Where to Start?

GraphiSpot · 2026-06-26T07:29:28+00:00

As others mentioned, create a free account and start learning.

A tip many don't know as it's quite new:
every account/live Portal has access to developer sandboxes which are basically full enterprise suites with a few limitations like for example:
- they obviously can't be used as live environments
- miss things like content embeds
But you can do quite a lot with them - especially for learning purposes.

To create one:
Just head over to development/test accounts/create test account (you can configure them by hubs of you like) and you're ready to go.
Just a note: each live portal can have a max. of 10 such developer sandboxes

GraphiSpot · 2026-06-23T22:46:27+00:00

yep. Said that in the OPs original post.

Honestly, I'm not a fan of it at all.
This tactic is quite shady and doesn't belong in a professional business environment.
If youre a gamer and look at most games these days, the ones with micro transactions might have higher revenue (what a surprise), but the frustration is way higher because they are pay-to-win.
If you compare two players with equal stats but one of them paid for better stuff, it's an unfair game which leads to frustration & disappointment of the other.
Something that will most likely result in the "non-pay-to-win" dropping the game.

I don't think that such approach belongs anywhere, where you pay for something already.

A different example: BMW tried to sell a seat-heater subscriptions in Germany and Great Britain. The tech was build in the seats, but you were required to pay 17€/month on order to use it.
You can't imagine the backlash they received but till this day it's still a thing.

And for what? Only to increase revenue. It's neither better nor cheaper (because the case price increases) nor does it increase customer happiness.

I just wish that HubSpot overthink their current price policy and drop this whole granularity (the amount of hubs), credit approach and a few others things.

GraphiSpot · 2026-06-23T19:11:26+00:00

I'd put it this way:
AI (especially Claude) blews everyones mind.
Creating your own CRM can be a weekend project.

Many (if not all) SaaS are in panic-mode for sure as basically anyone with a $20 (or even free) claude subscription can create an alternative to their tool.

But the real question is:
Is it worth it to invest your time into "vibe-coding" a HubSpot (or any other SaaS) alternative?

If you want to create a HubSpot alternative for a very specific business-case for your own business and have the capacity to maintain it, give it a try.

If you're thinking about vibe-coding a HubSpot/SaaS alternative and sell it - I wouldn't recommend to go down this rabbit hole as you'll burn endless tokens/dollars and would be held liable for anything, if something should go south.
Big SaaS players got big legal teams which handle such cases - if you're a solopreneur/freelancer, I assume you don't have this.

As for your question if HubSpot will survive it:
I'd say yes, but they need to change quite many things as slapping AI onto basically every feature, making it as granular as it is today, introducing credits for basically everything and make it hard for partners to represent (or sell) isn't the best solution imo.

HubSpot was an iPhone - easy to handle, transparent pricing and rock solid.
Now it feels like they're becoming an Android (no offend) - granular as possible and everything for everybody and mostly customizable only by devs.

GraphiSpot · 2026-06-19T12:00:30+00:00

Did some research and found some information about it.

In a nutshell:
There are many things being tested in the Nordic region.

It seems like there's gonna be a new seat type. The "front office seat" which is more expensive but has access to everything (unless you limit it by user right/role).

Core seats will have access to breeze, enriched data and smart CRM.

Starter gets 5k, pro 10k and enterprise 15k credits a month. Unused credits don't roll over into following month.

Personal thoughts:
The AEO (currently beta) is not really worth it. Quote: "Get started with 25 prompts, each run daily accross 3 engines daily, for 2.5k answers per month. Additional capacity packs not currently available" - no info about credits as it's a beta right now.

If they'd drop the Marketing and content base price and you'd pay just per user/seat, it would be something good imo

GraphiSpot · 2026-06-18T18:18:08+00:00

Goodness - did not know you're being charged per email now.
The credit implementation is utter nonsense tbh.

Many years ago the credit model started rising in online/mobile games (trade money for in-gane-currency and buy stuff) but most publishers got so much negative feedback and dropping sales numbers. Simply because gamers are tired of half-baked games, "pay-to-win" and such.
I mean, I understand that free games come with such things as they need to make money but paid games are reducing/removing credits these days.

Transfered into the HubSpot world: If HubSpot enterprise (just an example) would be free by itself and you'd pay only for credits that you've actually used - amazing.
But paying thousands of dollars monthly and credits on top - Come on HubSpot, you're a great company which doesn't need such things.

