, where the builder writes JavaScript or Python.

More than half of them use AI: 53.3%. The app they connect to most is Google Sheets, in 35.5% of templates. HubSpot is in 1.7%. And the single most common pair of apps is a spreadsheet plus an LLM.

We build n8n automations, so we wanted to know what everyone else builds with it. On 16 October 2026 we counted every template in n8n’s public library. Nothing was sampled away. The method and its blind spots are below the numbers.

Counted from the public data behind n8n’s template gallery (n8n.io/workflows), snapshot 16 Oct 2026, 13,491 templates.

The findings

1. 53.3%: More than half of n8n’s public templates are AI workflows.

7,191 of the 13,491 templates in n8n’s public library contain at least one AI or LLM node.

How we counted: templates with any node from n8n’s AI (LangChain) set, its AI category or the base OpenAI node, divided by all templates. Our check of 994 full templates puts the true share 1.5 points higher, so 53.3% is a floor.

All 13,491 templates · snapshot 16 Oct 2026 · Source: n8n public template library (n8n.io/workflows)

2. 35.5%: Google Sheets, not a CRM, is the most-connected app in n8n’s library.

Google Sheets appears in 4,795 templates. Next come OpenAI in 4,443 (32.9%), Gmail in 3,028 (22.4%), Slack in 2,231 (16.5%) and Telegram in 1,655 (12.3%). HubSpot is in 230 (1.7%).

How we counted: templates that contain the app at least once, divided by all templates. The gallery’s summary leaves some Gmail nodes out, so Gmail is under-counted by about 10%.

All 13,491 templates · snapshot 16 Oct 2026 · Source: n8n public template library (n8n.io/workflows)

3. 1,661: The most common app pair in n8n templates is a spreadsheet plus an LLM.

Google Sheets and OpenAI appear together in 1,661 templates (12.3%). Gmail and Google Sheets come right behind at 1,637 (12.1%).

How we counted: every pair of two different apps, counted once per template.

All 13,491 templates · snapshot 16 Oct 2026 · Source: n8n public template library (n8n.io/workflows)

4. 59.1%: Most n8n templates contain custom code.

7,975 of 13,491 templates include a Code node, where the builder writes JavaScript or Python. Count templates with a Code node or a generic HTTP Request node and it is 10,169 (75.4%).

How we counted: templates whose node list includes a Code node (and, for the second number, an HTTP Request node), divided by all templates. A node being in a template does not mean the template could not work without it. HTTP Request is a standard n8n node.

All 13,491 templates · snapshot 16 Oct 2026 · Source: n8n public template library (n8n.io/workflows)

5. 61.8%: OpenAI is in 61.8% of n8n’s AI templates. Google Gemini is a distant second.

Of the 7,191 AI templates, OpenAI appears in 4,443. Google Gemini is in 1,642 (22.8%), OpenRouter in 542 (7.5%) and Anthropic in 487 (6.8%).

How we counted: AI templates containing each vendor’s node, divided by all AI templates. One template can use more than one vendor.

All 13,491 templates · snapshot 16 Oct 2026 · Source: n8n public template library (n8n.io/workflows)

6. 91.4%: Almost all of n8n’s template library was created in 2025 and 2026.

12,325 of 13,491 templates were created in 2025 or 2026. Monthly additions peaked at 1,046 in July 2025.

How we counted: by each template’s creation date. The library only holds templates that are live today, so read this as surviving templates, not everything ever published.

All 13,491 templates · snapshot 16 Oct 2026 · Source: n8n public template library (n8n.io/workflows)

7. 3.6%: MCP is still rare in n8n templates.

36 of 994 sampled templates (3.6%, 95% CI 2.6% to 5.0%) use an MCP node. The gallery’s summary alone shows 1.3% (175 of 13,491).

How we counted: any node type with “mcp” in its name. The summary misses about 40% of MCP use, so the sample figure is the better estimate.

Sample of 994 full templates · snapshot 16 Oct 2026 · Source: n8n public template library (n8n.io/workflows)

8. 36.8% → 22.1%: Share of new n8n templates with an AI Agent node: 36.8% (Q3 2025) vs 22.1% (Q3 2026).

That is 1,019 of 2,767 templates created in July to September 2025, against 544 of 2,459 in July to September 2026. Templates with a plain LLM Chain node went from 9.3% to 14.1% over the same quarters.

Read with care: this is a step, not a slope. The monthly share was 36.8% in April 2026 (of 468 new templates), 34.6% in May (of 396) and 31.9% in June (of 495). Then it fell to 22.0% in July (of 744), 24.9% in August (of 819) and 19.6% in September (of 896). The drop came in the same month that new templates jumped from roughly 400 to 500 a month to between 744 and 896. It may reflect a change in what n8n accepts into the library, or a wave of simpler templates, and not only a change in what builders do. We have not explained it yet. Our full-template check matches the agent counts exactly, so it is not a gap in the gallery’s summary.

All 13,491 templates · snapshot 16 Oct 2026 · Source: n8n public template library (n8n.io/workflows)

Other counts from the same snapshot

2,912 different creators published the 13,491 templates. The top 10 made 17.1% of them, and the median creator has 2.
1,317 templates (9.8%) are paid.
The median template connects 2 apps. 1,676 (12.4%) connect none and use only n8n’s own and AI nodes.
The median full template has 18 nodes (sample of 994).

How we counted

n8n’s template gallery at n8n.io/workflows runs on public search data that lists every template and the node types inside it. On 16 October 2026 we read all of it, 136 pages two seconds apart. The data reported 13,491 templates and we got 13,491. We cross-checked against n8n’s public sitemap of template pages: it lists 13,438, and 99.6% of them are in our count.

Each template is one unit. A node type counts once per template, however many times it appears. An “app” is an outside service, with one vendor’s nodes merged, so OpenAI’s chat, embeddings and base nodes all count as OpenAI. n8n’s own building blocks (Code, HTTP Request, IF) and its AI building blocks (AI Agent, memory, parsers) are not apps.

An “AI template” has at least one node from n8n’s AI (LangChain) set, its AI category, or the base OpenAI node. An “AI agent” template has the AI Agent node. A template’s date is the day it was created, not the day it was last edited.

To test the gallery’s summary, we opened the full workflow of 1,000 randomly picked templates. 994 loaded and 6 failed after three tries. Those 994 are “the sample” on this page.

We kept counts only. No template text is stored or shown here, and creators appear only as a number.

What these numbers can’t tell you

Read these before quoting a number.

The gallery’s summary leaves some nodes out. It skips trigger nodes, the “Tool” versions of nodes and all third-party nodes. On our 994-template sample it under-counts Gmail by about 10% (224 vs 248), Google Sheets by 3% (362 vs 374), AI templates by 1.5 points (511 vs 526) and MCP by about 40% (21 vs 36). So every number on this page is a lower bound unless it says “sample”. 430 templates (3.2%) have an empty summary.
Third-party nodes are invisible. 15.5% of sampled templates (154 of 994, 95% CI 13.4% to 17.9%) use at least one community node package, such as Apify, Bright Data or Firecrawl. None of them are in the app counts. The 271 distinct apps we found are n8n’s built-in ones only.
Deleted templates are missing. The library holds the templates that are live today. Counts by month are surviving templates by creation month, not everything published that month. October 2026 covers 16 days.
n8n curates the library. n8n reviews submissions. A trend over time can reflect a change in what n8n accepts as much as a change in what builders make.
View counts are unusable. Most templates created since July 2025 show 0 views. In August 2026, 48 of 819 had any. No finding here uses popularity.

Frequently asked questions

What apps are most commonly used in n8n workflows?

In n8n’s public template library, Google Sheets is the most-used app: it appears in 4,795 of 13,491 templates (35.5%). Next come OpenAI in 4,443 (32.9%), Gmail in 3,028 (22.4%), Slack in 2,231 (16.5%) and Telegram in 1,655 (12.3%). HubSpot is in 230 (1.7%). The count covers public templates only, snapshot 16 Oct 2026.

How many n8n templates use AI?

7,191 of the 13,491 templates in n8n’s public library (53.3%) contain at least one AI or LLM node, counted on 16 Oct 2026. The gallery’s summary data leaves some nodes out. Our check of 994 full templates puts the true share 1.5 points higher, so 53.3% is a floor.

Which AI model provider is used most in n8n workflow templates?

OpenAI. It appears in 4,443 of the 7,191 AI templates in n8n’s public library (61.8%). Google Gemini is second with 1,642 (22.8%), then OpenRouter with 542 (7.5%) and Anthropic with 487 (6.8%). One template can use more than one vendor. Snapshot of all 13,491 templates, 16 Oct 2026.

How many workflow templates are in the n8n template library?

13,491 on 16 October 2026, when we counted every template in n8n’s public library at n8n.io/workflows. n8n’s public sitemap listed 13,438 template pages, and 99.6% of them are in our count. 2,912 different creators published them, and 1,317 (9.8%) are paid. The count changes as n8n adds and removes templates.

How common is MCP in n8n workflows?

Still rare. 36 of 994 randomly sampled n8n templates (3.6%, 95% CI 2.6% to 5.0%) use an MCP node. The gallery’s summary data shows only 1.3% (175 of 13,491) because it misses about 40% of MCP use, so the sample figure is the better estimate. Snapshot 16 Oct 2026.

How to cite

Retailbox, “What n8n’s 13,491 public templates connect”, https://retailbox-automation.com/research/n8n-templates-2026. Counted from the public data behind n8n’s template gallery (n8n.io/workflows), snapshot 16 Oct 2026, 13,491 templates.

Originally published at https://retailbox-automation.com/research/n8n-templates-2026. We build n8n automations for a living: see our n8n services.

n8n vs Power Automate: Self-Hosted Workflows or Microsoft 365 Automation?

Retailbox Automation — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 11:49:18 +0000

By Mikhail Oskola, founder of Retailbox Automation.

Checked: prices, licence terms, execution and request limits, desktop requirements, AI credits, data regions and HIPAA scope on 23 October 2026, against n8n's and Microsoft's own pricing pages, documentation and Microsoft Learn, in USD.

Pick Power Automate if your team lives in Microsoft 365 and needs approvals or desktop automation, and n8n for complex logic, high volume, AI agents or self-hosting. That's our short answer to Power Automate vs n8n. Power Automate Premium is $15 a user a month; n8n Cloud starts at $20 a month for 2,500 runs. Checked 23 October 2026.

n8n vs Power Automate at a glance

n8n is a workflow engine you run on n8n's cloud or on your own server, billed by workflow runs. Power Automate is Microsoft's automation service inside the Microsoft 365 and Power Platform licences, billed per user or per bot. A Microsoft 365 seat already includes basic cloud flows with standard connectors. Checked 23 October 2026.

Every row comes from the vendors' own pricing pages and documentation. Power Automate here means cloud flows plus Power Automate for desktop, Microsoft's tool for automating Windows apps. n8n shows euros or dollars depending on where you visit from; we use the dollar prices it shows US visitors.

	n8n	Power Automate
What it is	A source-available workflow engine (n8n calls its licence "fair-code"), run on n8n Cloud or on your own server	Microsoft's low-code automation for cloud flows and desktop flows, part of the Power Platform
Where it runs	n8n Cloud, hosted in the EU (Frankfurt), or self-hosted wherever you run Docker	Microsoft's cloud, in your environment's region. Desktop flows run on your own Windows machines
Free option	Self-hosted Community edition, no licence fee	Power Automate Free for work or school accounts: cloud flows without sharing, standard connectors, desktop flows run locally
Entry paid price	Starter: $20 a month billed annually, $24 billed monthly, for 2,500 executions	Premium: $15 a user a month, paid yearly
What you pay for	Workflow executions a month. Unlimited users and workflows on every plan	Each user (Premium), or each bot or flow (Process: $150 a month; Hosted Process: $215, paid yearly)
Included with Microsoft 365?	No	Partly: cloud flows with standard connectors, 6,000 actions a user a day. No premium connectors, no desktop bots
How runs are counted	One execution per workflow run, however many steps	One request per action, including failed actions, retries and pagination
Daily or monthly limit	Executions a month: 2,500 on Starter, 10,000 or 50,000 on Pro	Requests per 24 hours: 40,000 per Premium user, 250,000 per Process licence
Desktop automation (RPA)	None	Power Automate for desktop on Windows: attended with Premium, unattended with Process
AI agents	AI Agent node on every plan, with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral or local models	5,000 AI Builder credits a month with Premium. Copilot Studio agents billed in Copilot Credits
Best fit	Complex logic, high volume, AI agents, self-hosting, a stack that isn't mostly Microsoft	Teams living in Microsoft 365 that need approvals in Outlook and Teams, or desktop automation

What's the real difference between n8n and Power Automate?

n8n is a workflow engine you can host yourself. Power Automate is automation built into the Microsoft licence you may already pay for. Most of the other differences follow from that, starting with where flows run and what you're billed for. Checked 23 October 2026.

n8n's code is on GitHub under its Sustainable Use License, which is free for your own internal business use. n8n doesn't call itself open source, because that licence limits how the software can be used. Its home page claims "500+ native integrations. Any API via HTTP."

Power Automate has two kinds of flow. Cloud flows run in Microsoft's cloud when something happens: an email arrives, a form is submitted, a schedule fires, someone presses a button. Desktop flows click through Windows applications the way a person would. Connectors come in two classes, standard and premium. A Microsoft 365 licence covers standard ones. Premium and custom connectors need a paid Power Automate licence.

Microsoft's licensing pages we read don't list which connectors are premium, so check the ones you need before you budget. n8n has no such split: its pricing page says every plan includes "every integration".

Not on Microsoft at all? We compare n8n with the other two common choices in Make vs n8n vs Zapier.

How much do n8n and Power Automate cost?

Power Automate Premium is $15 a user a month, paid yearly. n8n Cloud Starter is $20 a month billed annually, or $24 billed monthly, for 2,500 workflow executions and unlimited users. Microsoft charges per person or per bot; n8n charges per workflow run. Because the units differ, the table lists each vendor's plans without pairing them. Checked 23 October 2026.

Every Power Automate price card says "paid yearly". The page shows no monthly-billing price and no minimum seat count, and Microsoft adds that its prices "may not be reflective of actual list price due to currency, country, regional, and organizational variant factors".

n8n's Business plan, aimed at companies with fewer than 100 employees, is self-hosted only ("Not yet" on n8n Cloud, says the FAQ). It costs $800 a month billed annually, or $960 billed monthly, for 40,000 executions, and adds SSO, Git version control and queue mode. Without a licence key, self-hosted n8n "runs as the free Community edition".

Sources: https://n8n.io/pricing/ and https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/products/power-automate/pricing, both read on 23 October 2026.

