Salesforce vs Dynamics 365 vs HubSpot (2026)
These three CRMs own the market. Salesforce dominates enterprise, HubSpot owns mid-market inbound, and Dynamics 365 is the sleeper pick for Microsoft-heavy organizations. We compared all three across pricing, features, job demand, and real-world fit. The right choice depends on your sales motion, tech stack, and how much you're willing to spend on administration.
The Quick Verdict
HubSpot for marketing-led companies under 200 employees. Salesforce for sales-led organizations with complex deal structures. Dynamics 365 for companies already invested in the Microsoft ecosystem (Azure, Teams, Office 365). That's the 80/20 answer. The remaining 20% depends on your specific requirements, which we'll break down below.
Pricing: What You'll Actually Pay
HubSpot starts free and scales to $150/user/month for Enterprise. Salesforce starts at $25/user/month but most teams land on Enterprise at $165/user/month. Dynamics 365 Sales Professional starts at $65/user/month, Enterprise at $105/user/month.
But sticker prices are misleading. A 50-person sales team's real annual cost:
- HubSpot: $60,000-$120,000 (including Marketing Hub and onboarding) - Dynamics 365: $80,000-$150,000 (including Power Platform and implementation) - Salesforce: $150,000-$250,000 (including Pardot, implementation, and admin salary)
HubSpot is cheapest. Dynamics 365 sits in the middle. Salesforce is the most expensive but offers the deepest customization. The hidden factor: Salesforce almost always requires a dedicated admin ($90K-$130K/year). Dynamics 365 leans on internal IT that's already managing Microsoft infrastructure. HubSpot can be managed by your RevOps team without specialized hires.
Job Market Demand
Our analysis of 23,000+ job postings tells a clear story:
- Salesforce: 1,694 job postings mentioning Salesforce skills - HubSpot: 432 job postings - Dynamics 365: 65 job postings
Salesforce dominates hiring demand by 4x over HubSpot and 26x over Dynamics 365. This matters for two reasons: talent availability (easier to hire Salesforce admins) and career value (Salesforce skills are more marketable). But Dynamics 365 skills are growing as Microsoft pushes its business applications stack.
Feature Comparison
All three handle the basics: contacts, deals, pipeline, reporting. The differences show up in five areas:
1. Customization: Salesforce (Apex, Flows, Lightning Components) > Dynamics 365 (Power Platform, custom entities) > HubSpot (workflows, custom objects with limits).
2. Marketing integration: HubSpot (native Marketing Hub) > Salesforce (requires Pardot/Marketing Cloud, separate purchase) > Dynamics 365 (Dynamics Marketing, improving but historically weaker).
3. Office/productivity integration: Dynamics 365 (native Teams, Outlook, Office 365) > HubSpot (good Outlook/Gmail integration) > Salesforce (requires add-ons).
4. Ecosystem: Salesforce (5,000+ AppExchange apps) > HubSpot (1,500+ Marketplace apps) > Dynamics 365 (growing but smaller partner ecosystem).
5. AI capabilities: All three are investing heavily. Salesforce Einstein, HubSpot Breeze AI, and Dynamics 365 Copilot (backed by Azure OpenAI). Microsoft's AI infrastructure gives Dynamics 365 a potential advantage here.
Who Should Choose Salesforce
Pick Salesforce if: you have 50+ sales reps, complex multi-product deal structures, specific compliance requirements, or need deep integrations with niche industry tools. You should also lean Salesforce if you're hiring heavily for CRM roles because the talent pool is largest.
Avoid Salesforce if: you're a team under 30, you don't have (or won't hire) a dedicated admin, your deals are relatively simple, or your growth motion is marketing-led. You'll pay enterprise prices for startup-level usage.
Who Should Choose Dynamics 365
Pick Dynamics 365 if: your company runs on Microsoft (Azure, Teams, Office 365, SharePoint), you want tight integration between CRM and ERP (Business Central), or you're in a regulated industry that already trusts Microsoft for compliance. The Microsoft Copilot integration across the entire stack is a differentiator for companies betting on Microsoft's AI roadmap.
Avoid Dynamics 365 if: you need a large ecosystem of third-party integrations, your team isn't technical enough to work with Power Platform, or you want the simplest possible onboarding experience.
Who Should Choose HubSpot
Pick HubSpot if: your growth is marketing-led (content, inbound, nurture campaigns), you're under 200 employees, you don't want to hire a CRM admin, or you value fast time-to-value over deep customization. HubSpot's free CRM is also the best option for companies that aren't sure they need CRM yet.
Avoid HubSpot if: you need deep customization for complex sales processes, your contact database is growing past 100K (pricing spikes), or you need enterprise-grade compliance features. HubSpot Enterprise closes some of these gaps, but at $150/user/month, you're approaching Salesforce pricing without Salesforce depth.
The Honest Take
Most companies overthink this decision. If you're small and marketing-led, HubSpot is the obvious choice. If you're enterprise and sales-led, Salesforce is still the safest bet despite the cost. Dynamics 365 is the underrated middle option that gets ignored because it doesn't have Salesforce's brand power or HubSpot's marketing machine.
The real mistake isn't choosing the wrong CRM. It's over-buying for your current stage. A 20-person company on Salesforce Enterprise is wasting money. A 500-person company on HubSpot Free is limiting itself. Match the CRM to where you are now, not where you hope to be in three years.