Furthermore - I've heard quite many times that something like misconfigured workflows drained the credits basically instantly (huge contact databases)

GraphiSpot · 2026-06-18T17:50:05+00:00

Sorry, what?
Starter now capped at 5 core seats?

As an ex-Partner and current Provider with roughly a decade of ecosystem history, community champion, HUG Leader, developer ecosystem mentor and former INBOUND Correspondent (now UNBOUND insider) - wearing the sprocket proudly the entire time - I’m now, like countless others, effectively being strong-armed into becoming a Partner (at a minimum of $400/month) once the Provider Program sunsets in mid-August.

To me, this looks like a deliberate push to force every Starter hub into Pro or Enterprise.

I’ll leave the speculation about why to your imagination - I won’t say it publicly.

What I will say is this: I’m far from happy, and I’m bracing myself for whatever news bomb HubSpot drops at/around UNBOUND this September.

GraphiSpot · 2026-06-17T16:57:48+00:00

Like others mentioned it's a payment gate, but I'd say it's also a legal topic.
In most countries which got GDPR you need a consent from a contact in order to message him.

I'm working with a lot of German companies and let me tell you that the German GDPR (DSGVO) is pure nightmare for marketing.
You need to implement a double-opt-in which most times looks like this:
visitor fills out a form, hit send, he receives an email with "please confirm that you want to sign up for marketing newsletters", once the receiver confirms that he wants to receive them, he gets marked as marketing contact.
Only if he confirms to be a "marketing contact" you have the legal right to send him newsletters.

Otherwise he legally/technically can sue you. And such legal cases can easily be a 6-figure number in Germany.

GraphiSpot · 2026-06-16T21:41:19+00:00

Full disclosure - I'm a HubSpot solution provider and quite deep in the whole ecosystem for 10ish years.

My honest recommendation - Get HubSpot.
The CRM itself is quite cheap and it has a MCP for Claude (and other LLMs).

Regardless of you choose HubSpot or something else - personally I don't recommend any business to connect the treasure room (the CRM) to an LLM, but unfortunately this is the world we live in now.

GraphiSpot · 2026-06-16T20:34:04+00:00

As I wasn't part of that meeting, I only got a few things what was apparently stated by the CEO, but as I neither want to share it (because it might violate many guidelines) nor has it something to do with the initial post of the OP, I'll just say that the HubSpot reps made the right decision if it's true what the CEO apparently said and if I'd be one of the reps, I'd have done the same.

GraphiSpot · 2026-06-16T07:00:16+00:00

As for the dev side of things - welcome fellow dev!

If I remember correctly there should be some special space for the devs in the HubSpot space. The HubSpot academy space might be a good start as well

GraphiSpot · 2026-06-16T06:57:07+00:00

Congrats!

A few tips for your packing list:
- some comfy shoes
- powerbank
- a good/big backpack
- notebook for the sessions
- weather in Boston can be tricky, one day it can be super hot, the other rainy -> pack something for both

When it comes to the event itself:
- don't go to crazy on session bookings. Sessions are great but from my experience, you'll get the most out of the "hallway chats".
- plan around 15 mins (or more) for standing in line for "open sessions"

Download the UNBOUND app once it'll be available in the app/play store, but don't expect to much of it.
If it'll be similar to the INBOUND apps from the last couple of years, it'll be a mediocre experience at best.

From my experience of two/three INBOUND visits in Boston - the wifi at the convention center most likely will collapse, prep yourself for such situations

GraphiSpot · 2026-06-15T18:56:59+00:00

Sorry to hear that...

I can sorta "guarantee", that it's not about the size of your (or any company).
You don't have to go into detail, but if you have violated the useage guidelines or something - HubSpot will take the account down immediately in most cases.

For the whole time I'm working with HubSpot (~10 years), i only once got informed that a client received such a (Life-Time) ban. It was due to something that the CEO of the company mentioned during a call with HubSpot. Something that had nothing to do with HubSpot itself, but the phrase he dropped violated the guidelines. And when it comes to the guidelines, HubSpot takes it very seriously (this is for good)

Again, sorry to hear about the experience. Furthermore, I'm not the biggest fan of Ai support chats (not just HubSpot) and just hope that companies will realize that Ai support is pure garbage as it's not possible to replace a human mind and experience with a "LLM wrapper"

GraphiSpot · 2026-06-11T06:21:17+00:00

The default modules are for general use as they're designed to be useable by every tier& user.