Plan	List price (USD)	Billed per	What's capped
n8n Community edition (self-hosted)	No licence fee	Nothing; you pay for your server	Your server's capacity
n8n Starter (Cloud)	$20 a month billed annually, $24 billed monthly	Executions	2,500 executions a month
n8n Pro (Cloud)	$50 a month billed annually, $60 billed monthly; or $120 / $144 for 50,000 executions	Executions	10,000 or 50,000 executions a month
n8n Business (self-hosted only)	$800 a month billed annually, $960 billed monthly	Executions	40,000 executions a month; extra 300,000 cost 4,000 EUR
n8n Enterprise	On request	Executions	Custom
Power Automate Free	$0 with a work or school account	Nothing	Standard connectors only, no sharing, 6,000 actions a user a day
Power Automate Premium	$15 a user a month, paid yearly	User	40,000 requests a user every 24 hours; one attended desktop bot
Power Automate Process	$150 a bot a month, paid yearly	Bot or flow	250,000 requests every 24 hours; one unattended desktop bot
Power Automate Hosted Process	$215 a bot a month, paid yearly	Bot	250,000 requests every 24 hours; runs on a virtual machine Microsoft manages

Is Power Automate included in Microsoft 365?

Partly. A Microsoft 365 licence lets each user build and run cloud flows with standard connectors, up to 6,000 actions a day. Premium and custom connectors, attended desktop bots, the on-premises data gateway and AI Builder credits aren't included. For those you need Power Automate Premium at $15 a user a month. Checked 23 October 2026.

In Microsoft's words, these licences "entitle the user to create and run cloud flows with standard connectors." Dynamics 365 and Power Apps licences add an exception: a flow can use premium connectors "if the flow is in-context and associated to the application from which the seeded license is inherited". Otherwise, "If the cloud flow is isolated and has nothing to do with the application, then a standalone Power Automate Premium must be purchased."

Anyone with a work or school account also gets Power Automate Free: cloud flows you can't share, desktop flows run on your own PC, and standard connectors only. Personal @outlook.com or @gmail.com accounts can use the Free licence too.

The paid features come with a 90-day self-service trial (30 days if an admin assigns it). Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/power-automate-licensing/deep-dive-on-specific-license, updated 17 October 2026.

What does a 20-person team pay in a year?

In our scenario the licence bills are close: n8n Cloud Pro costs $600 a year, and Power Automate Premium for five flow builders costs $900. The gap opens when all 20 people trigger premium flows, which takes Power Automate to $3,600, or when runs pass 10,000 a month, which moves n8n Cloud to $1,440. Our arithmetic at list price, before tax. Checked 23 October 2026.

The scenario: 20 staff on Microsoft 365, five of whom build flows, about 10,000 workflow runs a month, and one premium connector, say to a CRM. Building the flows, AI credits and the Microsoft 365 licences you already pay for are left out.

On Power Automate, the question is who triggers the flows. Microsoft says the premium connectors entitlement "is needed to add a premium connector to a cloud flow and trigger it". If the flows start on their own, from a new CRM record or a schedule, the five builders need Premium: $900 a year. If all 20 people start flows themselves, all 20 need it: $3,600. A Process licence at $150 a month covers one flow "no matter what license the owning or triggering user has", so it pays off once more than ten people trigger the same flow. That flow has to sit in a solution.

On n8n Cloud, 10,000 runs a month is exactly the Pro plan's cap: $50 a month billed annually, $600 a year, or $720 billed monthly. Users are unlimited, so the other 15 people cost nothing. n8n's pricing page doesn't say what happens when a Pro plan goes over its cap, so budget for the next size: 50,000 executions for $120 a month billed annually, $1,440 a year.

Self-hosted n8n has no licence fee. You pay for a server and for someone to keep it updated. A DigitalOcean Basic droplet with 2 vCPUs and 2 to 4 GB of memory lists at $18 to $24 a month, $216 to $288 a year (https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets, read 24 October 2026). That server size is our assumption, not n8n's.

None of these figures covers building the flows. We break that cost down in what an AI automation agency costs.

20 people, 10,000 runs a month, 12 months	Licence cost
Power Automate Premium for 5 builders, flows start on their own	$900
Power Automate Premium for all 20	$3,600
Power Automate Process for one flow anyone triggers	$1,800 per flow
n8n Cloud Pro, 10,000 executions, billed annually	$600
n8n Cloud Pro, 10,000 executions, billed monthly	$720
n8n Cloud Pro, 50,000 executions, billed annually	$1,440
Self-hosted n8n Community, DigitalOcean droplet with 2 vCPUs and 2 to 4 GB	$216 to $288, plus someone's time to maintain it
Self-hosted n8n Business, 40,000 executions, billed annually	$9,600

Run limits, request limits and what happens at volume

n8n counts a whole workflow run as one execution. Power Automate counts every action inside a run as a request. So a 10-step flow that runs 1,000 times a day uses 1,000 n8n executions but about 10,000 Power Platform requests. Checked 23 October 2026.

n8n's pricing FAQ: "An execution is a single run of your entire workflow. It doesn't matter how many steps are in the workflow or how much data it processes." At 1,000 runs a day, that flow needs the 50,000-execution Pro plan.

Microsoft counts every connector call and built-in action: "Both successful and failed actions count toward these limits. Retries and requests from pagination also count as action executions." The official limits per 24 hours are 40,000 requests per Premium user, 250,000 per Process licence, and 6,000 per user on Microsoft 365 or Power Automate Free. On top of that, any five minutes allow 100,000 requests, whatever the licence.

Those per-user limits aren't enforced yet. "All organizations are currently in a transition period", during which limits apply per cloud flow: 200,000 a flow on Premium, 10,000 a flow on Microsoft 365. Microsoft hasn't published an end date. When enforcement comes, "If the first person uses more than 40,000 requests in a 24-hour period, their flows slow down".

So the 10,000-request flow fits on Premium but is over the official 6,000 limit of a plain Microsoft 365 seat. A Process licence gives one flow 250,000 requests a day, and up to 10 can be stacked on it. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/api-request-limits-allocations, updated 14 October 2026.

On n8n, the Business plan charges 4,000 EUR for each extra 300,000 executions. For Starter and Pro, the pricing page doesn't say. Self-hosted Community edition isn't billed by execution at all; how much it runs depends on the server you give it.

Desktop automation (RPA): where Power Automate has no n8n equivalent

If the job is clicking through a Windows app that has no API, Power Automate is the tool. Power Automate for desktop records and replays those steps on Windows 10, Windows 11 and Windows Server. n8n has nothing like it: it works with apps through their APIs, webhooks and code steps, not through the screen. Checked 23 October 2026.

The free licence covers "authoring and running desktop flows locally (attended)". Triggering desktop flows from cloud flows, sharing them and running them unattended need a paid licence. Premium includes one attended bot. A Process licence at $150 a month is one unattended bot that "can run one desktop flow at a time". Hosted Process, at $215, runs the bot on a virtual machine that Microsoft manages.

It needs Windows 10 or 11 (Home, Pro or Enterprise) or Windows Server 2016 to 2025, not on ARM processors, and on Home editions "you can't trigger desktop flows from the cloud". Desktop flow runs don't count against Power Platform request limits. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/requirements.

This is the clearest case for Power Automate. If an old Windows-only system with no API is part of the process, keep that step in Power Automate, whatever runs the rest.

AI agents in n8n and Power Automate

n8n's AI Agent node is included on every plan and works with the model provider you choose: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, or a local model through Ollama. Power Automate gives 5,000 AI Builder credits a month with Premium, Process and Hosted Process, and bills Copilot Studio agents in Copilot Credits. Checked 23 October 2026.

n8n's docs describe the node like this: "Connect a chat model and one or more tools, and the agent decides which tools to call to complete a task." You add your own credentials for each model provider. n8n Cloud plans also include "Gateway credits" for running models without your own API key; the pricing page doesn't say how many.

On the Microsoft side, a Microsoft 365 licence includes no AI Builder credits. Agent flows and Copilot Studio agents use Copilot Credits, and "The number of Copilot Credits counted for each response or action depends on the complexity of the task the agent completes." Unused credits don't carry over, and neither the Power Automate pricing page nor the Copilot Studio licensing page gives a price per credit. Copilot inside cloud flows is on by default for US work accounts, with no separate price listed.

We haven't benchmarked the two. The practical difference is billing: with n8n you pay the model provider directly for what the agent uses, while with Microsoft you buy credits from Microsoft.

Self-hosting, data control and HIPAA

Only n8n can run on your own servers. n8n Cloud keeps data in the EU, in Frankfurt; self-hosted n8n keeps it wherever you run it. Power Automate runs in the Microsoft region of your environment, the US included, and its cloud service is in scope of Microsoft's standard HIPAA business associate agreement (BAA). Checked 23 October 2026.

n8n's pricing page: "For hosted plans, data is stored within the EU, on servers located in Frankfurt, Germany. For self-hosted plans, it's wherever you decide to host n8n." n8n Cloud runs on Microsoft Azure. n8n's security page mentions SOC 2 (the report goes to enterprise customers, others get SOC 3) and annual third-party penetration tests, but not HIPAA. If you self-host, "encrypting other data at rest is the responsibility of the user."

Microsoft lists "Power Automate cloud service either as a standalone service or as included in an Office 365 or Dynamics 365 branded plan or suite" as in scope for HIPAA, and its BAA is "available through the Microsoft Online Services Data Protection Addendum by default". Microsoft also says that "using Microsoft services doesn't on its own achieve HIPAA compliance." Desktop flows running on your own PC aren't named in that scope.

Power Automate cloud flows run only in Microsoft's cloud. Your own servers can host the on-premises data gateway (from Premium up) and desktop bots, but not the flow engine.

Which other tools sign a BAA, and what self-hosting n8n does and doesn't settle, is covered in which automation tools sign a BAA.

Can you use n8n with Microsoft 365 instead of choosing?

Yes. n8n has nodes for Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, Excel, OneDrive, To Do and Dynamics CRM, and credentials for Dataverse, Microsoft SQL and Entra ID. They sign in with OAuth2. On n8n Cloud you connect your Microsoft account in the browser; on self-hosted n8n you first register an app with the Microsoft identity platform. Checked 23 October 2026.

Two details for admins: users can only connect on their own if Entra allows "User can consent to apps accessing company data on their behalf", and flows that shouldn't run under one person's login can use n8n's Entra Service Principal credential for app-only access. Source: https://docs.n8n.io/integrations/builtin/credentials/microsoft.

Ready-made templates for Microsoft are scarce. In our study of 13,491 public n8n templates, data pulled 16 October 2026, 231 templates (1.7%) use a Microsoft node: Outlook in 124, Teams in 50, Excel in 41, SharePoint in 29, OneDrive in 24, and Dynamics CRM in none. Templates with a Google node: 6,774, or half the library. A Microsoft 365 team should expect to build its own n8n flows rather than start from a template.

n8n has no node for Power Automate itself, so the two don't call each other directly. Where a team uses both, a common split is to keep approvals and desktop flows in Power Automate and run the heavier cross-system workflows in n8n.

Moving from Power Automate to n8n: what moves and what doesn't

Nothing moves automatically. Neither n8n nor Microsoft offers an importer between the two, so each flow is rebuilt by hand, from the trigger to the error handling. Some third-party tools claim partial conversion; we haven't tested them, so expect manual fixes if you try one. Checked 23 October 2026.

Connections are re-authorised in n8n, either per Microsoft account or through an app registered in Entra ID. Power Automate's approvals in Teams and Outlook have no matching n8n node, so in n8n you build that step yourself. Desktop flows stay in Power Automate, because n8n has nothing to run them.

Recount your volume in n8n's unit before you pick a plan. A Power Automate flow's daily request count tells you how many actions it runs. n8n bills each full run once, so count runs, not actions.

If the flows will run for your own customers, read n8n's licence first: internal business use is free, but making n8n "available to your customers for them to connect their accounts and build workflows" needs a commercial agreement with n8n.

Our notes on what breaks in a migration are about CRM data, but the first step is the same: list everything that runs today before you rebuild any of it.

n8n or Power Automate: which one to choose

Choose Power Automate if your team works in Microsoft 365 and the flows are approvals, notifications and document steps between Outlook, SharePoint and Teams, or if you need desktop automation. Choose n8n for complex logic, high volume, AI agents, self-hosting or a stack that isn't mostly Microsoft. Plenty of teams run both.

Is Power Automate still relevant? Microsoft still includes it with Microsoft 365 licences and updated its licensing pages in October 2026. If it feels difficult, look at the licensing before the builder: which connectors are premium, who needs a licence to trigger a flow, and how requests are counted. All three are covered above.

If you want help deciding which of your processes go where, that's our business process automation work.

Your flows stay inside Microsoft 365: start with the Power Automate you already have. Standard connectors and 6,000 actions a user a day cost nothing extra.
You need to click through a Windows app with no API: use Power Automate for desktop. n8n has no equivalent.
One premium connector and a few builders: Power Automate Premium at $15 a user a month and n8n Cloud Pro at $50 a month cost about the same. Count who triggers the flows before you decide.
Long flows at high volume: n8n bills each run once, however many steps. Power Automate counts every action, failed ones and retries included.
AI agents on the model you choose: n8n's AI Agent node, on every plan.
Data has to stay on your own servers: only n8n can be self-hosted.

FAQ

Is n8n a good alternative to Power Automate?

For complex, high-volume or AI-heavy workflows, yes. n8n bills a whole run as one execution, can be self-hosted and connects to Outlook, Teams and SharePoint. It doesn't replace Power Automate's desktop automation or the approvals built into Microsoft 365, so many Microsoft teams run both. Checked 23 October 2026.

Is Power Automate free with Microsoft 365?

Partly. A Microsoft 365 licence includes Power Automate cloud flows with standard connectors, up to 6,000 actions a user a day. Premium and custom connectors, attended desktop bots and the on-premises gateway need Power Automate Premium at $15 a user a month, paid yearly. n8n isn't included in any Microsoft licence.

Is n8n or Power Automate cheaper for a 20-person team?

It depends on who triggers the flows. With five builders on Power Automate Premium and flows that start on their own, it's $900 a year; if all 20 people trigger premium flows, $3,600. n8n Cloud Pro, 10,000 executions with unlimited users, is $600 a year billed annually. Our arithmetic at list price, checked 23 October 2026.

Can n8n connect to Outlook, Teams and SharePoint?

Yes. n8n has nodes for Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, Excel, OneDrive, To Do and Dynamics CRM, signed in with OAuth2. On n8n Cloud you connect your Microsoft account in the browser; self-hosted n8n needs an app registered with Microsoft first. There's no n8n node for Power Automate itself, so the two don't call each other directly.

Does n8n do desktop automation like Power Automate Desktop?

No. Power Automate for desktop clicks through Windows apps that have no API, attended with Premium or unattended with a $150-a-month Process bot. n8n works through APIs, webhooks and code, and has no desktop robot. If a Windows app without an API is part of the process, keep that step in Power Automate.

Can I self-host Power Automate like n8n?

No. Power Automate cloud flows run in Microsoft's cloud, in your environment's region. You can run the on-premises data gateway and desktop bots on your own machines, but not the flow engine. n8n can run entirely on your own server or private cloud with Docker, and its Community edition has no licence fee.

When were these n8n and Power Automate prices checked?

We checked every n8n and Power Automate price, limit and licence rule in this article on 23 October 2026, on n8n.io, microsoft.com and Microsoft Learn, in USD. n8n shows euros or dollars depending on where you visit from, and Microsoft says checkout prices can differ by country, so check both pages before you buy.

