When a marketing suite and a single-purpose tool are different purchases

A marketing suite and a single-purpose tool can both be the right buy. They are not the same buy.

Mailchimp Standard is an email plan. It starts at $20 a month for up to 500 contacts, and it costs more when the list grows. The record it keeps is the list: who you can email, and whether the last send bounced.

HubSpot Marketing Hub is a broader marketing product. Starter starts at $20 a month per core seat. Professional starts at $890 a month. Enterprise starts at $3,600 a month. The record is wider than a list, and the price jumps when you leave the starter seat. If the workflow you need is only on Professional, you are shopping at $890, not at $20.

A search tool is a third record: queries and URLs. Ahrefs and Semrush publish their own prices. Don't borrow either $20 to fill that blank. A social scheduler is usually priced by the number of profiles. An analytics tag may be free, with a paid tier for volume. An AI drafting feature is often bundled into a higher tier of a tool you were already pricing. The bundle is a reason to read that tier.

The trap is the matching number. A spreadsheet that says "marketing software, $20" has already lost the company and the unit. Write three lines instead. The email line, if you need one: Mailchimp Standard, $20 a month to start, up to 500 contacts. The suite line, if you need one: the HubSpot tier you would actually buy, at its starting price. Everything else: the company's row, or the word "not checked yet." Not checked yet is more useful than a guessed dollar.

Neither kind of tool is automatically wasteful. A suite can be the cheaper way to keep one record. It can also be an expensive way to keep a record a $20 email plan already keeps. You can tell which, once you know the record.

What HubSpot charges to start Marketing Hub

HubSpot sells Marketing Hub in three tiers, and the starting prices are far apart.

Starter starts at $20 a month per core seat. Professional starts at $890 a month. Enterprise starts at $3,600 a month. The prices are on HubSpot's Marketing Hub page. "Starts at" means the bill can be higher once you add seats and extras. It does not mean $20 is the price of the whole product.

The distance from $20 to $890 is the reason to read all three before you decide. Professional is not a small add-on. A feature that HubSpot places only on Professional is an $890 decision, not a $20 decision. Enterprise is another step up. One core seat at the Starter starting price is about $240 for a year if nothing changes. A year at the Professional starting price is about $10,680. A year at the Enterprise starting price is about $43,200. HubSpot may bill annually at a different total. Use the total on their page if you are looking at that option.

Mailchimp's $20 is a different product: Standard, for up to 500 contacts, with a higher price as the list grows. Both companies can print $20 and still be selling different things.

Open HubSpot's page, read the three starting prices, and match the tier to the features you wrote down. Then count the seats. The starting price is the beginning of that arithmetic, not the end.

What Mailchimp charges for Standard at 500 contacts

Mailchimp Standard starts at $20 a month for up to 500 contacts. As the list grows, the price changes. Mailchimp's pricing page has the next tiers.

"Starting at $20" is not "$20 no matter how large the list gets." A list of 400 contacts is inside the line being quoted. A list that will be 800 after a signup form has been working for a month is a different tier, and you should read that tier before you budget the year. The whole point of the second sentence — the price changes as the list grows — is to stop the first sentence from being treated as a flat rate.

Twelve times $20 is $240. That sketch only holds if you stay under 500 contacts and stay on the starting price for the whole year. Mailchimp may also offer an annual payment. If it does, the annual total on their page is the one to use, not this multiplication.

HubSpot has a $20 price too. It is per core seat on Marketing Hub Starter, next to Professional at $890 a month and Enterprise at $3,600 a month. It is not an email plan for 500 people. Keep the company name in the sentence.

Write down the contact count you have and the count you are willing to reach. Open Mailchimp's pricing page. Read the amount beside the band that contains the higher number. If it is still $20 up to 500 contacts, this note still matches.