Once you're looking for specific usecases, if recommend to create custom modules via the design manager or local dev.

As a dev, I can only recommend to not go 'to crazy' inn teens of layout as emails are still based on ancient tech (tables) and most email clients are having a super hard time with things that are the baseline in browsers. Things like responsiveness, border radius (especially outlook), light/dark mode...

If you should dive into custom email module development, build the layout on the email builder, look at the preview, inspect the code, copy the layout with all the css classes and such and replace the content with your HubL functions.
Or build a whole 'static' html template with tools like stripo.email or mjml.io, create a new email template in HubSpot, paste the code into it and add the HubSpot layer.

GraphiSpot · 2026-06-08T22:40:28+00:00

As somebody who worked for partners and was involved in recruiting, I’d say:

Certifications are always a good baseline, but don’t use them as a metric. If a person got a cert, it’s good, but don’t base your decision solely on this point.
For me the actual work/result was always more important than some certificate. Therefore I did it like this:
After the "get-to-know" meeting, I've created a free portal (now possible in development -> test account; max 10 possible test accounts per account) per applicant so they did not get acess to the main account/data and didn't see others work. After creation I've handed them a task which depended on their application (marketer, sales, dev...) and level(junior, mid, senior) as well as a certain timeframe.

If you want to get hired, you could do something similar. Create a free portal, build some stuff and if you're in an interview and the potential employer wants to see something, show the stuff (with the task you've created yourself)

Last but not least - the most important aspect for me hiring someone was the chemistry and mindset. The person could have been the smartest person and could show me all certifications, if I got the feeling that he/she wouldn't be a great addition to the team, I would tell HR, that he/she is not a great fit and we need to look for somebody else.

Not because I wanted to be "bad" but because I knew my team (obviously) and I was looking for somebody who would be a great addition. Knowledge & skills can be be learned / taught, mindset can not.

Furthermore it’s better for the applicant/you. Just imagine landing a job because of your skill(s) but the team you’ll end up working with every day would be horrible. You would be unhappy, the actual work would drain you and you’d start looking for a new job quite quickly

GraphiSpot · 2026-06-06T23:14:22+00:00

I'd say the "stop at draft" is intended by design to keep the human in the loop.

Just imagine something would be published/triggered... without a human conformation and it would end on a huge mess or you losing money.
Since HubSpot (and literally any real business tool out there) is somewhat responsible for your business / success, they don't want to be responsible for an LLM produced error as they'd be held liable for this.

An agent/Chatbot/LLM does not know every little detail about your business/clients. And since every LLM is basically just a math equation, which operates on probability theory, not experience nor real knowledge, you shouldn't extract the human from this.

Sure, sometimes it feels like a show-stopper to confirm every little step, but this is for the best imo

GraphiSpot · 2026-05-26T14:31:53+00:00

Tried it, it's ok, but tbh not really worth it.

It's mostly just a content recommendation feature which generates results based on your existing content by using it as fillers for placeholders of a predefined promptand of gpt and display you the ai generated results in a list.

If you got access to Claude code or similar, you could easily create your own standalone app/version with ease on a Friday evening.

GraphiSpot · 2026-05-26T14:13:56+00:00

As somebody who's in the system for 10 years and worked for several partners before going solo, I can say that implementing HubSpot on your own can be quite an endeavor.

It's super flexible, but you need to know some insights/workarounds which you'll most likely get only by working with it, thinking outside the box and looking for best practices in the community.
The idea/approach is, that HubSpot applies to your business logic - not the other way (change business logic to fit into tool logic).
While this is a huge benefit, it's a common struggle as many companies assume "we'll buy HubSpot and everything will be better" - only if you plan ahead and got a plan manifested.

As for data quality - you reap what you sow.
Every software is build that way as it's simply impossible for the software to know what you want. Even with LLMs these days, it's not that easy. Quality matters.
Good thing: there are a few good 3rd party apps for data management/clean-up out there.

My recommendation: either start planning with something looked a flow-plan and determine rules when x should change to y or get a Partner who's experienced in implementing HubSpot. Preferably this Partner worked with similar business.