Who wrote this

Retailbox builds mostly on n8n, so we have a stake in which one you pick. We choose the engine per project, and we kept our services out of the comparison above. We rebuilt a failing real-estate voice booking agent on Retell and n8n, with booking into GoHighLevel.

Originally published at https://retailbox-automation.com/blog/n8n-vs-power-automate. Want this built for your team? See n8n automation services and consulting.

AI Automation Agency vs In-House Hire: Cost, Speed and When Each Makes Sense

Retailbox Automation — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 11:45:22 +0000

By Mikhail Oskola, founder of Retailbox Automation.

Checked: salary figures as published by the trackers named in the text, dated 31 August to 3 September 2026.

An AI automation agency and an in-house automation hire solve the same problem two different ways. One you pay per project or per month; the other you put on payroll and manage yourself. An agency usually costs less upfront and can start sooner, because there is no hiring step; an in-house hire costs more from day one but gives you someone embedded in the business full-time, with no vendor to coordinate once they're ramped. We're an agency, so we have a stake in this answer. Neither is the default right answer. It depends on how much ongoing automation work you actually have, and whether that work is steady enough to justify a full-time salary. This breaks down the real cost difference, when each option makes sense, and why companies past a certain size often end up running both at once.

Agency vs. in-house hire: what's actually different?

An AI automation agency is a team you hire per project or on a monthly retainer. A good one has built workflows like yours before for other companies; check that in its references, not in its pitch. The catch: you're sharing their attention with other clients, and the relationship ends, or continues on a retainer, when the project does.
An in-house automation hire is one person (or a small team) on your payroll, full-time, sitting in your meetings and your Slack. They know your business, your data, and your stack better than any outside team ever will. But they cost a full salary whether there's automation work that week or not, and if they leave, most of what they knew leaves with them unless it was documented.
Neither option is automatically cheaper or more serious than the other. The right call depends on how much steady automation work actually exists, not on which one sounds more permanent.

What's the real cost difference?

	Agency (project-based)	In-house hire (full-time)
Upfront cost	A project fee per build; our current ranges are on our AI automation agency page	$0 upfront - but a full salary starts the day they're hired
Time to first working automation	1-2 weeks for a quick automation, 3-8 for a CRM build, 6-16 for a custom AI system	Weeks to months, plus time to hire, then ramp on your stack
Ongoing cost if work is steady	A monthly managed-support plan, or a new project fee per initiative	About $134,000-$168,000/year fully loaded - base salary plus 25-40% for benefits and overhead
Cost in a month with no automation work	Nothing beyond an existing managed plan	Full salary, same as any other month
What happens if the relationship ends	Depends on the contract: ask for documentation and admin access as part of the handoff. The people who built it leave	Everything they knew walks out with them, unless it was written down

The row that actually decides this for most companies is the third one: whether there's enough steady automation work to keep one full-time person busy all year. A single CRM migration or one automation project doesn't clear that bar. An agency finishes it and moves on, and you're not carrying a salary through the months between initiatives. A company running dozens of workflows that need constant tuning, new integrations as tools get added, and someone who can drop everything when one breaks starts looking more like a full-time job.

When does an in-house hire or AI team make sense?

An in-house automation hire earns their salary once there's enough automation and integration work to fill a full-time role year-round. Not one project, but a continuous backlog: new integrations as the company adds tools, workflows that need rebuilding as the business changes, and enough volume that someone sitting in daily standups catches problems before they get expensive. It also makes sense when the work touches something sensitive enough that having it built by someone who reports to you, not a vendor, is worth the premium: regulated data, or a process nobody outside the company should see the internals of. The tradeoff is ramp time: even a strong senior hire needs weeks to learn your CRM, your data model, and which systems are actually load-bearing before they ship anything real.

When does an agency or specialist consultancy make more sense?

An agency makes more sense when the automation need is real but doesn't add up to a full-time job: one CRM implementation, a handful of workflows, an AI agent for one specific process. If the agency has built something similar before, it isn't learning on your time, and you're not carrying a six-figure salary through the months when there's nothing to build. It's also the lower-risk starting point if you're not sure automation will be a permanent function in the company yet. Run one project, see the payback, and decide whether it's worth building a team around before committing to a hire.

Can an agency work alongside an in-house ops person?

Yes, and it's a common setup past a certain size. An in-house ops or RevOps person who owns the day-to-day and knows the business, backed by an agency for the specialized builds a generalist can't take on alone (a CRM migration, an AI agent, anything outside what one person can build and still do their regular job). The in-house person doesn't need to be a full automation engineer to make this work; they need to know what's running, flag what's breaking, and be the point of contact when an outside project needs internal context.

What does an in-house automation hire actually cost?

US automation engineer salaries sit in a fairly tight band across the major trackers. As of September 2026: Salary.com puts the national average at $108,677 (as of September 1, 2026), Indeed at $108,033 (updated August 31, 2026), ZipRecruiter at $107,126 (as of September 3, 2026), and Glassdoor higher at $119,731. Built In puts engineers with 7+ years of experience at $131,421 on average. One caveat on all of these: "automation engineer" is a broad job title. The same salary data also covers QA test-automation engineers and industrial or manufacturing automation roles, so it's a reasonable benchmark for a business-process automation hire, not an exact match.

None of those figures is the full cost. Benefits and payroll overhead are commonly estimated at another 25-40% on top of base salary. Applied to the $107,000-$120,000 base range above, that puts a fully loaded in-house automation hire at about $134,000-$168,000 a year, before they've shipped a single workflow.

For the agency side, the only seller's numbers we can vouch for are our own, published on our AI automation agency page. Read them as one data point and get quotes from other agencies too. Rough breakeven: a $150,000/year fully loaded hire costs about $12,500 a month whether there's work that month or not. If there's enough steady automation work to keep one person building or maintaining something every month, the salary is the better buy. If there isn't, project work costs less.

FAQ

Should I hire an in-house ops person or use an automation agency?

Use an agency if the work is one project or a handful of workflows. Hire in-house once there's a steady backlog of automation work all year. Many companies past a certain size do both: an in-house ops person owns the day-to-day, and an agency takes the specialized builds, like a CRM migration or an AI agent.

Should we hire an AI agency or build an in-house AI team?

Build a team only if you already have enough steady AI and automation work to keep it busy year-round. One fully loaded US automation hire costs about $134,000-$168,000 a year before shipping anything, and a team multiplies that. If you're not sure AI will be a permanent function yet, run one agency project first, see the payback, then decide.

Which delivers results faster: automating with AI in-house or hiring a specialist consultancy?

Usually the agency or consultancy, mostly because there is no hiring step. If it has built the same kind of workflow before, it isn't learning on your time either. The in-house route adds the time to hire someone, then weeks for them to learn your CRM, your data and which systems are load-bearing before the first real automation ships. The table above compares the timelines side by side.

Is it cheaper to hire an in-house automation engineer or use an agency?

For a single project or a handful of workflows, an agency is cheaper: you pay a one-time project fee, not a fully loaded annual salary of about $134,000-$168,000. It flips once the automation work is steady enough to fill a full-time role year-round; at that point, stacking ongoing agency projects can add up to more than one in-house salary.

When does an in-house automation hire make sense?

Once there's a continuous backlog of automation and integration work. Not one project, but new integrations, rebuilds, and fixes that would otherwise queue up waiting for outside help. It also makes sense when the work touches data sensitive enough that you want it built by someone who reports directly to you, not a vendor.

Can an agency work alongside an in-house ops person?

Yes. It's a common setup once a company has someone in-house who owns day-to-day operations but doesn't have the bandwidth or specialization to build a CRM migration or an AI agent alone. The in-house person keeps the business context; the agency handles the specialized build.

What does an in-house automation hire cost vs. a project fee?

A fully loaded in-house automation engineer runs about $134,000-$168,000 a year: a US base salary of roughly $107,000-$120,000 (salary trackers, September 2026) plus 25-40% for benefits and overhead. The salary is a fixed annual cost regardless of workload that month; the project fee is a one-time cost tied to a specific deliverable.

Who wrote this

Retailbox is an AI automation agency, so on this question we're a party, not a referee. The salary figures come from the public trackers named above, and we haven't surveyed other agencies' prices for this page. A market-wide breakdown by project type is in AI automation agency costs in 2026.

The advice on when to hire in-house is reasoning from the costs above, not a study of our own clients.

Originally published at https://retailbox-automation.com/blog/ai-automation-agency-vs-in-house-hire. Want this built for your team? See Retailbox AI Automation Agency.

GoHighLevel vs HubSpot: Prices, Usage Fees, Agency Tools and Migration

Retailbox Automation — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 11:42:23 +0000

By Mikhail Oskola, founder of Retailbox Automation.

Checked: prices and usage rates on 28 September 2026, feature, support and compliance details on 23-26 September 2026, against GoHighLevel's and HubSpot's own pricing, catalog, terms and help pages, in USD.

HubSpot vs GoHighLevel comes down to who runs the account. GoHighLevel (the company calls itself HighLevel) fits agencies and small service businesses: one flat price, client sub-accounts and white label. HubSpot fits in-house sales and marketing teams, with separate Hubs on one CRM. GoHighLevel bills texts, calls, email and AI on top, from a prepaid wallet. HubSpot starts free, then charges per seat and by contact tier, plus a one-time onboarding fee from Professional up. Prices checked 28 September 2026.

GoHighLevel vs HubSpot at a glance

Every row below comes from the vendor's own pricing page, product catalog, terms of service or help center. We read HubSpot's pricing pages in a US browser, in USD, and re-checked every price on both sides on 28 September 2026. Each vendor publishes a page about the other. We don't use those as sources about the rival; what they get wrong is in the last section.

GoHighLevel sells one account with every feature switched on. HubSpot sells separate Hubs (Marketing, Sales, Service and others), each priced on its own, so the HubSpot column depends on which Hubs you buy.

	GoHighLevel	HubSpot
Who it's for, in the vendor's words	Starter: "Perfect for smaller businesses and solo marketers". Unlimited: "Built for growing agencies". Agency Pro: for agencies "looking to go SaaS"	Separate Hubs: Marketing, Sales, Service, Content, Data, Revenue and Smart CRM, each priced on its own
Free plan	None. A 14-day free trial on any paid plan	Yes: up to 2 users and 1,000 contacts
Entry price	Starter: $97 a month or $970 a year	Sales Hub or Marketing Hub Starter: $20 per seat a month list. New-customer promo: $7 billed annually, $10 billed monthly
Mid and top plans	Unlimited: $297 a month ($2,970 a year). Agency Pro: $497 a month ($4,970 a year). Enterprise: no published price	Sales Hub Professional: $90 per seat billed annually, $100 monthly. Marketing Hub Professional: $800 a month billed annually, $890 monthly, 3 seats. Enterprise: Sales Hub $150 per seat, Marketing Hub $3,600 a month
Pricing basis	Flat price per account, unlimited contacts and users. Texts, calls, email and AI billed on top from a prepaid wallet	Per seat and per Hub. Marketing Hub also charges by marketing-contact tier
Client accounts	Starter: 3 sub-accounts. Unlimited and Agency Pro: unlimited	Multi-account management: up to 30 HubSpot accounts, needs one Enterprise account
White label and resale	White-label desktop app on all plans. Reselling as your own software (SaaS Mode) and marking up usage: Agency Pro only	No white-label offer found in HubSpot's product catalog
Required setup fee	None. Advanced Account Setup is an optional $1,000 add-on	One-time onboarding on Professional and Enterprise: $1,500 to $7,000 depending on Hub and tier
Contract and refunds	Monthly or annual billing. HighLevel's terms say fees are non-refundable	Starter: commit monthly. Professional: commit annually, even when paid monthly. Enterprise: billed annually
Move data from the other	HighLevel's HubSpot Importer brings in contacts, deals, companies, custom fields, pipelines, emails, notes and tasks. Workflows are rebuilt by hand	Smart Transfer doesn't list HighLevel as a source

How much do GoHighLevel and HubSpot cost?

The tiers don't line up one to one. GoHighLevel prices one account with everything switched on. HubSpot prices each Hub and each seat, so a team that buys Sales Hub and Marketing Hub pays for both. The table pairs the tiers by their place in each price list, not by features.

Two HubSpot numbers need their billing basis next to them. Marketing Hub Professional is $800 a month on annual billing and $890 on monthly billing, and HubSpot's catalog lists $890. The Starter prices of $7 and $10 are a promo: HubSpot's pricing page says "New customers only. Select offers available for a limited time." The $20 list price comes from HubSpot's Product & Services Catalog. The promo has its own column, so you can see what's left when it ends.

On GoHighLevel, annual billing costs ten times the monthly price. That's our arithmetic from the pricing page: $970 a year against $97 a month, so the twelve months cost what ten would.

Comparing HubSpot with a per-user CRM instead? The same HubSpot prices are set against Zoho in HubSpot vs Zoho CRM.

Tier	GoHighLevel (monthly / annual)	HubSpot list price	HubSpot promo now	Required onboarding	Source	Checked on
Free	No free plan. 14-day free trial	$0, up to 2 users and 1,000 contacts	None	None	https://www.gohighlevel.com/pricing, https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/sales, https://legal.hubspot.com/hubspot-product-and-services-catalog	28 Sep 2026
Entry: GoHighLevel Starter, HubSpot Starter	$97 / $970	$20 per seat a month, Sales Hub or Marketing Hub	$7 per seat billed annually, $10 billed monthly, new customers only	None	https://www.gohighlevel.com/pricing, https://legal.hubspot.com/hubspot-product-and-services-catalog, https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/sales	28 Sep 2026
Mid: GoHighLevel Unlimited, HubSpot Professional	$297 / $2,970	Sales Hub: $100 per seat a month ($90 billed annually). Marketing Hub: $890 a month with 3 seats ($800 billed annually)	None shown	Sales Hub $1,500. Marketing Hub $3,000	https://www.gohighlevel.com/pricing, https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/sales, https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/marketing	28 Sep 2026
Top: GoHighLevel Agency Pro, HubSpot Enterprise	$497 / $4,970	Sales Hub: $150 per seat a month, billed annually. Marketing Hub: $3,600 a month with 5 seats	None shown	Sales Hub $3,500. Marketing Hub $7,000	https://www.gohighlevel.com/pricing, https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/sales, https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/marketing	28 Sep 2026
GoHighLevel Enterprise	No published price	No equivalent	No equivalent	Not stated	https://www.gohighlevel.com/pricing	28 Sep 2026

What GoHighLevel charges on top of the subscription

GoHighLevel's plan price pays for the software. Sending and calling cost extra. The pricing page marks email, SMS, calling, Conversation AI, Voice AI and Reviews AI with "*Usage based charges apply", and its FAQ says: "Your subscription covers the platform features, but there are usage-based costs for telecommunications and AI services."

The money comes out of a prepaid wallet. HighLevel's pricing guide says that when the balance drops below your minimum, it "automatically charges the agency card on file to refill the wallet." Its phone pricing guide says the rates match Twilio's. So when HighLevel's HubSpot comparison page says "Everything is included", read it as switched on, not free to use.

Not in the table: A2P registration and carrier fees, which HighLevel bills on top as pass-through charges. If you resell to clients with rebilling turned on, the phone guide adds "a fixed 5% markup" to those pass-through charges at the sub-account level. The Unlimited plan card still reads "Rebill Phone & Email (no markup)".

