FOLLOW VS. THE ALTERNATIVES

A CRM built to think. Not a CRM with AI attached.

Follow understands the pipeline, reasons about every deal, and coaches the next move automatically. HubSpot and Salesforce add AI across large software suites. ChatGPT and Claude answer a prompt.

Start selling with Follow Book a Demo

THE SHORT VERSION

Same category on paper. A very different job in practice.

Traditional CRMs organize the work. General AI responds when asked. Follow continuously connects customer evidence, sales methodology, and pipeline context so sellers know what matters before they have to ask.

SIDE BY SIDE

What are you actually buying?

Compare	Follow	HubSpot	Salesforce	ChatGPT / Claude
Price	$49 monthly	$20–$150/seat for Sales Hub; AI usage can require credits	$175/seat for Enterprise; $550/seat for Agentforce 1 Sales	$20–$200 for premium individual access; CRM not included
Best for	Sellers who want a CRM that actively helps them close	Teams assembling a broad customer platform	Large companies operating an enterprise sales stack	Individuals completing general-purpose AI tasks
Customer context	Living CRM context	CRM records across hubs	CRM records across clouds	Context you supply or connect
Deal diagnosis	Continuous and automatic	Available through features, credits, and workflows	Dependent on tier, agents, and configuration	Manual, one prompt at a time
Sales methodology	Built into recommendations	Configured by the team	Configured by the team	Must be prompted or provided
Next move	Evidence-led test and buyer signal	Task, automation, or AI feature	Workflow, automation, or agent	A response, draft, or analysis
Setup burden	Ready around the sales workflow	Products, seats, hubs, and workflows	Implementation, configuration, and governance	Gather context, write the prompt, repeat
Seller control	Reasoning stays inspectable	Varies by tool and setup	Varies by agent and setup	User reviews the generated answer
CLI + MCP	Included by default	Requires Developer account	Not available	Integrates with Follow

SEE FOR YOURSELF

Their pricing is right here. Take a look.

01 · THE “AI SOLD SEPARATELY” OPTION

Broad platform, layered AI

Traditional platform. AI added as an after-thought.

HubSpot offers CRM, marketing, sales, service, content, and data products, plus Breeze agents and AI features. That breadth is the point. Follow takes the opposite approach: sales intelligence, deal reasoning, and coaching are the product architecture, not another capability distributed across multiple hubs.

Current published examples$20/mo

Starter hub components, no AI

$100/mo

Sales Hub Professional

$890/mo

Marketing Hub Professional

Open HubSpot pricing

02 · THE “YEAH, RIGHT” OPTION

Enterprise platform, enterprise commitment

Agentic, if the budget and implementation can carry it.

Salesforce offers serious AI and agent capabilities. It also asks teams to buy into a large enterprise ecosystem, configure it, govern it, and pay per user. Follow gives sellers an agentic CRM focused on deal judgment without turning the sales process into a software transformation program.

Current published examples$175/mo

Enterprise, per user/month, no AI

$550/mo

Agentforce 1 Sales, per user/month

Billed annually, multi-year lock-in

Open Salesforce Sales AI pricing

General intelligence, manual sales context

A great blank page is still a blank page.

In theory, you could paste in every email, text, meeting note, company resource, and sales book, then ask for one useful draft. In practice, a general assistant does not automatically maintain the opportunity, monitor evidence across the pipeline, or decide which deal needs attention next.

Even at $100+ for premium AI access, you are buying more model access, not a living CRM that watches every deal and works automatically.

You still need to bring

Email history

Messages and notes

Company context

Sales methodology

The right prompt

Then you do it again for the next deal.

ChatGPT plans Claude plans

HEARD IN THE WILD

What teams say when the CRM becomes the work.

Recent public posts about HubSpot and Salesforce.

Kamala's Round Brush@mo_wils805

I ****ing hate Salesforce! Y'all make too much money for it to not work

SalesforceJul 27, 2026

Todd Saunders@toddsaunders

The pricing at @HubSpot is out of control. To be able to upload HTML emails you need to pay $800/mo. Time to switch.

HubSpotJul 20, 2026

Dario Soatto@soatto

Super cool work! Using Salesforce sucks and I can't wait for it to get automated

SalesforceJul 24, 2026

Pete Oxenham@peteoxenham

i hate hubspot man

HubSpotJun 10, 2026

Speedracer@Speedra28854601

It’s funny that companies struggle and hate when the government pushes so many regulations on them, but yet the company will hire a software like salesforce and do the same thing to their employees with mass regulations and always watching you it kills morale salesforce sucks .

SalesforceJul 9, 2026

benyamin 🏍@BenyaminHolley

my daily post of "I hate hubspot and I will never forgive dharmesh for designing CRM infrastructure like this" post Stop posting about agents and fix hubspot dharmesh! …

HubSpotApr 12, 2026

mizafi@SUITandDFI

salesforce sucks but it’s a buy. i make no exgeration when i say it’s the same tech and interface as 15 years ago. but it’s entrenched, and if they can integrate ai so users can quickly mine thier data, they have huge upside potential.

SalesforceJun 17, 2026

Jessie Frazelle@jessfraz

also i did not prompt this it was just trying to fix something i didnt say i hate hubspot, i do tho lmao

HubSpotMar 5, 2026

Azwan HM 👨🏻‍💻📊@azwan_

Worst incident today. Wasted. Hate salesforce.

SalesforceMay 19, 2026

M Mohan@mukund

Why does $HUBS make things so complicated. The content>blog is one simple feature They make it so complicated to use. I hate @HubSpot Forced to use it.

HubSpotDec 13, 2025