Open-Source CRM vs HubSpot
HubSpot Sales Hub Professional runs $90 per seat per month and requires a one-time $1,500 onboarding fee before you start. This is an MIT-licensed CRM you host yourself for a flat $25/mo - unlimited seats, your own database, and a research agent that fills records in for you.
CRM vs HubSpot: The Verdict
HubSpot is the safe default: a mature product, a huge app marketplace, and a free tier that gets you started. The catch is what happens as you grow - Sales Hub Professional is $90/seat/mo billed annually plus a mandatory $1,500 onboarding fee, Enterprise is $150/seat/mo plus $3,500 onboarding, and both scale linearly with headcount. This CRM is the opposite trade. It is MIT-licensed and self-hosted, so the price is your server rather than your seat count - $25/mo flat on InstaPods, whatever the team size - and its research agent enriches contacts and companies on its own schedule rather than leaving the data entry to a human. You give up the marketplace, the mature reporting, and the vendor support, and you take on one honest piece of setup: sign-in is Google-only, so you spend about five minutes creating a Google OAuth client after deploying. If you have a small team, care about owning the data, and would rather pay per server than per seat, it is a genuine swap.
Last updated: 2026-08-07Quick Comparison
| Feature | HubSpot | CRM |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $90/seat/mo (Professional, billed annually) | $25/mo flat, unlimited seats |
| Onboarding Fee | $1,500 one-time (Pro), $3,500 (Enterprise) - required | None |
| Cost of a 5-Person Team | $5,400/yr + $1,500 onboarding = $6,900 year one | $300/yr |
| Pricing Model | Per seat - grows with headcount | Per server - flat |
| Data Ownership | Stored on HubSpot servers | PostgreSQL on your own pod |
| Built-In Research Agent | AI features gated to paid tiers/credits | Durable agent included - bring your own model key |
| Source Code | Closed source | Open source (MIT) |
| Free Tier | Yes - up to 2 users, 1,000 contacts | N/A - $25/mo from day one |
| App Marketplace | Large ecosystem of integrations | None - you extend the code yourself |
| Sign-In | Email/password, SSO on higher tiers | Google-only (or your own SSO provider) |
| Setup Time | Sign up and start (onboarding for Pro+) | 30s deploy + ~5 min Google OAuth setup |
Where HubSpot Gets Expensive
Trade-offs to weigh before committing.
The Seat Math Turns On You
Sales Hub Professional is $90/seat/mo billed annually. Five people is $5,400 a year, ten is $10,800 - before the onboarding fee. The product does not change as you add people; only the bill does.
A Mandatory Onboarding Fee
Professional requires a one-time $1,500 onboarding and Enterprise requires $3,500. It is not optional and it lands in year one, on top of the subscription.
The Free Tier Is a Doorway
Free covers 2 users and 1,000 contacts. That is genuinely useful to start, but the jump from Starter to Professional is $7 to $90 per seat - the tier where the features people actually want live.
Your Pipeline Lives on Their Servers
Contacts, deals, and email history sit in HubSpot. You can export, but the working system is theirs, and pricing or packaging changes are theirs to make.
Why Self-Host with CRM?
What you get when you pick this stack.
Flat Price, Any Team Size
One $25/mo pod runs the whole CRM. Adding your fifth or fifteenth colleague changes nothing about the bill, because you are paying for a server rather than for seats.
An Agent That Does the Data Entry
A durable research agent works its own queue - researching contacts, enriching companies, booking follow-ups - and keeps going after you close the browser. Nothing is guessed: every fact ties to something observed, and weak evidence becomes a question rather than a record.
Your Database, On Your Pod
PostgreSQL 17 runs on the same pod, already migrated and included in your backups. Every contact and deal is a row you can query, dump, or move whenever you like.
MIT Licensed, No Lock-In
The source is open at github.com/trycompai/crm. You can read it, patch it, or take it and your data elsewhere - no export fee, no per-seat renegotiation.
Real Cost Comparison
A five-person sales team running a CRM for their first year.
- HubSpot Sales Hub Professional: $90/seat/mo, billed annually
- 5 seats x $90 x 12 = $5,400/yr
- Required one-time Professional onboarding: $1,500
- Adding a sixth person: +$1,080/yr
- InstaPods Scale plan: $25/mo
- The CRM: free (open source, MIT)
- Unlimited seats and contacts
- PostgreSQL, HTTPS and backups included
Frequently Asked Questions
How much cheaper is this than HubSpot?
For a five-person team, about $6,600 in year one. HubSpot Sales Hub Professional is $90 per seat per month billed annually - $5,400 a year for five people - plus a required one-time $1,500 onboarding fee. This CRM is $25/mo flat on InstaPods regardless of team size, or $300 a year. The gap widens with every person you add, because one price is per seat and the other is per server.
What do I give up by leaving HubSpot?
Three real things. The app marketplace - HubSpot integrates with almost everything, and here you extend the code yourself. Mature reporting and forecasting, which HubSpot has spent years building. And vendor support: if something breaks at 2am, it is your pod. In exchange you get the source, your data in your own database, and a flat bill.
Is there anything to set up before I can use it?
Yes, and it is worth knowing up front. Sign-in is Google-only, and a Google OAuth client has to name your pod's callback URL - which only exists once the pod does. So after deploying you spend about five minutes in the Google Cloud console creating the client and pasting two values back. Your pod shows you the exact URL to use, and it stays locked to your own email address until you widen it, so it is never open to the internet while you finish.
Does the research agent cost extra?
Not from us - the $25/mo is flat. The agent reaches its model through the Vercel AI Gateway, so you supply your own key and pay that provider for what it uses. Until you add one, the agent stays stopped and the rest of the CRM works normally. That is different from HubSpot, where AI features are tied to tiers and credit allowances.
Can my whole team use it?
Yes, and that is the point of the pricing. You control access with an allow-list of email domains or individual addresses, and there is no per-seat charge - the cost is the pod. A ten-person team pays the same $25/mo as a one-person team.
Is it really open source?
Yes - MIT licensed and developed in the open at github.com/trycompai/crm. Your pod runs that source, your data lives in a PostgreSQL database on the same pod, and you can take both elsewhere whenever you want.
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