HubSpot's growth cost sits in contacts instead. Marketing Hub Starter includes 1,000 marketing contacts. After that, HubSpot's catalog charges $50 a month per extra 1,000 up to 3,000, then $45, then $40 above 5,000. "If you exceed your marketing contacts tier at any time, you will be billed immediately," and the tier "cannot be downgraded until your contract renewal date." Contacts you don't market to are free. For calling, HubSpot sells 1,000 extra minutes for $50 a month and 5 extra phone numbers for $25 a month, as add-ons to Sales Hub and Service Hub Professional and Enterprise. Texting is an add-on too. The catalog sells a Sales and Service SMS Add-On for $75 a month with 1,000 message segments, on Sales Hub and Service Hub Professional and Enterprise, and it only sends from US numbers to US and Canada (+1) numbers (https://legal.hubspot.com/hubspot-product-and-services-catalog, checked 28 Sep 2026). For more volume the add-on points to SMS Limit Increase packs, but that listing names Marketing Hub and Service Hub, not Sales Hub. So for Sales Hub we quote only the $75 for 1,000 segments.

What you use	GoHighLevel price (US and Canada)	Source	Checked on
Email	$0.675 per 1,000 emails, all plans	https://help.gohighlevel.com/en/support/solutions/articles/155000001156-highlevel-pricing-guide	28 Sep 2026
SMS	$0.00747 per segment, outbound and inbound	https://help.gohighlevel.com/support/solutions/articles/48001223556-lc-phone-pricing-structure	28 Sep 2026
Phone numbers	Local $1.15 a month, toll-free $2.15 a month	https://help.gohighlevel.com/support/solutions/articles/48001223556-lc-phone-pricing-structure	28 Sep 2026
Calls	Outbound $0.0166 a minute, inbound $0.01165 a minute	https://help.gohighlevel.com/support/solutions/articles/48001223556-lc-phone-pricing-structure	28 Sep 2026
Premium workflow steps	$0.01 per execution. Standard triggers and actions are free	https://help.gohighlevel.com/en/support/solutions/articles/155000001156-highlevel-pricing-guide	28 Sep 2026
AI	Pay per use at token cost, or AI Employee at $50 (Growth) or $97 (Unlimited) a month per sub-account	https://www.gohighlevel.com/pricing, https://help.gohighlevel.com/support/solutions/articles/155000006652-ai-product-pricing	28 Sep 2026

Is GoHighLevel cheaper than HubSpot for a small business?

For a business that texts customers and markets to a few thousand contacts, usually yes. A team with fewer than 1,000 marketing contacts that barely texts can pay less on HubSpot's promo: five Starter seats are 5 × $7 = $35 a month on annual billing.

Licenses are one line of the budget. Setup, data migration and automations are priced separately by whoever does that work.

Here is our arithmetic from the prices above, not a vendor quote: one business, 5 users, 3,000 marketing contacts, 10,000 emails and 2,000 US text segments a month, before tax.

GoHighLevel Starter: $97 + email 10 × $0.675 = $6.75 + texts 2,000 × $0.00747 = $14.94 + one local number $1.15, so about $119.84 a month. That's before A2P and carrier fees and any AI use. Users and contacts don't change the price.
HubSpot Marketing Hub Starter at list price: 5 seats × $20 = $100 + marketing contacts 1,001 to 3,000 at 2 × $50 = $100, so about $200 a month, before any calling cost. The 2,000 texts have no HubSpot price here: every SMS add-on in HubSpot's catalog is for Professional or Enterprise. At the promo the seats drop to 5 × $7 = $35 on annual billing. HubSpot's catalog doesn't say whether the promo also covers contact tiers, so we don't total it.
One tier up, HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional costs $800 × 12 + $3,000 onboarding = $12,600 in the first year on annual billing. That covers 3 seats and 2,000 marketing contacts, so the business above would pay for 2 more seats and more contacts on top. GoHighLevel has no required onboarding fee.

Which is better for agencies: sub-accounts and white label

GoHighLevel. It's built around one agency account that runs many client accounts. HubSpot can link several accounts, but only with Enterprise.

GoHighLevel Starter includes 3 sub-accounts, and HighLevel's pricing FAQ calls it "perfect for a single business owner or a new agency." Unlimited ($297) and Agency Pro ($497) have unlimited sub-accounts. HighLevel's page comparing itself with HubSpot says every plan includes unlimited sub-accounts. Its own pricing page says 3 on Starter, so we go by the pricing page.

On white label, HighLevel's FAQ says you can "white-label the desktop web app, meaning your clients see your logo and branding when they log in". A white-label mobile app is a $497-a-month add-on. Selling HighLevel as your own software (SaaS Mode) and marking up the usage you pass on are Agency Pro only. The terms of service say: "You may not mark-up or increase any HighLevel Fees that you pass through to Your customers or third parties unless you are enrolled in our $497 tier plan."

HubSpot's catalog offers multi-account management instead: "Connect up to 30 total HubSpot accounts within one multi-account management organization." One connected account has to be Enterprise, and the others Professional or Enterprise. We searched HubSpot's catalog for "white label" and "white-label" on 28 September 2026 and found no match.

Which has better automation, GoHighLevel or HubSpot?

Both automate on every paid plan. GoHighLevel sets no workflow count and charges for premium steps. HubSpot caps the number of workflows on each tier.

GoHighLevel lists Workflow Automation as a core feature on every plan, and its pricing page states no workflow limit. Premium triggers and actions cost $0.01 per execution, and HighLevel says "your agency is not charged for free triggers and actions". Optional Workflow Pro plans bundle executions for $10, $25 or $50 a month per sub-account.

HubSpot Sales Hub Starter allows "up to 50 workflows with restricted triggers and actions". Professional allows "up to 300 fully customizable workflows", and Enterprise up to 1,000 (https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/sales, checked 28 Sep 2026). Marketing Hub Starter gets "1 simple workflow per form, with up to 10 actions", and omni-channel marketing automation starts on Professional (https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/marketing, read 26 Sep 2026).

Our reading: for a sales team, compare GoHighLevel with Sales Hub Professional. That's where HubSpot's workflows become fully customizable.

Phone, SMS, integrations and support

GoHighLevel has its own phone system on every plan, with the per-text and per-minute rates in the usage table above. HubSpot sells extra calling minutes and phone numbers as add-ons from Professional. Texting on HubSpot also starts at Professional: the $75-a-month SMS add-on described above, US numbers only.

Integrations. HighLevel's integrations page says "Plug In With 500+ Business Tools." HubSpot's CRM page says you can connect to "over 2,000 popular business apps" (read 25 Sep 2026).

Support. HighLevel offers 24/7 live chat, Zoom support rooms, email tickets and phone, and premium support costs $500 a month. Its help center says "Only Agency Admins/Users Can Access HighLevel Support", so the users in your client accounts don't get it. HubSpot gives Free users the knowledge base and community, adds chat and email on Starter, and phone on Professional and Enterprise. HubSpot says phone support is English only.

If you handle patient data: GoHighLevel sells HIPAA compliance as a $297-a-month add-on, and HubSpot signs a BAA only on Enterprise. The details are in which CRMs sign a HIPAA BAA.

Can you move from HubSpot to GoHighLevel, or back?

From HubSpot to GoHighLevel, yes, with HighLevel's own importer. The other way, HubSpot's one-click import tool doesn't list HighLevel.

HighLevel's HubSpot Importer brings over contacts, deals, companies, custom fields, custom folders, pipelines, stages, emails, notes and tasks. Its help article lists the limits: a deal with no contact attached can't be imported, HubSpot calculated fields arrive as single-line text, recurring tasks aren't supported, and imported emails are read only (https://help.gohighlevel.com/support/solutions/articles/155000007947-import-data-from-hubspot, modified 10 Sep 2026).

Workflows don't come across. HighLevel's HubSpot migration guide tells you to recreate them: set up equivalent triggers, then rebuild the actions and delays. HighLevel sells an optional done-with-you Advanced Account Setup for $1,000. Its HubSpot comparison page says a "concierge migration team handles setup and onboarding at no additional cost". Neither of its two HubSpot migration help articles mentions that team, so we wouldn't budget on it.

From GoHighLevel to HubSpot: HubSpot's Smart Transfer works with 12 named apps, and HighLevel isn't one of them (HubSpot knowledge base, read 25 Sep 2026). There is no first-party one-click path back. We didn't check CSV import or third-party tools.

An importer moves records. It won't tell you whether deal history, owners and custom fields arrived intact. We wrote up what breaks in a CRM migration.

Contracts, cancellation and refunds

Monthly billing can be cancelled any time. Annual billing is paid up front, and HighLevel's terms say fees are non-refundable.

HighLevel's pricing FAQ says it "operates on a month-to-month basis", and the same page sells annual plans. The terms of service are stricter: "All Fees assessed by HighLevel are non-refundable, including subscription Fees, Communication Surcharges, and HighLevel's resale of Third Party Services, regardless of whether you actually accessed or used the Platform Account or Services during your subscription period." Subscriptions renew automatically. Money left in the wallet more than 30 days after you cancel "will automatically become the property of HighLevel." (https://www.gohighlevel.com/terms-of-service, headed "Last Updated: June 2026", checked 28 Sep 2026)

HubSpot Starter commits monthly. Professional commits annually, even when you pay monthly, and Enterprise is billed annually. Marketing contact tiers can't be downgraded until your renewal date.

When to choose GoHighLevel, and when to choose HubSpot

Pick GoHighLevel if you run several client businesses from one login, or texting and calling customers is most of your marketing. Pick HubSpot if an in-house team sells and markets from one CRM and you want to start free.

Not sure which CRM fits? Take the 6-question CRM picker.

Choose GoHighLevel if you manage more than one business. Unlimited sub-accounts start at $297 a month. HubSpot's multi-account management needs Enterprise.
Choose GoHighLevel if you want a bill that doesn't grow with users or contacts, and you accept paying for texts, calls and email as you use them.
Choose GoHighLevel if texts and calls are core. The rates are published: $0.00747 per US text segment and $0.0166 a minute for outbound US calls.
Choose HubSpot if you want to start free. The free plan covers 2 users and 1,000 contacts.
Choose HubSpot if you'd rather budget by headcount and list size than by message volume. Seats and marketing-contact tiers are the main variables in HubSpot's price list.
Choose HubSpot if you need a bigger app catalog: over 2,000 integrations, against GoHighLevel's 500+.

What the vendors' own comparison pages get wrong

HighLevel publishes a page comparing itself with HubSpot (https://www.gohighlevel.com/highlevel-vs-hubspot). Its title says "(2025)", and it notes that HubSpot details "reflect publicly available information at time of publication and are subject to change." Here is what it says, next to HubSpot's and HighLevel's own pages (comparison page read 26 Sep 2026, vendor pages checked 28 Sep 2026).

HighLevel's page: "HubSpot's Marketing Hub starts at $800/month for 2,000 contacts." HubSpot's page: Marketing Hub Starter lists at $20 per seat with 1,000 marketing contacts. $800 is Marketing Hub Professional on annual billing.
HighLevel's page: "HubSpot has no sub-account structure and no white-label offering at any tier." HubSpot's catalog: multi-account management connects up to 30 accounts when one is on Enterprise. The white-label half matches what we found.
HighLevel's page: "Save up to 88%". Our arithmetic: that's GoHighLevel Starter at $97 against Marketing Hub Professional at $800 (1 − 97/800 = 87.9%). It skips HubSpot's Starter tier.
HighLevel's page: "Every plan includes unlimited sub-accounts". HighLevel's own pricing page: Starter includes 3.

FAQ

Is GoHighLevel cheaper than HubSpot?

Often, but count everything. GoHighLevel Starter is $97 a month flat for unlimited users and contacts, with texts, calls, email and AI billed on top. HubSpot has a free plan, then charges per seat, Marketing Hub also by contact tier, and Professional adds a one-time onboarding fee of $1,500 to $3,000. Prices checked 28 September 2026.

Does GoHighLevel have a free plan?

No. GoHighLevel offers a 14-day free trial on its paid plans, which start at $97 a month, and its pricing page warns that usage fees for telecommunications may apply during the trial. HubSpot does have a free plan, for up to 2 users and 1,000 contacts, with no credit card required.

What does GoHighLevel charge on top of the monthly price?

Usage, paid from a prepaid wallet that refills from your card. GoHighLevel charges $0.675 per 1,000 emails, $0.00747 per US text segment, $1.15 a month per local number and $0.0166 a minute for outbound US calls. A2P registration and carrier fees come on top. HubSpot's main extra is marketing-contact tiers.

How many client accounts can one GoHighLevel plan run?

Three on Starter at $97 a month, and unlimited on Unlimited at $297 and Agency Pro at $497. That's from GoHighLevel's pricing page; its HubSpot comparison page says every plan is unlimited. HubSpot's nearest feature is multi-account management: up to 30 accounts, one of them on Enterprise.

Does HubSpot offer white label or sub-accounts like GoHighLevel?

Not in the same way. HubSpot's multi-account management connects up to 30 HubSpot accounts when one is on Enterprise. We found no white-label offer in HubSpot's product catalog on 28 September 2026. GoHighLevel white-labels its desktop app on every plan and sells reselling (SaaS Mode) on Agency Pro.

Can I move my data from HubSpot to GoHighLevel?

Yes. GoHighLevel's HubSpot Importer brings in contacts, deals, companies, custom fields, pipelines, emails, notes and tasks, with limits: deals need a contact, calculated fields arrive as text, and emails are read only. Workflows have to be rebuilt by hand. Going back, HubSpot's Smart Transfer doesn't list GoHighLevel as a source.

When were these GoHighLevel and HubSpot prices checked?

We re-checked every GoHighLevel and HubSpot price and usage rate in this article on 28 September 2026, on the vendors' own pages, in USD from a US browser. Some feature, support and compliance details were read between 23 and 26 September 2026. HubSpot's Starter promo is for new customers. Confirm on the vendor's pricing page before you buy.

Who wrote this

Retailbox builds on both platforms, so we have a stake in which one you pick, and we kept our services out of the comparison above. On GoHighLevel, we built an admissions funnel for a coaching business (form, CRM, payment link, booking and follow-up emails), and we rebuilt a failing real-estate voice booking agent on Retell and n8n with booking into GoHighLevel. On HubSpot, we built Jotform intake into HubSpot and Airtable for a property manager.

None of the projects we can describe publicly is a move between GoHighLevel and HubSpot, so the migration section comes from the vendors' help articles. For our implementation price ranges, see what an automation agency charges.

Originally published at https://retailbox-automation.com/blog/gohighlevel-vs-hubspot. Want this built for your team? See CRM consulting: pick the right CRM before you pay for it.

HubSpot vs Zoho CRM: prices, free plans, automation and migration compared

Retailbox Automation — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 10:34:09 +0000

By Mikhail Oskola, founder of Retailbox Automation.

Checked: prices on 26 September 2026 and feature limits on 25-26 September 2026, against HubSpot's and Zoho's own pricing, catalog and help pages, in USD.

