We get asked this every week, usually phrased as 'should we move to HubSpot.' The answer for a trade business is almost always no. Here is why.
The shapes of the two products
HubSpot is built for SaaS-shaped businesses. Long sales cycles, multiple stakeholders, content marketing, lead nurturing over months. The marketing automation, the email tooling, the reporting are all extraordinary if you fit that shape. They are also priced for it.
GoHighLevel is built for service-shaped businesses. Short cycles, one decision-maker, SMS-first follow-up, calendar booking, voice automation. It is uglier, less polished, has weirder UX, and costs roughly a tenth as much for what a renovation business actually uses.
What a bathroom fitter actually needs
- , Lead inbox tied to a phone number
- , Two-way SMS / WhatsApp
- , Calendar booking embedded on the site
- , Pipeline stages with simple drag-drop
- , Automation: lead in → SMS out → calendar link
- , Reviews request after job completion
All of those exist in HubSpot, but spread across the Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, and Service Hub. Realistically you are paying £600+/month to get the parts you need. GoHighLevel does the same set of jobs for £100/month, on its lowest plan, with a setup fee.
When to choose HubSpot anyway
If your business has a real marketing team, runs content marketing seriously, has more than one product line, or is selling B2B with multi-stakeholder deals, HubSpot starts to make sense. We do not have a single trade client where this is true.
Pick the CRM your business looks like, not the CRM your industry talks about.
Seb Planchais
We build clients onto GoHighLevel as the Growth tier default. We will move them to HubSpot if they grow into the shape that needs it. Most never do, and that is fine.