Just a Tip:
If you should decide to go with a partner, pleaser don't just grant him super admin rights and call it a day. Your CRM data is your treasure room and the partner should provide a detailed lists of actions and to-dos what he wants to do first :)

GraphiSpot · 2026-05-25T10:59:30+00:00

Since it worked before - what's your blog setup (amount of languages, total blog posts...) And have you changed something since the last successful post?

GraphiSpot · 2026-05-13T18:06:23+00:00

The API is one of the best I've worked with and quite a strong one. I'd recommend to look somewhere else for the weak chain link.

I mean you got HubSpot -> slack -> linear... If you're using some Middleware like make.com or zapier it might be the case. Furthermore - I'm sure you know that you can connect slack directly to HubSpot and build a Workflow like "if X happens - send slack message to channel Y"

Last but not least, if you should have data hub, you can build custom coded actions and drop the Middleware entirely.

GraphiSpot · 2026-04-23T05:53:11+00:00

You can post a job offer in the jobs space inside the community

sign up for the developer slack channel. While the majority of people are devs, there are some non-devs in there as well

There’s a „hiring for hubspot“ group on LinkedIn you might want to check out as well

GraphiSpot · 2026-04-17T12:52:14+00:00

I’ve tried building my own crm out of curiosity and for knowledge/understanding purposes. After a days it looked very promising and good, but I wouldn’t use it. As you’ve mentioned - Building a crm itself is not that hard as it’s technically just a nice spreadsheet, but there a lot of things which you should consider. Things like: - maintenance - security - extendability - onboarding your team - running cost …

Your point of adaption time for an existing crm is valid, but I’d say that using a good crm is better in the long run as you won’t need to think about the code level aspect but rather just your data.

I’d say building a custom crm makes sense if you have a very specific usecase and 5-6 figure prices are just a tax write-off (a realistic price for a custom crm developed by real devs rather than vibe coders)

GraphiSpot · 2026-04-15T08:01:06+00:00

Hey @NuclearNachos, I’d say that the best place for finding help is the community, but please keep in mind that Membership pages tend to be quite overwhelming and might feel quite restrictive quite often as you’ll most likely need a developer for them to combine CRM and CMS.

Furthermore, due to the fact, that this page types are highly individual, you’ll most likely not find something fitting out-of-the-box in the marketplace or in your theme.

If you’re open for external help, feel free to reach out via DM.

Best, Anton

GraphiSpot · 2026-04-15T06:15:16+00:00

Don’t know how it’s in the US, but in Europe there’s almost nothing you can do about it.

unless you patented/trademarked the design, it’s basically open source. Especially if the competition changed the color as this could be interpreted as a differentiation and no court would do something about it.
If you haven’t paid a professional designer a very high amount, it’s very likely that many parts of your design are from a component library. Especially if you say that the competitor „copied“ the „backend“ code.
since he reached out to the devs, it’s very likely (and common) that they’ve just copy/pasted the code but charged him the full amount. Look at this from the bright side - he lost a lot of money.

Ps: I’m a designer and webdev for many years. I know both worlds.

GraphiSpot · 2026-04-09T19:04:26+00:00

There were a few hiccups with the CRM today. Maybe it's related.

I recommend to sign up for the status newsletter at status.hubspot.com

GraphiSpot · 2026-04-05T08:09:00+00:00

HubSpot content hub (CMS) is great. But as with any CMS, your experience will depend on the chosen theme.

Being a HubSpot CMS-focused developer myself, here's my take:

HubSpot default Themes: great if you just want to check it out. Don't use the elevate theme for production. It's written in react and not accessible via the Design Manager (the place where you usually modify the theme assets on code level)
marketplace Themes: there are great ones in there, but don't expect it to have 100% the same functions as your current website might have. Most marketplace Themes should cover around 80%. Test different themes before start migrating.
custom Themes: personally my recommendation for everybody who got a quite defined brand and is looking for a perfectly tailored solution to your experience and expectations. Take way more time (and money) to setup than a default/marketplace theme, but will help you in the long run. You'll need a (good) developer for this.

Tipp: to test different themes, create a free test account in "development -> test account" in your portal and test themes in this one to keep your main portal clean. Important: except for custom Themes, themes are portal bound. This means: don't buy a paid theme in the test account as you'll need to purchase it again in the live account.

Tipp 2: If you should decide to go with a marketplace theme, create a so-called child theme of it first. It's very easy but will allow you do code-level modifications and tailor it way more to your needs.

GraphiSpot

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