Zoho vs HubSpot usually comes down to this: HubSpot is the easier start with marketing built in, and Zoho CRM costs less and customizes further. Three things change the math: both price per seat or user, annual and monthly billing differ, and HubSpot adds a required one-time onboarding fee of $1,500 on Sales Hub Professional and $3,500 on Enterprise. Prices checked 26 September 2026.

HubSpot vs Zoho CRM at a glance

Every row below comes from the vendor's own pricing page, product catalog or help center. We read HubSpot's pages in a US browser, in USD, and re-checked every price on 26 September 2026. We didn't use review sites, AI answers or either vendor's page about the other as sources.

For HubSpot we compare Sales Hub, because this is a sales CRM comparison. HubSpot prices each hub separately, so Marketing Hub or Service Hub would be extra.

	HubSpot	Zoho CRM
Free plan	Up to 2 users, 1,000 contacts	Up to 3 users, 5,000 records
Cheapest paid plan	Sales Hub Starter: $20 per seat a month list. New-customer promo: $7 billed annually, $10 billed monthly	Standard: $14 per user a month billed annually, $20 billed monthly
Mid tier	Sales Hub Professional: $90 per seat billed annually, $100 billed monthly, annual commitment on both	Professional: $23 billed annually, $35 billed monthly
Top tier	Sales Hub Enterprise: $150 per seat, billed annually	Enterprise: $40 billed annually, $50 billed monthly. Ultimate: $52 / $65
Pricing model	Per seat, and each hub (Sales, Marketing, Service and others) is a separate subscription	Per user, per edition
Contracts	Starter: commit monthly. Professional: commit annually. Enterprise: billed annually	No contract. Pay monthly or yearly
Required onboarding fee	$1,500 on Professional, $3,500 on Enterprise, one-time	None. Zoho advertises free onboarding sessions
Support	Free: knowledge base and community. Starter adds chat and email. Professional and Enterprise add phone	Free: email, answered in 1 to 2 business days. Paid: email, phone and chat. Premium support costs 20% of the subscription
Migration from the other	Smart Transfer imports from Zoho CRM, one way	Data Migration imports from HubSpot through the API, up to 3 reruns

How much do HubSpot and Zoho CRM cost?

On annual billing, Zoho CRM costs less than HubSpot's list price at every paid tier, and the gap grows once you add HubSpot's onboarding fees. The exception is HubSpot's entry promo, which only new customers get. HubSpot's list price and its promo are in separate columns below, so you can see what's left when the promo ends.

HubSpot calls the promo "special Starter pricing" and says: "New customers only. Select offers available for a limited time." (https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/crm, checked 26 Sep 2026) The $20 list price comes from HubSpot's Product & Services Catalog.

You'll often see "HubSpot starts at $15" in AI answers. That number comes from HubSpot's CRM product page, where it carries the footnote "Discount available for new customers only". It isn't the Sales Hub price, so we don't use it.

Zoho's US pricing page shows four editions: Free, Standard, Professional and Enterprise. Ultimate appears on Zoho's edition comparison page and in the pricing FAQ, but not on the US pricing cards. Zoho adds local taxes on top: "Local taxes may apply."

If you add HubSpot Marketing Hub, it's a separate bill. Marketing Hub Professional starts at $800 a month with 3 seats included and a $3,000 onboarding fee (https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/marketing, checked 25 Sep 2026). HubSpot's catalog also says that with mixed tiers, all your Core Seats are priced at your highest subscription level.

Tier	HubSpot Sales Hub, list price	HubSpot price on the pricing page (annual / monthly)	Zoho CRM (annual / monthly)	Source	Checked on
Free	$0, up to 2 users	$0	$0, up to 3 users	https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/sales, https://www.zoho.com/crm/zohocrm-pricing.html	26 Sep 2026
Entry: HubSpot Starter, Zoho Standard	$20 per seat a month	$7 / $10 per seat, new-customer promo	$14 / $20 per user	https://legal.hubspot.com/hubspot-product-and-services-catalog, https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/sales, https://www.zoho.com/crm/zohocrm-pricing.html	26 Sep 2026
Mid: Professional on both	$100 per seat a month, plus $1,500 required onboarding	$90 / $100 per seat, annual commitment on both	$23 / $35 per user	https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/sales, https://www.zoho.com/crm/zohocrm-pricing.html	26 Sep 2026
Top: Enterprise on both	$150 per seat a month, billed annually, plus $3,500 required onboarding	$150 per seat, billed annually	$40 / $50 per user	https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/sales, https://www.zoho.com/crm/zohocrm-pricing.html	26 Sep 2026
Zoho Ultimate	No equivalent	No equivalent	$52 / $65 per user, not on the US pricing cards	https://www.zoho.com/crm/comparison.html	25 Sep 2026

Is HubSpot or Zoho cheaper for a 5-person team?

At entry level, HubSpot's promo is cheaper for a new customer. At Professional, Zoho CRM costs a fifth of HubSpot in year one.

Licenses are one line of the budget. Setting the CRM up, moving your data in and training the team are priced separately by whoever does that work. HubSpot doesn't give an end date for its promo, so plan the second year at the $20 list price if you want a safe number.

Here is our arithmetic from the prices above, not a vendor quote: five users, twelve months, before tax.

Zoho CRM Standard, billed annually: 5 × $14 × 12 = $840 a year. Billed monthly: $1,200.
HubSpot Sales Hub Starter at list price: 5 × $20 × 12 = $1,200 a year. At the new-customer promo: $420 billed annually, $600 billed monthly.
Zoho CRM Professional, billed annually: 5 × $23 × 12 = $1,380 a year.
HubSpot Sales Hub Professional, billed annually: 5 × $90 × 12 = $5,400, plus the $1,500 onboarding fee, so $6,900 in year one.

Which free CRM is better: HubSpot Free or Zoho CRM Free?

Zoho CRM Free gives you more to work with: one more user, more email templates and workflow rules. HubSpot Free's advantage is the way up. You upgrade the same account, and HubSpot's CRM page says: "No disruption, no data migration."

The contact limits count different things. HubSpot's catalog allows up to 1,000 contacts plus up to 1 million records in its other standard objects. Zoho caps the whole free account at 5,000 records. HubSpot's CRM product FAQ also describes the free plan as having "no limits on customer data". The catalog shows that isn't literally true, so we go by the catalog.

Limit	HubSpot Free	Zoho CRM Free
Users	Up to 2	Up to 3
Contacts / records	1,000 contacts; up to 1 million records in other standard objects	5,000 records (10 MB)
Email templates	3 per account	10
Dashboards and reports	10 dashboards, 50 reports per dashboard	Standard reports; no custom reports
Automation	No sales workflows (they start on Starter)	Workflow rules; Zoho's free CRM page says you can automate up to 5 tasks
API	Not stated on the pages we read	5,000 credits per day per organization
Branding	HubSpot branding on email, chat and meetings	Not stated
Support	Knowledge base and community	Email, answered in 1 to 2 business days

Which has better automation, HubSpot or Zoho CRM?

Zoho CRM puts automation lower in the price list. HubSpot's automation goes further on its top tiers, and each tier has a hard workflow count.

HubSpot Sales Hub Starter allows "up to 50 workflows with restricted triggers and actions". Professional allows "up to 300 fully customizable workflows", and Enterprise up to 1,000, "with the ability to trigger sequences" (https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/sales, checked 26 Sep 2026). The free plan has no sales workflows.

Zoho includes workflow rules on every edition, Free included. Blueprints, Zoho's guided step-by-step processes, start on Professional with 3 active, then 50 on Enterprise and 100 on Ultimate. Webhooks also start on Professional, at 50,000 calls a day or 100 per user license a day, whichever is lower. Approval processes are Enterprise and up. These limits come from Zoho's edition comparison page (https://www.zoho.com/crm/comparison.html), which is dated June 4, 2022. Zoho's current pricing page lists "Cadences", automated multichannel follow-up sequences, on Standard.

Our reading: for a small team, compare Professional with Professional. That's where HubSpot's workflows become fully customizable and where Zoho adds Blueprints and webhooks.

Customization, reporting and AI: where each one stops

Zoho CRM gives you more customization per dollar. HubSpot's biggest customization feature, custom objects, is Enterprise only.

Customization. Zoho's current pricing page lists custom modules on Standard (checked 26 Sep 2026). Its 2022 comparison table says Enterprise, so go by the pricing page and confirm in a trial. The comparison table allows 10 custom fields per module on Standard, 155 on Professional, 300 on Enterprise and 500 on Ultimate. HubSpot allows 1,000 custom properties per object on Professional and Enterprise, and custom objects only on Enterprise: "Up to 10 object definitions and 1,000,000 total custom object records."

Reporting. HubSpot gives 10 dashboards on Free, 30 on Starter, 75 on Professional and 100 on Enterprise. Custom reports start on Professional, up to 100, and Enterprise allows up to 500. Forecasting starts on Professional. Zoho lists sales forecasting on Standard and unlimited reports on Professional (pricing page, checked 26 Sep 2026).

AI. HubSpot includes monthly HubSpot Credits for AI features: 500 on Starter, 3,000 on Professional and 5,000 on Enterprise. HubSpot's catalog says unused credits don't roll over. Agent Builder starts on Starter. Zoho's pricing page lists "AI agents" on Professional and "Extended AI capabilities" from its assistant Zia on Enterprise. Zoho's 2022 comparison table puts every Zia feature on Enterprise, so go by the pricing page here too.

What do onboarding and support really cost?

HubSpot charges for onboarding on its upper tiers. Zoho gives onboarding for free, but it isn't implementation.

HubSpot's pricing page says the Professional price "does not include the required, one-time Professional Onboarding for a fee of $1,500", and Enterprise onboarding is $3,500 (https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/sales, checked 26 Sep 2026). The pages we read don't describe what the onboarding covers.

Zoho's pricing page leads with "Free Onboarding". Its support-plans FAQ refers to "the free four sessions with your onboarding specialist" and says the specialist "will not implement Zoho CRM for you" (https://www.zoho.com/crm/support-plans.html). Paid Zoho plans get email, phone and chat support by default. Premium support costs 20% of your subscription, and Enterprise support 25%, with a minimum of 50 user licenses.

HubSpot support depends on tier and seat. Free gets the knowledge base and community, Starter adds chat and email, and Professional and Enterprise add phone. In accounts created on or after March 5, 2024, a user needs an assigned Core, Sales or Service seat to reach chat, email or phone support. HubSpot says phone support is English only (https://knowledge.hubspot.com/help-and-resources/get-help-with-hubspot).

So on either platform, someone still has to map your pipeline, move the data and build the automations, whether that's your own admin or an outside implementer. If you handle patient data, the plan question changes; see which CRMs sign a HIPAA BAA.

Can you move from Zoho CRM to HubSpot, or back?

Yes, both ways, with each vendor's own tool. Neither vendor lists a migration fee on the pages we read.

Zoho CRM to HubSpot: HubSpot's Smart Transfer lists Zoho CRM as a source and is available on all HubSpot plans. The transfer is one-way into HubSpot, only Super Admins can run it, and "You must have a Data Hub subscription to transfer custom field mappings" (https://knowledge.hubspot.com/integrations/transfer-data-from-other-apps-using-hubspot-smart-transfer, checked 25 Sep 2026).

HubSpot to Zoho CRM: Zoho imports through the API, using a HubSpot private app token. "You can undo or rerun the migration only 3 times." Zoho doesn't support custom modules in API migrations, moves only the first ten tags per record, and pauses the migration if more than 5,000 records in a module are skipped (https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/crm/data-administration/data-migration/articles/migrating-from-hubspot).

Zoho's HubSpot comparison page also advertises: "Looking to switch? Get 6 months for free." We didn't find the terms of that offer on the page.

The vendor tools move records. They don't check that deal history, owners and custom fields came across correctly. We wrote up what breaks in a CRM migration.

When to choose HubSpot, and when to choose Zoho CRM

Pick Zoho CRM if price and flexibility matter most. Pick HubSpot if you want marketing and sales on one platform and can budget for it.

If the other name on your list is GoHighLevel rather than Zoho, see how HubSpot compares with GoHighLevel. GoHighLevel prices one account flat and bills texts, calls and email on top. Weighing HubSpot against a sales-only CRM instead? See how HubSpot compares with Pipedrive. Weighing HubSpot against an enterprise CRM? See how HubSpot compares with Salesforce. Choosing between Zoho CRM and Salesforce instead? See Salesforce vs Zoho: prices and contracts compared.

Not sure which CRM fits? Take the 6-question CRM picker.

Choose Zoho CRM if your budget is tight but you need more than the basics. Professional is $23 per user a month billed annually, with no onboarding fee.
Choose Zoho CRM if you can't commit to a year. Zoho says "You are not bound by any contracts or commitments." HubSpot Professional requires an annual commitment even when you pay monthly.
Choose Zoho CRM if you need custom modules and fields without an enterprise plan. Zoho's pricing page lists custom modules on Standard; HubSpot's custom objects are Enterprise only.
Choose HubSpot if marketing will run in the same system. Marketing, Sales and Service Hubs share one CRM, but each is a separate subscription.
Choose HubSpot if you want to start free and grow in place. HubSpot says an upgrade from the free account means "no data migration".

What the vendors' own comparison pages get wrong

Both vendors publish pages comparing themselves to the other, and we don't use either as a source about the rival. Zoho's page about HubSpot (https://www.zoho.com/crm/alternatives/hubspot-vs-zoho-crm-comparison.html) makes three claims that HubSpot's own pages contradict (checked 25 Sep 2026). HubSpot's page about Zoho leans on G2 ratings and internal HubSpot research, which we can't check, so we leave it out too.

Zoho's page says HubSpot is "free for unlimited users" and "does allow you to manage unlimited contacts". HubSpot's pricing page says its free plan is "Free for up to 2 users", and its catalog says up to 1,000 contacts.
Zoho's page says "The basic Starter edition of HubSpot Sales Hub starts at $50 for two users when billed monthly." HubSpot's catalog prices Sales Hub Starter per seat, at $20 a month.
Zoho's page says HubSpot workflows "are only available in the Professional edition and above". HubSpot's pricing page lists "Up to 50 workflows with restricted triggers and actions" on Sales Hub Starter.

FAQ

Is Zoho CRM cheaper than HubSpot?

Usually, yes. Zoho CRM Standard costs $14 per user a month billed annually, and Zoho charges no onboarding fee. HubSpot Sales Hub Starter lists at $20 per seat, with a $7 promo for new customers, and Sales Hub Professional adds a required $1,500 onboarding fee. Prices checked 26 September 2026.

Is HubSpot's free CRM better than Zoho CRM's free plan?

Zoho CRM's free plan gives more: 3 users and workflow rules, against HubSpot Free's 2 users and no sales workflows. HubSpot Free caps contacts at 1,000, and Zoho CRM Free caps the account at 5,000 records. HubSpot Free's advantage is upgrading the same account later without a data migration.

Does HubSpot charge an onboarding fee?

Yes, on the upper tiers. HubSpot requires a one-time onboarding fee of $1,500 for Sales Hub Professional and $3,500 for Sales Hub Enterprise, on top of seat prices. Marketing Hub Professional's fee is $3,000. HubSpot's pricing page shows no onboarding fee on Starter. Zoho CRM advertises free onboarding sessions instead.

