HubSpot Basic Pricing and How to Get Instantly Disqualified

Twice in the past few months, I’ve had marginal prospects question how SP Home Run presents HubSpot Basic pricing. Actually, question is probably too gentle of a word…more like accuse.

Most recently, I received this terse one line email from an IT solopreneur who had purchased the Computer Consulting Kit Home Study Course back in 2009 on a payment plan and had some snarky history in our CRM system:

“If HubSpot is $200 per month, why are you charging $250 per month for it?”

Yes, no greeting in his email (such as “Hi Joshua”). And no context (why he is asking).

Al (name changed to protect) just blurted out the accusatory question in response to an email sent regarding new services offerings.

My Response Verbatim

“HubSpot Basic is $200 per month for up to 100 contacts and 3,000 site visits per month.

If you want your website running on HubSpot's CMS/COS (most use this), you'll need HubSpot Site Builder (Sites) which adds $50 per month, for total of $250 per month.

SP Home Run provides the complete price because most people's eyes would simply glaze over to start talking about that level of minute detail that early on.

Don't feel bad. Many people simply look at the HubSpot main pricing page and jump to the same conclusion without drilling down into "see all features." All the details are on the HubSpot Pricing Comparison page.

What are you looking for HubSpot to do for your business?”

Not surprisingly and probably just as well, I didn’t hear back from Al.

Why Al Got Booted Out of the Sales Process as Unqualified

However let’s look at the big picture here.

This particular person had some not-so-nice emails directed towards us when purchasing our training course. That alone with some payment issues is a huge red flag that this IT solopreneur doesn’t see SP Home Run as trusted business advisors and is in no way, shape, or form qualified to be a client for Fully Managed Inbound Marketing Services.

However in the context in which the question was asked, it instantly raised the cherry-picking red flag. The prospect is obsessing over $50 per month on the underlying HubSpot Basic software, rather than the big picture of how many $100,000 lifetime value managed services clients SP Home Run can add to his business.

So both times I’ve heard this question in recent months, both prospects were already skating on thin ice and this was the final straw to get them instantly disqualified.

More likely though: an obsession over relatively minor costs, in the big picture scenarios, means that

• Prospect has no marketing budget.
• Prospect isn’t serious about growing the business and doesn’t care about scaling the acquisition of $100,000 lifetime value managed services clients.
• Prospect mistakenly believes that you’re a commodity broker.
• Prospect can’t be helped.

How do you react to a prospect or inactive customer attempting to cherry-pick your company on relatively minor software expenses? Does that instantly send up a “bad fit” red flag? Let us know your thoughts in the Comments box below.

And if you are serious about growing your business with HubSpot Basic or other HubSpot Inbound marketing software and you’re part of a B2B tech company, be sure to download your free copy of the IT Channel Inbound Marketing Planning Guide.