What are the disadvantages of Zoho CRM?

Going by Zoho's own pages: the free plan has no custom fields, custom reports or mass email. Premium support costs 20% of the subscription. The onboarding specialist won't implement Zoho CRM for you. A migration from HubSpot can't bring custom modules. Local taxes come on top of listed prices. HubSpot has its own limits, compared above.

Can I migrate from Zoho CRM to HubSpot?

Yes. HubSpot's Smart Transfer lists Zoho CRM as a source on all HubSpot plans. The transfer is one-way into HubSpot, only Super Admins can run it, and moving custom field mappings needs a Data Hub subscription. Going the other way, Zoho CRM imports from HubSpot through the API, with up to three reruns.

Who is HubSpot's biggest competitor?

It depends on the team, and we don't rank vendors by market share. Of the two in this article, Zoho CRM is cheaper at every paid tier on annual billing, compared with HubSpot's list prices. HubSpot against Pipedrive, Salesforce, GoHighLevel and Monday.com is covered in separate comparisons on this blog.

When were these prices last checked?

We re-checked every HubSpot and Zoho CRM price in this article on 26 September 2026, on the vendors' own pricing pages, in USD from a US browser. Feature limits were read on 25 and 26 September 2026. HubSpot's Starter promo is for new customers and time-limited. Confirm on the vendor's pricing page before you buy.

Who wrote this

Retailbox implements CRMs, HubSpot among them, so we have a stake in which one you pick. We kept our services out of the comparison above. For a property manager, we built Jotform intake into HubSpot and Airtable. The projects we can describe publicly don't include a Zoho CRM build, so nothing above on Zoho comes from our own use of it.

Our implementation price ranges are in what a CRM implementation costs.

Originally published at https://retailbox-automation.com/blog/hubspot-vs-zoho-crm. Want this built for your team? See CRM consulting, including HubSpot vs Zoho selection.

Airtable vs Monday.com: database or work OS? Prices, limits and automations

Retailbox Automation — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 10:33:48 +0000

By Mikhail Oskola, founder of Retailbox Automation.

Checked: prices, record and item limits and automation quotas on 19 October 2026, against Airtable's and monday.com's own pricing pages and help centers, in USD; record and item limits re-checked on 21 October 2026.

Pick Airtable if your work is connected data, and monday work management if it is projects and who does what. Airtable is a relational database you build apps on; monday work management is a project board. monday costs less per seat ($9 vs $20, billed annually), but starts at 3 seats and lists no automations on Basic. An Airtable Team base holds 50,000 records, a monday board 10,000 items. Checked 19 Oct 2026.

Airtable vs Monday.com at a glance

Airtable is a relational database that bills only editors, from $20 a seat a month on Team. monday work management is a project board that bills every seat, from $9 a month on Basic, with a 3-seat minimum. Both prices are billed annually and were checked on 19 October 2026.

Every row comes from the vendor's own pricing page or help center, in USD, read on 19 October 2026. On the monday side this is monday work management, the project product. monday CRM is a separate product with its own price list, and it comes up once, further down. Each vendor also publishes a page comparing itself with the other. We don't use those as sources about the rival; what they get wrong is in the last section.

	Airtable	monday work management
What it is	A relational database with an app builder on top. Airtable calls itself "a relational database at its core"	Boards of items for projects and team work. monday sells it as "AI project management software"
Free plan	Up to 5 editors, 1,000 records per base, 1 GB of attachments per base, 100 automation runs a month	Up to 2 seats, up to 1,000 items, 3 boards, 500 MB of files. No automations listed
Entry price	Team: $20 per seat a month billed annually, $24 billed monthly	Basic: $9 per seat a month billed annually, $12 billed monthly
Who you pay for	Editors only. Read-only collaborators, form submissions and share links are free	Every seat, from a 3-seat minimum. Read-only viewers are free from Basic up; 4 guests are billed as 1 seat
Data cap	Records per base: 50,000 on Team, 125,000 on Business, 500,000 on Enterprise Scale	Items per board: 10,000 on every plan except Enterprise, which allows 100,000
Automation quota	Runs a month: 25,000 on Team, 100,000 on Business, 500,000 on Enterprise Scale	Actions a month: none listed on Basic, 250 on Standard, 25,000 on Pro, up to 250,000 on Enterprise
API calls	1,000 a month on Free, 100,000 on Team, unlimited on Business and up	1,000 a day on Standard, 10,000 on Pro, 25,000 on Enterprise
Moving data from the other	No monday.com importer. CSV files, up to 100 MB each	No Airtable importer. CSV or Excel files, up to 10 MB each. Can embed a read-only Airtable view on a board
Plan with HIPAA	Enterprise Scale only, under Airtable's Health Information Exhibit	Enterprise only, with the HIPAA feature turned on

Are Airtable and Monday.com the same kind of tool?

No. Airtable is a relational database: tables in a base, records linked across tables, and views, forms and interfaces built on top. monday work management is a board of items for running projects, with columns such as People and Status. They overlap only on simple trackers.

Airtable starts from the data. You keep tables inside a base, records in one table link to records in another, and then you build views, forms and interfaces on top. Airtable's own comparison page calls it "a relational database at its core".

monday work management starts from the work. Each row on a board is an item, with columns such as People and Status, so the board shows who is doing what. monday's work management page sells it as "AI project management software".

Don't decide from the homepages. Both now lead with AI agents: Airtable's headline is "Teams, workflows, and agents. All in one space.", monday's is "People and agents work best in one AI workspace". A quicker test: if your problem is the same customer living in five spreadsheets, that's a database problem. If it's nobody knowing who finishes what by Friday, that's a work-management problem.

How much do Airtable and Monday.com cost?

monday work management costs less per seat at every tier we can pair: Basic $9, Standard $12 and Pro $19 a seat a month billed annually ($12, $14 and $24 billed monthly), against Airtable Team at $20 and Business at $45 ($24 and $54 billed monthly). Prices are from both vendors' pricing pages, read on 19 October 2026.

The tiers don't line up one to one, so the table pairs them by their place in each price list. That pairing is ours, not either vendor's.

Both bill per seat a month, cheaper on a yearly plan. Airtable charges only for people who can edit at least one base. monday's plans "start from 3 users", and above 40 users you can request a quote. A yearly monday plan is paid upfront in one installment, and its prices "do not include tax".

Sources: https://www.airtable.com/pricing and https://monday.com/pricing, both read on 19 October 2026.

Tier (our pairing)	Airtable, per seat a month (annual / monthly billing)	monday work management, per seat a month (annual / monthly billing)
Free	Free: up to 5 editors	Free: up to 2 seats
Entry	Team: $20 / $24	Basic: $9 / $12
Middle	Business: $45 / $54	Standard: $12 / $14
Upper	Enterprise Scale: custom pricing	Pro: $19 / $24
Top	No match	Enterprise: custom pricing

What does a 10-person team pay in a year?

Ten seats for a year cost $1,080 on monday Basic and $2,400 on Airtable Team, billed annually. monday Basic lists no automations, so a team that needs them should compare Airtable Team ($2,400) with monday Standard ($1,440). This is our arithmetic at list price, before tax, add-ons, AI credits and setup work, with prices checked on 19 October 2026.

Standard gives 250 automation actions a month; Team gives 25,000 automation runs.

Count who actually edits. Airtable bills editors only, so if 4 of the 10 just read, Airtable Team drops to 6 × $20 × 12 = $1,440, level with monday Standard. monday also lets read-only viewers in free from Basic up, but its pricing page asks you to pick a team size, so check which size your editors land on.

Neither price list covers setting the tool up. What that work costs is broken down in what an AI automation agency costs.

10 seats, 12 months	Airtable	monday work management
Entry tier, billed annually	Team: $2,400	Basic: $1,080
Entry tier, billed monthly	Team: $2,880	Basic: $1,440
Middle tier, billed annually	Business: $5,400	Standard: $1,440. Pro: $2,280

Record and item limits: where each one hits a ceiling

One Airtable base holds 50,000 records on Team, 125,000 on Business and 500,000 on Enterprise Scale, per Airtable's pricing page. The 250,000 figure some AI answers quote comes from Airtable's comparison page, not its price list. One monday board holds 10,000 items on every plan except Enterprise, which allows 100,000, even though monday's pricing page says "Unlimited items" on paid plans. We re-checked both on 21 October 2026, on the pricing pages and in monday's help center.

The units differ. Airtable caps records per base, and a base can hold several tables. monday caps items per board, and an account can hold many boards. Both are hard limits on one set of data, so the fair comparison is one base against one board.

"Unlimited items" is the account total. Once a monday board is full, "you will then no longer be able to add additional items until some are removed" (help center, last modified 20 September 2026).

Airtable is gentler at the cap: "you'll still be able to use your bases and we will never remove your data", but you can't add records or attachments until you upgrade.

Airtable's comparison page also says HyperDB, an Enterprise Scale feature, supports "up to 100M records". The pricing page gives no per-base figure for it.

Plan level	Airtable, per base	monday work management, per board
Free	1,000 records, 1 GB of attachments	1,000 items in the account, 500 MB of files
Entry	Team: 50,000 records, 20 GB	Basic: 10,000 items, 5 GB
Middle	Business: 125,000 records, 100 GB	Standard: 10,000 items, 20 GB. Pro: 10,000 items, 100 GB
Top	Enterprise Scale: 500,000 records, 1,000 GB	Enterprise: 100,000 items, 1,000 GB

Automations: how many runs you get, and when you need Make or n8n

Airtable's pricing page lists 25,000 automation runs a month on Team and 100,000 on Business. monday's lists 250 automation actions a month on Standard, 25,000 on Pro and none on Basic. A run and an action are different units, and one monday automation can use several actions. Both were checked on 19 October 2026.

Airtable also caps how many automations one base can hold: 75 on Free, 100 on Team, 150 on Business and 200 on Enterprise Scale, with 100 runs a month on Free and 500,000 on Enterprise Scale.

monday counts actions, and it meters automations and integrations separately: 250 automation actions and 250 integration actions a month on Standard, 25,000 of each on Pro, and up to 250,000 automation and integration actions on Enterprise. Free and Basic list none.

A run and an action aren't the same unit, so don't divide one by the other. monday's help center says one automation usually uses one action, then lists the exceptions. Creating an item with Status, Tag, People, Dropdown or Update columns mapped uses an action for each of those columns plus one for the item. Notifying 6 board subscribers uses 6 actions, and condition steps count too.

Running out works differently as well. Airtable stops at the plan's limit. On monday, the first overrun on Standard rolls into the next month as "actions debt". After that, you get a 72-hour grace period at 100% before automations pause. Only Enterprise customers can buy extra actions, so below Enterprise the fix on either tool is a bigger plan.

Or you move the heavy workflow out. When a job needs more runs than the plan gives, or a system neither tool connects to, an external tool like Make, n8n or Zapier takes it over and bills on its own terms. We compare those three in Make vs n8n vs Zapier.

Can Airtable work as a CRM, or do you need monday CRM?

Airtable can hold a CRM, but it doesn't sell one. Its site offers CRM templates and a guide to building your own, which says "Most Airtable CRMs start as a handful of connected tables: companies, contacts, deals, activities." You design the pipeline, the fields and the automations yourself.

monday sells monday CRM as a separate product with its own tiers and prices. Don't price it off the work-management table above. We compared its plans with HubSpot's in monday CRM vs HubSpot, priced.

If your pipeline is a few stages that one team owns, an Airtable base you shape yourself can be enough. If you want sales features that come ready rather than built by you, you're shopping for a CRM, and Airtable isn't one.

Not sure which CRM fits? Take the 6-question CRM picker.

Can you connect Airtable and Monday.com?

Not with a built-in sync: neither vendor documents one with the other. monday can embed a read-only Airtable view on a board or dashboard, which shows the data without copying it. Moving records takes a CSV export, a third-party Marketplace app or an automation tool such as Make, n8n or Zapier. Checked on 19 October 2026.

The embed is monday's Embedded Airtable View widget: you create a shareable grid view link in Airtable and paste its ID into the widget's settings. People see the Airtable grid inside monday, but nothing moves into monday's items.

monday's Marketplace lists an app called Airtable Sync that says it syncs Airtable data to monday.com. We couldn't confirm who builds it, so treat it as a third-party app, not a monday feature. Otherwise, a live link between the two means an automation tool you set up yourself, such as Make, n8n or Zapier.

Moving from Airtable to Monday.com, or back

Neither tool imports directly from the other, so the move runs through CSV files. Into a new monday board, each file can be up to 10 MB and 8,000 rows. Into Airtable, each CSV can be up to 100 MB, and every column arrives as plain text. We checked both vendors' help pages on 19 October 2026.

Airtable to monday: monday's help center lists importers for Excel and CSV, Asana, Basecamp, Jira Server, Google Sheets, Trello and Zendesk, but not Airtable. Coming from Jira instead? See Jira vs Monday.com. Each file has to be 10 MB or less. A new board takes up to 8,000 rows, and only the first 50 columns come in. Columns arrive as Number, Status, Email, Date or Text, and dates need ISO format such as 2021-10-23. A table larger than 8,000 rows means several files, and a board still stops at 10,000 items below Enterprise.

monday advertises free migration for Airtable users, but the fine print limits it: "Customers purchasing 50+ seats may receive free migration services".

monday to Airtable: Airtable imports directly from Google Sheets, Excel, Apple Numbers, Microsoft Access, Asana and Trello. monday.com isn't on that list, so boards come over as CSV files of up to 100 MB each. Airtable's import guide says CSV files "reduce all data to a single, simple text field type", so you set every field type again after the import.

Reading those column-type lists, our view is that linked records and attachments won't survive a CSV in either direction, and automations get rebuilt by hand either way. Neither vendor says so in those words. We've written up what breaks in a data migration from our own migration work.

Airtable or Monday.com: which one to choose

Choose Airtable if your data lives in several connected tables, and monday work management if the job is running projects and seeing who does what. Then check the plan you can afford: monday Basic lists no automations, and a monday board below Enterprise stops at 10,000 items.

Choose Airtable if your data lives in several connected tables and different people need their own views and forms on it. One Team base holds 50,000 records.
Choose monday work management if the job is running projects and seeing who does what, and 10,000 items on a board is enough.
Choose monday Basic if price per seat decides it and you don't need automations: $9 per seat a month billed annually, 3 seats minimum.
Need automations? Compare Airtable Team ($20, 25,000 runs) with monday Standard ($12, 250 actions) or Pro ($19, 25,000 actions), all billed annually.
Lots of people who only read? Airtable bills editors only; monday gives free viewers from Basic up. Count your editors before you compare prices.
Need a sales CRM that works out of the box? Look at monday CRM, a separate product. In Airtable, a CRM is a template you build on.
Patient data? Airtable signs a BAA on Enterprise Scale only, and monday offers HIPAA on Enterprise only.

What the vendors' own comparison pages get wrong

Each vendor's comparison page misstates the other's limits. Airtable's page cites monday's 1,000-item cap, which applies only to monday's Free plan. monday's switching page says Airtable needs paid extensions for Gantt and Timeline views, which Airtable lists on its Team plan. We checked every claim on 19 October 2026 against the other vendor's own pricing and help pages.

Airtable publishes https://www.airtable.com/airtable-vs-monday. monday publishes a switching page at https://monday.com/gp/comp-airtable-migration and a blog comparison at https://monday.com/blog/project-management/monday-vs-airtable/. Here is what they say about each other, next to the other vendor's own pricing and help pages (all read 19 October 2026).

monday's switching page says "Airtable requires paid extensions for Timeline and Gantt views." Airtable's pricing page lists "Gantt and timeline view" on the Team plan. They need a paid plan, not a separate extension, and monday's own blog comparison puts them on Airtable Team too.
Airtable's page lists monday's "1,000 items record limit". That is monday's Free plan. Paid plans allow 10,000 items per board, and 100,000 on Enterprise.
Airtable's page says it handles "500K+ records vs. monday.com's 100K cap". Both are top-tier numbers, Airtable Enterprise Scale against monday Enterprise. Below that, monday stops at 10,000 items per board, and Airtable's Team and Business bases hold 50,000 and 125,000 records.
Airtable's page promises "Scalability to 250K+ records". Its own pricing page lists 125,000 per base on Business and 500,000 on Enterprise Scale.
monday's blog says it "provides 24/7 customer support on every paid plan". On monday's pricing page, 24/7 support appears under Enterprise only.
monday's blog says Airtable users "won't find 24/7 phone and email support or a dedicated customer success manager". Airtable's Enterprise Scale plan lists a dedicated customer success manager.
AI answers add numbers no vendor prints. When we checked Google's AI Overview for "airtable vs monday automation limits" on 19 October 2026, it said Airtable allows a "Maximum of 50 automations per base". Airtable's pricing page lists 75 to 200, depending on the plan.

FAQ

Is Airtable or Monday.com cheaper for a 10-person team?

Monday.com, on list price. Ten seats on monday Basic cost $1,080 a year billed annually, against $2,400 on Airtable Team. Basic lists no automations, though. With automations, monday Standard is $1,440 a year, still below Airtable Team. Airtable bills only editors, so read-only users narrow the gap. Our arithmetic, prices checked 19 October 2026.

Are Airtable and Monday.com the same kind of tool?

No. Airtable is a relational database: tables in a base, records linked across tables, and apps built on top. Monday.com work management is a board of items for running projects and team work. They overlap on simple trackers. Pick Airtable for connected data and monday for tracking who does what.

Can Airtable be used as a CRM instead of monday CRM?

Yes, if you build it. Airtable has no CRM product; it offers CRM templates, and its own guide says most Airtable CRMs start as connected tables for companies, contacts, deals and activities. Monday.com sells monday CRM as a separate product with its own price list. Airtable suits a light pipeline you shape yourself.

Can you connect Airtable to Monday.com?

Not with a built-in sync. Monday.com can embed a read-only Airtable view on a board or dashboard, which shows the data without copying it. Airtable lists no monday connector. To sync records you need a third-party Marketplace app or an automation tool such as Make, n8n or Zapier. Checked 19 October 2026.

How do I move my data from Airtable to Monday.com?

Export each Airtable table as CSV and import it into Monday.com, because monday's help center lists no Airtable importer. Each file must be 10 MB or less, a new board takes up to 8,000 rows, and columns arrive as Number, Status, Email, Date or Text. Expect to rebuild linked records and automations by hand.

Which gives more automation runs per month, Airtable or Monday.com?

Airtable lists bigger numbers at every tier we paired, but the units differ. Airtable counts runs: 25,000 a month on Team, 100,000 on Business. Monday.com counts actions: none listed on Basic, 250 on Standard, 25,000 on Pro. One monday automation can use several actions, so its quota goes faster than the number suggests.

When were these Airtable and Monday.com prices checked?

We checked every Airtable and Monday.com price, limit and automation quota in this article on 19 October 2026, on the vendors' own pricing pages and help centers, in USD. Both vendors change plans and prices, so confirm on airtable.com/pricing and monday.com/pricing before you buy.

Who wrote this

Retailbox builds on both Airtable and Monday.com, so we have a stake in which one you pick, and we kept our services out of the comparison above. For a coordinator of residency shift schedules, we built shift scheduling on Softr and Airtable. On Monday.com, we ran a Jira to Monday.com migration with capacity tracking for an EdTech content-production team.

Originally published at https://retailbox-automation.com/blog/airtable-vs-monday-com. Want this built for your team? See Monday.com implementation and automation.

HIPAA-Compliant CRM Software: Which CRMs Sign a BAA, on Which Plan, at What Price

Retailbox Automation — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 08:42:55 +0000

By Mikhail Oskola, founder of Retailbox Automation.

Checked: every vendor page cited here: ten CRM vendors and the four healthcare-list vendors re-read on 28 October 2026; Insightly, Freshworks, Keap and ActiveCampaign on 30 October 2026. Legal, help, trust and pricing pages, in USD, plus HHS and eCFR for the rules. Not legal advice.

A CRM system is HIPAA compliant only when the vendor signs a business associate agreement (BAA) and you set it up correctly. When we checked on 28 October 2026, Salesforce, HubSpot, monday.com, Zoho CRM, HighLevel, Dynamics 365, Zendesk, Airtable and ClickUp would each sign one, on a specific plan. Tellescope and LeadSquared, two CRMs built for healthcare, say they sign one too. Pipedrive's terms say it isn't designed for HIPAA, and Freshsales sits outside Freshworks' BAA.

Which CRMs sign a HIPAA BAA?

Each row is what the vendor says about itself on its own legal, help, trust or pricing pages. We re-read ten of the twelve on 28 October 2026 and the other two, Insightly and Freshsales, on 30 October. Review sites and AI answers were not used as sources. The vendor pages behind each row are linked under the table.

Compare the price of the plan that carries the BAA, not the entry plan. At HubSpot, monday.com, Airtable, ClickUp and Zendesk the BAA sits on an upper tier, and at monday.com, Airtable and ClickUp that tier has no public price.

CRM	Signs a BAA?	Plan that carries it	List price of that plan	Main exclusions	Vendor source	Checked on
Salesforce	Yes, for the services named in the signed BAA	A BAA that names each covered service. Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Health Cloud and Shield are on the list	Sales Cloud Pro Suite: $100 per user a month, billed annually. Health Cloud: from $350 per user a month, billed annually	Pro Suite: Einstein Activity Capture, Salesforce Inbox, Einstein Send Time Optimization. You must encrypt PHI	https://www.salesforce.com/company/legal/business-associate-addendum/	28 Oct 2026
HubSpot	Yes	Any Enterprise hub with Sensitive Data turned on and both HIPAA checkboxes ticked	Smart CRM Enterprise: from $75 per seat a month. Sales Hub Enterprise: $150 per seat a month plus $3,500 one-time onboarding	Chatbots, personalization tokens, sandboxes, playbooks	https://knowledge.hubspot.com/account-security/store-sensitive-data	28 Oct 2026
monday.com (monday CRM)	Yes	Ultimate, monday's new name for its Enterprise tier, with the HIPAA feature enabled	Custom price, contact sales	Broadcast disabled; third-party apps not covered; downgrading ends coverage	https://monday.com/crm/pricing	28 Oct 2026
Zoho CRM	Yes, on request	Request the BAA from legal@zohocorp.com. Zoho's HIPAA pages name no edition; its US pricing page lists HIPAA compliance from Standard up, and Free has no HIPAA settings	Cheapest paid edition on the US pricing page, Standard: $14 per user a month billed annually, $20 monthly	Only the services listed in the BAA	https://www.zoho.com/hipaa.html	28 Oct 2026
HighLevel	Yes, paid add-on	HIPAA add-on, available on any agency plan. Included in the Enterprise plan	US$297 a month on top of a plan from $97 a month (Starter). Enterprise: no public price	Add-on can't be disabled; terms bar PHI in AI features, but the HIPAA help page says Reviews AI replies get HIPAA handling	https://help.gohighlevel.com/support/solutions/articles/48000983084-hipaa-compliance-with-highlevel	28 Oct 2026
Microsoft Dynamics 365	Yes, by default	The BAA comes with Microsoft's Online Services Data Protection Addendum for covered entities and business associates	Dynamics 365 Sales Professional: $65 per user a month, paid yearly	Microsoft lists Dynamics 365 as a whole, not each app	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/compliance/regulatory/offering-hipaa-hitech	28 Oct 2026
Zendesk	Yes, with Advanced Compliance	Suite Professional, Enterprise or Enterprise Plus, plus the Advanced Compliance add-on	Suite Professional: $115 per agent a month paid yearly, $149 monthly. Add-on price not published	Other Zendesk products and third-party services, including integrations and Marketplace apps; text messages in Talk	https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408832117786-Advanced-Compliance	28 Oct 2026
Airtable	Yes	Enterprise Scale only, with a signed Health Information Exhibit that includes the BAA	Custom price	No PHI in automated email text, sent records, base or workspace names; not as a patient portal; downgrading ends coverage	https://www.airtable.com/company/health-info-datasheet	28 Oct 2026
ClickUp	Yes	Enterprise, with a signed BAA	Contact sales	ClickUp AI only after ClickUp confirms a healthcare AI setup; AI Notetaker can't take notes for SyncUps in HIPAA Workspaces	https://help.clickup.com/hc/en-us/articles/6327673904663-Compliance-and-General-Protection-Data-Regulation-GDPR	28 Oct 2026
Insightly	On request	Contact Insightly to add a Business Associate Addendum. No plan named	n/a, no plan named	AI Copilot and the MCP Server are outside the BAA	https://www.insightly.com/privacy-policy/	30 Oct 2026
Freshsales (Freshworks)	No, outside the BAA	Freshworks' BAA covers only Freshdesk, Freshchat, Freshcaller and Freshdesk Omnichannel	n/a	n/a	https://crmsupport.freshworks.com/support/solutions/articles/50000005953-freshworks-commitment-towards-hipaa-compliance	30 Oct 2026
Pipedrive	No	Terms say the service is "not designed to comply with" HIPAA and bar storing health data	n/a	n/a	https://www.pipedrive.com/en/terms-of-service	28 Oct 2026

What makes a CRM HIPAA compliant?

Two things: a BAA from the vendor, and your own setup. HHS treats a cloud vendor that holds patient data for you as a business associate: "When a covered entity engages the services of a CSP to create, receive, maintain, or transmit ePHI (such as to process and/or store ePHI), on its behalf, the CSP is a business associate under HIPAA." That holds "even if the CSP processes or stores only encrypted ePHI and lacks an encryption key for the data." (https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/special-topics/health-information-technology/cloud-computing/index.html, checked 16 Oct 2026)

There is no government certificate to look for. HHS says it does "not certify any persons or products as "HIPAA compliant."" (https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/guidance/be-aware-misleading-marketing-claims/index.html) A "HIPAA certified" badge on a CRM's website is marketing. The signed BAA is the document that counts.

Your setup is the other half. The Security Rule's technical safeguards (45 CFR 164.312) ask for five things: access only for people and programs that have been granted it, records of activity in the system, protection from improper change or deletion, proof that a user is who they claim to be, and protection for data sent over a network (https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-45/subtitle-A/subchapter-C/part-164/subpart-C/section-164.312). In a CRM, our reading is that these map to user roles and field permissions, the audit log, single sign-on or two-factor login, and encrypted connections to every app that reads the data. The checklist below turns them into questions for the vendor.

This is not legal advice. Vendor terms change, so confirm the plan and the BAA with the vendor and your compliance lead before any patient data goes in.

HIPAA-compliant CRM checklist: what to confirm before patient data goes in

Run any CRM system through these ten checks before the first patient record goes in. Each one comes from the safeguards above or from a vendor page in the table.

On encryption, HIPAA says less than most sales pages. The Security Rule lists encryption as an "addressable" safeguard (45 CFR 164.312): you encrypt ePHI, or you document why that isn't reasonable and use an equivalent measure (45 CFR 164.306(d)(3)). For breach notification, HHS treats data encrypted in line with NIST SP 800-111 (stored data) and SP 800-52 (data in transit) as secured (https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/breach-notification/guidance/index.html, checked 28 Oct 2026). The rule names no cipher and no TLS version, so "AES-256" on a vendor page is the vendor's choice, not a HIPAA requirement. Addressable doesn't mean optional, though: Salesforce's BAA terms say "Customer must encrypt all PHI". HHS proposed changes to the Security Rule in January 2025, and as of 28 October 2026 they are not final.

A signed BAA, and the list of services it names. Anything the BAA doesn't list isn't covered.
The plan that carries the BAA, priced for your whole team, not the entry plan.
Encryption for data in transit and at rest, on the terms the vendor's BAA sets.
User roles and field-level permissions, so each person sees only the records they need.
An audit log: what it records, and how long the vendor keeps it.
A unique login for every user, with two-factor login or single sign-on.
A BAA for every connected app that reads patient data: form tools, email sync, SMS, scheduling.
AI features outside the BAA, switched off before the import. Salesforce, HighLevel, ClickUp and Insightly each name some.
Sandboxes and test copies. HubSpot sandboxes can't hold Sensitive Data, so test with made-up records.
What happens when you downgrade or leave. monday.com and Airtable both end HIPAA coverage on a lower plan.

Is Salesforce HIPAA compliant? Sales Cloud, Health Cloud and the BAA

Yes, for the services named in your BAA. Salesforce's restrictions page says: "For Customer’s use of a HIPAA Covered Service to be covered by the BAA: (1) Customer and Salesforce must sign a BAA that includes the HIPAA Covered Service; and (2) Customer must comply with the terms of the BAA and this article, to the extent applicable." The covered list includes Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Health Cloud, Salesforce Shield and Data 360 (https://www.salesforce.com/company/legal/business-associate-addendum/, last updated 30 September 2026, checked 28 Oct 2026). Salesforce's compliance site says to contact your account representative about the BAA (checked 16 Oct 2026).

Health Cloud is offered, not required. Sales Cloud and Service Cloud are on the covered list in their own right, and we found no Salesforce page that makes Health Cloud or Shield a condition. What the page does require is encryption: "Customer must encrypt all PHI: (1) transmitted using the HIPAA Covered Services; and (2) to the extent within Customer’s control, stored in the HIPAA Covered Services." It doesn't say which tool you must use for that.

Some features stay outside the BAA. Salesforce's help article on Pro Suite says: "These features and services offered in Pro Suite Edition aren’t covered by the Business Associate Addendum (BAA): Einstein Activity Capture, Salesforce Inbox, and Einstein Send Time Optimization (STO)." The first two are on by default, so they have to be switched off before patient data goes in.

Sales Cloud Pro Suite lists at $100 per user a month, billed annually (https://www.salesforce.com/sales/pricing/). Health Cloud runs from $350 per user a month for Sales & Service Core to $725 for Sales & Service Max, all billed annually (https://www.salesforce.com/healthcare/cloud/pricing/, checked 28 Oct 2026). The Health Cloud pricing page itself says nothing about HIPAA or a BAA.

HubSpot, monday.com, Zoho CRM and HighLevel: which plan carries the BAA

HubSpot: Enterprise only. Any Enterprise hub qualifies once Sensitive Data is on and both HIPAA checkboxes are ticked, and you accept the BAA in the account settings (https://knowledge.hubspot.com/account-security/store-sensitive-data, checked 28 Oct 2026). The cheapest Enterprise tier on HubSpot's pricing pages is Smart CRM Enterprise, from $75 per seat a month. Sales Hub Enterprise is $150 per seat a month plus a required $3,500 onboarding fee. One AI answer we saw listed call recordings as excluded. HubSpot's catalog lists call recordings and conversation intelligence among the features supported for Sensitive Data.

monday.com: the tier changed its name. monday's CRM pricing page now says "Ultimate is a new name for our Enterprise tier", lists HIPAA compliance only on Ultimate, and prices it as "Custom price, tailored to your organization" (https://monday.com/crm/pricing, checked 28 Oct 2026). monday's BAA and help centre still say Enterprise. It is the same tier. The BAA takes effect when you click "I Accept" while switching on the HIPAA feature, so there is no separate contract to sign.

Zoho CRM: on request, by email to legal@zohocorp.com, and "No PHI should flow through any Zoho application until a signed BAA is in place." (https://www.zoho.com/hipaa.html, checked 28 Oct 2026) Zoho's HIPAA pages still don't name a CRM edition. Its edition comparison shows "HIPAA Compliance Settings" on every paid edition and not on Free, and its US pricing page now lists "HIPAA compliance" among the Standard features. Standard costs $14 per user a month billed annually or $20 monthly. A feature listing isn't the BAA, so confirm the edition when you request the agreement.

HighLevel: "The add-on costs US$297 per month and cannot be disabled once purchased." Agencies on any plan can buy it, so the lowest total is the $97-a-month Starter plan plus $297 (https://help.gohighlevel.com/support/solutions/articles/48000983084-hipaa-compliance-with-highlevel, checked 28 Oct 2026). HighLevel's terms make the BAA "contingent upon your active and fully paid subscription to the HIPAA compliance package." After the BAA is signed, the agency owner has to turn HIPAA on for each sub-account by hand. The Enterprise plan includes HIPAA in its price, which HighLevel doesn't publish.

The full exclusions for these four, and what they mean for workflows between tools, are in HIPAA-compliant automation tools.

Is Pipedrive HIPAA compliant? What healthcare teams on Pipedrive do instead

No. Pipedrive's terms of service say: "Pipedrive Services are not designed to comply with industry-specific regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) or the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA)." The terms define sensitive information to include "health and genetic data", and clients agree not to store sensitive information in Pipedrive at all (https://www.pipedrive.com/en/terms-of-service, current as of 16 September 2026, checked 28 Oct 2026). Pipedrive's trust center lists GDPR, ISO 27001 and SOC 2 among others, and nothing on HIPAA.

That leaves two options: keep patient data out of Pipedrive entirely, or move it to a CRM whose vendor signs a BAA. If you move, sign the BAA and switch on the vendor's HIPAA settings before the import. Zoho's line above is a good rule for any vendor: no PHI until the BAA is signed.

The move itself is ordinary CRM work, and what breaks in a CRM migration covers the usual traps. Patient data adds three things to plan:

Every field that holds PHI. Diagnoses, visit dates and treatment notes often sit in custom fields and free-text notes, not only in the standard ones.
Attachments and email history. Files and old emails on deals and contacts can carry patient details, and they move with the records unless you leave them out.
Every integration that reads the CRM. Each app that touches patient data needs its own BAA, so a form tool or email sync that worked with Pipedrive may not be allowed in the new setup.

Airtable, ClickUp and Zendesk: tools teams use as a CRM

Airtable signs on Enterprise Scale only. Its health information datasheet says customers "must be on the Enterprise Scale plan and sign Airtable’s Health Information Exhibit, which includes Airtable’s Business Associate Addendum (BAA) for customers subject to HIPAA" (https://www.airtable.com/company/health-info-datasheet, last updated 23 July 2026, checked 28 Oct 2026). Enterprise Scale has custom pricing. The datasheet rules out patient data in automated email text, in records sent by email, and in base or workspace names, and says not to use Airtable as a patient portal. Downgrade, and you must remove the data. Airtable AI needs one more step: separate Supplemental AI Terms for Health Information.

ClickUp signs on Enterprise: "ClickUp can support HIPAA compliance for Enterprise customers by agreeing to a BAA (Business Associate Agreement)." (https://help.clickup.com/hc/en-us/articles/6327673904663-Compliance-and-General-Protection-Data-Regulation-GDPR, checked 28 Oct 2026) Enterprise is "Contact sales" on ClickUp's pricing page. ClickUp AI has its own rule: no healthcare use unless you have the BAA and ClickUp has confirmed that your account is set up for healthcare AI use, with Zero Data Retention or other HIPAA-compliant endpoints on for that data (https://clickup.com/terms/ai). In HIPAA Workspaces, AI Notetaker can't take notes for ClickUp's own SyncUp calls. It still works in Zoom, Teams and Google Meet. ClickUp's new Max plan, $100 per user a month billed yearly (shown against a $120 regular price), includes everything in Enterprise and lists HIPAA on its card. The help article still names only Enterprise, so confirm with ClickUp before you buy Max for patient data.

Zendesk signs through its Advanced Compliance add-on on Suite Professional, Enterprise or Enterprise Plus: "Advanced Compliance lets you sign a BAA or HDS Exhibit for accounts that may store PHI" (https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408832117786-Advanced-Compliance, checked 28 Oct 2026). Suite Professional lists at $115 per agent a month paid yearly, or $149 billed monthly. The add-on price isn't published. Zendesk says "Any other Zendesk products or third party services" are not Healthcare Enabled, integrations and Marketplace apps included. Talk's voice calls are covered, its text messages are not, and Contact Center also needs a BAA with AWS. Zendesk Sell, its sales CRM, isn't among the products the article names.

Two marketing CRMs also publish a HIPAA position:

Keap, now part of Thryv, offers its standard BAA addendum once you turn on Keap's HIPAA Security Control. Thryv's CRM BAA says the email and SMS features "are not HIPAA-compliant", so patient data can't go through Keap's messaging, and the BAA doesn't cover third-party products. Sources: https://learn.thryv.com/hc/en-us/articles/37506928781325-HIPAA-Security-Controls-for-Keap and https://www.thryv.com/terms/crm-baa/ (checked 30 Oct 2026).
ActiveCampaign lists "HIPAA support" on its Enterprise plan, and its own blog says it offers "BAAs on eligible plans". Its Conversations product may not hold PHI under any plan. Get the BAA and the list of covered features in writing first. Sources: https://help.activecampaign.com/hc/en-us/articles/14251311251356-Overview-of-ActiveCampaign-plans, https://www.activecampaign.com/blog/hipaa-compliant-marketing and https://www.activecampaign.com/legal/conversations-policy (checked 30 Oct 2026).

Healthcare-built CRMs and HIPAA plans: Tellescope, LeadSquared, OneDesk and SmartSuite

Search for HIPAA CRM software and four more names come up that publish a BAA statement on their own pages. Two are CRMs built for healthcare. OneDesk is a help desk and project tool and SmartSuite is a work-management platform, but both sell a plan with a BAA.

The two healthcare CRMs don't tie the BAA to a named, priced plan. Tellescope says it signs one with every customer and quotes the price. LeadSquared publishes prices, but its pricing pages don't mention a BAA, so ask which plan carries it before you sign. Its healthcare page calls the CRM "fully HIPAA compliant"; no vendor can make that true for you, which is why the table quotes only the BAA part.

Vendor	What it is	Signs a BAA?	Plan that carries it	List price of that plan	Vendor source	Checked on
Tellescope	CRM built for healthcare	Yes, "with all customers"	No plan tiers published	No public price: an implementation fee plus a price per user or patient	https://www.tellescope.com/hipaa/crm	28 Oct 2026
LeadSquared	CRM with a healthcare edition	Yes, its healthcare FAQ says a BAA is "in place"	Not named. The pricing pages don't mention a BAA	Sales Pro $40, Sales Super $60 per user a month, billed annually	https://www.leadsquared.com/healthcare/healthcare-security-and-compliance/	28 Oct 2026
OneDesk	Help desk and project tool, not a CRM	Yes	HIPAA-Enabled plan. The BAA is signed after you subscribe	Help Desk: $27.99 per user a month billed annually, $32.99 monthly	https://onedesk.com/hipaa-compliant-solution/	28 Oct 2026
SmartSuite	Work-management platform, not a CRM	Yes	Enterprise or Signature only	Quote only. Team and Professional carry no BAA	https://www.smartsuite.com/pricing	28 Oct 2026

Tellescope: https://www.tellescope.com/hipaa/crm and https://www.tellescope.com/
LeadSquared: https://www.leadsquared.com/healthcare/healthcare-security-and-compliance/ and https://www.leadsquared.com/sales-crm-pricing/
OneDesk: https://onedesk.com/hipaa-compliant-solution/ and https://onedesk.com/pricing/
SmartSuite: https://www.smartsuite.com/pricing and https://www.smartsuite.com/security

Cheapest HIPAA-compliant CRM for a small practice

Zoho CRM, if Zoho confirms the edition when you request the BAA. Its US pricing page lists HIPAA compliance on Standard, at $14 per user a month billed annually or $20 monthly. No free plan we checked carries a BAA: HubSpot, Zoho CRM, monday.com, Airtable and ClickUp all tie HIPAA to a paid tier (checked 28 Oct 2026).

Below is the published price of the cheapest plan that carries each BAA, lowest first, from the table above. Prices are per user or seat, except HighLevel, which charges per account.

Zoho CRM Standard: $14 per user a month billed annually ($20 monthly), if Zoho confirms the edition.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Professional: $65 per user a month, paid yearly.
HubSpot Smart CRM Enterprise: from $75 per seat a month.
Salesforce Sales Cloud Pro Suite: $100 per user a month, billed annually.
Zendesk Suite Professional: $115 per agent a month paid yearly, plus the Advanced Compliance add-on, whose price isn't published.
HighLevel: $97 a month for Starter plus the $297 HIPAA add-on, $394 a month for the account.
Quote only: monday.com Ultimate, Airtable Enterprise Scale, ClickUp Enterprise.
Not general CRMs: OneDesk's HIPAA-Enabled help desk from $27.99 per user a month billed annually. LeadSquared starts at $40 per user a month but doesn't say which plan carries its BAA.

A general CRM with a BAA, or a healthcare CRM?

It depends on what the CRM has to do. This is our reading of the tables above, not a ranking.

Not sure which CRM fits? Take the 6-question CRM picker.

Choosing the email tool as well? ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp compares prices, automation and CRM features. Of the two, only ActiveCampaign appears in the BAA list above.

A general CRM with a BAA fits when you treat patients much like customers: leads from ads and referrals, follow-ups, reminders, a pipeline. Someone has to set up the roles, fields and HIPAA settings.
A healthcare CRM or practice-management system fits when you need intake forms, scheduling and an EHR connection out of the box and don't want to build them. The healthcare-built section above is where to start that search.
For a small practice, the deciding number is the price of the plan that carries the BAA, not the entry plan. The cheapest-plan list above sorts them.
On a CRM that won't sign, such as Pipedrive or Freshsales, keep patient data out, and plan the move before it goes in.

What breaks HIPAA coverage after the BAA is signed

A BAA covers the vendor's covered services, not everything connected to them. Inside the CRM, coverage usually breaks in five places: web forms that feed the CRM from a separate form tool, marketing email and SMS sent from the CRM (Keap's BAA excludes its messaging and monday.com turns off broadcast), connected apps without their own BAA, AI features the vendor excludes (HubSpot chatbots, HighLevel's AI features other than Reviews AI, Insightly's Copilot and MCP Server, ClickUp AI without the extra setup), and test copies such as HubSpot sandboxes, where Sensitive Data properties aren't available. An SMS chatbot that texts patients from outside the CRM adds its own vendors to that path; how an AI SMS chatbot works lists them.

For the workflow side, where data moves between tools, see HIPAA-compliant automation tools. One case where the workflow stays under the CRM's BAA: Microsoft lists Power Automate and Power Apps as in scope when they come inside a Dynamics 365 plan (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/compliance/regulatory/offering-hipaa-hitech, checked 28 Oct 2026).

FAQ

Is there an official HIPAA certification for CRM software?

No. HHS says it does not certify any person or product as HIPAA compliant, and it does not recognize private certifications for the Security Rule. Look instead for a BAA the vendor signs on the plan you will use, then set up access controls and audit logs yourself.

Is there a free HIPAA-compliant CRM?

Not among the CRMs we checked. On 28 October 2026 the free plans of HubSpot, Zoho CRM, monday.com, Airtable and ClickUp carried no BAA; each vendor ties HIPAA to a paid tier. The lowest published price on a plan that lists HIPAA was Zoho CRM Standard, $14 per user a month billed annually. Confirm the edition with Zoho.

Is HubSpot HIPAA compliant?

HubSpot signs a BAA on Enterprise only. Any Enterprise hub qualifies, including Smart CRM Enterprise from $75 per seat a month. You turn on Sensitive Data, tick both HIPAA checkboxes and accept the BAA in account settings. Chatbots, sandboxes, playbooks and personalization tokens can't hold sensitive data. Checked 28 October 2026.

Is Zoho CRM HIPAA compliant?

Zoho signs a BAA on request: email legal@zohocorp.com, and keep patient data out of Zoho until it is signed. Zoho's HIPAA pages name no CRM edition. Its US pricing page lists HIPAA compliance from Standard ($14 per user a month billed annually), and Free has no HIPAA settings. Confirm the edition when you request the BAA.

Do I need a BAA if the CRM only holds names and appointment times?

HHS guidance points to yes for a clinic. It says a name alone is not necessarily PHI, but becomes PHI when listed with health care data, "such as an indication that the individual was treated at a certain clinic." A clinic's appointment list links names to care. Confirm your case with your compliance lead.

Is Salesforce Health Cloud required for HIPAA?

No Salesforce page we read requires it. Salesforce's BAA restrictions page lists Sales Cloud and Service Cloud as covered services in their own right, alongside Health Cloud and Shield. You still need a signed BAA that names the service you use, and Salesforce requires you to encrypt PHI.

Is Airtable HIPAA compliant?

On one plan. Airtable supports HIPAA only on Enterprise Scale, after you sign its Health Information Exhibit, which includes the BAA. Enterprise Scale has custom pricing. There is no admin setting: Airtable turns HIPAA on for your organization after the signing. Airtable also says not to use it as a patient portal.

What should be signed before patient data is imported into a new CRM?

The vendor's BAA, on the plan you are actually buying, before the first record moves. Then switch on the vendor's HIPAA settings and sign BAAs with any import tool or integration that will touch the data. Zoho's wording works for any vendor: no PHI until a signed BAA is in place.

Who wrote this

Retailbox runs CRM consulting and training: we help teams pick a CRM, set it up or migrate to a new one, and train the team. That gives us a stake in which CRM you choose, so we kept our services out of the answers above. This article reads each vendor's published terms. It is not a report from one of our projects.

Originally published at https://retailbox-automation.com/blog/hipaa-compliant-crm. Want this built for your team? See CRM consulting and training.